Jun 01 2009
Self Defense or Murder?
Two teens entered the Reliable Discount Pharmacy in Oklahoma City and demanded money and narcotics. The pharmacist on duty, Jerome Ersland was armed. When the teens shot at Ersland, he shot back, striking one of the teens in the head. The other teen fled the scene. According to Ersland, the wounded teen was attempting to get up in spite of the head wound, so he fired a second gun striking the teen five times in the chest, killing him. Ersland has since been charged with first degree murder.
While I personally do not think that I will ever own a gun, I fully support the 2nd amendment and the right of law abiding citizens to own guns, just for this very reason. Let’s face it, as much as I support our law enforcement personnel, they can not be every where at all times. More often than not, they arrive at the scene after the fact. Law abiding citizens with weapons can thwart these types of crimes.
On the one hand, I applaud Ersland for foiling this attempted robbery. I do believe that he was in fear of his life, and that is the primary motivation for his actions. However, one has to wonder if he would currently be charged with murder had he not emptied a full clip of ammunition into the intruder’s chest. That could be consider a bit of overkill (no pun intended.)
Exactly the point I was trying to make
You make a good point, Chris. I agree that in that situation you shoot to kill. It may have been necessary to shoot like he did with the second gun. I am sure he thought so. Personally, I hope he found not guilty.
stunatra-if the man had normal mobility, that may have been a possibility, but he is somewhat disabled physically.
Elizabeth, I am with you
thanks Casey for providing some legal precedents. Very interesting
“”Definitely overkill. The guy should be charged with murder. One bullet would have been enough. All he had to do was walk up to the wounded kid and kicked the gun away and then called the police”"
This speaks of a rational mind, that has the normal spontaneous thought processing going on in a reasonable amount of time…that is not how we humans work physicologically. Once the ‘fight or flight’ mechanism kicks in. The adrenaline ‘gushes’ through our body and in this case, ‘fight response’ was the auto pilot kicking in for survival (we all have this built in ’safety mechanism’ and it works the same way in all of us)…the multiple shots were a reflex response to this ‘fight’ syndrome. gushing. This probably took place in a matter of seconds, not minutes or hours. When we are in that state of mind, with adeline flowing for survival, there is no rational thought, nor time to process rational thought…that is why you hear of small people, especially woman/mothers have extraordinary strength to lift extremely heavy objects to save a love one. You certainly wouldn’t expect her to do the same feat in her rational thought state of mind. “The fight or flight’ syndrome doesn’t differentiate in the situation of survival and not capable of logical, reasonable thought process…it is in auto mode of survival. This should be, in my not so humble opinion, self defense.