How about potentially dangerous car thief traps?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Breckinshire: Yes, they could and they would probably win. The attorney would try to show that you put the fish hooks their with the intent to “snare” a thief. That you intended to cause injury to another human being when your own was not in jeopardy.

It is similar to the notion that you shouldn’t carry a walking cane for self defense unless you really need one. Any competent attorney will show that you were carrying the can for one reason, to beat somebody with it regardless of whether it is in self defense or not.

Do I necessary like this legal aspect of self defense? No, not always. There are certain tools of self defense that I would love to recommend to my own students, but I can’t because it simply would put them in legal jeopardy. Sure, it is better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6, but anybody who thinks that the legal aftermath is a joking matter has some serious waking up to do (I do not mean this to apply to you Breckinshire). Under some circumstances you can also face criminal charges which again is no laughing matter at all.

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  • In response to the question about car thieves:*
    I consider car jackers and thieves as vermin. I’ve had to work real hard for years to get my ‘stuff’ and the couple of times my car was broken into, it filled me with an impotent rage for not being able to get the guy who did so much damage. One car had an alarm on it, but many people ignore car alarms going off because with some, if a bird lands on the thing, the alarm sounds. I was something like a block away and 11 stories high when it happened. Plus, the alarm had this timer on it – for neighbors – where it shrills for a few minutes and shuts off. I know people who have been terrorized and beaten by car jackers who never quite recovered from the incident and have no love for such criminals.

Keyring detonator I did not mean one to be kept on the keys, but you can get one the same size and carry it in your pocket.

Friends of mine in law enforcement have told me of the thriving business of car theft and how organized crime makes millions by shipping the stolen vehicles over seas. These same friends also explained to me how much money could be made by stripping a car and selling off the parts because the automobile industry likes to charge such hideous rates for replacements. The thief might only get like $400 for a $15,000 car, but the strippers can get something like $6,000 for the parts.

Many years ago, I scrimped and saved and bought myself a CB radio, when they were just getting popular and carefully installed it under the dash of my car. I did not have much money and did most of the work on my car myself and I was proud of it. When a thief entered the car, ripped the CB out and screwed up the electrical system under the dash as well as messed up the custom indicators and work I had put in there, I was furious and really upset. Had I been able to catch the thief then, I probably would have dented his head with a tire iron.

It means a whole lot more when you don’t have a bunch of money nor can afford adequate insurance to cover the theft of things from your car, when someone burglarizes or steals it. Besides, I never have liked the insurance replacement bit because, naturally, they’ll go by the blue book value of the car, which never covers the replacement cost.

That feeling has remained with me to this day, even though I am financially well off. I still consider thieves as vermin.

CAREFUL! We don’t want to learn from this!(Calvin and Hobbs)

23

Hijack.

In 1997, at the Chattacon science fiction convention in Chattanooga, Tennessee; a prank rebounded on the prankster.

He got large , steel cans. He bought labels from a commercial source. Radiation warning labels. Radioactive material labels. He affixed them to the can. He placed the can in a friend’s car. He called the cops, & left an anonymous warning about a “crazy man” with plutonium in his car. The cops turned up. Then the bomb squad. Then the Feds { :frowning: }. Then the military { BIG OOPS! }. The owner of the car was arrested & dragged away in handcuffs. The can was opened, & nothing but a pair of dirty socks were found. Fingerprints were taken, from the can.

Meanwhile, the prankster was bragging about his refined wit. For a while…

4 hours for the FBI to put it all together & find the goof. 2 years (suspended), & a $10,000 fine for the goof.

Don’t put vague, bomb-like things in your cars, children.

I was at this con, & saw the public part of the fuss.

“There is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove.”
Countess Olivia to Malvolio; William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Act 1, Scene 5.

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make sure that your trap wont leave enough of the thief to be identified as a human.

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Sure these ideas will stop a thief. Your wife in a hurry to get to work having a “out ot lunch” moment.
Bet you a dollar your teen won’t sneak the car out a second time.
Most of your ideas will keep the car in your possession. (after it is returned from the police impound)
Now repairing the damage is gonna cost you.

I work as a locksmith. I have heard quite a few ideas along those lines.

Is a Possession. let the bastards have it.

If you plan on doing any of this I shall keep an eye out for you winning a Dawrin award. Sooner or later you will forget it is there and Splat… Bye bye you.

Oh your from Wales?? Do you know a fella named Jonah?? He used to live in whales for a while.

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I got one of these ‘buy everything you need to start a war with’ catalogues in the mail some time ago and while perusing it’s lethal contents with some surprise, I came upon a little device one can make out of odds and ends.

It’s a tube that chambers a .12 gauge shotgun shell, which is mounted on a brace that has an adjustable screw clamp attached. You affix this little thing to a post or board in your home or carport. Behind the shell is an adjustable, small metal plate. Fixed in place by screw clamps. Through it runs a metal pin, with a spring attached. The pin runs through another metal plate fixed to the brace. It can be pulled back and locked in place with a cotter pin. A cord is attached to the cotter pin, run anywhere you want and fastened in place. The unwary burglar, trying to break into your garage, gains entry, walks through the gloom, kicks the camouflaged wire, pulls the pin and gets a .12 gauge blast in the upper torso.

The catalogue obligingly offers to sell you several nasty forms of shotgun loads ranging from incendiary, to flanchettes, to explosive tipped rounds, to razor metal loads and high powered ones. I was impressed. I also wondered just how many nuts actually bought those things.

The way I look at it, if some bugger breaks into your car, he should have to face the consequences. Even if you use rubber bullets or bean bag shot. I know it is far too costly, but it would be cool to have a car designed to trap and hold a thief, but you’d need shatter proof glass and that costs a fortune. (For a friend, I once looked up bullet proof glass and light armor for his car, consisting of Kevlar mats, and found the cost astronomical. Plus, the glass, once hit, shatters to a certain level, which means you have to replace it. Plus the doors have to be modified to take the thick glass – as well as all other windows and modified even more if you want to OPEN a window. He decided he really did not need it that much.)

It kind of gripes my butt that a car thief, when caught, might go to jail, but never has to pay for what he stole. I’ve had two regular thieves who stole from me caught, one never went to jail but took something like two years to pay me back the $60 value of a gun she stole – the purchase price – but replacing it cost me $100 because prices had gone up. Another guy who robbed me, went to jail, got out on parole and had to pay me back the $150 he stole, but only at $14 a month. He made 3 payments, was arrested again and thrown into the can and that was 4 years ago and I’ve not gotten a payment since.

Car thieves never have to repay anything. They do their time, get out and start stealing cars again.

CAREFUL! We don’t want to learn from this!(Calvin and Hobbs)

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What’s so bad about those devices that will only let the thief drive a couple of blocks before the engine kicks off? I believe devices like this are already on the market.

One other problem with some of the non-lethal methods is that your car could end up damaged and other motorists and pedestrians could be put in danger. Suppose the car thief is rolling down the street when the tear gas kicks in : “MY EYES! MY EYES!” CRASH

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Sentinel, judging from your last post, you’ve come to the rather mundane conclusion that Life Isn’t Fair. And you’re right–it isn’t. Never will be, either. I’ve been robbed twice. In both cases, the thieves were never caught, and in only one case did I have the stolen items insured. I continued to live, and eventually bought better stuff.

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Yep. Let’s make car theft a capital crime. We’ll make an example out of those teen joyriders by blowing their brains out if they touch our Hyndai. That’ll learn 'em.

Cecil, we need a dope slap on aisle 4.

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Phil’s back?

Phil’s back?

PHIL’S BACK!

Woohoo! Nice ta see ya back, Phil!

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I realized later, Sentinel, that I might have sounded a little glib or callous in my message above, and could’ve put it a little differently. What I should say is that, in recent years, and especially lately, I’ve discovered that you can spend all your time being angry and hostile and looking for revenge; or you can spend it trying to relax and get on with your life after the small tragedies. Believe me, I’ve been there and done that. If someone stole my car, I’d be crushed; but on the other hand, my wife and I lived for three years without one, and we coped.

I guess Elwood P. Dowd said it best: " . . . you can be oh-so-clever or oh-so-nice. For years I was clever. I prefer nice."

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I think we should make any infringement of our rights, however trivial, a capital offense. What’s more, any person should be able to execute an offender at his own discretion.

I mean, it fills me with impotent rage when some punk is playing his radio too loud in the bus. It’s ridiculous that I shouldn’t be able to just whip out my .45 and blow the creep away. That’ll teach inconsiderate punks to violate my rights.

And how about those morons that cut you off in traffic? A couple of front mounted machine guns would solve the problem simply and cleanly, and save the taxpayers the cost of a trial.

And those kids who are constantly cutting across my lawn and wearing down the grass! I work hard on that lawn. Some land mines and I guarantee you at least a couple of one-legged kids won’t be hobbling across my lawn on their crutches.

My rights are paramount. I have the right to defend them as I see fit. It’s intolerable that society places any limitation at all on my choices as to how to defend my rights.

For the ironically challenged, the above rant was entirely sarcastic.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

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Accepted.

I, however, have a different view after spending several decades of being ‘Mr. Nice’ and ‘understanding’ everything. I still consider myself nice, except that I now draw the line. Steal from me and while I’m quite sure you have a whole bunch of reasons for doing so going back to being played rock music while still in the womb to your current addiction to drugs, I don’t want to hear it. I will prosecute and I will track you down if I can and settle things my own way if the law can’t find you.

As I stated previously, once, for a long, long time, I had to struggle for everything I got, until I managed to become reasonably well off. What is mine, is MINE! Not yours. If I choose to give it to you, I will. If you choose to take it from me, then if at all possible I will hurt you.

I don’t care if you live in a ghetto, I don’t care if your daddy is a drunk, an addict and beats you up every day because that does not give you the right to steal my car. A car is a major life purchase. IF you jack my car and threaten me or my loved ones with a weapon, then if my car can seriously injure, maim or even kill your worthless ass, then so be it. I will gladly pay for the repairs to the interior to have your foul blood and tissues removed.

Waving a weapon in my face changes things to a whole other level. I don’t care if you are kid or adult, man or woman, White or Black, because pulling a weapon on me makes you lethal.

Currently I have a license to carry a gun and, on the drivers side is a holster attached to the seat and when I drive, my gun is in there and loaded with some of those ‘special’ rounds I’ve mentioned before. Since I’m not married and have no children, I don’t worry about anyone I care about getting hurt with it. When I leave the car, the gun goes into my concealed body holster.

CAREFUL! We don’t want to learn from this!(Calvin and Hobbs)

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Sentinel, no one is arguing against your right to defend yourself against someone who poses an imminent threat to your life. No one is arguing that thieves are just poor misunderstood people who deserve caring and compassion. We’re just arguing that you can’t just kill someone who is violating your property rights.

We have a procedure for dealing with thieves. We prove that they did what they’re accused of, and they go to prison. Even a humane, well-run prison is not a nice place to be.

{sarcasm} I didn’t struggle for what I have, I was handed everything on a silver platter. {/sarcasm} :rolleyes: I had to work for everything I have as well. But that doesn’t mean I can kill anyone I think is trying to steal it. Of course, if someone does threaten my life I will take whatever measures are necessary, including lethal force if available, to protect it.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

35

Accepted.

I did not state that people who steal various, small items and things should be dealt with by extreme violence. Shooting the neighbor for stealing your paper is a bit harsh.

I was dealing with cars – a major life purchase. Mainly with jackers, though I would not have any big problem with installing a potentially harmful trap for anyone trying to steal my car, including joy riders.

This bit of stealing a car and just driving around with it, to abandon it later somewhere else for other thieves to find is not a harmless crime.

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What SingleDad said. And:

You might get that problem resolved as well. Just try spending a little less time making your car look like a frigging A-Team van, and a little more in places where there are women, such as, I dunno, bars and such.

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Well, I couldn’t find a link, and I’m tired of searching. About a year ago or so, I saw a new product out there that I kind of liked. It was like The Club, but it had some kind of Tazer in it. Zap the hell out of anyone without the key. Seems like a pretty good deterant to me.

I had writen a whole long piece about the lack of concequences in our society, but then deleted it. It’s not worth arguing about.

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You should have. I used to be a Scout Master years ago and loved it, but, thanks to today’s kids and their sue happy folks along with lack of any form of physical discipline, I would not be one today. Back then, if the kids did not listen to me, I could, within reason, grab them by the arm and force them to sit tight and call their folks, who would arrive and side with me and give the kid hell later at home.

Touch the little buggers today and you get the Children’s Rights groups on your ass, the kid yells molestation and Mom and dad file charges plus a suite, the papers blow everything out of proportion and ruin your name and when you convince everyone you’re innocent, it’s cost you a ton of money and there will still be people out there convinced you’re a pervert.

No wonder the little buggers steal cars for joyrides and such.

I attended a Scout Camporee a few years back to tell them all ghost stories. There were like 500 kids there along with adults. It used to be that a respectful quiet was observed when a Storyteller stood up to speak, because, like myself, he had been in scouts and a Scout Master of considerable respect and skill, but not this time. Many of the kids were rude, they did not listen to their adult quides when told to quiet down and some just got up and walked out.

I have not since returned to even tell stories.

CAREFUL! We don’t want to learn from this!(Calvin and Hobbs)

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First off, welcome back. I thought we were never going to get the chance to publicly butt heads again! :wink:

The quoted portion above is where I disagree with you. Those of us who do behave civilly sometimes get too carried away patting ourselves on the back and too self-congratulatory on how civilized we have become. We need to remember that in order to remain a civilized society we need stiff penalties for those few who feel they are above the restrictions. Otherwise we end up with a number of wolves in a society of sheep; people who reason – correctly – that the society is so civilized that they will get a slap on the wrist for their crimes, or more likely, not even get caught. The more civilized a society becomes, it needs to maintain penalties that are MORE severe, not less, in order to maintain that civility.

I agree with sentinel. If the law won’t protect us (it won’t. the supreme court has already ruled that police are not obligated to protect anybody, only to enforce laws. I already cited it in one of the gun control debates a couple months ago, so I’m not going to look it up again), we are obligated to protect ourselves. Granted, exploding cars and lethal traps are going too far (Glitch is right…eventually you’ll forget and be your own victim), but thieves need to be convinced that the cost is greater than the benefit.

I’d like to go back to the days of thieves losing a hand for each of the first 2 offenses, then public execution. If a person is still a thief even after having both hands cut off, he is obviously beyond help and needs to be removed.

I also favor public floggings. The romans and persians had the right idea. If I drove into a town and saw bodies hanging on a row of crosses with signs that said “He dealt drugs”, “He stole cars at gunpoint”, “He raped children”, then I most definitely would take care to walk the line while I was inside its borders.

If I’m not mistaken, carjacking is a capital offense anyway, so lethal force should be fine. Just don’t automate it.

Joe Cool

There are no dangerous weapons.
Only dangerous Men.

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It sounds to me like someone has been watching a certain Mel Gibson trilogy, way too times! When you return to Thunderdome, say Hi to Master Blaster and Tina Turner for us all.