POLL: Should the intruder law be changed?

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I read on the BBC that "legisaltion allows people to use "reasonable force" against intruders."

however

"...the Tories want this to be updated so only those using "grossly disproportionate force" would risk being prosecuted."

My question, should you have the right to defend your home against intruders?

Poll Information
This poll contains 1 question(s). 17 user(s) have voted.
You may not view the results of this poll without voting.

Poll Results: Should the intruder law be changed? (17 votes.)

Should the intruder laws be changed? (Choose 1)
* No - use what force you deem necessary - 88% (15)
* Yes - intruders are most vulnerable in society desperately seeking a source of income - 12% (2)

 

In your poll, don't you have the comments after No and Yes reversed? Or is "grossly disproportionate force" more restrictive than "reasonable force" in determining what you can do?

Or maybe I'm just mis-interpreting what your comments are saying.

 

God I love the US, as many of the states allow you to use any force necessary to incapacitate anyone who breaks into your home while you are there, including deadly force!

Someone breaks into my house and they will find themselves with a few more holes in their body than they were born with! Given the fact that the holes will be made with 40 cal hollow-points, I don't think they will have much to worry about though, as they will most likely be well on their way to the eternal celestial dirt nap.

And yes, I know I could pull the trigger. Back when I was in college I had a maintenance guy enter my apartment early one morning, unannounced and without knocking. He had his back turned to me, so he was damn lucky in that it was well lit in my living room, and he didn't do anything stupid, as I had him in my sights and had slid my finger into the trigger guard before I realized who he was. (I don't put my finger inside the trigger gaurd if I do not intend to press the trigger, it is just ingrained as part of the training I have received.) I am sure that a bunch of you are thinking he has a case against me. Well, he threatened to press charges for me pointing a loaded gun at him, so I asked to see his work order. Turned out he didn't have one, just some lame excuse about being in the wrong apartment. I offered to call the police for him, but he declined and left.

He was fired for stealing from the apartments later that semester, so I really don't feel sorry for him.

If someone breaks into your home while you are there, the only reasonable belief that you can hold is that they are out to do you harm, or else they would have broken in when you were gone. If they are too stupid to case my house and know when I am not home, I figure that they should be made eligible for a Darwin Award, and I will be happy to help them make sure that they meet the requirements for entry.

The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally kill themselves in really stupid ways. Of necessity, this honor is generally bestowed posthumously.

 

Thank you for illustrating perfectly why that law sucks.

I agree that reasonable force could be used against intruders to guarantee your own and the security of your family. Killing the guy should never be acceptable since it can lead to all kinds of misunderstandings as Darkwolf just pointed out where an innocent man might get killed. Neither should it be acceptable to cause any permanent wounds to the guy or to use excessive force (braking his legs and arms would hardly be necessary). If the guy is armed then we have a problem and I might accept shooting the guy in the leg or something. Here in Finland our law states that you can't use any more powerful means to stop a intruder than what the intruder himself is wielding. So if he comes in unarmed you will most likely get charged with invoulentary manslaughter if you shoot him. If he himself was armed with a gun you might get away with self defence. This might be considered a bit harsh and quite often the only thing you can do legally against burglars is to call the police who never arrive in time, but on the other hand you would in most cases not even get prison sentence if you knock out a burglar in your home as long as you don't cause any permanent injuries.

EDIT: Oops. Quite clearly I didn't read Darkwolf's post very well. The man described was clearly in the end not innocent. Sorry, my bad.

[ January 13, 2005, 18:10: Message edited by: Morgoroth ]

 

Hey Morgoroth, I am totally with the Finnish governemt for that law you described. Why shoot an unarmed man?

 

First off, if the guy was so innocent, why didn't he let me call the police? Secondly, if he is so innocent, why didn't he knock and announce his presence when he opened the door?

A few years ago I by my mom's house after dark and noticed that her front door was open. I went up to the door and, giving up my tactical advantage, yelled into the house to see if she or her roommate were home. I received no response. At that point I had my wife call 911. However I was worried about them, so I entered the house (which the police advised against when my wife informed them I was going in). As I entered, again giving up my tactical advantage, I continued to announce my presence, as I was technically an intruder at that point. I found my mom and her roommate in the their game room playing video games with her roommate's niece and nephew with the volume up very high. They were very startled to see me, and even more worried to find out that their front door had been open. We escorted the children out of the house and allowed the police to search the house when they arrived. If there had been a bad guy (BG) in the house, he would have had an advantage on me, as I was announcing my presence the whole way, but I had to, otherwise my mother or her roommate could have shot me. If the maintenance guy would have knocked and then announced himself when he entered I would never have presented my handgun. I have lived in quite a few appartments, and not withstanding this one event, I never had maintenance enter without knocking first.

Now taking this a step further:

It is nighttime and dark, so exactly how are you supposed to determine how well an intruder is armed? Lets see, I will flip on the light switch and see!

Scenario #1: Oooops, he has a gun, and now I am dead because I didn't want to introduce more force into the situation than what he had, so I left my gun locked in the bedroom.

Scenario #2: He has a baseball bat, but I have a gun, so I say, "oops, wait a minute, let me put my gun away" and I return with a bat to fight it out with an assailant who could be bigger, stronger, and faster than I.

Scenario #3: He has a baseball bat and I have my gun, so I can't really shoot him, so I point it at him and tell him to put the bat on the ground, and he laughs, charges me, and given that most civvies can't hit a moving target under duress, I miss, and he beats me to a pulp because I was stupid and gave up my tactical advantage.

Scenario #6: He has a bat, so I try to wing him. Anyone with any tactical training will tell you that they never shoot to kill, but when under duress they shoot for center of mass as trying to wing someone makes the shot more difficult and it is too likely that the shot will miss. Anyone who says that they would, or someone should, shoot someone in the leg when they are being threatened has absolutely no business owning a gun and is showing their lack of experience or training in tactical defense. The only time you try to wing someone is if they have information you desperately need, and they are not a current threat to you or anyone else.

Scenario #5: He is unarmed! I blew it and had pulled my gun, now I can't shoot him because he is unarmed, so he just walks over and takes my gun away from me, shoots me, rapes my wife and children and then kills them.

Morgoroth, your understanding of the dynamics of a home invasion is severely deficient. If someone wishes to lock themselves in their bedroom, and hope the police get there before the BGs can do anything to them, that is their choice. But don't expect me to cower in my bedroom while some criminal has free access to the rest of my home and to my children. I demand the right to defend myself and my family, and I will not respect anyone who demands that an individual in the commission of a criminal act have more rights than the person trying to defend themselves from said criminal. I will not give up my tactical advantage by tying to determine the intent of someone who breaks into my home. The laws in the states I have chosen to live in are quite clear, and if someone is too stupid to obey them or protect himself or herself if they are putting themselves in a dangerous position, then I have little mercy for them when they pay the price. If the state I live in took away my right to defend myself in this type of case, I would move, and if all states took away this right, I will take my chances of ending up in jail if anyone every decides to break into my home while I am there, because they will be shot without hesitation or remorse.

 

What happened to scenario 4, Darkwolf? If anyone breaks into my house when I am there, they are getting a mace in the chest, which is perfectly reasonable. As long as I don't smash his ribs into his lungs, he should only be stunned, and long enough for me to incapacitate him further.

 

Oddly enough, I'm with Darkwolf on this one. If a guy comes into your house, uninvited, and you're taking the time to examine the level of danger he poses, you're going to end up in traction or worse.

I understand that after empying a bullet or two (or a knife, baseball bat, meat cleaver, whatever) into a guy, one should probably not continue to beat him once he's down (or stab, eviscerate, perforate or dissolve).

But seriously, shooting a guy in the leg? If it gets to the point where someone has to shoot, they can't be worrying about what limb they're going to hit.

 

You DO understand that your possessions isn't everything? And if they are, put up security cameras in your house and call the police. Good, clear, picture, and you will have that dude caught within days.

If not, too bad for you, but if you misses the shot and he have a gun as well, the chances are large that he kills you, and your family in case any of them woke up and saw anything. Much greater chance than that he would do that if you didn't engage him.

 

Now we know why ArtE is in prison! He beat to death an unarmed intruder in his home!

He has definitely learned his lesson about using excessive force, so turn him loose man!

Just teasing ArtE, I just was in such shock that you agreed with me on this one that I had to poke a little fun!

Sorry about the disappearance of #4 and out of order of #5 & 6, I realized that one scenario fit in better between the existing one, and didn't do a good job editing my cut and paste.

Caleb,

Again, if he wanted to be in the house to rob it, he would have broken in when no one was home. If you want to take your chances and just pretend to be asleep and hope he will go away that is your choice.

Personally, I will take my chances on my terms. It comes down to whom you are used to depending on, yourself, or someone else. I would agree though, if you don't have what it takes to know that you can not only take, but also make the shot count, it is better to be passive and just let the BG do whatever he is going to and hope all he wants are your belongings. I read a story a couple of years ago about an older couple that woke up to the noise of a burglar going through the wife’s jewelry box. The old man pulled a revolver he had hidden next to the bed, told his wife to call 911, and told the burglar to go to the living room. The burglar said no. The old man told burglar that he wasn't going to shot him in front of his wife, so the burglar took the gun away from the old man and shot both of them. The old man lived, his wife didn't, so he has to live with that . So you are right in a case like that, they should have pretended to be asleep, and they would have been fine.

Of course if you choose that route, IMO, it makes you responsible for the next person who he commits a crime against, because you had a chance to stop him, but you elected to let him go.

[ January 13, 2005, 20:48: Message edited by: Darkwolf ]

 

Forgot to add one thing: Why the hollowpoint? They reduce the chances of him live after the shot greatly.

Now, I know you want the death penalty for everything, Darkwolf, but be a bit sensible for once.

 

Wait, wait, wait--you're demanding that Darkwolf refrain from using force (up to and including gunshots) to stop a criminal who has broken into his home from doing whatever it is the criminal plans to do (if the criminal is only interested in robbery, why break in when people are home?)...and you want him to be sensible?

Irony is a beautiful thing.

 

I have a friend that is a police officer. He plainly states, that if someone breaks into your home, and you have a gun, it is in your best interest to shoot to kill. It's even better if the intruder happens to be facing in your direction when you shoot him. You can simply say, "Officer, he saw me on the other side of the room, and I saw hiim reach into his pocket. I had to assume he was going to draw a gun on me so I shot him." Dead men tell no tales.

I also agree that it is completely unreasonable to announce yourself, or give any manner of warning to an intruder. Anyone who breaks into your home obviously has evil intent. Kill the bastard.

 

Caleb,

The use of a hollow-point has nothing to do with killing; it has to do with incapacitation. If you shoot a person with a round nose, truncated round nose, flat point, wad cutter, or any other conventional bullet, the amount of shock applied to the person’s nervous system is not sufficient to incapacitate them. You have to understand the physics and physiology of a gunshot. There are 2 types of damage done by a bullet. There is a crush cavity, the area where the tissue is basically completely destroyed, usually very small, and in the case of a conventional bullet, barely larger than the diameter of the bullet. There is also a temporary stretch cavity, which is created by the shock wave of the bullet coming into contact with the issue. The damage done by this type of cavity is less dramatic in actual tissue damage, but is much greater in the amount of nerves endings that it affects. In a conventional bullet the temp cavity is not much larger than the crush cavity. It is the stretch cavity that overwhelms the nervous system and incapacitates. It is all about causing a nervous system overload, resulting in a lack of ability to function or even loss of consciousness.

It is a side effect that the hollow-point is more deadly than a conventional bullet. The moral is, don't do anything that might get you shot!

 

Most people have enough sense to understand that a gun can kill and people very rarely go berserk and attack someone with a gun, that would be stupid. The problem of course comes with mental cases and drug addicts. But you can't just shoot someone who steps into your house. Darkwolf has stated indivdual cases why intruders should be shot at sight so let me tell one why they should not. An old lady suffering from demence/dementia (I do not know the proper word for this mental illness in English) went out from her home one day and in her pyjamas went to her old home where she had lived about 40 years ago. She noticed that she did not have keys and it was winter and the middle of the night so she thought that she would have to brake the window to get in. Well she took a stone and managed to brake the window which naturally woke up the current residents of the house. One of them immidietly went for his rifle and shot the old lady at the window without batting and eye (and not noticing that it was actually an elderly person entering the house). The woman died and the man got sentenced for manslaughter to three years in prison. Triggerhappiness is never a good thing.

Now you might say that these kinds of cases are rare and unique but so are cases where you have people braking in to your house who won't believe the power of a gun. I would not want a law here which would state that it's just allright to shoot anyone who brakes into your property. There is actually a law here which makes it legal for stranded/lost people to brake into cabins (usually on isles in wintertime) to keep themselves alive. If the owner of the house would happen to arrive on the spot and shoot them it would hardly be right.

The point of shooting an intruder on sight is a good one since you probably won't think very clearly in the situation, but I refuse to accept it as an morally acceptable solution just because braking into someone's house is not exactly a crime that requires death sentence under any standards of the western world.

EDIT: And one more thing. I refuse to answer the poll simply because of the way the "Yes" answer is written, but I'm sure all can see what I stand for.

 

This story is an example of a travesty of justice. It is not clear in the story whether the home she left was a home she had been committed to or her own personal home where she lived unattended. If it is a nursing type home, then the staff of the home are responsible for her death for allowing her to leave the home. If she lived on her own, then it was the woman's relatives that are responsible for her death for not having her committed and protected.

Either way, I wouldn't lose a moments sleep acquitting him if I was on that jury, or if I had been the one who shot her. I would feel sorry for her, but I wouldn't have any guilt issues.

I am sure that there are lots of cases where people have made honest mistakes that resulted in their death. It happens with planes, automobiles and bikes all the time, but we don't make those illegal. People should have the right to defend themselves, and they should have the right to feel 100% secure in their own homes. If that causes isolated cases where the consequence of a person’s action (committed of their own volition) results in their death, I can live with it.

 

In my view it ends exactly as it should. In Finland this kind of triggerhappiness is illegal and ends up in conviction even if she would have been a burglar.

Maybe not but we do. It is called invoulentary manslaughter. It just is not enough that you thought her to be a criminal. You should have known better to take a look. The shooting of a unsuspecting person (especially if you shoot in the back) is never acceptable under any circumstances.

 

What kind of world do you live in when you live in constant fear of people going into your houses to rape, kill and pillage? I am a pretty cynical guy but not even I fear that. Actually, it would be nice to see the statistics for how often violent people break into houses and doing bodily harm to persons. I am pretty sure it is rare even in the US. Here in Sweden I am pretty sure it is more or less non-existant, the few times it do happen it gets quite a lot of media coverage seeing as it is a small country.

Now lets turn to the US, how often does it happen that some moron shoots a member of the family or friend or whatnot in the belief that it is dangerous criminal? I reckon it happens a lot more often than dangerous criminals going into homes to rape and kill. I remember reading an article about a stepfather shooting his wife's daughter when she was up and about after having woken after a nightmare. Paranoia is always more dangerous than the realistic threat.

 

Good points, Joacquin. There are probably 100 other things that are more worth worrying about because they are so much more likely (like being in a car-crash or something).