Let’s say you’re at home and you hear (in another part of the house) loud, unknown noises. Taking a weapon (gun if you have one or something else like a knife or heavy blunt object if you don’t) you go investigate and run face to face with a stranger in your house/condo/apartment/etc. It is, for all purposes of this thread, REALLY a burgler breaking it and you KNOW (don’t ask me HOW, I’m just setting up the scenario) beyond the shadow of a doubt that it’s a burgler. You don’t see any weapon of theirs, however.
And the last part to this is that you don’t know what they will do next. They could run…or charge and try to harm you (and who knows who else in the house).
What do you do? Do you kill them? Injure? Point the gun and tell them not to move? Wait for a perilous second to see what they are going to do (and if they start running, let them go; and if they start charging or reaching for their own weapon, shoot?)
What does what you do depend on in all of this situation? What do you have to do when you have to make a decision in a couple seconds or less? : /
It depends on where I am. In my new home of Massachusetts, they have odd views about “rights” of an intruder in your home. I would have to think about it because I hear that prison sucks and I would be furious if I geot sent up because of something like that. In my home state of Louisiana, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill them because it is almost always legal to kill an intruder in your house there. I have always wanted to kill someone and that is a good way to get a freebie.
Say “Freeze!” and make sure the shotgun is pointed at center of mass. Hold until police arrive, summoned by wife on cell phone. If they blink, or make any aggressive move towards myself or the wife, we will have to replaster and repaint, and get new carpeting.
If they are visibly armed, all of the preceding is skipped and we go straight to the repainting.
Give them one warning, that I have a gun. I may also tell them that I’m not a very good shot, and although I’m aiming at the leg, I might miss and hit them in the groin.
Shoot first and ask questions later? Not in California. You can’t kill someone simply because they ended up on your property… or in your house. …frantically seaching for cite…
What if you left the front door unlocked and someone ended up in your house by mistake? If you shot them you would have to convince a “jury of your peers” that you were acting in self defense, which may be difficult if the person was there by mistake, didn’t have a weapon, and you didn’t have a credible witness backing up your story.
Shoot to kill unless I had a strong reason to believe I could hold them till they can be taken by civil authorities. If I didn’t and they got away to commit this crime on someone else I don’t know how I could live with myself as I have failed in my civic duty.
The scenario sounds more like a home invasion which is much more threatening than a burglary. In any event I believe the only reason to use deadly force if for an immediate threat to my life or that of my family. That doesn’t mean shooting a fleeing burglar in the back as he escapes. All other things being equal I would much rather watch a burgler get away than to have his bleeding corpse in my house.
He’s going to be fleeing with a load in his pants. My home defense weapon is a 12 guage pump shotgun with a weapon light. The light is bright enough to temporarily blind someone even in daylight. It also ensures that I am able to evaluate him as a threat. A good tactical light is first line of defense that can send someone running. If that and the sound of racking the shotgun doesn’t do it I am not fucking around with “shooting to wound.”
My home defense weapon is my sharp wit. Should I catch anyone on my property without my permission, I would disarm him with a pithy aphorism, beat him up with with an ascerbic observation on his sartorial accoutrements, then swiftly immobilise him with a strongly worded letter to The Times.
I will not kill unless it is obvious that I must or I/my husband/my family is going to die. If he reaches for a weapon, I shoot his wrist. If that is impossible, I shoot his shoulder.
You disregard the sensitivity of the criminals we have around here. Indeed, I always keep smelling salts to hand should a burglar swoon after a particularly rambunctious serious of insults. I only employ them after having bound his hands and feet with the silken belt of my smoking jacket, and calling the local constabulary, of course!
In the real world, jjimm, the criminal will be armed with at least a platitude, and perhaps some smalltalk concerning the weather. For that reason, I always like to keep a Limerick under my bed, and I’m prepared to use it, let me tell you.
I’ve walked in on burglars. One took out a rather big knife and I thought to myself “bollocks, I’m going to die in this poxey flat*”
I said “Lads you’ve got what you’ve got. Just leave with that”. Luckily the did and I lost about a hundred DVDs. I cried when they left. It was really terrifying and emasculating.
If I had of had a gun on me and I was comfortable in it’s use I almost certainly would have used it when that cunt pulled a knife. I’d have felt 100% justified as well.
That said I am 100% behind my country’s gun control laws i.e. NO GUNS FOR SELF DEFENCE JUST SPORT AND ANIMAL CONTROL.
Although there are many situations were guns could be useful IMO overall less people die as a result of the population not having easy access to guns. I realise this is a very non-American way of looking at it but it seems to be the consensus over here
*For our American cousins. Shit, I’m going to die in this shitty apartment
I’d like to say “shoot to kill.” Hell, I’d like to shoot to kill. Never used that S&W on anything other than a target on the range.
But the dead honest truth is I’d give him a chance to surrender.
Allow me to point out that with Florida’s new law, the burgler doesn’t even have to be inside my home for me to kill him. I just have to feel my life is threatened.
Well, I don’t have specific home-defence training, so I might be a little off—but my gut instinct would be to:
Probably yell “HEY!” or “HOLD IT!” or something. Then, if the burglar did something that looked threatening (which, admittedly, under the circumstances, could be a whole hell of a lot of things), I’d shoot him.
But, if he already had a weapon out—or if he was covered with blood, wearing clown-makeup and carrying a chainsaw, or something—I’d probably just scream and shoot.
Hopefully, I wouldn’t end up going to jail or getting my ass sued off by the Psychoklown family, afterwards. (I am in California, after all.)
I’d have to evaluate the situation. If at all possible to defuse it without killing someone. I don’t believe someone instantly forfeits their right to life by entering my home uninvited.
If you catch a burglar, that is one thing. Burglars tend to go into homes they think are unoccupied, and will run at the first sign of trouble. They aren’t killers and they aren’t typically that violent, they want to rip people off but, mentally they don’t have what it takes to kill people to do that.
A home invasion is a bit different, this often involves thrill seekers who are breaking in to a home to not only rob, but to rape, kill, maybe kidnap and torture. From the victim’s point of view, it is difficult to tell what you’re dealing with until after the fact.
So that’s why someone in my home uninvited WILL be in pretty big danger, because I’m a light sleeper and spent 20 years getting paid to be ready to engage an enemy combatant in combat at a moment’s notice; I’m only going to go SO FAR to make sure I don’t shoot someone who is harmless.
Another interesting question is what do you do if someone is robbing you but isn’t presenting any sort of threat? Personally I wouldn’t stand for that, I’d put the fear of good into them that if they don’t lay down and wait for the cops I’m going to shoot them. I actually wouldn’t, but it’d take a ballsy guy to flaunt a service pistol trained at his heart.
If he still continued to try and take me stuff or run away with my stuff I’d physically move in to restrain him or knock him around until he desisted. In general police officers are allowed to use physical force to stop a thief, so as long as I didn’t inflict serious harm and was mainly intending to restrain him and stop his committing a crime I think I’d be okay legally.
I also wouldn’t necessarily rule out burying someone on my propert if I felt I did something that might put me in prison. I live out by myself and have a lot of land, no one would ever know or find out about it I wouldn’t think. It’d be tempting.
I don’t own a gun, so it’d be one of the swords or knives scattered around the place. Yes, I’ve been trained in using the swords. If the robber had a gun, I’d try to get the hell out and call 911. If he had a knife/club/something, I’d probably dare to face him down and attempt to scare him out.
I wouldn’t automatically go to kill, not the least because it’s illegal in Illinois to kill someone for simply stealing from your house (IIRC), but also because I don’t think it’d be the moral thing to do to kill a burglar who wasn’t threatening me or someone I loved.
I’d also seriously question the intelligence of the robber. I live in the crappiest house within probably a mile of where I live, and surely the poorest. Idiot.
