Partisan Politics

I haven't been using this blog as an outlet for my political (USA politics) views lately. If you don't care about my political opinions, especially if you can't handle disagreement, skip right over this.

Bad Time to Argue

In what appears to be a self-defense shooting, a 57 year-old woman in Long Beach fatally shot a 25 year-old guy. Kelly Puente of the Long Beach Press-Telegram reports.

Police believe the incident stemmed from an altercation in a nearby apartment complex on 6600 block of Obispo Avenue, and say two men ran from the apartment and then hid on the roof of the woman's home.

A 57-year-old woman and her husband were inside the home at the time and heard people walking on the roof. They shouted for the people to get off their property and soon they saw two men jumping off their roof onto the front lawn.

The man and woman armed themselves with handguns and went outside, where a confrontation took place between the residents and the suspects. When one of the men confronted the woman, she fired two rounds, striking him in the upper torso, police said.

That area of Long Beach can get scary, so it isn't surprising if residents take up arms to protect themselves. It isn't too bright to argue with a couple of armed fifty-somethings.

The Los Angeles Times coverage calls the deceased a "victim", but the folks at that paper don't like cops using guns, and really don't like people protecting themselves with guns.

Sometimes, guns are used for good.

Tracy Denise Roberson of Texas: Why Men Should Protect Themselves

I'm sure there is a reason why this whole thing was entirely the fault of men, but it is Texas, so a woman did get some blame.

A Texas woman who caused her lover's shooting death by falsely crying rape was convicted Friday of involuntary manslaughter.

By “caused” they mean that it wasn’t unreasonable for her to think that her husband would shoot the guy as a result.

In late 2006, Darrell Roberson came home from a late-night card game to find his scantily clad wife with another man in a pickup truck in the driveway.

So while he was out with the boys, she’s also out with the boys. Why did he prefer card games to sex with his wife? Could it be that she was running cold for him, only hot for another man? I suppose it is possible that her husband was neglectful, or that this was his reasonable amount of “guy time”. Either way, his actions indicate he cared about protecting his wife.

Tracy Roberson was with her lover but cried rape, and her husband fired four shots into the truck as Devin LaSalle drove off, killing him.

As he drove off – so presumably he was no longer an immediate threat. Not that I’m saying Mr. Roberson shouldn’t have shot him.

Darrell Roberson initially was arrested, but a murder charge was later dropped and a grand jury indicted Tracy Roberson instead.

During her three-day trial, defense attorneys called no witnesses but blamed LaSalle's death on Darrell Roberson's jealousy and rage.

Yeah, funny that man has rage when someone is supposedly raping his wife.

But prosecutors placed all the blame on Tracy Roberson, showing evidence of the affair with LaSalle, 32, and a text message in which she invited him to her house that evening.

If LaSalle knew she was married, he chose to put himself in a dangerous situation. That doesn’t excuse what happened to him, no more than a woman is to blame if she goes to a guy’s bedroom, takes off her clothes, fondles the guy, and is subsequently raped by him. Even if people make stupid decisions, they should still be protected by law from another person’s force.

So her defense wasn’t able to successfully argue that she wasn’t to blame for her actions because of some hormonal problems? Sheesh. Defense lawyers are losing their touch.

Has this been copied by “Law & Order: SVU” yet?