When Your Home is Your Castle

When you ask a Texan whether or not you have the right to defend your home here in this Great State, you’ll often get some version of the answer, “Yes. This is Texas.”

But today, in San Antonio, a man is on trial for doing exactly that.

Now keep in mind that news agencies are notorious for getting facts and details of cases completely wrong. They’re even worse when they try and explain the law. But, if we take the story at face value, here’s what appears to have happened.

Ray Lemes, 51 years old, jumped up naked from his bed in response to his wife screaming that there was someone in the house. He grabbed a pistol that they kept in the bedroom and dashed to the front of the home. He stepped through the open front door of his home and saw someone over by his truck. Then, a person comes out from behind a brush pile on the street and heads straight towards Lemes. He’s naked. His wife and dog are behind him in his home. He shoots.

Is it a tragedy? Of course. The burglar was 19 years old. It’s always horrible when a young man makes a poor decision and puts himself in someone else’s home in the middle of the night.

If the facts were as they appear, I’d have taken the same action.