The statistics seem to disagree with you. Burglaries per 100,000, from citydata dot com:
New York City 221
San Francisco 541
Chicago 977
San Antonio 1131
Houston 1281
Dallas 1531
Lots of people own guns, but the possibilty of being shot doesn’t appear to be much of a deterrent in Texas, compared to considerably less well-armed cities. Anecdotally, I live in a nice, well-off part of Dallas and the crime rate (particularly property crimes) feels a lot higher than other places I’ve lived.
Shooting, in a densely populated area, at someone who is fleeing across the lawn with your easily replaceable, insured, commodity-type property strikes me as foolhardy and asking for legal trouble/bills. Even if he had my great-grandma’s (imaginary) $20k diamond ring, it wouldn’t be worth it.
-What if I miss and accidentally kill my neighbor or their kid? “Bad man steal my stuff” is gonna be a pretty weak explanation.
-What if I kill the guy and the cops decide to chuck me into the pokey over the weekend while they sort it out. People get brutalized in jail, regardless of how not-guilty they are.
-What if I paralyze the guy and I get wiped out in a civil suit by a sympathetic jury? The bank won’t give a shit why I can’t pay the mortgage.
Inside your home is another story; it’s hard to imagine a clear cut scenario where it is immediately obvious that the guy isn’t out to hurt anybody. So, sure, in that case, fuck him. He blew it when he didn’t flee upon seeing the sleepy, armed homeowner.
I don’t think a thief deserves to (possibly) die for stealing things. I do think they deserve to (possibly) die for breaking into someone’s private home. It’s a violation of basic human dignity and decency, only a step below violating the person’s actual body. You accept the risks when you cross that line into savagery.
Well, no, because the use of deadly force for self-protection isn’t a “penalty.” When a policeman shoots a knife-wielding suspect, it isn’t “death as a penalty for wielding a knife.” It’s death as a consequence of confronting an armed policeman.
Same with home invasion burglary. If I’ve got a gun, and the guy is standing there in my living room with my tv set in his arms, he has already demonstrated such a level of contempt for my rights and my safety that I may consider him as a serious deadly threat. I can shoot him, not so much to keep from losing my tv, but because I have reason to believe that he might have a gun of his own, or a knife, or simply come charging at me with his fists. He’s a “mad dog” already, just for breaking in to my home.
In the case you cited, where the homeowner followed the burglar outside and shot him in the back – no. That’s way wrong. That violates the law. At that point, the guy has ceased to be a meaningful threat.
But when he’s standing there in my living room? He is a serious and deadly threat, and I’d shoot him down without feeling too much guilt about it at all.
(For me, the big risk is that I wouldn’t have the self-control to stop, and that I just might shoot the guy in the back as he ran away. And that’s one of the big reasons I won’t have a gun in my home.)
They would get a call to pick up the dead burglar.
As you can tell by my other posts, I live out in the ass end of nowhere, and am handicapped so I have no reasonable expectation of escape or evasion. I am not going to sit around to see if I am going to be killed or injured, I am going to take action while the person is well out of direct reach. I can see no reason to break into the house and NOT end up in the bedroom, where the expensive electronics and goodies are [our home office with 2 desktops, laptop and the good TV is in the bedroom.] and I spend 75% of my time in the bedroom with the valuables.
We do not have plantings around the house obscuring the windows, we have steel security doors front and back, we have an alarm system. We keep the alarms turned on, and everything locked. I don’t know what I can do other than hire a security company to send 3 shifts of guards to sit here all day. I know, steel window security shutters over all the windows. :rolleyes:
It wasn’t the homeowner; the shooter’s home was not invaded. The home owner was not living at the residence that was burglarized. The shooter was interviewed for the local news and explained that he watched the kid, whose full name and address was known to him, sneak into the carport of a vacant home, steal the leafblower, then shot him in the back as he fled down the street. He likened it to shooting a raccoon which got into his trash.
You’re wrong it would have done nothing. If there is evidence, likely they would have arrested him and notified the other vehicles’ owners and they would have sued the guy
So, we’re talking about guns in this thread. What is your solution? To have your brother shoot him?
Just because in some instances the police would not have been able to solve the problem doesn’t mean they aren’t the first people you should call. Some problems cannot be solved, some require drastic action we’re not prepared to do, and some have exorbitant costs that we can’t pay. In this case, calling the police would have been the right thing to do
Again, your solution is…what? Never call the police and shoot him? (FYI, I’m actually fine if you did that to defend yourself from being mugged, but you should still have called the police. Just because they couldn’t have done anything about that particular case doesn’t mean they’re useless)
In your case, its nowhere near the situation the OP posits. The OP makes a pretty snarky remark and assumes some division dichotomy whereby the only options are to give the nice burglar all your belongings or to shoot him and pose in front of an American flag. There are other ways and in his case, the correct thing to do is not to allow stealing and call the police
I understand the law. They have to draw the line somewhere. Im talking on a more personal level.
What if they break into your home without a weapon? Then, should your first reaction still be to shoot? Fact of the matter is, Stoplight either didn’t know if he had a weapon, or failed to mention it. I’m willing to bet it’s the former. Still, it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t care. That guys still getting shot.
I can’t call it poor judgement but I can’t say it’s good either. The sad truth is no one would know until it’s all said and done. Personally, I would hope that I would hold out a little longer than what he suggested. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have aimed and ready to go, but I would hesitate just a bit before I fired.
Now that I think of it, occasionally someone must go to irrational lengths to protect their property. This is actually vital to society.
If we were to turn the other cheek to every criminal, then there would be no motivation to not steel. If however, the robber knew he was playing the odds that the homeowner would only probably not seek sweet vengeance, then there would be some hesitancy to rob.
Statistically, crimes against property go up whenever the economy goes down. Perpetually poor country have perpetual crime problems. The best way to fight crime is to offer economic opportunities to keep people out of desperate situations where risking the avenging homeowner starts to look like a good idea.
Well, jeez! That makes him a felonious twit. That’s the sort of gun user who gives leverage to the gun control movement. He’s dangerous, he’s stupid, and he belongs behind bars for a damn long time.
In my opinion, he doesn’t even belong in the discussion. No one here supports what he did or would implement it as reasonable policy. He’s a bad guy according to the ideology of everyone here. (Well, probably. There may be one or two… Y’never know.)
So, let’s throw him in the slammer for 99-to-life, and move back to cases where some good and valid reasoning might be found on both sides of a position.
ETA: Trinopus, Troppus – I hope that never causes anyone confusion. Similar names, maybe not so similar views?
In the popular perception outside of Texas, it often gets portrayed like “Texas home + inhabitants in the home don’t recognize/understand the person at the door = possible shooting”. Reputations are a hard thing to deal with.
But I agree it’s not binary and there are degrees - Facing a home invasion? If you have the means at hand to neutralize the threat, go ahead. Dude grabbed a piece of lawn equipment and is sprinting away into the sunset? Take down his description and report it.
But IMO it is no moral defect for someone to find that they don’t need to arm themselves. Most citizens never find themselves in a situation that inescapably compels use of this level of force. I myself do not keep firearms in the home not for moral reasons but because a family history of some behavioral issues raises unacceptably the risk of someone *inside *the circle doing the wrong thing. But I think no less of someone who arms themselves OR who does not.
And yes, if you’re burgled or robbed/mugged or have your property vandalized you should report it. At the very least the statistics can be used for crime mapping so if some particular neighborhood is becoming hot it can be given attention; plus your insurance may want a police report anyway.
“Tend” is a weasel word here. Gun ownership is very high in NH (last stats I saw said more than 1 in 3 adults is a gun owner) yet we consistently have the lowest crime rates across the board in the country, always ranked 1st, 2nd or occasionally 3d in the “Safest State” measure, always jockeying for postion with Maine and Vermont. Unless we’re to believe that our state motto makes crooks feel more like we’ll shoot them, it’s probably the lower populations that’s making a difference between here and gun-rich places with higher crime rates.
having read through the thread I thought I’d come directly back to the OP.
There are plenty of places in the world where having a gun is not an option, at least not on your person while walking the streets.
So If I was pulled up by a mugger or gang or whatever wanting to steal my wallet and /or valuables, I have simple decisions to make:
What’s the odds of me being able to fight my way out of this without getting injured?
If the odds of 1. aren’t really high, is the stuff I have on my person worth copping a beating or dying over?
most of the time that quick risk assessment would mean handing over my stuff.
That does not in any way mean that “It’s perfectly OK for someone to steal your belongings” but that they’re not valuable enough to cop a beating or die over. Which in my mind would also mean they aren’t valuable enough to justify me killing someone to protect them from being stolen.
The fact that people think this is just an indication that we have a lot of murderers walking around. If the only thing keeping you from killing is that you haven’t been given the opportunity, you’re still a murderer.
If you really thought that your possessions were worth more than life itself, you’d allow you and your family to be killed for your stuff. But you don’t. You think it’s okay for an OTHER to be killed. Surely I don’t have to explain what that thought process is called.
And, no, I’m not saying Bricker’s mentality is wrong. He’s got the correct one. He doesn’t want to shoot people, but will if he has to defend himself. You want to kill people who do things you don’t like. There’s no regret being expressed. And that makes me very, very scared of you, to the point that I don’t think you should be walking around in a free society. You’re a killer waiting to happen.
And I’m sorry to be this blunt, but it seems that most of you guys don’t get it. It is morally reprehensible to think that your possessions are worth more than the life of any human being, and makes me question everything else about your morality. I wouldn’t want to be in the same room with you lest I piss you off.
My unwillingness to kill is not governed by how much the other person is “worth”. It’s governed by not wanting to kill someone.
Killing to protect my “things” is but a tiny step from killing to take someone elses things (because you are defining things as worth more than a life).
To me, the only thing worth more than a life, is a my life…and if someone breaking in is really ready to take my life, the value of a gun is not going to be much.
I’ve deleted most of your offensive drivel, but it’s you that doesn’t get it. I am not a murderer-in-waiting. I am no Paul Kersey. I will defend myself, my family, and my belongings. If someone chooses to test that it is their choice and their responsibility. I am not so rich that I can shrug off a financial loss; I’ve been poor and have no wish to return to that state. The police are not present in sufficient numbers that I can not defend myself.