Published: July 08, 2006 11:44 pm      

Stay out of the wrong castle

Detractors of Mississippi’s new “Castle doctrine” law are fretting as Senate Bill 2426 goes into effect this week. They say that the law legitimizes the notion of “shoot first and ask questions later.”

They say that the law will make it easier for criminals to claim self-defense when they kill someone. They say that the law will encourage more people to buy guns and empower them to use them without fear of civil liability if they injure or kill someone.

All three of those criticisms are correct.

But there’s a simple solution to those problem areas in the “Castle doctrine.”

People who stay out of the wrong “castle” should be fine. It’s difficult to be shot as an intruder if one only enter homes or cars or businesses to which one has both a key to gain entrance and a legal right to be on the premises.

The new law removes the “duty to retreat” when one is threatened in their home, car or in the street. It also removes civil liability from killing an intruder or attacker.

But the protections don’t apply when a person claims self-defense when shooting a law enforcement officer or another person who has a lawful right to be on the premises of the shooting. Further, the “duty to retreat” has never existed in state law prior to the adoption of the “Castle doctrine.”

But that’s mostly legalese.

The safety valve for the “Castle doctrine” is for burglars, crackheads, carjackers, strong arm robbers, muggers, rapists, thieves and other assorted boils on the butt of humanity to stay out of homes, cars, stores, offices and other domiciles that don’t belong to them and to stop mugging, robbing, raping and stealing.

Those who utilize that course of action aren’t terribly likely to be shot. Those who don’t likely will be.

The notion that homeowners, young single women, elderly widows or business people should find themselves the victims of crime and feel it necessary to run down a checklist before defending their lives, the lives of their loved ones or their property before taking action is ridiculous.

This law doesn’t turn Mississippi into Dodge City. It simply defines the circumstances in which innocent people can make an effort to protect themselves. In the broader sense, the law does something else — or should.

The “Castle doctrine” should serve notice on those who choose a life of crime that the consequences of that choice may prove dire indeed — and that potential victims may indeed “shoot first and ask questions later.”

Again, there’s a safety valve for those criminals. It’s called not breaking the law in the first place.

The thing that makes the “Castle doctrine” a viable law as opposed to an exercise in political pandering to the gun lobby is that most gun owners were already living by the doctrine.

On the street, gun owners and even some law enforcement types understood that if they shot and intruder, they might want to pull the body inside the door or window rather than leaving it outside.

But for most Mississippians who own handguns and long guns as well, the idea of not protecting one’s property with deadly force was never an option. This state is too rural and too plagued with drug crime for it to be otherwise.

In addition to property crimes, the notion that civil liability should exist for a driver who uses a pistol to fend off a carjacker or other intruder is ludicrous.

Women attacked in department store parking lots, elderly women along in rural settings or anyone made prisoner in their own home by crime should have the right to feel safe in their own home. More than that, they should have the right to defend themselves.

I have no sympathy for criminals wounded or killed in the commission of their crimes by citizens under the “Castle doctrine” — because they were simply in the wrong castle at the wrong time.



Sid Salter is Perspective editor of The Clarion Ledger. Call him at (601) 961-7084 or e-mail him at ssalter@clarionledger.com.