Great thread…Surprising to see just how many people sleep in arms reach of guns, heh. Remind me not to switch to a life of crime anytime soon…
If I’m alone and the person is just walking around in another room, they can have what they want and I’ll just hide in my room somewhere until they’re gone. If I had a wife/kids though, it’d be much different.
Even if the odds say that 99% of the time, the guy breaking in isn’t going to shoot you in the legs and make you watch him shoot your kids through the head and rape/kill your wife, there’s that 1%, and I’m not going to let that 1% be me.
You break into my place and you’re going to get hurt. I don’t like guns (and would probably find some way to shoot myself, I’m sure), but I’d keep some knives handy.
It would be nice to be able to shoot the guy from afar, but I think about the stray bullets too much. There was a story on a the news a few months ago where some people were goofing around with a gun in their apartment and it went off and shot through the wall hitting the guy in the next apartment who was just laying on the couch watching TV. That’s a scary thought, heh…I’m not saying guns are bad or anything (kids can play with a TV or something and knock it down onto their heads…it doesn’t mean TVs are bad), so don’t jump me. I’m just saying I don’t trust myself to be that good a shot with one, heh.
If I had to confront the guy for whatever reason and he was sneaking around the place in the dark, I wonder if putting on a pair of shades and then flipping the lightswitch on would give a few seconds to jump the guy. It works in the movies so CLEARLY it should work in real life (heheh)…
I don’t think these questions are important. From a moral and legal standpoint either it is deadly force or it isn’t. There’s no such thing as mostly deadly force or less deadly force. Maybe you have some objects that are more effective then others but stabbing someone with a knife is deadly force just as much as using a .45 auto.
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I don’t weigh any of the above considerations because they don’t matter. If I were using deadly force it would be in defense of life or property. My only goal is the protection of life and or the prevention of property theft or destruction. My goal is not to kill, maim, or otherwise cause harm to the other guy. Though I acknowledge that in pursuit of my goal that the other guy can be killed, maimed, or otherwise hurt.
I think we do need to have laws set which outline when deadly force, or force for that matter, can and cannot be used. From a legal stand point it isn’t something that should be decided on a case by case basis. From a moral point of view you need some sort of general principle to be able to apply it to a specific situation.
When it comes to a homeowner shooting an intruder I’m much more inclined to give him or her the benefit of the doubt. People can do strange and unexpected things when frightened. If someone breaks into my home you can’t expect me to act with the same detached reflection as we do during our discussion.
Marc
I have often wondered what I would do in such a situation. It is interesting to ask people what they would do. They will often say something like, “I’d grab a knife.” And you say, “Where are the knives? Which knife do you grab out of the block? How do you anticipate using it? Etc.” (And apologies drop, but knife fighting definitely is NOT easy.)
I do not have a gun in my house. But I have a collection of sticks and several Spydercos in my gear bag in my bedroom closet.
Here’s my plan. I’d appreciate your comments.
I live in a 2 story house, all bedrooms on the 2d floor. The 2d floor landing is not open to the downstairs except through a doorway sized opening. If I were upstairs alone and heard someone downstairs, I would first call the cops from the bedside phone. Second, turn on the light switch right outside my door which lights up the upstairs hall and stairs and shout out that I had called the cops. Third, go back in my room, lock the solid wood door, slide Ms. D’s huge oak dresser in front of the inward-opening door, and cower on the other side of the dresser waiting for the cavalry.
If my wife and 3 kids were in the house, I would probably do steps one and two, and would probably take a position on the side of the stairway opening in the upstairs hall with a stick in one hand and a knife in the other. Or if I thought I could get away with it, I might try to get my family to cower in one room as in response #1, but I don’t see moving 3 sleepy kids quickly and quietly in the dark. If anyone came up the stairs, they’d better be prepared for a battle, and their position on the stairs would not be to their advantage.
And I wonder how Daisy the golden retreiver would react if she realized I were scared sh_tless in the middle of the night. I don’t really see her launching herself at an intruder, but she could surprise me.
Not a perfect solution, but the best I can come up with. What do you guys think?
Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, I don’t see any way to divine an effective moral principle for the question you posed. If you’ve got one, I’d like to hear it.
You say that your only goals in this situation would be the protection of your property or the safety of those in the house. In the first place, I don’t think that you can lump those two together in all cases. What you are permitted to do (ethically) to save your television is not the same as what you are permitted to do to save your life. Second, your only ultimate goals may be the protection of life and property, but in the process of said protection you do have proximate goals (to call the police, to debilitate the intruder, etc.). Unless you believe that all things are allowed in the pursuit of your ultimate goals, then you must consider the ethics of the specific actions that you take to achieve them.
No, not all “deadly force” is the same. Under the definition you provided (IIRC), both a baseball bat to the gut and a gunshot to the head can legally be considered deadly force. Realistically (and ethically) there is a world of difference.
Well I can’t really give any answers to questions I didn’t pose.
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Of course I can’t. In my sentence I used the words and/or becaues they don’t always go hand in hand.
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I think that using deadly force to stop a robber from stealing your television is perfectly ethical.
**
My ultimate goal in regards to deadly force was protection of life and or property. I was simply making the point that the use of deadly force wasn’t for the purpose of killing. That using deadly force wasn’t a death sentence.
Realistically and ethically I see no difference. You can do just as much harm to my body with a baseball bat as you can with a gun. You can break ribs, puncture lungs, or rupture various vital organs. I’m going by the state of Texas definition of deadly force. Under that definition a baseball bat certainly fits the bill.
Varlos: The flaw in your logic is pretty straightforward.
This is an assumption unsupported by the provided facts. Therefore, if you use it to attempt to draw a conclusion you are not drawing a logical conclusion. A logical conclusion can only be drawn from an axiom (which this is certainly not) or a fact.
Fact: Of the burglaries where the burglar encounter an occupant of the home, 1/3 of them result in an assault or rape.
Fact: 2/3 do not result in an assault or rape.
Conclusion: Of the burglaries where an assault or rape did not take place the burglar did not intend to commit an assault or rape.
Disproof by counter-example #1: Burglar encounters an occupant and flees. This example matches the result, a burglary with no assault or rape. Since the provided data does not indicate how many of these make up the 2/3’s portion no conclusion can be drawn on the burglars intent.
Disproof by counter-example #2: Burglary statistics from the Bureau of Justice includes “forcible entry, unlawful entry where no force is used, and attempted forcible entry”. Since it is possible for an attempted forcible entry to also include an encounter with an occupant (e.g. attempting to pop the window and an occupant spots the burglar). If such is the case, no conclusion can be drawn about the intent of such a burglar. Since there is no indication as to what percentage the 2/3’s portion above includes of attempted forcible entry, no conclusion can be drawn as to intent.
The problem is that your data provides no indication of the criminals intent. Attempting to draw a conclusion from it without inputting your own assumptions is flawed. Since you are inputting your own assumption your conclusion becomes your opinion.
Furthermore, there are errors in your assumption. In police work, we call the assault or rape (especially assault), a “crime of secondary intent” or “a crime on convenience”. It is true that many burglars enter into the burglary with no initial intent to assault as a matter of conducting business, but it is also true a high percentage enter into the burglary with the intent that if if an occupant were to get in their way, intentially or otherwise, they would hurt them to accomplish their goals (read just about any good book on criminology or the criminal mind. I have provided numerous lists in other threads).
Your intent argument simply doesn’t hold water. It does match with the current knowledge of criminology, and cannot be logically deduced from provided data.
Another assumption unsupported by fact but correct (depending on what you mean by confronting).
If somebody hears a mysterious noise or what have you, they move to investigate it if for no more reason than peace of mind (they assume it is nothing and wish to confirm it). This accounts for a large percentage of the encounters. Personally, I wouldn’t call it confronting since it is often happenstance (which is why the assault are often called “crimes of secondary intent”, i.e. the bring the secondary intent of the criminal into play). The fact is (read “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin DeBecker) that most people attempt to cover up any fears they have by assuming the best, i.e. that it is nothing. They ignore any instinctive signs, and override them with reason and wishful thinking. The number of people who initially actually seek out the intruder knowing that it is an intruder is relatively small (despite the posts here, which we have to remember are not being made under the conditions of reality). Note, that this does not contradict my earlier post that men often decide to attack the criminal with a vengeful attitude (“make 'em pay”), but rather until they actually encounter the burglar such thoughts aren’t really on their mind (more along the lines of “Stupid wife, making me lose sleep checking out the wind”). Other crimes illicit different reactions (criminology is a big field after all).
But it does not dismiss the significant percentage of cases, especially with rape, where the burglar intends and move to attack the occupants.
The bottomline is simply this. You typically have no way of measuring any criminal’s intent (yes, there are signs but you really have to be well versed to spot them and need to be calm, not likely under adrenal stress), be it a burglar or otherwise. So, if escape is impossible or unlikely, the best course of action is usually to resist, which usually means attacking/counterattacking.
Unbolded italic added by me, and I presume implied but I simply wish to make it crystal clear. The bolded section being important and bolded italic being critically important. I would agree with this.
I would also point out that this really would also be a crime for the most part, although largely unprovable unless the homeowner decides to boast to the police and ADA that this is what he did.
Dinsdale: Not too bad, certainly better then seeking the burglar out but IMO there are a couple of problems.
You do not try to escape. I know, your on the second floor and all. But consider this, what would you do if the entire 1st floor of your house was on fire? A burglar in the house needs to be treated with a similar level of urgency. Consider getting a rope ladder to be used in case of a need to escape a fire. It also doubles as an escape from a 2nd story window in case of burglar.
Also remember that a fall from a hang jump position from the second floor is very unlikely to result in serious injury. Although it isn’t impossible you could be killed (it does happen) it is pretty vanishingly small. The most likely serious injury, which is still unlikely, is a broken leg.
You reveal your position, and that you are awake. You are forcing his hand. Where he may have been content to “quietly” pilfer your goods he know has to decide if he want to neutralize you or not. There is a chance, even when threatened with a police presence (although granted that does help decrease the chance) that he will move to neutralize his biggest threat. You. In any event, the threat of police intervention is sadly not a guarentee that the burglar will flee. Personally, I would suggest using this at the time of contact as a last ditch attempt, since it may give him second thoughts. At a minimum, if he defeats you it may make him think twice about remaining long enough to finish you off or attack your family.
I didn’t really mention this in my first post, but be prepared for the phones to be disabled. This only heightens the importance of getting somebody out of the house to get help. If help is not coming you are taking a very heavy risk, and frankly an unwarranted one. If you really just cannot leave your kids and they really just cannot escape with you at least get your wife out the window by rope ladder, or hang jump to call for help. So make that two points for escape. Keep in mind that if you do remain behind there is a chance that your kids may get to witness your untimely death, whereas with you out of the house it is unlikely that they will harm your kids.
Although this may seem obvious, if the phones are disabled do not tell the burglar you “called” the police. Instead claim that a silent alarm has been tripped and the police are coming. He may not know if you have an alarm system or not, where as obviously if he disabled the phone he know you didn’t call. Unfortunately, their are documented cases of a victim doing just this. Here comes that phrase again, but under adrenal stress you don’t think right. Telling the burglar he called the police was simply the only thing he could think of.
Boy, you folks have some pretty TOGETHER crackheads in your neighborhoods, if they think far enough ahead to disable phones! Aren’t we starting to verge on the paranoid here? I mean, the likelihood that YOU will be attacked by some fully-conscious and prepared movie-type murderer are so vanishingly small as to make keeping a pistol handy to shoot him almost as silly as keeping it handy to shoot aliens or UN soldiers in black helicopters!
Simple precautions are what prevent break-ins and attacks. Look like you are aware of your surroundings when you are outside. The things that professional burglars say OVER AND OVER will cause them to choose somebody else’s house are lights, a radio or TV, and a loud dog. Timers are cheap, or you can go to X-10 and set up your own paranoid’s orgasm of an automation and security system for PEANUTS! Heck, they sent me a coupon in my email (their emails get so persistent that I had to ask them to stop, but the deals are great and, no, I don’t get a kickback) for $20US off any order under $50US PLUS a free wireless motion detector with each item ordered. I got two heavy-duty switches and two motion detectors for seven bucks plus $5.90 shipping. If I had spent over $25 THE SHIPPING WOULD HAVE BEEN FREE! AND, with their other stuff, I can control most of my house WITH MY TV REMOTE!
Another absolutely FABULOUS place is smarthome.com. They have LOTS of fun security and automation stuff for cheap, including a TV remote/wristwatch. Or a cell phone that has a single button for calling the closest 911 (it searches for it by itself)–nobody’s cutting the wire to THAT.
(Sorry for getting so enthusiastic about this stuff, but after working all day setting up these sort of systems for billionaires, it’s nice to find stuff I can afford.)
Guns are real cool–I was distracted from a starlet’s red hair last night when she picked up the COOLEST sawed-off .30 semi-auto carbine (it looked sorta like a Browning rimfire .22, but the hole was too big)–but they are the WRONG thing to depend on for your safety.
I think that’s something else a lot of people are forgetting. Of all the times I’ve investigated strange sounds only one time did it end up being someone attempting to break into my home. And it isn’t like people are going to call 911 everytime they hear a strange noise. I wasn’t able to dial 911 until I sent them packing.
justwannano: Actually, I do have a cell phone. And I am glad you mentioned it. Sanford Strong calls the cell phone “your greatest self defense weapon”. It is useful for so much besides a response to crime too. For example, breaking down on the highway.
dropzone:
Nope. As a matter of self protection you should prepare yourself for the worst scenario that is still likely to happen. What is the ratio of good burglars (and most decent burglar knows how to disable security alarms and phones, and if you think they don’t your dreaming, see “Burglars: On the job” author unknown) to poor burglars? I really don’t know, but I do know that the number of burglars out there who can and will disable to phones is NOT insignifcant, therefore it is wise to prepare for that eventuality. If it doens’t happen great, but if it does and you are not prepared you are set back tremendously.
And here is where you are dead wrong. Criminals are generally very prepared both mentally and technically. They understand their trade just like everybody else and this is especially true for skill crimes. Conmen and burglars being good examples. There is no doubt that people would like to believe that criminals are these unprepared bozos, because to accept otherwise makes the world a scarier place (it is similar to the common reaction amongst most civilians that criminals are “monsters”).
True.
Source for this?
“The Truth About Self Protection” has some interesting tidbits about these tips.
Timers are generally ineffective because a skilled burglar will case the neighbourhood he plans to rob. It is not difficult for him to spot the houses that are on a timer (unless the timer is random). Many burglars case the area they plan to rob before they rob (again “Burglars: On the job” or “Burglars on Burglary”, this one is very hard to find).
A single dog is generally of no concern to a burglar as it is easily overcome. Most dogs won’t do much more than growl at the intruder, if even that. The problem is that your average house pet is just that a domesticated animal. Now an attack dog or guard dog (two different beasts, again read “The Truth About Self Protection”) are going to be much more effective, but the real truth is that attack dogs in particular can be very dangerous to the owners.
The untrained dog is easily drugged or poisoned, or even overcome with force. Or as one burglar put in an a felon survey “A dog never concerned me. One good smash to the top of the head with my flashlight and it was dead.” (paraphrased from an interview in the “The Truth About Self Protection”) Now multiple dogs is another story, although they can be still drugged or poisoned, thankfully most burglars don’t pursue this approach, and as the same burglar puts it “Now two dogs, especially those dobermens, that’s different. You might be able to beat one but the other one is going to get you.” (again paraphrased from “The Truth About Self Protection”).
Quietly wake up sweetie, then quietly call police.
Lay in wait, and beat the crap out of intruder if he comes into the room. Otherwise, wait for police.
And for those of you who favor the bat method of self defense, a few pointers: Take a martial arts class. Any weapon can harm you if you don’t know how to use it properly. Buy a nice, heavy, metal bat. Wood can break, and then you’ve got a crude stabbing weapon, which may or may not be useful. Don’t hold the bat as if you were swinging at a fastball. Your swing will be very wide and hard to control, your recovery time will suck and you
re likely to hit the wall or something. Instead, hold it with your off hand at the base and your main hand about a foot up. In other words, wield it like a staff or a bastard sword. You won’t have as much power, but your control will be much better. Aim for the attacker’s hands, especially if he is holding a weapon. He won’t be able to use it if his hand is broken. If you really feel it is necessary to kill him, a blow to the side of the head is likely to do more damage than a blow to the top.
Well ,if you are concerned about security ,the$20.00 or so a month for a cell phone sounds like a pretty good idea and would be one of my first purchases.
Actually there are two around here . Both my wife and son have their own. No I don’t know why.
PROFESSIONAL AND PREPARED burglars are rare, and are the ones LEAST LIKELY to enter your house while you are there. They don’t want to confront you any more than you want to confront them.
Well, I saw one on “Oprah”…
An argument for a programmable system, like from those sources I linked. However, the typical burglary in my neighborhood involves the guy going up to a house that looks unoccupied in broad daylight because fewer people are at home during the day and ringing the doorbell. If somebody answers or the dogs start barking they give some BS excuse and move on to another house. If nobody answers they kick in the door. No week-long casing, just looking for an empty driveway. No disabling alarms or phones like they were in “It Takes a Thief.” Nothing fancy at all, just a kick or two. This is how REAL “professional” thieves work. The confrontational ones you describe are mostly the product of Hollywood and the NRA’s imagination.
With the guys I describe, a growling dog is enough.
Basically, if you are as afraid of this situation as you seem, why don’t you move? My town’s a Virtual Mayberry as far as crime is concerned. If they tore down the mall to stop shoplifting, put better locks on the health club lockers to keep people from having their walets lifted while they work out, and legalized drunk driving there wouldn’t be anything to put in the weekly “Police Blotter.” And there’s EVEN LESS crime in Dinsdale’s town–they don’t have a mall or a health club. But they have more money there. If I were to break into houses I’d go to the next town west, where he lives.
Ooh! Ooh! I forgot to tell about our latest wave of burglaries!
Same MO: kick in the back door, steal beer and video games. Same neighborhood; based on all that, cops suspected teenagers living in the neighborhood. Yup; the cops were right. The kids did get relatively fancy: they waited until a friend of mine was walking her dog.
Our murders tend to people killed elsewhere and dumped here. One time a couple of off-duty Chicago cops beat our town drunk to death while they were serving somebody else (the kid wasn’t dsmart, but he was belligerant). Ticked me off that carpet baggers would come in and beat somebody to death–thet’s what we pay our OWN cops for!
How exactly do you know this? Do you keep surveillance on your neighborhood to see if burglars are casing places? Have you asked any of the burglars in your area?
I don’t live in a very bad neighborhood at all. I am a former professional security consultant (for 3 years full time, and for 4 more years part time), martial art & self protection instructor (for 18 years, 22 years as a martial artist). This sort of knowledge is my business, and instucting people about it used to be my business. It has nothing to do with any level of fear I may have about where I live, but nice try anyway to use a discrediting tactic as an argument. Unfortunately, for you even neglecting my own experience I can back up what I say with real sources (provided numerous times).
Professional, yes, quite right. Prepared, no, quite wrong.
You may not have noticed but this thread is about what to do if an intruder is in your house when you are there. Yes, the odds are small of this occuring compared to your home being robbed when you aren’t there. That doesn’t mean you don’t necessarily prepare for it especially when the cost can be very high if you don’t. Do you prepare for your house being on fire? I would hope so, but the odds of your home catching on fire isn’t all that great, so why bother?
I have never made the claim that there are many confrontational burglars, only that it is a principle of self protection to prepare for the worst possible scenario that you think is still likely (see my post above where I stated it equally as clearly). I am making the claim that burglars, like other criminals, are skilled and prepared in their profession. Some of them have a high degree professionalism (about 10% according to Massad Ayoob, for example, so I rescind my claim above to not know the percentage). Furthermore, my claim, backed by the study of criminology, is that those burglars who do enter the home with the occupants present are quite prepared to harm them should they get in their way (backed by studies of this by criminologists, see the books at the end).
Is it sufficient to warrant preparation? That is a decision for the individual, but to boldly claim that it is “vanishingly small” and equate it to keeping a gun to “shoot aliens” without supporting facts to back it up is wrong. Varlos has already presented a Bureau of Justice statistic that 13% of all burglaries result in an encounter with an occupant. The odds of any individual being raped is small, should people not prepare themselves for that if it is enough of a concern for them to warrant it (i.e. the cost of preparation outweighs the chance of it occuring)? The odds of being assaulted is small, should people not prepare themselves for that? The odds of being the victim of any violent crime is small, does that mean that people shouldn’t prepare for that? Should they stick their head in the sand, and not seek out some information on what a good course of action is in that enventuallity if they feel that it is worthwhile. With your mentality I don’t understand why you bought any safeguards for your home. The odds of you being the victim of a burglary is pretty damn small, so why bother?
What you are right about is that most burglaries occur against an empty home because the burglars aren’t unprepared crackheads! They are skilled and prepared in their profession (some more than others, see the paragraph below on alarms). The tactics you list are amongst the most common (although even in broad daylight many burglars prefer to pop a window or door). I never said that the skills or tactics involved were all that complicated. Disabling the phones is a pretty simple affair. Calling the house to see if anybody picks up the phone will not earn anybody a PhD, but it is something many burglars will do. Observing a neighborhood to get an idea of the comings and goings of people is not a difficult task, but is something that burglars do. Ringing the doorbell (as you mention) is not a difficult task, but on the other hand it is not the action of an unthinking crackhead. It is the action of somebody who knows what they are doing, what they want to do and how to pull it off. Also, just because a burglar doesn’t take sophisticated action to enter your home doesn’t mean that he isn’t prepared to handle any safeguards that are in your home, like your pet pooch. It also doesn’t mean that they will be thrown off by a television being on (if they really want in they won’t, they’ll just call the house and see if anybody answers as above), or a timer. Most safeguards are easily thwarted with easy to perform skills, only the quality alarm system provides some bar that is difficult to overcome for the average burglar (see the paragraph below on alarms).
You keep mentioning Hollywood. I am not talking about Hollywood-like criminals and never made any reference that would imply any kind of Hollywood-like criminal unless of course you insist on assuming that the kind of actions taken by professional burglars that are willing to enter your home when you are there, which is the sort of burglar we are talking about in this thread, requires some Hollywood criminal type abilities. Once again, the percentage of these sorts of burglaries is small (at least 13% again), but not vanishingly small, and not on the order of being harassed by aliens.
Now as to alarms. The high majority of burglars do not know how to disable alarm (according to Massad Ayoob about 10% do). So, the good news is that if you have an alarm and make it noticeable that you have one you can probably scare away a large portion of would be burglars with that alone. So, you may not have noticed but this thread is about an intruder being in your home when you **are[b/] there. If you are there you can be pretty sure the burglars knows it, and if he is willing to come into your house when you are there you can bet he is probably a professional (i.e. in this 10% bracket). Therefore, the burglar will use the skills of the trade, which includes disabling security systems and phones (the phones especially if he plans on neutralizing the occupants).
For the record, I have little advice on how to protect yourself and your family from a burglar who breaks into your home when you and your family are not there (and I am not quite sure why you would need it). Fortunately, this is the most common type of burglary, but it isn’t what we are discussing.
Here is a collection of my sources. Again, please provide a bona fide source for the facts that make up your argument (other than the “Oprah” show).
“Inside the Criminal Mind” by Stanton Samenow (great book)
“Malicious Intent” by Sean P. Mactire
“The Psychology of Criminal Conduct” by D.A. Andrews and James Bonta
“The Psychology of Crime” by Philip Feldman
“Burglars on the Job: Streetlife and Residential Breakins” by Richard T Wright, Scott H Decker (I found it this evening)
“Burglars on Burglary” by Richard Wright and Treveor Bennett (as above this is very hard to find, but great)
Obviously you’re not going to find it in law books if your jurisdiction hasn’t passed a law!
Well, I found “Home invasion” in California law. This makes it a specific crime.
(bolding mine)
California law defines a home invasion robbery as:
Home invasion is robbery in the first degree. The code also says that any type of robbery not mentioned in the code is considered second degree. Since I haven’t been able to find a mention of robbery of an unoccupied house, I’m assuming that is what is meant by breaking and entry.
The law doesn’t say specifically in one place, I had to look in code 213 and code 186.22, paragraph 4.
