Do Europeans have different attitudes than Americans about the sanctity of property?

In My Humble Opinion
121

I believe he was joking, and I was going to come back and acknowledge that in my post but I missed the edit window.

Still, I’ve heard people say that and similar things, in complete seriousness. I knew this one acquaintance, years ago, who got himself a Ph.D. in German literature, specializing in film criticism. He happened to be German as well, and was very fond of beer, as we all were. He used to say that Germany had 1000 years of beer history, and America had Prohibition. It struck me as particularly inane because German immigrants formed a big part of the population, especially in the U.S. Midwest, between 100 and 150 years ago. Before they came here they were actual Germans, and have as much claim on the 1000 years of brewing history as the ones who are still living there. And the same goes for all the Scandinavians, Netherlanders, and assorted Slavs that joined them.

Now from my perspective, it’s too bad that it was exactly those parts of the country that were the strongest voters in favor Prohibition, and I’ve never been able to reconcile that fact with the high concentration of second and third generation Americans whose ancestors had come from Germany.

122

If you can, look up a short essay by C. S. Lewis titled “Delinquents in the Snow” (I have it in the collection “God in the Dock”). Lewis worries (back in 1957) that if the British justice system doesn’t start doing something about crime, the middle class will eventually revolt in vigilantism. This either means that people have been complaining about the same thing for a very long time, or else Lewis was more prescient than most people realize.

123

I imagine Socrates complained about that as well as how the younger generation was acting.

124

While I’m not a European man with family in a house, but a single European Female living in an apt., I can tell you that the average person would react very differently to that standard “hear-noise-in-the-night-danger-to-life-shoot-to-defend” scenario that pro-gun advocates always love.

For starters, significantly less Germans live in houses than apartments.

Second, most burglariers happen during the day, when people are at work, not in the middle of the night. The burglars aren’t robbers, they don’t want to confront people, they want to make off with the stereo without meeting witnesses or trouble.

Thirdly, normal people sleep deeply enough not to hear noises from downstairs (and there is no downstairs, anyway.) So if anybody would break in during the night with intents other than robbery, the average European would wake up once the intruders are already inside the bedroom.

Fourthly, the average European doesn’t have a gun. We might find a heavy pan in the kitchen if we have the time, (which we don’t have if a noise wakes us up - and an alarm would drive the intruder away). We also don’t expect the intruder to be armed with guns. Maybe a knife.

Lastly, if we call the police, we expect them to come quickly.

In general, as some of the posters already said, we don’t find it acceptable to gun somebody down simply for coming into our house. If he’s making off with the stereo, he isn’t a low-life scum, but still a human being, and people are worth more than a stereo. We aren’t used to Wild West scenarios were armed people break in only for the fun of harming and killing people - it’s mostly peaceful over here.

125

No, I don’t think that’s the case. If you’d ask a 1 000 people on the street, “Do you find it ok to shoot an intruder into your house, regardless of the circumstances (to protect your property)?” and “Do you think defending any part of your property from robbery by killing somebody is acceptable?”, then, as the dopers posts here have already indicated, a certain portion of Americans would say “Yes, sure, no problem, okay, why not?” while the majority of Europeans would look at you and say “Are you crazy? Kill somebody for stealing? What are you, a bloodthirsty barbarian?” That’s the reaction, not because we don’t value our property - we dislike being stolen from, too - but because we value human life more than property, and we dislike classifying other people as worthless, ready to be killed (esp. because of our past we are wary of this attitude).

126

Not all of us. It is, after all illegal.:slight_smile:

127

Speak for yourself, pal. If it’s after dark, I can protect my property with deadly force. In the past two weeks, there have been 3 robbers in the Dallas/Fort Worth area killed in two robberies by homeowners who fought back, and no charges were pressed by the police.

From the Texas Penal Code:

CHAPTER 9. JUSTIFICATION EXCLUDING CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY

128

I stand corrected. In Arkansas, I must be in fear of my life, although an intruder in my home legally puts me in fear of my life.

Again, I am the Poster Child for fighting ignorance. :slight_smile:

129

I thought the Alabama law was funny on this:

So you can shoot him either if he’s a threat to your life, or if he’s committing arson. :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s not allowed to use deadly force on anyone stealing property other than that on your premises, though.

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

130

This is just the POW that is utterly incomprihensible to Europeans, by and large. Breaking into a house equals ending a human life? Here the sanctity of life goes way above material possessions, and you sure as hell don’t get to make the call who’s life is worth what. A burglar is a criminal and should be punished, but by death or even permanent disability? No way.

The reports (ULs?)of foreign exchange students shot to death in Texas because they “trespassed” someones property not knowing any better make us think the Euro way is a better way.

Practically speaking, the sanctity of life is deemed holy enough that you actually have to be in immediate, life-threatening situation (an axe speeding towards your face etc.) to be able to put a hole into an attacker and not get prosecuted afterwards. Better to live than to die, yeah. But in practise, better to run than to spend a couple years in prison, a couple dozen G’s in compensation for the family of the intruder, and receive a life-long stain of jailtime on your record.

131

ETA: After actually reading the thread, I realize the last sentence of my reply is out of place considering handicapped persons who can’t run for safety no matter how bad they wanted to. Still, I’d rather watch a burglar take off with my most valued possessions than risk ruining two lives (plus collaterals) by using deadly force on him. Even if acquitted, I’m not so sure taking a human life didn’t come back to haunt me bad as time goes by. So, firearms only when someone uses deadly force on me or my family (I actually have small-bore hunting arms at my city home - a rarity here).

Home intruders ending up harming people is such an astonishingly rare occurence here that it ends up in the national headlines even if no lives were lost. The crooks here seem to know that burglary is a petty crime while homicide isn’t.

132

Hopefully more related to the OP, Scandinavians do seem to have different attitudes about the sanctity of property especially when related to the outdoors.

They have a long national history of interacting with the wilderness - they are really “outdoorsy” people. In Sweden they pretty much bus school kids out into the countryside so they can experience nature. (Or so I’ve been told, it may just have been his school.)

Which makes it much more reasonable that you shouldn’t be able to deny where people go. The land belongs to everyone, and as long as there’s no harm people should be able to enjoy it.

Is someone that owns acre’s of land for cattle or whatever really hurt if someone else sleeps there?

And because I feel the need to defend my country, here is a home office summary of current laws on self-defence.

It’s really not as bad as people make out, and that’s from someone thats lived and grown up in some of the shittiest areas of East London/Essex

133

To me, this is utterly mind boggling and I can only hope that it represents a statistical anomaly so far off the charts you couldn’t see it with a set of high powered binoculars on a clear day. I’d be really curious to see the evidence he gave in court to prove that the other man was threatening him in his own home.

To the general topic, as has been stated here, I do have a different attitude to the sanctity of property, I value it lower than the sanctity of life. I’d rather help a burglar pack up my TV into it’s original box than shoot him/her. There is just no way that my stuff equals to a life.

Now if we’re talking about someone physically threatening you with harm, sure, use minimum force to make them stop.

134

Perhaps there is a happy medium.

I don’t know that I would be able to judge minimum force. Does he just want to hurt me so that he can leave, or does he want to kill a witness, or is he acting out of fear as I am? I’m large enough to restrain someone, or a good enough shot and judge of anatomy to disable him with a firearm.

135

I live in a rural mountain community in Colorado. 1 acre lots. Maybe 10 percent are developed. I have no full time neighbors. In fact I am the only person that lives full time on our road.

I have never heard of a ‘hot’ burglary/robbery near me. You’d have to be nuts to try it seeing that I would guess that at least 90% of those that live up here are armed in some way.

So, if someone where to break into my home while I was there, I have to consider that they are off balance, or they have specifically come to do me harm. Like I said, you be nuts to break into an occupied home around here.

136

I know :slight_smile: Just to show a point, but the principle stands.

Either of the last two options are certainly better than just killing someone although there are a number of posts in this thread that have suggested it was very unlikely that someone would be able to use a gun to incapacitate someone. It was either an all or nothing approach.

I mean, there is a quoted instance of a JP student being shot and killed for being on someone’s property…not even in their house! Even taking this as a statistical anomaly (which I am sure it is), how can there be a law that says you can start blasting when someone is just on your land? Fair enough if he’s walking down the garden path armed with a Terminator style minigun, but just for being on your land?

I think in the UK the armed police units even have to declare that they are armed since it is not the norm. It gives people a chance to think “oh shit, this isn’t a good idea” and give up. If I was at home and had a gun to hand to defend myself I’d start shouting my head off if I heard someone first, giving them chance to have a think about things, realise that I was armed and that they might well want to leave now…before I started shooting.

137

How many laws of that sort were written in the 19th century, an Owen Wister sort of thing? I would suggest that is the sort of thinking behind trespass laws in the United States. I remember seeing an ad from the 1920’s for Thompson submachine guns that showed a guy going after rustlers with one.

138

True, not like there aren’t enough damn odd European laws still kicking around from centuries past (and some damn odd ones developed recently!). But it does seem, when life and limb come into the equation, that it might be time to have a look at the fine print again :slight_smile:

139

I doubt if that many any out of 1,000 would approve the killing or shooting of an intruder under absolutely any circumstances. If the intruder is menacing your life or limb, or that of a family member, then obviously more would say using violence to defend you and yours is acceptable. I imagine that’s true in most places.

[Minor nitpick]
Your use of the word robbery is a little unclear. Native English speakers will use the words “rob” or “robbery” to mean any theft of property, in casual conversation, but strictly speaking this is incorrect. Robbery by definition does include violence or the threat of violence; a sneak thief or burglar might not be a robber. So whether the intruder is attempting to rob you, or only to burglarize you, would be a key factor in how acceptable a violent response is.
[MN]

With regard to the larger topic of property rights, and people’s perception of them, I think there may be significant differences between much of Europe including the UK, and the US. In much of Europe, property rights were once vested in a monarch, and those who acted functionally as property owners held their land in fief from the Crown–or from another landholder who himself held land as a royal fief. So nobody except the King actually owned land, and the King, and by extension the state, could theoretically withhold and extend to others, including the public, some of the rights that went with property, such as the right to pass over or enter land. In America, this wasn’t the case, and property owners have always owned property outright. Different proprietors are different as to how tolerant they are of those who casually enter their land, without ill intent, but the right of them to forbid entry to all has rarely been questioned.

With that said, I believe that there are cases when a property owner in America may not have complete rights of control. For instance, in some cases they may not enjoy mineral rights. Speaking of mineral rights, the legal term for revenue from an oil well on your property is ‘royalty’–I wonder if that had something to do originally with the rights of kings.

140

Here’s where your crowd and I disagree. You see, it’s not about the material possessions in the slightest, it’s about what a petty thief would do to get what he wants.

Someone breaking into a home equals unpredictability about MY own life and LOVED ones. I am really not that concerned with a thief’s future life status, but I am with mine. We’re talking about thieves that wouldn’t think for a second about stabbing you or me for said possessions, no matter the value of those possessions.

Do you get it now?