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Hobson’s choice: the necessity of accepting one of two or more equally objectionable alternatives.

– Merriam Webster

In Albuquerque, recent vehicle theft attempts have presented property owners with a textbook example of a Hobson’s choice. If you hear someone breaking into your vehicle you can:

1. Confront the thief without a weapon and get stabbed or shot to death;

2. Confront the thief with a weapon and get charged;

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3. Call an understaffed and overburdened police department, then hide and wait while a career criminal drives off with your car or truck and its contents.

If the options truly are injury/death, a potential prison sentence or losing your property, what kind of message does that send to hard-working folks? And what kind of message to thieves?

Not one the Chamber of Commerce is going to put on billboards. “Albuquerque: Come for the auto burglaries, stay for the cemetery plot, or the prison cell – because now you have no car to drive away in.”

The day after Christmas, William McKinley heard his dogs barking around 5 a.m. and went outside to find two convicted burglars breaking into his truck. A confrontation ended with him stabbed to death in his Four Hills driveway. An APD spokesman noted that people have the right to defend their property and he understands why they do.

In September, Pete Chavez confronted a man breaking into his truck in a La Quinta parking lot and shot him. He was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and being a felon in possession of a firearm; the first charge has been dropped but can be refiled, the second has been taken up by the feds.

A day earlier, Jorge Mateo-Segura went to his car lot after the alarm tripped and found a burglar sitting in an SUV. He shot him in the shoulder and was charged with aggravated battery with great bodily harm and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Yet in December when a homeowner confronted two or three people trying to break into a car in his foothills driveway, he shot one multiple times after the thief reportedly pointed a gun at him and was not charged. The homeowner told police he “was looking down the barrel of a gun. I was scared. I thought I was going to die.”

A basic tenet of responsible gun ownership is to shoot only to protect life, not stuff. But as noted, the Albuquerque Police Department recently has offered differing interpretations of what a property owner can do: In the La Quinta shooting a spokesman said under New Mexico law a shooter has to prove “reasonable fear” and “in this instance the subject was outside, breaking into the individual’s truck. (Chavez) left the security of his own hotel room and confronted him and shot him.” But in the Four Hills shooting a spokesman said, “It’s hard not to defend your property.”

That conflict underscores the importance of the city’s plan to reorganize the police department, to hire more officers and put more officers on patrol. Because the current options – death, prison or hide and say goodbye to your ride – are unacceptable.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.