shrug There were no children in the house.
No. I meant police officers.
The point they were making is unless the intruder is running away (hence shooting the front of the body), you have to assume they will do you harm. Even if you don’t see a weapon, don’t assume they don’t have one.
And your comment gets to the heart of the conflict in this thread. Someone I don’t know is in my house without permission. They are facing me and making no attempt to escape. I have no clue what their intentions are or if there are any weapons.
- Why shouldn’t I be allowed to shoot the intruder?
- If I do shoot him, why would I not shoot to kill?
The other 3 steps were simply the affirmation (I believe) of the police officers that under those circumstances, shooting and killing the intruder is appropriate and the rest was just so that the homeowner is safe from arrest/prosecution for taking the necessary action of self-defense.
An intruder isn’t just going to stand there and let you hit him, he is either going to retreat away from you or rush you. You’re full of shit if you think you would be that cool and collected running into an intruder at night in the dark in your own house.
I’ve heard that and worse from cops in Texas, dead criminals can’t testify to anything. Anyone remember Joe Horn?
Forming opinions about this type of violent confrontation based on preconceived notions of pacifism, criminal intent and other warm fuzzy bullshit is asinine. Anyone who thinks they would enter their home under similar circumstances thinking with the tiniest sliver of well-being of any kind towards the intruder is an intellectually dishonest dickhead.
So what? Anyone who says he wouldn’t want to murder a guy who raped his daughter is also probably lying. That doesn’t mean it’s legal.
These cases are sort of interesting to me, because I’m not a homeowner - I rent a small studio apartment. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice place - but it’s one room, with one entrance/exit, and that entrance opens into my (fairly narrow) front hallway.
All of which means that, if I came home and found an intruder in my apartment, the only way for that guy to leave would be for him to come very, very close to me. Easily close enough to injure or kill me. And since my door swings shut pretty fast behind me, I’d probably have to turn my back towards the intruder to open the door and flee into the apartment corridor.
My conclusion: If I came home and found an intruder, I’d try to yell “Get down on the floor!” - but if I didn’t have time, or didn’t think this prudent, I’d just go to the next step: Hurting the intruder as badly as I could, as quickly as I could. Even if he says he’s trying to leave, there just isn’t any way for him to do that without coming close enough to harm me. And if we’re going to be getting close enough to exchange blows, it’ll damned well be on my initiative, and I’ll be striking first.
If I was on the jury, depending on the circumstances I would not convict. Even if I felt the circumstances demanded a guilty, I would keep in mind the circumstances under which the crime occured.
You don’t get to commit a crime that puts a person into a position of extreme emotional duress and expect the same protection under the law as an innocent.
In such cases the question is whether the accused is a threat to society at large, or was under extreme stress and made a human mistake.
Did you read the scenario? I’ve already hit him 3 times with a hammer and he’s down on the ground begging me to stop.
Yes, I can collect my thoughts at this point. I’m not some wild animal and you’re “full of shit” if you can’t understand that.
If it could be demonstrated that such training significantly reduced the incidents of wrongful deaths (I leave it up to you to interpret the thresholds of reduction and defining wrongful death), would making such training a prerequisite of owning a gun be equitable?
This is sad beyond words. What a waste. What a tragedy.
How many burglers are confused foreigners in tuxedos? And park their car in the driveway and ring the doorbell? How did this family avoid killing a bunch of people over the years?
As a lifelong supporter of self-defense, victim’s rights, and firearms use, I’ve always been absolutely disgusted with that situation and that verdict. I have never once read any even slightly compelling defense of the trigger-happy couple, and why the husband is not still in prison is beyond belief.
I don’t think the Hattori example is really on point because he wasn’t even in the house.
Stupid people can get lucky, too! My guess would be they were the weird scary neighbors that nobodody talked to and steered clear of at all times.
But because accidentally stupid shootings like that happen every once in a blue moon we should use it as justification to suppress people’s right to safety and self defense in their own homes?
Fortunately, as you can see from the Canadian law cited up-thread, we can do whatever is reasonable in the circumstances to protect ourselves.
Too bad the DA, Judge and the perp’s personal injury attorney aren’t going to be there when the shit goes down.
Good luck with that.
Do the people deciding what is and isn’t “excessive force” have their security provided for them?
No. Judges do not have security provided for them at home. At work, there are usually one or two security officers for the building, and prisoners are escorted by further officers at all times they are out of their cells. Note also that most people who end up as judges here spend about half a century before they become judges.