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Sadly, the legal ramifications aren't very relevant if the home firearm is used for suicide or to accidentally kill a family member. And do we really expect people to give up their guns when some asshole in Texas can shoot Mexican-looking people running away from his neighbor's home and get away with it? Where was this:

The reason for this is a second limitation on the use of defensive force, what might be called the “proportionality” requirement. Typically, a defender can lawfully use deadly force only to prevent death, rape, kidnapping or bodily injury serious enough to cause long-term loss or impairment of a body part or organ.

I just don't get it. :-(

I was about to post that same story Maggie.

I also don't really buy the argument anyway. neither side is really saying why they do / don't want guns. They just come up with reasons why they should/shouldn't be banned.

I don't want firearms in my home, i don't really want them in anybody's home but if I were to buy something to defend my home, even I would choose a shotgun over a taser (in reality I guess I've chosen a tennis racquet, since that's the only remotely usefull weapon near my bedroom. watch out though I've got a mean overhead).

The bit you've (Maggie) highlighted may be legally true but I beleive that as long as you feel like you are threatened you are allowed to use deadly force. I doubt very much you'll find a jury that's going to convict someone who shot an intruder. In Texas intruder apparently means someone you don't think should be in your neighborood.

Well, it's Texas.

It's not true that the legal ramifications are not relevant to suicides. If deadly weapons become less legally tenable as tools of home defense, fewer people will choose to have them in the home. Fewer will then be accessible to people who want to suicide. The same applies to accidents.

Taser technology *today* may not give you that confidence that a shotgun does. But that's today. At some point when nonlethal weapons are reliable and commonplace, it's going to be hard to convince people that you had to defend your house with a deadly weapon.

Hope springs eternal. I'd love to see super effective nonlethal weapons.

Part of the Texas problem is attitudinal, though. I had an exchange on my blog a while back with a Texan who supported the guy who "defended" his neighbors property. I asked him if possessions were really worth more than a human life. His response? The possessions of someone on a fixed income who might not be able to replace them are worth more than the life of someone with no regard for the law.

Hopefully, better technology will satisfy this mindset.

Nonlethal weapons just wind up getting used by cops to torture people. And trust me, they can all be lethal if you want.

I worry that so-called nonlethal weapons in the hands of law enforcement might lead to a greater willingness to employ weapons against citizens. I think we have already seen some of this.

I think it's a separate, important and interesting issue.

On the one hand we have police forces facing increasingly better armed criminals in urban situations. On the other hand we have citizens who are increasingly viewed with suspicion (and contempt) by law enforcement, and are sometimes treated accordingly.

It's a bad cycle, and nonlethal weapons are not solving any of the resulting problems.