[mrnoodle]

Originally Posted by jaguar

While largely I agree, this statement is shit. Pure and utter shit. You can defend yourself against home invasion and attack with deadly force in the UK and be protect by the law. End of story.

Supposedly that's the case here as well, but we've had numerous cases of the perpetrator winning lawsuits against property owners who fucked them up during the course of defending themselves and their homes/businesses.

What you cannot do is use unreasonable force(shoot them lots of times or beat someone's head in with a shovel) or shoot people who are running away. The guy that got jailed shot the guy while he was running away after getting out of the house when he was discovered, in the back with a shotgun.

and it's a shame. Suddenly, during the course of being victimized by a criminal, you have to start minding your P's and Q's or you might somehow violate the civil rights of the asshole that just attacked you. Dead people don't sue. Shoot till you hear clickclickclickclick.

In assult situations you are able to do what is necessary to defend yourself until the attacker backs off or is down, I have personally been told by an officer in a public meeting that the best advice they can give for the area i live in is to carry a sharp object and aim for once in the eye, you'll be fine in the eyes of the law. England has serious civil rights and liberties issues but this is FUD from the NRA and the tories.

Get something sharp and aim for the eye? In a high-stress situation, your fine motor skills go to pot, even if you're trained to respond to it. That's why cops don't try to shoot the gun out of the bad guy's hand - they can't aim that finely under stress. That's also why trying to poke out the eye of your attacker will just put you in his reach, and the reach of whatever weapon he's carrying. Cop or no, that guy gave tactically unsound advice. I guess when your right of self-protection has been so severely eroded, you must resort to desperate measures. At least get a can of OC-10, which can be reasonably effective in allowing you to escape an attacker until you get far enough away not to be a threat to his rights.

Judging by the terminology used inthe article it was in the UK. Thanks to another questionable piece of UK law if she'd used a camera instead they could have had an Anti-social Behaviour Order placed on them which could have stopped them being near her house, talking to her kids or pratically anything else on threat of imprisonment.

Yes, that's always an effective deterrent to crooks. Make something against the law, and they'll be too scared of prison to try it.