It also primes them to be expecting to face lethal force when they're on a job. Can't see that being a good thing for householders.
High Court: Homeowners can use 'disproportionate force' against burglars
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It also primes them to be expecting to face lethal force when they're on a job. Can't see that being a good thing for householders.
Yea, but would you not want command over the undead to do your bidding?
Soldato
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I wouldn't even go as far to say they are drugged up. Some may be druggies but not high or off their **** at the time and most thefts in my area for the last few years have been committed by travellers when places were flooded and there was an easy opportunity.
I definitely agree the mentality is different but what makes you think of us (if you think of us that way) as naive, defenceless and soft is what also makes your burglaries more dangerous, because of guns, gun culture and such. If i lived alone in america, i would probably have a gun in the house, i however still wouldn't shoot on site for someone breaking in and certainly wouldn't keep a gun in the house if i had family.
The average person breaking into a house here would not have a firearm. In america, the possibility is much higher and at the end of the day, they are also expecting someone else to be in the house, while you are not.
Your opinion on grossly disproportionate force being allowed and used in the UK is therefore heavily skewed.
Yes but we are talking about disproportionate force in a burglary, not someone out on a mission to shoot people. Also you will find it is much harder to get a gun here, sure it is still not difficult but the fact that there are extra steps and efforts involved can cause the more desperate ones (burglars are usually the more desperate people of society too) to not get one.
With your statement you seem to imply that just as many thieves are armed with firearms in UK as in the US relative to the whole because you know, if someone wants a gun, they just get one?
If not, then why is your statement relevant?
I definitely agree the mentality is different but what makes you think of us (if you think of us that way) as naive, defenceless and soft is what also makes your burglaries more dangerous, because of guns, gun culture and such. If i lived alone in america, i would probably have a gun in the house, i however still wouldn't shoot on site for someone breaking in and certainly wouldn't keep a gun in the house if i had family.
The average person breaking into a house here would not have a firearm. In america, the possibility is much higher and at the end of the day, they are also expecting someone else to be in the house, while you are not.
Your opinion on grossly disproportionate force being allowed and used in the UK is therefore heavily skewed.
Yes but we are talking about disproportionate force in a burglary, not someone out on a mission to shoot people. Also you will find it is much harder to get a gun here, sure it is still not difficult but the fact that there are extra steps and efforts involved can cause the more desperate ones (burglars are usually the more desperate people of society too) to not get one.
With your statement you seem to imply that just as many thieves are armed with firearms in UK as in the US relative to the whole because you know, if someone wants a gun, they just get one?
If not, then why is your statement relevant?
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No they won't (find a gun) - otherwise why would American people be approximately 24 times more likely to murder someone with a gun than are British people?
As for just swapping for a knife... why is the murder rate is almost four times higher in USA than UK?
I know I would rather face a bad guy with a knife than one with a gun, regardless of what I'm armed with.
... because the population is four times larger?
Soldato
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Soldato
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Do you honestly believe that anyone in the UK could access a firearm at short notice if they wanted to? I wouldn't have a clue where to start and I'm not sure you can just walk up to local chavs and buy one.
There was a gang-related shooting in my city a few months ago and the shooter had to be brought in from London (over 70 miles away) to do it so I'm not sure guns are as ubiquitous on the UK as you may think.
The vast majority of burglaries are opportunistic anyway.
Soldato
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Nailed it
that's not quite how it works.
Per 100,000 of population, the firearm homicide rate in USA is 3.55 deaths, whereas in the UK it is 0.15.
And the overall homicide rate is 3.8 in USA, 1.0 in the UK.
I don't doubt that guns are easy to obtain here and not there, but we're talking about using force to protect one's family/home, I guarantee you'd do everything you possibly could to disable an intruder coming into your home if your wife and kids are in there, if that involved picking up a knife on the kitchen counter and stabbing it through the guys heart... so be it... if you had a gun available (shotgun, farmer) you'd shoot him with it.
FYI I'm English, so I know your point of view.
FYI I'm English, so I know your point of view.
Ask asim. Mac 10, five minutes.
that's not quite how it works.
Per 100,000 of population, the firearm homicide rate in USA is 3.55 deaths, whereas in the UK it is 0.15.
And the overall homicide rate is 3.8 in USA, 1.0 in the UK.
He said murder rate, not firearm
*edit* Clearly not reading properly today
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Soldato
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And any UK FAC or SGC holder that's obeying the weapon and ammunition storage protocols mandated by their Chief Constable wouldn't be able to defend themselves from an intruder using a legally held firearm unless the intruder was kind enough to stand still for 5 minutes while the various gun safes were unlocked...
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We are talking about grossly disproportionate force to attack an intruder. You can paint it how you want but that doesn't mean using a gun to defend your family while their lives are being threatened, it means things like shooting a bloke dead on entering a window down the hall from you. In 'Murica it might not make sense because that guy likely is armed (funnily for his own protection, cos it works the other way round too
) but here he is very unlikely to be armed and therefore the use of that force is not just excessive but not needed.Also you keep saying that those people in this situation would do this and that but i will take diddums much more sensible response based on his experience over yours, unless you have one to share?
diddums could have ended up shooting the guy, i dont know the story but i agree with his comment on macho talk in this thread. You can just as easily be useless with a gun than without making it more dangerous having one.
Also, just out of interest, when did you move to america?
There was a case recently, and I mean more recently than Tony Martin, where a shotgun was used. Another case, in Manchester, resulted in a machete-wielding burglar being stabbed to death, and the householder than killed him was not even prosecuted, and quite rightly.
Far from my comment being pointless, it is absolutely the entire point. The law says NOTHING about cutting in half, nothing about which weapons can or cannot be used, merely that force in self defence must not be grossly disproportionate, in the circumstances.
It doesn't much matter to a deceased burglar, or indeed to prosecuting authorities, whether the deceased is cut in half by a sword or a shotgun, or indeed if they are cut in half or not. That is all pointless forum drivel. What matters is the force used, the degree of proportionality or otherwise, and the genuinely held belief of the householder as to the threat they faced.
In the case of that Manchester burglar, the householder faced a machete-wielding intruder, and is quite justified in fearing for his, or others, lives. He is not expected to exercise the level of judgement required to know, for instance, that stabbing the machete nut in one place will disable him, but in another will kill him. He's just genuinely in fear for his life and entitled to use force, whether knife, katana or shotgun to defend himself, up to and including deadly force, providing it's not disproportionate. Where that line is depends on circumstances. How many intruders? How many shotgun shells did he have? Where were the intruders? Was a warning shot feasible? Did he have time?
It's that entire accumulation of circumstances, given the panicked state of a householder, that determines what's grossly disproportionate and what isn't. If the only weapon available is some fancy sword, and a panicked householder swings it wildly, he is extremely unlikely to be expected to judge whether that swing will kill but not utterly bisect, or whether it leaves the intruder in bits.
If deadly force is reasonable, then it's reasonable and if a wild swing is reasonable, then it is.
On the other hand, if you lurk in a dark corner and let an unarmed intruder sneak past you, then cut him in half from behind, it's much less likely to be reasonable, because you effectively laid in wait. As for him being unarmed, what matters is what you genuinely believed, not what was actually the case. For instance, if he was "armed" with a non-firing replica, the threat posed was minimal but you weren't to know that.
There is no way to be certain in advance what actions, or weapons, are acceptable or not because rules on that don't exist. Guidelines do, but they illustrate the actual rule, which is the one I gave. All this rubbish about cutting in half is exactly that.
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Soldato
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In that situation i will let them take the stuff. I would especially not try to play hero.
If anything playing hero in that situation would heavily increase the chances of harm coming to you or a loved one. If that happened to me, i would give the bobbys a quick call, telling them i think someone broke in. Then i would proceed to move my wife and myself to the kids room while they bhelp themselves to the cutlery and my TV.
They are there to steal, not kill
I would then ring up the house insurance the next day, get the stuff replaced and pay a small bump in the premiums the next time round thanking the spaghetti monster that my family is still safe.