[Rain Man]

This is really a tough case. I'm glad I'm not on the jury.

If you're a landowner, it's got to be extremely frustrating when drunk people are repeatedly coming onto your property and messing it up. And after a moment's thought, I see the point where you should be able to take a gun with you to fend off trespassers.

But it seems like there should've been a better solution than shooting a guy. The odds that he was coming onto your property to intentionally cause harm is quite low.

You can't really fence off the property. He had signs posted, and that didn't work. You can't booby trap the place. Maybe you could install a water cannon or something, but that would undoubtedly cause escalation. The only thing I can think of is to inform them that you're videoing the area and will show their small genitalia on the Internet.

I initially thought this guy has to get convicted, but the more I think about it, self-defense could be a quite viable defense.

The real problem here is people getting drunk and not respecting property. If you could enforce that, you wouldn't have this problem. But there's not anywhere near the law enforcement manpower you'd need to enforce public drunkenness on the river in that part of the state.