Arizona Republicans want to let ranchers in southern Arizona legally shoot and kill undocumented immigrants who cross their land.

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.

  • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
    0·
    4 months ago

    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@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      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@lemmy.world
        0·
        4 months ago

        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.