I live in Minnesota, but I don’t have a gun; I have a compound bow, which is about the only ranged weapon I have, unless you count throwing sharp and/or heavy things. I imagine that there are relatively rare circumstances where a bow could be used for home defense, but I wonder if the same rules apply regardless of the weapon used.
Every time I go the grocery store, I think of two things.
Smaller cans and a heavy duty sling shot could make a pretty deadly weapon.
Hard salami could be made into killer num chucks (sp?)
I think the legal side of this is fairly settled.
Morally, I wouldn’t shoot someone that I knew for certain was not a threat to my person. If someone was running away I probably wouldn’t chase them, even if they had a TiVo or something else in their hands.
On the flip side, my house is my property. If I hear someone breaking into my house I’m certainly not going to barricade myself in a room and call the police. As a property owner I feel morally justified in driving an intruder out of my home.
I also feel it is one of the core rights in a free society that property owners have the authority to drive people off of their property if need be, the ability to exclude people from your property is one of the benchmarks of what makes it truly yours.
If someone was breaking into my home I’d confront them in an attempt to scare them off, for a variety of reasons I do not think I’d try to effect a “citizen’s arrest.”
But things are always different in practice than they are in theory, in practice I’d follow my instincts and hope for the best. Self-defense is about doing what you feel is appropriate to protect yourself issues like “does some kid deserve to get shot for trying to steal a stereo” or et cetera quite simply aren’t part of the decision from a moral perspective. Morally, when deciding to fire a weapon in self defense the relevant questions are “do I feel that this person is a threat to me sufficient to warrant using lethal force?” Depending on who you are the answers to that question are going to be different.
If someone breaks into my home and I feel threatened by them, I do think I’d use lethal force. Whether that person “deserves it” or not, simply isn’t part of the moral calculus, lots of things happen to people who don’t deserve it. From my perspective I don’t deserve to have someone breaking in to my home, maybe the intruder doesn’t deserve to die, but those aren’t things that would affect my decision making.
Intruder in my house?
I own a gun. I have a family and children in the house.
I hope to God I never have to face this situation. But, if I ever confronted an intruder in my house in the middle of the night, I guaran-damn-tee you I will shoot first and ask questions later. If said intruder is killed by my shot, well oh well better him than me or my family, that’s all I’m saying.
I don’t think the law will much damn care about whether the intruder was facing me, or facing the door.
I’ve always wanted to put a sign on my door: “Note to intruders: I am the NRA. I don’t dial 911.”
You could also just stack your belongings out on your lawn with a sign that says “free stuff!” and save them the trouble of breaking in. Do you do that? Do you leave your doors unlocked and display a sign that says “take anything you want, just please don’t hurt me!”?
Anybody who breaks into a house at night, when people are most likely to be at home, has already demonstrated to my satisfaction that he is willing to harm people. In fact, I see no reason to conclude that a break-in at such an hour is motivated by anything but a desire to harm people. If all the shitbag wants is to steal some stuff to sell and feed his drug habit, he’d do better to break in during the day when children are at school and adults are at work.
You still haven’t answered, by the way, through what innate talent or miraculous contrivance you are able to tell what the intentions of an intruder are.
Well now that simply has nothing to do with the conversation at hand. The issue is whether you are willing to KILL someone who tries to steal your stuff, even if that person SO FAR has not posed a threat to you or your family. My answer to that question is Absolutely Not.
Gotta agree with this, especially if there’s a car in the driveway/garage and it’s pretty apparent that people are home, I wouldn’t take any kind of humanitarian view of the intruder, any more than I would sacrifice myself to a shark just because his biting me is just a case of “curiosity” on the shark’s part. Fuck that. I love animals, but if I’ve got a weapon I’m gonna take that shark out if I can. Same thing with someone breaking into my place at night; if I have the luxury of deciding how to incapacitate the intruder, I’ll always opt for nonlethal, but I’m not going to assume that he’s not going to threaten my life.
SO FAR eh?
As they say on those mutual fund commercials.
Past performance is NO guarantee of future performance.
You emphasize SO FAR like that is important or meaningful. That still gives the impression that you< somehow>know what he is or isn’t going to do in the immediate future.
That’s right. Hence, my answer.
Well, if the person pickpockets you or snatches your wife’s purse, that’s a bit different than a home invasion, isn’t it? What do you assume when you wake up to the sounds of someone trying to pick the lock on your door at 2:34 A.M. and your kids are sleeping upstairs and your SO is out of town? “Hmmm, this person may only be wanting to steal something that he can later pawn so he can feed his own kids; I should assign the best possible motives to this person and not overreact by defending myself or my kids”? Sorry, fuck that. Even if the person invading the home is just stupid and didn’t think that maybe there might be people home, people tend to get crazy when put into stressful situations. If he has a weapon and he discovers that there are people home, is he going to panic and start shooting/stabbing/lobbing hand grenades? Is he going to rape someone? I have no way of knowing, and I’m not going to wait to evaluate his motives. Like I said before, I’d try to incapacitate if possible instead of kill, but I’m not going to NOT use force that MAY be lethal either, if that’s what it takes.
Must. Check. Logic. Circuits. Error. Error. Erroor. Errorrorrrrr
Wait, what? If “SO FAR” they haven’t demonstrated intent to harm, but the past results don’t guarantee future performance, isn’t the logical conclusion that you have NO WAY of knowing that they WON’T try to harm you or your family? What side do you want to err on? “Yeah, that guy raped my wife and crippled me and killed my kid, but at least I didn’t KILL him. My conscience is clear.”
If someone is coming into the sleeping quarters or is brandishing a weapon, that’s a different scenario. A person unhooking your VCR clearly has no visible intent of harming you. He’s obviously stealing. Now…if you go up to the guy all in your face and he spooks and pulls out a gun, well… you kind of brought the violence in your home onto yourself. You could stay secluded in your room and call the police. Then you don’t have to do any mind reading at all!
You are so determined to defend your position that you are now blaming the homeowner because the poor, put-upon criminal was forced to harm him? I call bullshit.
Yeah, but the guy who’s stealing your VCR hasn’t raped or killed anyone! You’re assuming intent to harm.
Yeah, and those INVISIBLE intents and weapons and cohorts are of course no threat! :rolleyes:
Can I get a group crank yankers “yaaahhhhh” here with some vigorous above the head hands and arms waving here?
Call it whatever you want. If someone isn’t harming you, they aren’t harming you. Stealing a VCR does not equal intent to harm.
You are no longer in a position for your arguments to be taken seriously. Retract your statement blaming the homeowner or there is no reason to believe you are interested in honest debate as opposed to just “winning” the thread.
No, I’m assuming that I’m dealing with someone who has no qualms about breaking the law, and if my kid might get up to use the bathroom, who knows what this dickwad might do? Flee? Pull a gun? Switch to berserk mode? I already have determined that this person is not going to act according to decent rules of society and that they are doing something that could escalate very quickly. If he doesn’t want to get shot, he shouldn’t be breaking into people’s homes. If all he really wants is to steal things to sell later (or keep for himself) he’s better off breaking into a pawn shop or something anyway. And I’m pretty damn sure that if you broke into HIS place and he has a gun, you’d better be hoping his aim is bad.