Republican bill would let AZ ranchers shoot and kill border-crossers on their property ( www.myheraldreview.com )

As a once-kid who used to take shortcuts across open ranch land, this bill would give land owners a license to kill:

The bill comes as an Arizona rancher awaits trial after he was arrested and charged with second-degree murder and aggravated assault for killing 48-year-old Gabriel Cuen-Butimea after he shot at a group of unarmed migrants walking through his 170-acre ranch outside of Nogales. Under its provisions, 73-year-old George Alan Kelly would have been justified for allegedly killing any of the migrants.

rekabis ,

What a wonderfully evil law from the country’s most regressive and evil lawmakers: legalized murder.

Potatos_are_not_friends ,

Murder loophole would be to bring people to your ranch, kill them, and say they were on your property. Just say they "looked" like border crossers. Easy peasy murder squeezy.

FilterItOut ,

Ugh. I'm both disgusted at how simple it would be, and horrified that it may not be an unexpected outcome for the lawmakers.

Schadrach ,

The actual bill doesn't say anything about border crossers, it basically extends the Castle Doctrine (the notion that you do not have a duty to retreat and it is justifiable to use deadly force against trespassers in your home) to cover your land as well as the actual interior of the residence.

So you don't have to say they looked like border crossers because that wouldn't matter - that they were trespassing on your land is itself sufficient.

Marin_Rider ,

what a dystopia.

literal hell on earth is a place with people like that in power

BigMacHole ,

This is EXACTLY what JESUS would Want! God LITERALLY SAID Thou Shalt Kill!

SendMePhotos ,

Thou shall not kill*

*unless they're illegal and/or undocumented and/or could be rapists and/or terrorists and/or drug cartels.

Evotech ,

Or you really want to

IphtashuFitz ,

How soon until Texas starts bussing migrants to ranches in Arizona instead of cities like Chicago and. Boston?

BrianTheeBiscuiteer ,

Oh dear lord don't give them ideas.

AngryCommieKender ,

Arizona would have to flip completely blue for Texas to do that, even then they don't send the busses to California, because we also have a border with Mexico. They just send us people experiencing homelessness.

Zink ,

Oh great, the republicans have finally found the right combination of factors to launch their “hunt the poor minorities” bill.

And it has come up because… a paranoid conservative shot at a group of unarmed people. I guess an attempted mass shooting doesn’t count when you’re an old white gut hunting (to you) subhumans.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod ,
@Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social avatar

Convince the liberals it’s okay

LocoOhNo ,

Don't forget how "pro-life" the Christians pretend to be whilst simultaneously getting harder than Chinese algebra at the prospect of murdering people that aren't the "right" color.

A_Random_Idiot ,
@A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world avatar

If this gets passed, you know someones gonna shoot a rancher, use the excuse of "He looked illegal", and the right wingers will go into nuclear fucking melt down over their laws being used against them.

prole ,
@prole@sh.itjust.works avatar

Ehhh, it could happen by accident. But I've found that the type of person to protest a law like this isn't the same type of person to shoot a Republican to make a point about a shitty law.

Tremble ,

Or an Uber driver, or the fucking mailman, ups, someone lost and turning around on the highway.

meleecrits ,
@meleecrits@lemmy.world avatar

someone lost and turning around on the highway.

Tragically, that does happen.. Fortunately, New York has sane laws when it comes to killing people (for now) and he was convicted of murder.

rallatsc ,

The law allows you to shoot anyone who is trespassing on your property (which is absolutely terrifying). It's not specific to illegal immigrants and couldn't be used on someone else's property. So shooting a rancher on their property would still be illegal.

ganksy ,
@ganksy@lemmy.world avatar

You would think thou shall not kill being one of the ten commandments would be high priority for these people.

billiam0202 ,

What do you think they are, the pro-life party?

Diplomjodler ,

Every single policy they promote is designed to kill people.

FenrirIII ,
@FenrirIII@lemmy.world avatar

Forced pregnancy is designed to make more poor people for them to exploit in the future.

Diplomjodler ,

But also to kill a lot of women in the process. Denying women reproductive healthcare means a lot of them will die. There have already been quite a few cases where women's lives were endangered because doctors refused to abort non-viable fetuses.

Harbinger01173430 ,

I mean, they don't even understand what thou means, so it'll confuse them

prole ,
@prole@sh.itjust.works avatar

Thou shalt not kill

Meanwhile, Yahweh was out there padding his K/D ratio...

Do as I say, not as I do. But also not as I say sometimes because shrimp is pretty delicious.

betterdeadthanreddit ,

Forgive our trespasses and put a bullet between the eyes of those who trespass against us.

Postreader2814 ,

You think they view these migrants as people?

Pyr_Pressure ,

Kill thy neighbour and thou shall not love, it's clearly bible in the defined.

Psiczar ,

If this gets through it won’t be long before an amendment allows the farmers to hunt the migrants for sport.

Fedizen ,

they just love shooting people over an alleged misdemeanor

Buffalox ,

Colored people.

Telorand ,

With how paranoid some of them are, I'd go with the original "people."

Teon ,
@Teon@kbin.social avatar

Republicans/racists/christians want to be immune from the law.

OneWomanCreamTeam ,
@OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works avatar

Why should they be bound by the laws that protect them? Laws should only bind the undesirables that they don't protect. /s

ArbitraryValue ,

This seems like a rather dramatic view of things. The actual text of the bill is here. The old wording is:

"premises" means any real property AND any structure, movable or immovable, permanent or temporary, adapted for BOTH human residence AND lodging whether occupied or not

Whereas the new proposed wording is:

"premises" means any real property OR any structure, movable or immovable, permanent or temporary, adapted for EITHER human residence OR lodging whether occupied or not

The new proposed wording is clearer but I think the reasonable interpretation of the old wording is that it means the same thing as the new wording. They're not changing the part more relevant to whether or not shooting people on one's land is legal:

A person may use deadly physical force under subsection A only in the defense of himself or third persons as described in sections 13-405 and 13-406.

MoonManKipper ,

Points for reading!

ninjan ,

"
B. A person may use deadly physical force under subsection A only in the defense of himself or third persons as described in sections 13-405 and 13-406.
"

Yeah, it still doesn't give a license to kill trespassers. Only ones that could be perceived as a threat to you or someone else, which basically means that them trespassing is moot since that rule is in place already under justified self defence.

The only change here really is clarification that any form of structure that could lodge humans you have a right to defend via threats of violence. You're still not allowed to actually carry through those threats unless the trespassers get violent or threaten violence. Before a barn would likely not stand as being a building you're allowed to defend via threats of bodily harm but now you can.

surewhynotlem ,

Only ones that could be perceived as a threat to you

Which is exceedingly easy to argue when your opponent is dead. "They charged right at me"

ninjan ,

The problem really would be if the police want to investigate properly or not. It's often very easy to see if the body has been moved into a place where you're allowed to threaten them, i.e. a "premise" as defined by the law in question. And further easy to see if any weapons present are planted or not. And wether any traces exist to prove or disprove the charge claim. Like footsteps, distance between where the shot was fired and the body etc. but it's of course entirely possible that the Police go "his story checks out, the illegal charged him with a weapon". Without doing any police work. But in that case very few laws help anyway.

jobby ,

“So I had to shoot them in the back, from 200 yards away”

credo OP ,

No, you walk right up to them, rifle in hand, then claim to be afraid. We’ve seen it before (the case is in the article in fact).

Boddhisatva ,

The author of the bill seems to disagree with you.

Rep. Justin Heap, a Mesa Republican, told the House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 14 that his House Bill 2843 is designed to close a loophole that he claims has led to “increasingly larger numbers of migrants or human traffickers moving across farm and ranch land.”

...

“Language like ‘and’ ‘or’ ‘either’…that one word can completely change the meaning of how this law is then applied,” Heap said. “If a farmer owns 10,000 acres of farmland, his home may be a half a mile away from where he is, and if he sees someone on his land, can he approach them and (remove) them from his property? This is an amendment to fix that.”

I admit, that would agree with your interpretation, except that the author of the bill feels differently. I have to think that we are missing something. The author is appearing to suggest that under this bill, you could treat someone trespassing "a half a mile away" from your house just like you would treat someone that you find trespassing within your house.

ArbitraryValue , (edited )

You make a good point. Maybe there's some court decision that he wants to address (or preemptively avoid) by making the wording of the law clearer?

I'm not going to research Arizona legal precedent myself but maybe someone knowledgeable will come along and clear things up.

Dkcecil91 ,

It seems the difference is in how people are allowed to interpret the law. Before you had to be both on someone's land ("real property") as well as in (or at least approaching with intent) some kind of domicile fit for habitation. Now, with the wording being changed to "or", a person who owns several acres could shoot someone for just cutting through the property without the landowner having any reasonable expectation that the trespassers even knew they were on land that is privately owned and certainly without the impression that the trespassers were approaching their actual domicile that's been inspected and zoned for habitation.

credo OP , (edited )

“any real property OR any structure” is a HUGE change to this law. Before, a justified shooting had to be within a building. That’s why it’s called castle doctrine after all. You can’t necessarily retreat if you are in your home and the proof is somewhat self-evident the intruder shouldn’t have been there, etc., etc. This change means a shooting could take place anywhere on land where a house is situated. Note, land is defined as real property in Arizona, so.. anywhere. AND, Arizona is an open-range state. I.e., no fences required for those cattle.

The self defense language is useless. George Zimmerman acted in self defense too, right?

Ensign_Crab ,

This will be used by racists to shoot anyone with brown skin.

Schadrach ,

Do racists in particular have a lot of brown skinned people trespassing on their property?

Because this bill as proposed says nothing about immigrants, illegal or otherwise or about skin color. It just flat out extends the Castle Doctrine to the property line instead of stopping at the interior wall of the residence.

Ensign_Crab ,

Right. So anyone with brown skin that knocks on their door.

Blaubarschmann ,

How could a government allow people to kill someone. No matter how you feel about migration and trespassing and all that. That is just insane

raspberriesareyummy ,

well - for a government that's okay with killing its citizens in general - that's not too surprising. But yes, it is insane.

thetreesaysbark ,

Historically speaking, most governments have encouraged it in specific scenarios.

Basically, as long as it's a minority of some sort most governments have thought this will keep the majority less likely to revolt.

That's how messed up we are :)

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • politics@lemmy.world
  • random
  • test
  • worldmews
  • mews
  • All magazines
    •