Meh, like I said, he was already dead (and she claims she only fired the fatal shot when she saw him reaching for his own gun) so decapitation was no more than desecrating a corpse. I would think/hope that covered by a Turkish analogue to "heat of passion" or "temporary insanity if he had really been raping her for months.


You, um, kind of cut off the critical final part of my sentence, which significantly qualified the rest: "A woman should have every legal right to shoot someone she sees approaching her home to rape her at gunpoint (yet again.)" Not whomever walks up to her on the street, but someone entering her home after he had done so and raped her at gunpoint, not just once, but repeatedly, for half a year. If (and it is impossible to be sure at this point,) the facts are as she states, it is hard to dispute she was within her rights to shoot him, and fatally shoot him when she saw him reaching for his own gun. If his corpse has a gun with his fingerprints on it, I would be inclined to believe her account of events. That makes it self defense, not vigilantism; the former (which I wholly support) precludes the latter (which I wholly condemn.)

Incidentally, that covers castle doctrine, too; it is not some vigilante death penalty for trespassing. As I said to Cannoli, even if I conceded a duty to retreat were valid, anyone in their home has already retreated as far as they are obligated and, far more importantly, as far as they reasonably can. When a stranger forcibly enters a home uninvited, it is reasonable to think they are not just dropping by for tea, and probably brought a means to deal with the great likelihood the home is occupied by someone inclined to resist. Consequently, resisting with lethal force is only self defense, again not vigilantism. I can understand expecting someone who gets the drop on an intruder to simply order them out, but absent that opportunity, or if the intruder responds threatingly, shooting them is entirely legitimate.

Think of it this way: If her being raped is plausible enough to justify her killing the fetus (even though most people would agree a fetus is almost certainly a baby at five months,) surely it is at least plausible enough to justify killing her rapist in self defense. Had he "merely" raped her once, with no stated intent to do it again, and she went to his house and killed him, THAT would be vigilantism. She claims he had repeatedly raped her, threatening to shoot HER if she told anyone, and was coming back for more; that makes shooting him self defense. If he were only coming by for a cup of tea he would not need to climb a wall while carrying a gun.