POLL: Should the intruder law be changed?

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Greywolf? Damn, I am getting older, but my hair is still black! Well, it is when I let it grow out, I think...

As far as paranoia in the US about violence, part of it is because guns are so prevalent. The problem is that in a nation the size of the US, with the number of guns there are here, making them illegal will only take guns away from the innocent, there is no way to confiscate all the guns that criminals have, and it would literally take generations for all the illegal guns to be found. So we either maintain the right to defend ourselves or are left to the mercy of criminals.

When it comes to safety of guns in homes, I would have no issue with requiring that people take a safety and competency course (a class that is provided privately, not by the Gov't, as that just makes a backdoor to make guns illegal: i.e. don't offer the class, no one can buy a gun) where they part of the class is about securing your firearms and threat evaluation. I have children and my primary handgun is locked when I am not carrying it, but it is locked in a way that I can get to it easily, and they can't (kind of like a child proof cap on a bottle of medicine). When they get old enough to bypass this safety, I will teach them about gun safety. This is the way I was raised, and my father was raised, as well a millions of other children of law enforcement officers, and they have a very low occurrence of child-gun accidents. The problem is with parents who are embarrassed to admit the have a gun, and hide it away, pretending it is not there. They shouldn't bother with it, because they never practice, and couldn't hit the broad side of a barn in a stressful environment, and kids find anything you hide! How many of us didn't find our presents when we were kids, or our parents "novelty" toys, or dad's Playboy, or something our parents didn't want us to find? If we did it, our kids will too! That being said, far more children die from bicycle accidents or from accidents caused by drunk drivers than from accidents with guns, but we still sell alcohol and bicycles.

Finally, yes you do have to make sure that the intruder in your home is truly and intruder. I remember when I was in college, one weekend I told my parents that I was going to stay at school and go out and party, er, I mean study instead of coming home. Well it turned out that none of my friends had decided to stay in town, so about 10:00 PM I decided to go home. Now it was (this is back in the days of 55 MPH) about a 2-hour trip home, so it was after midnight when I got home. My parents lived in a LONG ranch style home. I came in at one end, and their bedroom was all the way at the other. I was walking down the very dark hallway and watching my feet so as not to trip, when I saw another pair of feet in front of me. I looked up into the wrong end of a .357 Mag, and then got a face full of light from my dad's 4-cell Maglight. The next words I heard were "I could have shot you, don't ever sneak into the house again", in flat monotone. Scared me half to death!!! While I learned never to sneak into my parent’s house, the real moral is that you have to know that you have an intruder, and if there is any chance that it could be someone else in your home, then you have to accept the risk of identification.

Every situation is different, that is why if you decide that you are going to defending yourself in the case of a break in, you have to do it responsibly. You have to spend hours in thought of what you would do if _______ happened. How many of you with guns have ever done a walk-through in daylight to determine how you can clear your home, and then done the same walkthrough at night with the lights off? You have to plan this well, as for instance, my office has 2 doors that open into different hallways, so there is no way for 1 person to clear it. My wife has to assist or else a BG could simply keep walking around those halls and that room to avoid detection. How many slices do you have to split every room in your house into as you enter? If you don’t even know what that is, you need training. To give a basic explanation, slicing or splitting a room is a way of coming around a doorway or corner so that you are exposed to only a small part of the room at a time. You view a little bit more of it each “slice” you take. The trick is balancing how much of the room you can examine with how long it is going to take you to clear the whole room, as the BG probably knows you are there on the first slice. People used to just charge in, but most rooms have too much space for our brains and eyes to examine quickly enough, so you get overwhelmed and my not even see the BG standing in the open in the middle of the room, sounds ridiculous, but it has happened.) Did you know that you cannot yell and pull the trigger of a gun at the same time? Part of the training that I received from a Police Dept had us “discover” a bad guy and we each had to try to get him to put the gun he is holding down. When you catch him, he has the gun pointed at the ground. You come around the corner holding a toy gun, and tell them to drop the gun. The officer playing the bad guy was very good and got every person to start yelling at him. As soon as we started yelling he pointed his gun at each of us and said “bang”. All 6 of us being trained were “shot” without ever pulling the trigger of our toy gun because we started yelling. Bizarre!

If you decide that you are going to be responsible for your own safety, you have do think of these kinds of things, you simply cannot trust that you will know what to do when the BGs break in, or else you could have a tragedy. To be honest, the majority of people would be better either pretending to sleep through a home invasion, or calling the cops and announcing to the BG that you have done so and that they had better leave.

A dog is a great option if you can go that route, but many people do not live where they can keep a dog, or live lives that don’t lend themselves to being good masters, or have allergies, etc. I think it is pathetic that anyone would kill a dog that bit a burglar. Dogs are very acute to human emotions, and often know if someone intends their master harm. I think this euthanasia is a relic from the days of when the easiest way to test for rabies was to test the brain of the animal, but there are modern tests that can be completed very quickly to protect the “victim” of the bite from this and many other diseases.

So in closing, yes there are risks involved in deciding to defend yourself, and yes, not everyone should decide to do it, but until we become a species that gives up all individuality , I think that it is a decision that we should all be free to make our own choice about.

Sorry if any of this is incoherent, I am typing it with an extremely bad headache, so please understand and forgive me.

 

Geez, I agree with DW too. Stange days, indeed! Just to clarify a few points here:

First, while you can shoot someone who has illegally entered your home, you can't shoot someone who is TRYING to enter your home. The defintion of "illegally entering" a home is going inside a home where the owner would not permit you entry. Thus, family members do not "illegally enter" their home, even if they have to break down a door or break a window to get in.

Note that breaking into a home in the U.S. does not necessarily entail breaking a window, kicking down a door or picking a lock. Merely opening an unlocked door or window to a home where you were not invited is breaking and entering, even if you didn't have to "break" something to get inside. Once you get both feet in the house, you're fair game. You can't shoot someone trying to pick the lock to your front door, but you can shoot them once they enter the house.

Secondly, if the burglar decides to run away because you have a gun, you can't shoot him in the back as he runs away from your house. A burglar running away no longer poses a lethal threat to you or your family, so you can't shoot him in the back as runs down the steps of your front porch.

Thirdly, it is complete insanity that you have to use like force as nearly anything can be a lethal weapon depending on how it is used. Some are obvioius - yes a handgun or a switchblade represent items that, by their very narture, constitute lethal weapons. But what about less obvious ones? What if the burglar is armed with a pipe, a baseball bat or a hammer? For me to determine if the burglar was going to use lethal force, I would need to know how he intends to use the weapon. If he only plans on hitting me in the arm or leg, the worst I can suffer is a broken bone. But what if he intends to hit me in the head? All of the sudden that baseball bat constitutes a lethal weapon.

There are others that are even less obvious. A screwdriver or a ball point pen can be used as a piercing instrument, and thus, if used in this manner, are lethal weapons. A pillow can be used to smother a person. The point is you would actually have to possess the ability to read an intruder's thoughts to know how they intended to use whatever make-shift weapon they might have with them.

Finally, the onus is on the gun-owner to make the correct decision. The example of shooting an old lady suffering from dementia entering your home probably would get you prosecuted. In the example, it's not even clear that the woman entered the home - it merely states that she broke a window. The law states you cannot shoot unless they enter the home. If the man inside shot her because he saw her through the window, he is going to be prosecuted for manslaughter, and probably negligent use of a firearm, because if he missed he could have theoretically harmed a uninvolved passer-by.

The law bascially states that you can shoot someone who enters your home, but you better be right that the intruder had evil intent. This is determined by the "reasonable person" guideline. This states, how would a reasonable person gauge the actions of the person entering the house. If they were dressed completely in black and had a ski-mask on, chances are he/she is a burglar and was going to steal from you. You're OK to shoot them. An old lady in her pajamas probably isn't a burglar but is most likely mentally incompetent. You can't shoot in this case.

 

Aldeth,

I applaud your attempt to try to describe, reasonable times to use deadly force, but hope this doesn't break into the game my 7 year old plays that irritates the crap out of me, "What If?".

What if the old lady in her pj's had a gun?

What if the burglar is a martial arts expert?

AAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!

It would be nice if we could get back to the "reasonable man" test. For example there was a case where an elderly couple out in a rural area were living in a barn that had been partially converted into a living space. Someone started trying to break into the barn. Thinking that they were thieves the man yelled out to the one trying to break through the front door that he had a gun and would shoot them if they didn't leave. They kept trying to break down the door, so he took a shot through it. The BGs quit working on the door, but a couple minutes later the lady heard one of them trying to get in the window. In her panic she had used her cell phone to call a neighbor to call 911 (stress can make us do stupid things, she should have just called it herself), and she announced the fact that 911 had been called to the person at the window. The window was covered with heavy blinds, so we don't know if he heard her, but when he didn’t stop, she took her .22 LR rifle and shot through the window. The BG stopped working on the window and seemed to have gone away. A few minutes later the police showed up and discovered that the BG not only had stopped trying to break into the window, he had stopped breathing do to having his skull perforated by a .22 bullet in the dead center of his forehead. No charges were pressed, though there was concern that the family of the dead man might sue. There were 2 sets of tracks outside of the barn, but authorities have been unable to identify the accomplice.

Did the old couple do anything wrong...hell yes, several things. But in the end the BGs got lucky for a while, and had ample opportunity to leave without getting hurt, and they decided to press on with their endeavor, indicating to me they had much more than simple burglary in mind. One of them paid the ultimate price for his stupidity, and the other hopefully learned a lesson (yeah, right ).

Do I think the old couple should be charged with any crimes (the did illegally discharge a firearm with intent to harm)? I am really torn. We can't have this kind of behavior be encouraged, but yet the result was justifiable in my mind. To be honest I think that under my "reasonable man" test, they should pay a fine for the first shot through the door, but that is about it. After that event, the BGs knew what they were facing and should have given up. But then there are many here who would gladly testify as to my being the prime example of being unreasonable, so maybe I am just looney!

 

Yes, yes you are. I would also like to point out that there is difference between what the law says and what the police and the justice systems put into effect. Even under the Swedish law you have to go quite ballistic and the use of unnescessary violence so blatant that it cannot be disregarded for there to be any sentence worth its name or even charges. The more people are allowed to do or think they are allowed to do the more they do. If people know they can shoot a burglar in their house for just being there they will, without much hesitation, they may also shoot someone who sneaks around in their yard even if it happens to be illegal. Violence is an escalating spiral with the more you are allowed to use the more you use it and press the boundaries of the law. Better to have strict guidelines and judge each case by its own.

Also, again I say that I highly doubt that amount of burglaries with the intent of bodily harm is very great.

 

Actually DW, in that last example, they would be prosecuted - at least in MD. Like I said, you can't shoot someone for trying to get into your house. Shooting through a door or window at somebody is assault with a deadly weapon, regardless of the end result. The law doesn't award you for being a lousy shot.

I agree that the would be burglars were stupid for attempting to enter the barn again after a shot had been fired through the door. I also agree that there was a motive beyond burglary most likely at work. However, here's what I don't get - if they were trying to get inside to do harm to the eldery couple, why not just set the barn on fire? That would force them out pretty quick. You light the end on fire opposite of the exit, and then you wait for them to come out the front door.

On the other hand, if you can't light the barn on fire because you want to steal something that's inside, why not come back when they aren't home?

All I'm saying is that if an unknown stranger is in your house, especially in the middle of the night, chances are they aren't stopping by to make your acquaintence. Any "reasonable person" would have to assume that at the very least they are there to steal from you.

I do not own any firearms. I have no training in them. To have any type of firearm for me might actually be to my disadvantage because I don't know how to use them properly. That having been said, I have no problem with any person owning a gun (provided they do so responsibly), and I have no problem shooting someone who illegally entered your home regardless of whether or not they intended bodily harm.

Again, regardless of the odds, how are you going to know whether or not an intruder intends simply to steal from you or to kill you? It's not like if he's "only" planning on stealing from you it makes his actions OK. Stealing from a personal residence is committing at least two felonies: Breaking and entering, and 1st degree burglary. (The law is actually strange in MD. 1st degree burlary occurs when you steal from a personal residence. 2nd degree burglary is when you steal from something that isn't a personal residence, whether that be a warehouse, a business, or a church.)

Plus, being a gun owner probably decreases the chances of your home being burglarized, just like a dog does. I mean, if everyone on your street knows you're a police officer, and the burglar has done his homework ahead of time, chances are he knows you're a police officer too. Why would you break into someone's home if you knew he was armed, when there are other options on the street where there is at least the possibility of them not being armed. Unless the purpose of the burglary was to actually steal gun(s), why would you even attempt such a thing?

 

Hey, wierd true story happened to me and my girlfriend yesterday. She owns a little gift/stationery store in a tiny retail area on the edge of downtown Providence. I drop her off in the mornings, and yesterday as I was on my way out the door, a sketchy dude walked into the store and asked her *if she was alone in the store*

I watched from the sidewalk for a couple of seconds before going back in, and he left.

We are now looking into adopting a good looking German Shepard/Akita mix (his bark sounds like it can set off car alarms) from the local animal shelter to be her new bodyguard at the store. I'm hoping he's ok with me changing his name to, "Mephisto." It was either that, or a gun, I feel that a big dog provides a nice deterrent though, as a gun, is out of site until trouble actually starts. I'd rather the trouble doesn't start to begin with.

 

It appears that Florida has decided that if you enter a home illegally than by definition you are there to do bodily harm and deadly force is permissable.

 

And I think that is completely reasonable. If you are audacious enough to enter someone's home when they are in the residence, it is logical that you are prepared for an encounter with said residents. The vast majority of burglaries occur when the occupants of the residence are not at home. It's just easier for the burglar that way. Like I said, one can only assume evil intent if they're willing to take the risk of an encounter in burglarizing a residence.

 

Taluntain:

That is exactly what i think, too.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=336310&in_page_id=1770

 

This is under the existing guidelines, and will include Tony Martin (Shooting someone in the back with an unlicensed shot-gun) and a case I read about where someone tied up the burglar, threw him in a pit and set light to him.

Hardly a call for the law to be re-written.