Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 77, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1907 — Trap Gun Worked; Sued for $10,000. [ARTICLE]

Trap Gun Worked; Sued for $10,000.

Ernest Gudman, of Tippecanoe county, had been troubled with fore, for the [illegible] so he loaded his calling, driving, and [illegible] the buggy [illegible] entrance of the gun [illegible] chicken coop door. That evening Louis Schultz, a neighbor and farm tenant of Gudman, saw his dog go into the latter’s chicken coop and hither he pursued it. No sooner had the coop door been opened than the gun was discharged, the load strik ing Schultz in the leg and foot and crippling him for life. Now Gud man is made the defendant in a $10,000 damage suit, with a probability of haying a good sized judgment to pay. There is some satis faction coming to Gudman, his trap gun worked all right. There is no law in this country entitling a man to murder or maim a person even for the theft of his chickens and the building of a contrivance that endangers any one should be sufficient reason for criminal action, as well as for civil damages in favor of the person who is wounded. A case in Benton county last year where a chicken thief was shot and killed while in the act of stealing chickens resulted in the prosecution of the man who done the shooting, and while he was acquitted, because smooth lawyers made it appear that it was injuries sustained in the running away of the thief’s horses following the shooting and not of the shooting itself, that caused his death. It was a vagabond, too, of the worst character that was shot, which served to les sen public wrath at his killing. But the fellow who shoots directly at the thief is deserving much more respect than the one who puts up a trap gun to kill the first person that comes along. Better sell your chickens than go thru life branded a murderer.