This whole situation is crazy, it is crazy that the kid has been charged with murder and equally crazy that it is perfectly fine for someone to try and kill some kids because they broke into his house and took some shit. Sorry but your fucking wallet is not worth more than another persons life.
I do believe people have a right to defend themselves, but this guy had no real reason to believe he was in danger, he certainly didn't need to shoot some 17 year old's that weren't even aware of his presence. Why could he not say don't move with a gun trained on them and call the Police, instead of firing outright, that way if they advanced on him and attempted to attack him he still had the ability to shoot them before they could do anything, even in this situation lethal force would not likely be neccessary.
I don't think it is reasonable to assume just because people are in your home illegally that they are there to murder you or otherwise harm you, especially not when they are fucking kids, there are a hell of a lot more break ins than there are murders and that is because 99% of the time the person doing the breaking in has no intention of doing the occupants any harm, they just want to get some shit of value and get the fuck out.
To argue this kid caused the others death is ridiculous, the dead kid made his own decision to enter the home, he would be dead for having made that decision whether this kid participated or not, so how does it make any sense whatsoever to hold the kid who survived accountable for a decision the dead kid made?
Even ten years like some people are saying is ridiculous, for breaking into a house as a minor with no priors to steal some shit of value? Can most people here honestly say they never took anything that wasn't theirs in their teens? Yes, breaking into a home is a step up from that but the difference is not really that big if your only intention is to steal.
All locking kids up in jail does is create criminals, you limit their prospects of gainful employment and make them ineligible for student loans for what? How does that actually solve or deter crime? It creates desperate people who are struggling to survive that have been forced to spend years of their life surrounded by actual criminals, sounds like a recipe to create lifelong criminals to me...
Funny how Western Countries that don't let people kill home invaders willy nilly don't have people being murdered in their homes all over the place, I would be surprised if the US even had less break in's per capita than say Australia. I know for violent and general crime the US has considerably more than we do here. So if the right to murder people for breaking into your home isn't deterring anyone, and murders are actually more likely to take place in that country, how in the fuck do those crazy gun laws make you any safer?