Here are the facts of the case, in the past few months in rural areas of the west of Ireland houses on the far outskirts of towns have been robbed, and generally the inhabitants are elderly individuals who are often in the house at the time of the burglary and beaten, in some cases to within an inch of there lives. In some cases where the first robbery failed the burglars returned at a later date.
Speaking as someone who lives in rural area, rural policing is simply dreadful, all garda resources are concentrated in the cities and large towns against drug dealers and other gangs.

Nally, a farmer living in a remote area near Cong, Co Mayo, became aware around 2pm on October 14 last year that a car with two men had driven up outside his house.

He got his gun and went outside. There was only one man in the car when Nally reached it. He asked where the second man had gone and was told he had gone to the rear of the house.

Nally went around the back of the house, saw a man at the kitchen door and fired a shot at him, wounding him.Ward then advance upon Nally who then hit the man up to 20 times on the head with a thick stick.
The man, John Ward, then limped down the road, away from the house. Nally went inside his house, reloaded his gun, went outside and fired a shot into his head.
Nally then threw Ward's body over a hedge.
Now Nally has been convicted of manslaughter and has had to be moved to isolation in prison for fear of his been killed.

Another issue that has cause the case to be so divisive is that Mr Ward was a member of the Travelling community who often feel (and often are) discriminated against. But on the other side violence between the travelling community and the settled community is caused by a small minority of that community that seem to view themselves exmept from laws.

Now I wish to ask your opinion of this issue that has been very divisive here in Ireland?

My opinion lies on the side of the property owner. The loss of life is regretable, all killing is wrong.
But if put in the same position its likely id have done the same.
If a criminal breaks into your property you cannot rely on his good nature.

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"Better to die on you feet than live on your knees" - Emilio Zapata

Clearly, Nally was well within his rights. Idiots who get killed or injured while committing a crime should have zero legal recourse.

I really do. But from what you've told us, I cannot.

From what you've told us so far, I can't see that the first man posed a threat to Nally, or was even doing anything wrong (did I misread something?). It sounds like the guy was just standing by the door and Nally shot him. If that's the case, I can't go with that... and I'm a property rights nut.

The second guy... well, this farmer just shot his bud. A wise man would have run, but for whatever reason, he advanced toward Nally, you said. Was this in a threatening manner? In any case, he beat this one with a stick. Tough call... not enough info to go on.

But here's the kicker: Nally goes back inside the house (where he is SAFE & SOUND), reloads his gun and goes back outside and shoots a wounded man WHO IS ATTEMPTING TO FLEE in the head. Then he throws the body over a hedge??? What the heck was that about?!

99 times out of 100, I'll go with the property owner. But in this case, had I been on the jury, I would have pinned Nally with 1st degree murder and voted for the electric chair. That was out & out cold blooded murder... by the information you provided.

With the hardware I own, I could probably take on a small army... from inside the house. But no way in the world would I go outside, if I actually believed there was a problem (unless one of my cars was being stolen or my dog needed some "backup" ). Nah, you come on in here and get me. Heck, bring the whole family - I'll trim down their family tree as they cross the ENTRY threshold. But I'm not going outside to play Clint Eastwood. Uh uh. Nopey.

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"Tweeter was a Boyscout before she went to Vietnam and found out the hard way... nobody gives a d@mn."

The landowner was pefectly within his rights, up to the point where he went back to the house, reloaded, and returned to chase the fleeing, wounded man, and shot him in the head - murder.

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"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."

The first guy was simply standing by the back door, correct? Unless there's something I don't know, he wasn't doing anything other than maybe trespassing. It was OK to just shoot him for being where he shouldn't have been? Was he posing some sort of threat? Maybe he was selling Girl Scout cookies? Seriously, who knows?

Maybe Europe is different. But even in the most pro-NRA, pro gun State there is in the U.S., that wouldn't fly. It actually makes me very nervous to think that someone might shoot me if I was just knocking on their door. I'm probably going to serve papers on a contractor in preparation for a lawsuit next week. Maybe I should pay someone else to deliver the notice of non-performance.

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"Tweeter was a Boyscout before she went to Vietnam and found out the hard way... nobody gives a d@mn."

I agree with nawbut on this one. Nally was within his rights to shoot the burglar the first time and fight him off with his stick, but when he went back into his own home, of which he clearly had control, reloaded his gun, then chased down a wounded, fleeing man and finished him off, that was manslaughter. If there were any possible sympathy left for his case, it is destroyed by the fact that Nally was clearly not a feeble, panicked old man (regardless of his age). He had the strength, after a struggle no less, to throw Ward's body over a hedge. It seems to me, as strongly as I believe in gun and property rights, that the landowners are more out of control than the transients.

But where do you guys see that the fellow at the door was doing anything illegal (other than MAYBE trespassing)... or more to the point, anything that deserved being fired upon? Are you reading some other account of the story that isn't here? Where do you see that this fellow was posing a threat? Even if confronted by two or more men, I cannot see firing until I have actually been threatened, or I'm in fear for my life.

I've been a Life Member of the NRA for around 15 years and this one I'm having problems with... from beginning to end. At least fill me in on some part of the story that's not posted here.

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"Tweeter was a Boyscout before she went to Vietnam and found out the hard way... nobody gives a d@mn."

Well, I've been working on the assumption that Ward was a burglar. That is what the story seemed to imply. I might fire on a burglar (if I owned a gun, which I don't), but I would not hunt him down after I'd wounded him. I asked my father, who was the victim of a robbery in 1992, about this case. Specifically, I asked him whether, had he been armed, he would have chased after a wounded robber and killed him. His answer was an emphatic "no". Accordingly, my lack of support for Nally's case is not motivated by any lack of sympathy for victims of violent theft. My father, I might add, was jumped from behind and put in a full nelson by one of his two robbers, and we later discovered that the same two men were probably responsible for clubbing an elderly man. Yet my father answered firmly in the negative.

In some cases where the first robbery failed the burglars returned at a later date.

I'm assuming this was his motivation for hunting the guy down and finishing the job.

I would probably find him guilty and give him probation if he had no criminal record.

The father of a friend of mine once chased a robber out of his house and shot him in cold blood on the sidewalk. The New York cops knew the truth and they knew the record of the dead guy. They wrote in the official report that the man was shot in the house and fled mortally wounded. Justice was served in that case, IMO. I think it was around 1970.

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"Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves." ~Ronald Reagan

I won't push the point too hard, but even if I were in a comparable situation with a personal enemy whom I had much greater reason to believe would return, I would not and could not condone killing him. I can't weigh what might happen in the future against the certain intent and act of killing a human being. But don't worry- I'll stay out of this thread now that I've made my point.