“Here” is where? 
No, here in my jurisdiction at least you can totally kill the hell of out anybody who has broken into your house. I’ve actually been told by a police officer that if I do ever shoot an intruder coming in the window, I should drag him all the way in the house before I call the cops.
Totally kill the hell out of?
Rumor had it that one must drag him inside in the Little Rock police jurisdiction; Leave him on the sidewalk in North Little Rock, and the Saline County deputies would drag him into the house for you.
People with holes in them tend to bleed rather profusely and leave behind all sorts of evidence. You’re better off leaving them outside the window as dragging them inside will make it appear as though you’re trying to cover up a crime.
Marc
Well, I didn’t say I’d do it, just that I was surprised to hear it from a cop.
And yeah, kill the hell out of. What do you want to do, kill 'em halfway? Don’t you have any sticktoitiveness?
Britains at least used to have the same sanctity of property attitude as Americans; it’s just that it used to be pretty much only the upper class that owned land. Remember the cliche’ of the lord of the manor siccing the hounds on some hapless person, or the gamekeeper putting out leg traps against poachers? My WAG would be that in Britain violent defense of property is associated in the common mind with upper-class elitism. And while privately dealing out violence against thieves may not have been approved of, state violence used to be pretty common. IIRC, as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century you could end up hanged for petty theft.
It’s just that “kill” is kind of sort of unique.
Totally agree 100%. Even if the victim isn’t handicapped. If someone chooses to break into your home, that person has made a conscious decision to commit suicide with the possibility that they may not come out of the property alive. Whether the law protects them or not. It really comes down to “them or me”. And victims shouldn’t be at fault, nor should they be required by law to be in a position to determine whether someone is there just to take their stuff, or take their stuff and kill the victim. There’s no quick and precise way to know the intent of a robber, and the law shouldn’t require that I figure that out. The robber is the one who made the decision to breaking and entering, not me. You do it, and you may potentially die. Sorry.
There is the theory that if the miscreant were intelligent enough to figure that out, he would have a job.
I agree. What is the law in Illinois? Do area with more crime have stiffer laws about defending yourself, or is that just regionalism rearing its ugly head on my part?
At least here in Finland the limit’s of one’s personal property don’t go far and even then are vague. “Everyman’s rights” allow anybody to walk anywhere (on private and public land, excl. industrial and army grounds), no matter whose property you tread upon. The rights include overnight camping, &, hook-and-line fishing, picking berries and mushrooms, and there’s nothing a landowner can do to prevent people from doing just that. Only the immediate yard around one’s house is off limits.
Any kind of deadly force upon “intruders” would be met with prompt homicide charges. Even if someone broke to your house and took off with your personal valuables, you would not have the right to bodily harm the intruder. The level of humanity evident in Finnish law irks many, as you would need to be under immediate armed attack, with imminent fear of losing your life, to be able to use force without a good chance of heavy penalty for you and a hefty compensation for the attacker.
At any rate, the lack of Finnish trespassing laws is a blessing for a landless naturalist like myself.
I think this is a really, really important thing to bring up, because it’s not something I’ve ever thought about and I doubt anyone else does either. But when it comes to the right to self-defense, we really do need to take into consideration that some people don’t have the option of fleeing. Notwithstanding the fact that anyone who would take advantage of a handicapped person, I honestly believe does not deserve to live at all, and should be eliminated from society, promptly and permanently, it’s just common sense that someone in a wheelchair or some other form of handicap needs to be able to protect themselves in the occasion that some scumbag would try to harm them.
I don’t think garius was trying to generalise about attitudes within the US. It was the OP who was stretching credulity by trying to throw a blanket over the entirety of Europe, as if it were possible for an attitude to anything to be consistent across the entirety of that continent. Yes, that’s right - Europe is not a country.
It has been awhile since I have been in school so excuse me if I am showing any ignorance with this question.
Where exactly is 'Taint of creation '?
In the state of New Mexico the law goes something like this ‘unless a person is in fear if their life ,deadly force is not to be used’. If I shoot someone that has his arms full of my personal property then I have some explaining to do when the cops get here. Now if I shoot someone coming at me or a member of my family then I would have a different story for the cops.
I find it very hard to believe that if a European man woke up in the middle of the night to thieves breaking into his home where his family is sleeping that this European man would react much different than an American man would if he woke up to a break in happening in his home.
Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Nearly any suburban home you see here will have an enclosed backyard and most will also have an enclosed frontyard too.
Well, in the vast majority of the cases, this European would not have a gun, though, so even if the initial reaction was to use deadly force, an American would be likely to have a decisive advantage over the European, because the European would probably have nothing at hand to kill an intruder with.
Now don’t tell this to any local burglars, but if some burglar (one who mistakenly thinks there’s anything worth stealing in my house) broke into my house, I’d maybe try and grab a kitchen knife and tell them to get lost, threatening to give them a new asshole or so, hoping that that might work, but I can imagine that I wouldn’t really know what to do if it didn’t.
Part of the point is that a lot of european homeowners don’t have guns handy when someone breaks in.
If you want a gun, it’s not impossible to get one most places, but you have to be prepared to spend a year or so in classes and jumping through hoops to get one.
And guns must be stored in a locked gun-cabinet and amunition stored seperately.
You can’t store a loaded handgun in your dresser waiting for some bad guy to use it on. If you do, and end up shooting a burgler, you will be adrift shit creek.
If you wake up, and there is a burgler in the house, you’re supposed to lock yourself in the room you are in, and call the police. Just because someone is stealing your stuff, it does not mean that your life is in danger. Now, if the room you happened to lock yourself in is the one with your gun-cabinet, and the burglar tries to break the door down, then it is reasonable to asume that he wants to hurt you spesifically - fire at will (Although, if there is time, you are supposed to warn him that you have a gun and will use it.)
If none of this is not possible (no lock, no phone, children sleeping downstairs) then all of that changes. The point is that using deadly force should be the absolute last resort. If it is shown later that you had many reasonable alternatives, then your “self-defence” may not fly.
Last year, a norwegian semi-celebrity fell afoul of this. He heard a noise in the kitchen, and decided to shoot a hole in the wall with the military issue automatic rifle he just happened to have lying around. Result: his neighbour now has a very shell-shocked cat, he was given a hefty fine, he will never again be legally alowed to own a gun, and his entire gun-collection (fifty or so pieces, many of them valuable) confiscated.
I think it’s important that the threat that you may get shot when breaking into someone’s house exists. The castle doctrine.
In Colorado, it is coined the ‘Make My Day’ law. In effect, the act of breaking into a house is enough to warrant deadly force. In other words, the act of forcing your way into someone home is considered to be a threat to the person/s living there.
I agree. I don’t agree that you should be able to shoot someone that is trying to escape. But it’s a fine line.
Really, what is a person to do? I live far from police protection, should I allow some random person to just walk in my house and start taking my stuff?
As a side note, I live in a valley where I suspect everyone has at the least a hunting rifle. Lived here for 16 years. About 75 homes. I have never heard of a ‘hot’ burglary here. You would be risking your life for sure.
I live 15 miles from the closest town which is in the next county, and over 65 miles from the county sherrifs department in my county . And just under a mile from the closest neighbor and yes I do own firearms, 2 that are hand guns and yes I have run some idiots off my property with a hand gun in my hand. It was a car with 4 drunk men and I stopped them from getting out of the car . I have never had to confront some one that is breaking into my home , so I’ve not had to make the decision about defending my life or that of my family, thank goodness.
Wow. There’s not a single person in the Netherlands who could say the same.
How likely would this be though? Do people REALLY hold on to their firearms when they’ve just received a bullet wound? Wouldn’t a fully proficient firearms user be able to put a bullet where he wanted, bearing the distances in mind if someone was breaking into your property?