The world isn’t black and white. Our social contract would not kill this guy for stealing your stereo equipment, should he get caught red-handed with it on your front step by the police, while you were sitting in your living room unaware of the theft. Your approach to the problem is extreme.
Still haven’t answered the question.
I don’t have any way of knowing, nor do I care, if the shitbag who breaks into my house is a druggie trying to feed his habit, a serial killer, a thrill-seeking teenager, a professional thief, a rapist, or some combination of the above. I do know what is going to happen to him. Now, try again to explain to me why I should feel bad about the demise of a criminal.
Once again, however extreme I may be in defense of my meager belongings, I’m not the guy breaking into another person’s house and trying to take his belongings. The world may not be black and white, but there is a definite easily discerned difference between being a thief and defending what is yours.
Because criminals are human beings too. Some of them even have families that love them, despite the errors of their ways. It might make them easier for you to shoot calling them that, but your willingness to be judge, jury and executioner is a little alarming and bordering on delusions of grandeur.
Their willingness to take what isn’t theirs, to harm other people economically and physically, for their own personal gain and
doesn’t indicate that criminals value me as anything but a potential victim. Why is it that I should feel bad about eliminating somebody who I encountered when he attempted to prey on me?
You are so RIGHT! my bad.
A good friend of mine was on a Clown safari once. I though he was fricking crazy! He was using a Clown gun of course, you know like those big ass elephant guns, only bigger still!
Well, there was a pride of Clowns around the watering hole. Fresh seltzer water had just been delivered. He picked out a nice big one with a 12 point nose. He fired just as the big bastard was giving him the eye.
Even though it was a perfect shoot it wasnt enough. You’ve never seen a clown car move so fast. Made a gazel look like a snail (I saw a fellow tourist’s video of it, its probably on youtube somewhere now).
Before my friend could whip out his silver cross, the clown was on him. He took a nearly fatal cream pie to the face. The only thing that saved him were the other Clowns. They eat their own wounded ya know. Even though the Alpha Clown had 6 inch diameter hole you SEE though, he was able to fend off the rest of the 2 dozen or so in the pride for a good five minutes. He even managed to kill one of the Clown cubs that the National Geo people had just put a tracker on. The trackers sounds a lot like a horn from a Model T Ford.
Anyhow. My friend was taken away by an EMS Helicopter. It was the 3rd Clown response that month. He was in intensive care for 8 months. He lost an eye, a couple fingers, and still walks with a limp. And the stitche and scars? Oye Veh!
He had the 12 point nose stuff and mounted. It now resides down in basement rec room. He keeps the beer down there, but if we need some brewskies, I make him go down there to get it. I refuse to. I am getting sweaty palms just typing this. That things huge, like a big beach ball. After I saw it in person I started having regular clown nightmares. Hell, I can’t even go to a beach anymore.
He also had the shoes made into throw rugs. Of course they are huge as well, but those things are so TOUGH they will probably outlast the pyramids. He got a thousand pounds of meat (humor is the technical term) as well. I don’t like it, it taste funny. And finally, he got the giggleulous femur bronzed and uses it as a door stop. Its as long as a golf club!
Clowns…shudder!
Among the (many) reasons I am not going to indulge in the aberrant “duty to lock your stuff up” notion is that it’s an obvious slippery slope. Well, your window was closed, but it wasn’t latched. It was latched, but you left it too easy to break the window and unlatch. Well, it was securely latched and protected, but it wasn’t covered with a steel shutter. And you should have had an alarm system.
Funk that. I did what I had the “duty” to do the minute I paid for my property. Everything after that is some scumbag taking MY stuff. I will take precautions against that, not because I have a “duty” to do so, but because I want to avoid the hassle of dealing with theft. The precautions I take will be of a nature and extent of my choosing. They will not be dictated to me by the would-be thief. They may include arming myself to protect myself and my property. Again, I won’t be lectured at by the deviant who seeks to jeopardize me or my property.
How simple is this stuff? Is not respect for property right up there with respect for life as that which separates us from animals or savages?
I can only speak for myself, but when I was a burglar, I never even thought about the occupants, and it was only after being burgled myself many years later, that I felt that sense of violation I have heard people speak of so often. But I didn’t wish I had a gun so I could exact bloody revenge; I just cursed myself for not locking my back door. If I had been in the house while the burglars came, I’d have got my bat and given them the choice of leaving the easy way or the hard way. But hey, I live in the UK and don’t have to imagine a scenario involving guns, so I don’t know why I’m in here now! And also, I’m long retired and may be out of touch with current burgling practices. Do you mind if I bow out gracefully, or are you going to hold my past against me? 
Thats BS. Yes, people should lock their doors at night and windows. But I’m not under any lawful obligation to install a security system or lay out bear traps. (Though if I did lay out bear traps you’d probably claim it was cruel and unfair to the poor widdle burglar that only wanted my stereo.) When my house was robbed I was away in the middle east. it was locked, and my relatives periodically checked on it. I suppose I should have just gone awol and stayed home because I gave the dirtbag the opportunity to rob me.
If I want to go to bed at night with a window open thats not an all clear for some idiot to come in and rob me. If he does and recieves an injury or death, well, you know what? Too fucking bad. he should have stayed out of my house uninvited. By your reckoning if you invite me over for a party and I use your bathroom, but while in there take your phone and rack up a 1000 dollar long distance bill, its YOUR fault for not hiding the phone. (bad analogy, but its tiresome to explain again and again that the victim is not at fault)
Its not my fault if someone with no integrity, self control or scruples wants to rob my house. No one here has said they leave the door open with a sign ssaying ‘Really good stuff inside’. What is being said is that if you walk by and see a window open or a cheap lock on a door and break in waking the owner and getting shot its your own fucking fault for breaking in. Please cite a law saying I must lock all doors and windows.
I live yards from the fenceline of Fort Bragg. there is a sign saying no unauthorized personnel on the fence, though its only about 8 feet high and a determined person could makie it throw the concertina wire on top. If Mr. dirtbag climbs it and the MPs shoot him is it the Army’s fault because they should have made the fence 20 feet high?
The people who invented the property laws took the land from peasants on which to build their buildings where they could pontificate on protecting what they had stolen. The police were invented to protect the rich, not the poor.
Defending to the extreme of killing someone over a $100 piece of metal? You really think that this person deserves to die because he’s stealing your stuff? REALLY? I find this extremely troubling, regardless of the fact that he’s clearly in the wrong. And I’m really glad most people (including our law makers) do not agree with your approach.
Nobody’s holding your past against you. It’s your current blithe disregard for people’s sense that crossing someone’s threshold without their permission is a SERIOUS and DISTURBING violation of some pretty fundamental expectations and fears. Since you are willing to casually say, hey, it’s your fault, you didn’t take enough precautions to prevent it, the only reason you can imagine that people would contemplate violence is sheer bloody-mindedness and bloodlust. I think the Texas statute gets it just about right, and sends the message that it’s UNDERSTANDABLE to freak out when someone enters your inner sanctum. The outlier who chooses to do that can and should bear the risk that he’s going to encounter, not a “vigilante,” but a seriously freaked-out and survival-minded homeowner. Hey, let’s go into this bear den. What, there’s a mother bear with cubs? That’s cool, I’m just there to learn more about bears. What’s her big problem?
I consider most criminals to be lesser orders of human beings. I don’t think that they have any right to expect kindness and mercy from me when they are intruding upon my home.
Some folks keep saying “But wouldn’t you feel guilty if you killed someone who was committing a crime?” and they keep on not believing other people who say “Maybe a little, but it wouldn’t stop me from doing it.” I’d rather be alive and feeling a little remorse than dead and not capable of feeling anything. Really and truly, I don’t have much sympathy for criminals who engage in non-victimless crimes. I figure that any intruder, whether he’s a serial killer or just a teenage thrillseeker, knows or should know that some people are likely to blow him away.
Some people like to risk their lives doing whatever gives them a rush. I do not begrudge them the rush, but I believe that if they want to take that risk, then they should accept the consequences. Sometimes the consequences include severe injury or death.
Let’s have an example. Young Joe, age 13, loves to play Russian Roulette. He gets himself a revolver (it IS played with a revolver, right? I’m not terribly up on gun terminology), puts a bullet in it, starts playing. If he manages to click on the chamber with the bullet in it, and blows his brains out, I’ll feel it’s something of a tragedy, but I won’t lose much sleep over it, no matter how much I was or was not involved. Mostly I would figure “he won his Darwin Award.” I’d feel bad IF Joe was, say, 6, and wasn’t old enough to know better. If someone intrudes in my back yard, I won’t be very upset if he gets bitten and mauled by my German Shepherd, who loves people, but particularly loves her family. Now, it’s definitely my responsibility to restrain her when someone legitimately needs access to my back yard. I don’t know how many times I’ve shut her in the shed, or held her collar, while someone was working on the phone or electric lines. It was an inconvenience to me, sure, but it was also my duty. If some teenage (or older) prowler or burglar got into my yard, and the dog bit him (and choked on his fingers), it wouldn’t bother me much if at all. I would figure that he’d gotten what he deserved.
You keep trying to appeal to my sympathy for these people. I don’t have much, if any. Give it up, I’m not gonna change my mind about this.
Look, I am for the death penalty, but I think that we need to suspend it until we can get a better handle on not convicting innocent people. But my sympathy is for the truly innocent. I think that criminals should run very high, and very probable, risks of injury or death. Maybe it would reduce the crime rate. Maybe the opportunistic thieves would figure it wasn’t worth the risk if they helped themselves to anything they regarded as not adequately secured.
Cite?
It only needed the eighth-grader version of Marxism to complete the inventory of folly.
Yeah!
Because we all know those hard working farm peasants were perfectly happy when some OTHER non hard working peasant “borrowed” some of their hard earned food stuffs :rolleyes:
Well, I’m a law abiding citizen and i have friends and family too. Having people that care about you does not give you some kind of excuse for breaking into another persons home for thrills, kicks or personal gain.
It doesn’t make it easier and most people would prefer to either chase the thief out/call the police/detain them in some way without killing. But if they catch a bullet by a legal gun owner in the home of said gun owner while committing a crime, its their own damned fault. fuck all that noise about how the poor little thief couldn’t control themselves. were you born rich? I wasn’t. I paid for everything in my home and if somepone wants to try and take it they’ll roll te dice. they might get away…they might merely get hurt if caught. But if they get smoked, well, why the fuck were they in my house where MY family and loved ones are trying to steal things or do whatever else?
Despite the bluntness of what Scumpup says I don’t think he’s a bloodthirsty madman saying he can’t wait to shoot a crook. He and others are saying that if you break into a house you’ve waived all rights of not recieving the business end of whatever weapon the owner may have.
But i guess in your world if I want a flat screen tv I should just go cruising for a homeowner with a shitty lock. After all, its their fault if I can gain access to their home uninvited, and how dare they defend their property.
I gotta go to work. I’ll be sure to lock the door, but my wife is in here. If she clubs you when you try to enter I’ll make sure she feels bad about it.
It feels very odd to be on this side of the fence. Normally I’m very much a liberal, when it comes to social issues. I’m more moderate when it comes to fiscal issues. However, my guilt only comes into play when someone is genuinely innocent. An intruder is almost certainly not innocent, no matter how nonviolent he might be. I can only assume the worst if I find an intruder. As others have said upthread, an intruder might assure me that he means me no harm, and then go on to kill me or mine. I’m not willing to take his assurances at face value. The guy who stays OUT of my home, AWAY from my vehicle? I’m pretty sure that he’s not gonna bother me.
I apologise for editing your post, but felt it was easier to address my way.
I don’t want to get you paranoid, but your property sounds fairly secure and defo not in a prime position. The chances of anyone randomly picking a house where the owner is on his hols or elsewhere, are pretty fucking high. How well do you know your friends, or is it on an army estate where lots of people are likely to be away?
I can’t cite a law. It’s the unwritten law of “street smarts”. If you haven’t got 'em, you’ll get stung eventually.
Yeah, like maybe shot in ass perhaps? I’ve heard that stings.
Personally, yes. If he is willing to prey on innocent people for his own benefit, even just financially, letting him escape with the TiVo just teaches him that crime does pay and ensures he will do so again.