It’s really hard to feel much sympathy for anyone in this situation:

Rowles told police he was sitting on his porch Saturday when a tan SUV pulled up and a black youth jumped out and ran toward his house screaming, “This is for Obama.” He said another male was hanging out of the passenger window screaming the same thing.

First, no sympathy for the Obama supporters who decided to vandalize this guy’s sign. It’s not cool. It’s not funny. It’s certainly not “for Obama.” What it is, however, is childish, immature, and totally disrespectful.

However, their conduct was certainly no excuse for Mr. Rowles’ response:

he fired his rifle at two youths who were allegedly attempting to deface his McCain yard sign, striking one of them in the arm.

He used deadly force to prevent a vandal from defacing a yard sign. You can say, “Oh, he only hit the one guy’s arm”, but when you fire a gun in someone’s direction, that’s deadly force, regardless of whether he intended to miss the kid or not: deadly force, to protect a yard sign. Oh, maybe it was one of those little $2.50 yard signs, or maybe it was one of those gigantic yard signs that’s as big as a bed. To my mind, it really doesn’t matter, because in absolutely no situation do I find justification for shooting at someone for such an insignificant reason.

I know that laws governing use of firearms differ across this nation, but to my mind, use of deadly force follows a scale. At the top of the scale is using such force to defend one’s own life. Below that is using deadly force to defend someone else’s life. When you get to using such force in defense of property, the line gets a little shady — at what point is property worth killing someone over? For the record, I’m cool with the “Castle Doctrine“, as I think that’s a pretty common sense approach to self-defense (although just because it exists doesn’t mean I think people should use it all the time). However, as these kids weren’t in Mr. Rowle’s “castle”, and weren’t presenting Mr. Rowle any indication that they intended him any harm, it’s sort of hard to figure how he plead not guilty with a straight face.

It’s really hard to find sympathy for any of them. Hopefully, the youths in question will find their excitement for vandalism tempered, and maybe Mr. Rowle will have some time in a concrete cell to contemplate his heat-of-the-moment reaction, really, though, I just can’t care about any of ‘em. I mean, I’m sure those kids weren’t expecting to get shot — Rowle really should’ve just copied down their license plate and allowed the police to handle it — but I’m sure, I’m 100% certain — that they knew beforehand that what they were doing was wrong. Maybe they expected just a smack on the wrist, and really, that’s all they should’ve received, but when you play with fire (and, again, I think they knew they were), sometimes you get burned.

They say all publicity is good, but I somehow doubt that’s the case in this situation:

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So I’m not unaware of the fact that, barring an unusually high raise, or a new job with a ridiculously high salary, I’m probably going to be in my 400-square foot studio apartment for the next several years (I’ll probably still be here when Obama wins his second term). For the last few months I’ve been considering how to maximize use of my available space: for example, I think in a couple of years, I’d like to buy a desk and actually set up a desktop computer. Problem: where to put a desk? Or that 5×5 EXPEDIT my parents are going to get rid of next year?

One of the ways I considered maximizing my floor space was to move my futon into my closet, which is a whopping 16% percent of my total floorspace. Saturday morning, it was crammed with broken down boxes, a busted TV, a bookshelf I haven’t hung, a bookshelf I haven’t re-assembled (and which I’m trying to give away, e-mail me if interested, you’ve gotta pick it up), and assorted dressers, end-tables, gun cabinets, etcetra.

Saturday night, the dressers and cabinet were against one wall, and my futon dominated the space. The boxes are in the dumpster, and one of the maintenance guys told me I could leave the TV downstairs and they’d eventually do something productive with it (there’s a thriving black market in furniture given away by residents who are moving out). Seeing the futon in the closet, my thought was “Ahhh … hell no.” For one thing, come spring and summer, I’m going to want to be under the ceiling fan. For another thing, that is one fucking clausterphobic-inducing closet.

But those hours were not — were not! — in vain. For one thing, my closet is actually cleaned and mostly organized, now. The movie posters are stashed away, boxes are actually stacked neatly on shelves. Plus, I found a coat hanger I’d forgotten I bought and managed to hang it (the walls in this apartment are like super difficult teflon-coated plaster). Heck, I could put my computer in here if I wanted …