D.C. a little safer (I hope).

[footfootfoot]

Ahhh, I'm on the fence re: shooting felons in the back. I suppose he did not do his due diligence, i.e. walk up to them and ask their ages before properly shooting them in the front. He's a frigging farmer. he doesn't have a backhoe on his tractor? Doesn't he keep pigs?

He should go to jail for being sloppy and unimaginative. He wanted to get caught.

[wolf]

In recent years governments have even felt it necessary to prevent the public from defending themselves with imitation weapons. In 1994 an English home-owner, armed with a toy gun, managed to detain two burglars who had broken into his house while he called the police. When the officers arrived, they arrested the home-owner for using an imitation gun to threaten or intimidate. In a similar incident the following year, when an elderly woman fired a toy cap pistol to drive off a group of youths who were threatening her, she was arrested for putting someone in fear. Now the police are pressing Parliament to make imitation guns illegal.

from The Telegraph

Actually the case I was thinking of, and can't find a reference to was the guy whose home was broken into for the second or third time by the same robbers, and he menaced and hit them with a cricket bat and was charged with assault.

[DanaC]

There's a difference between defending and killing. It's to do with 'reasonable force'. There's also a difference between defending your life or the safety of your family....and defending your stuff. We consider that a human life, even a criminal human life is worth more than a stereo.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by DanaC

There's a difference between defending and killing. It's to do with 'reasonable force'.

And what's "reasonable" is where we disagree. Deadly force is occasionally deadly, and both these felons took that risk when entering this man's home in the middle of the night with evil, criminal intent.

I think it's "unreasonable" to have the outcomes this case did...it sends the message "if you convince the judge you're only stealing the law will be on your side". I think your values are misplaced, and you feel the same about me. As I say, our laws are different.

[DanaC]

I do bed your pardon Wolf. I assumed you meant the farmer who shot a burglar in the back.

I do recall now the case you are talking about. There are occasions when the law is an ass:P Although, actually I don't think either of those cases held up in court. More a case of daft policing. Imitation guns had probably been a big thing for a while, used in robberies and so on.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I do recall now the case you are talking about. There are occasions when the law is an ass.

Would you still feel that way if the cricket bat had killed? It certainly can. It would be a "deadly weapon" here.

[DanaC]

If the man wielding the cricket bat had chased a young man who was already running away from his home and then battered him to death with it, I'd see that as murder. If he had taken a swing at a burglar in his bedroom and accidentaly caused his death then I wouldn't.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by DanaC

If he had taken a swing at a burglar in his bedroom and accidentaly caused his death then I wouldn't.

If I swing a bludgeon at a nighttime intruder in my bedroom and he dies, nobody will call it "an accident".

Least of all me.

I would prefer not to have to rely on by luck being bigger and stronger than my attacker though. I won't resort to a club until my firearms have been exhausted.

I agree with foot[3] though...I don't see why a convicted felon comitting yet another felony should be better protected by the law than the victim he has just denied the protection of the very same law.

[footfootfoot]

I feel that once you are in breach of contract, you cannot expect the same contract to be enforceable by you.

If you decide to operate outside the law, then why should you be able, at the same time, to enjoy the benefits of operating within the law?

I'm sure there is some legal explanation for this.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

I'm sure there is some legal explanation for this.

Well, here, the surviving perp would have been prosecutable for the homicide. As it was, he got out early and picked up a nice paycheck from BBC, after being jailed for the burglary conspirancy, and then dealing heroin, and then car theft. Later he went up again, this time for using stolen credit cards, which kind of brings us full-circle in the thread.