In reference to this grisly home invasion in Connecticut, Chris Cuomo on GMA this morning said …"If you legally own a permitted gun you can shoot an intruder without having to prove you were fleeing…and now for the weather with Sam Champion. "
I do not remember the exact law, but it is the statute that says if someone breaks into your home and you are being threatened you can shoot said person. 19 U.S. states have a named law for this, but all 50 have a common law (?) that states you can shoot an intruder on your property if you are threatened. Not sure if it counts for permitted or unpermitted guns. I would think it does.
What do you think about this law in lieu of the home invasion story in CT.
I don’t think you can just shoot anyone willy-nilly. The rule is that it has to be in defense of you or your family, not in defense of your property, and it’s good if that is really obvious.
I’m not sure what you mean by “what do we all think”? Are you asking whether it should be legal to shoot an intruder in self-defense? I think so. It seems to me to be a pretty balanced law; you can’t just shoot anyone who shows up on your lawn, but in personal danger it seems a reasonable and sane thing to defend yourself. I’m not a recreational shooter myself, but it doesn’t seem like a bad thing to me.
The majority of people I know would argue with me, but I believe the law should allow a property owner to defend themselves when threatened – including the use of deadly force. There’re very few laws, IMHO, that are more dehumanizing than those that make it illegal to protect oneself.
Note that I’m making a broad generalization, and am specifically not commenting on gun control, defining “excessive force”, nor appropriate justification. This is IMHO, after all.
Who are you hanging around with? I can’t imagine anyone arguing with the right of self defense. What is someone supposed to do, lay back and think of England? Seriously, what alternatives do they mention?
Oy, this is going to degenerate into yet another gun control tread (hope I’m wrong…)
Iirc, this is called the castle doctrine, as in a person’s home is their castle, and it states that intent to do grievous / lethal harm can automatically be presumed if someone breaks into your house when you are there, thus justifying the immediate use of lethal force, without having to wait to see if the intruder is armed, whether he makes threatening statements, but, most importantly, without having to flee from your home. Many jurisdictions have a “duty to flee” clause that forces someone claiming self defense to prove that they either tried to run away or couldn’t before using lethal force. Castle laws mean you don’t have to flea from /in your own home. Now I do believe that this varies from state to state. Texas and Louisiana definitely have them.
That being said, this is just my recollection of what I have read in American sites, since I live in Canada.
As to what I think about such laws , well, all I can say is I sure wish we had them up here, but I think our whole country is pretty screwed up when it come to any laws dealing with self defense & weapons. Did you know that carrying a can of mace or a pair of nun-chucks here is equivalent to walking around with a fully automatic sub-machine gun? Yep, that’s right, they’re all prohibited weapons. Sorry about the mini-hijack / rant, there.
At any rate, we have a home invasion contingency plan in our house, just like we have one for fire, tornadoes, power outages etc. and it does involve firearms, lethal force if necessary, while trying to comply with all the laws as best we can, including demonstrating attempt to flee, avoiding confrontation, etc. etc. I do think that castle laws have value in lessening the extent to which honest citizens defending their families are crinminalized, and do have some deterrent value, if firearm ownership is even a little bit common. But that’s just my opinion…
This subject comes up fairly often here on the boards and the laws are all over the place among the states. My home state of Louisiana gives property owners the most broad rights of self-defense in the states and deadly force is even allowed for some property crimes. In Louisiana, you are allowed to use deadly force almost automatically against someone breaking into your home or refusing to flee your property on demand. There was a famous but unfortunate case a number of years ago where a homeowner shot and killed a Japanese exchange student who got lost and wouldn’t respond to demands to turn back. He was charged but acquitted. More clear-cut cases don’t even result in a charge which is the rel benefit to those that have to exercise this right. Other states may not sentence a person under these conditions but the process may be much longer.
I believe the term you’re looking for is “Castle Doctrine”. As it was explained to me in my self-defense/gun permit class in Massachusetts - you cannot legally use lethal force against an attacker if you have the option to retreat. So if someone tries to mug you with a knife, but is 10 feet away and has a limp and you can run the other way, then shooting that person is not considered self-defense.
However, if you are in your own home, you no longer have a duty to retreat. You can legally use lethal force against an attacker if you believe yourself (or others) to be in danger of life or limb, even if you could retreat from the situation.
The state I reside in, Missouri, just passed a Castle Doctrine law. It takes effect on August 28th.
In addition to not having to attempt to flee your home, it states that you don’t need to flee from anyplace you have a legal right to be. That covers stores, parks, streets etc. It protects you from criminal as well as civil charges that might be brought based on the fact that you didn’t flee.
Well, mostly I keep to myself, especially having just moved to WA a few months ago (and my wife is about all the social company I want). I should point out that much of my response is specifically due to guns, not self-defense. Many people I know are pretty hard-line on the gun control front, and the thought of actually keeping a gun in their house kinda freaks them out. Although I’m quite positive that guns are more prevalent here in WA than other places I’ve lived (excluding TX, I suppose).
Oh, and the alternative is usually…well, there usually isn’t one. Wait for the police, that’s their job, I guess. Hard to say if they even get beyond “guns scary!”. (Just a wee bit of hyperbole there; most often there’s a large element of kids in the house and/or unfamiliarity with guns that colors their view.)
Funny that you mention England, even in jest. Made me think of a couple of news items (some months old, and I forget the details) that are linked in my head, one dealing with crime stats in England and another with gun use for self-defense here in the states. IIRC, and there’s a fair chance that I don’t, there was an upsurge of violent (gun-related) crime in England recently, and citizens were at a huge disadvantage, as gun control is pretty strict (y’know, “outlaw guns and only criminals will have them”). The item from the states concerned the question of justification; the home owner was being sued by a burglar for, y’know, protecting themselves. It just made me ponder the gun control question (and reinforce some of my opinions), that’s all.
There ya go. The news item to which I referred in my previous post must’ve been about a “duty to flee” state. Strikes me as being absolutely bizarre and, as I said, dehumanizing. But that’s just MHO and I have no desire to egg this thread into GD territory.
Yeah, I understand. I have a few friends that are from the UK and they have similar attitudes. One guy in his 60s has never even fired a gun. I haven’t met many Americans like that but they’re obviously around. I dunno, I worked my way through high-school as a gunsmith and when I bump into someone that has never even fired a gun it is weird. We just talk past each other.
I wonder how many people that don’t like guns/home defense have ever given the subject much thought. Police are great and I’d surely use them if they were around but I don’t see the kind of guys the OP mentioned allowing me to make phone calls.
This happened in Baton Rouge, LA while I was attending LSU.
For those curious about the case, look up the student, Yoshihiro Hattori on Wikipedia. Homeowner Rodney Peairs was acquitted for the 1992 killing. For better or for worse, there was little to no outcry about the acquital among local residents. There was a definite feeling of “unfortunate, but it is as it should be”.
Sorry. To get back to the question you asked; I’m personally all for it. I feel sorry for that doctor and his wife and children and wish he’d had access to a gun when he needed it.
So what you wrote means “what do you think about using this law to replace the news story about the home invasion?”
You’re probably looking for “in light of,” which means “now that you’ve read x, has the light it shed changed your opinion?” Well, for the record, I think it’s a terrible substitution. People will have no idea what you’re on about.
I’ve been seeing this error a lot these days. Sorry you’re the person I jumped on for it.
It’s probably for the best that Grammar Nazis seldom carry guns.
Back in the late eighties when I lived in Oklahoma. Someone tried to break into our house. They broke a window and was halfway crawling in when my dad came out with his shotgun and yelled at the guy, “I will shoot you in 3 seconds.” and the guy ran away.
When the police showed up they explained that for my dad to be completely legal to shoot the guy he would have to be all the way in the house. If he was just snooping around the property or just stuck his head in through an open window then my dad would have to prove that the guy was threatening grave injury for it to be clean and legal.
Personally I am for shooting anyone who breaks into your house even if they are just going to steal that nifty lamp they saw through a window because even if the intruder does not plan on hurting anyone they could get scared and accidentally shoot someone in the house.
