Another criminal killed by an armed citizen.

[FatSlob]

http://www.enquirer.com/midday/05/05292004_News_1mday_homicide29.html

An armed robber killed by his prey. Glad the clerk is OK.

[minavasht]

1. Poor David!

He just needed some attention and love! He never intended to harm anybody!
That poor soul had the misfortune to meet one of the crazy gun-toting maniacs who think that guns are the answer to everything! If that crazy clerk was unarmed David would be still alive today, providing love and comfort to his loved ones!

[alwynsw]

2. Gotta love the C-I reporter's position - NOT!

Don't we all go shopping at the Quickie Mart wearing gloves and a ski mask in May? As a resident of the Ohio Valley region, I can tell you that there's nothing more comfortable on a muggy night with temps in the 70's than leather gloves and a ski mask. The handgun is understandable: if you've ever seen the size of the mosquitos in this part of the country.

All this considered, yet the reporter chooses to refer to what appears to be self defense as a homicide. Semantically, any taking of a human life is a homicide, but I find the choice of that word interesting because of the media's institutional anti-gun bias and the fact that homicide ALWAYS equals murder in mediaspeak.

(And y'all thought I'd disappeared. heh heh heh)

[iverglas]

3. homicide

All this considered, yet the reporter chooses to refer to what appears to be self defense as a homicide. Semantically, any taking of a human life is a homicide ...

Not just "semantically", of course. Legally. A person who commits homicide in self-defence will be found not guilty of culpable homicide, which is what is a criminal offence.

The Canadian Criminal Code, for instance, says:

222. (1) A person commits homicide when, directly or indirectly,
by any means, he causes the death of a human being.
(2) Homicide is culpable or not culpable.
(3) Homicide that is not culpable is not an offence.
(4) Culpable homicide is murder or manslaughter or infanticide.

Self-defence is a justification for committing an act that would be an offence if it were culpable. (Just as "colour of right" is a justification for taking something that belongs to one from someone else, etc.)

34. (1) Every one who is unlawfully assaulted without having
provoked the assault is justified in repelling force by force
if the force he uses is not intended to cause death or
grievous bodily harm and is no more than is necessary to
enable him to defend himself.
(2) Every one who is unlawfully assaulted and who causes death
or grievous bodily harm in repelling the assault is justified
if
(a) he causes it under reasonable apprehension of death or
grievous bodily harm from the violence with which the assault
was originally made or with which the assailant pursues his
purposes; and
(b) he believes, on reasonable grounds, that he cannot
otherwise preserve himself from death or grievous bodily harm.


I find the choice of that word interesting

There really just isn't another word. "Homicide" means "the killing of a human being". That's what happened. I can't think of another, equally or less neutral, word (or phrase) to describe what happened, myself.

the reporter chooses to refer to what appears to be self defense as a homicide

No, the reporter chose to refer to what happened by the term that applies to what happened. "Self-defence" isn't even an accurate description of what happened -- something actually has to be done in self-defence. "Self-defence" is just a concept -- what would "a self-defence" be? And to call what happened a homicide in self-defence would be to state a judgment or opinion of what happened, which isn't really the reporter's to state, since the reporter wasn't there.

Self-defence is one of those affirmative thingies: a person who asserts it has the burden of proving it (generally on a balance of probabilities). Of course, as for any other evidentiary issue, no "finding" actually determines the reality of what happened: someone could be found to have acted in self-defence when s/he did no such thing, or found to have had no justification for what s/he did when s/he did in fact have justification.

The reporter can, eventually, report the determination made by any prosecutor or court that makes the decision as to whether to prosecute or convict, i.e. as to whether the prosecutor/court is satisfied that the homicide was committed in self-defence. What remains is that the homicide itself was (apparently) a known fact at the time of the report, while the "self-defence" was not (and might never be known, to anyone but the person who pulled the trigger).