self-defence weapon or not?

opstrat said:
my dad has a sock of coins by his bed. i have a replica klingon batleth on my wall but tbh i probibly wouldnt have the balls to hit someone with a weapon.

this reminds me of a funny story i heard somewhare.

old guy in a country village phones police to say some thugs are in his shed.
police say they are busy attending something else and will get to it when they can.
the old guy, peed off, phones back a few minutes later and says to the police "its ok iv just shot him with my shotgun."
minutes later there is the helicopter overhead and police all over his back garden.
couldnt find anyone that was shot, the police ask the man 'u said u shot someone'
old man says 'and i thaught u said u were to busy.

i think it was a true story from a newspaper.
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It's more of an urban myth than a true story, elements might be true but too often it's a case of "my mate's dad knows a man who did this and it worked...". Check out the Snopes page for more but I've got my doubts that the Mississippi Star is a regular choice of reading for most (even in Mississipi come to that).

While it seems mildly amusing in a way to highlight that the police aren't actually acting fast enough it fundamentally ignores that with any sort of finite resource (i.e. a police service with limited manpower) you need to find a way of prioritising. Calling in a fake report as the protagonist in the story has may well move you up from being say a medium priority (requires attending within two hours) to an urgent priority (immediate attention) but you're now taking away resources from other situations which may be legitimately a much higher priority - you can make up any number of scenarios where by making a false report you've directly or indirectly put someone else in greater danger. I can well understand that when something is happening to you that it seems like the most important thing in the World but there's a reason why threat to property is viewed as less serious than threat to life - messing around with that just to jump up the queue should see you charged.

Reality Bites said:
Are you sure it was illegally obtainted? The guy lived on a farm, not uncommon for farms to have shotguns? Two ****** broke into his house, was that planned too?

Edit:/ just double checked and you are indeed talking tosh!
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I think at the time it was suggested that the firearms certificate Tony Martin held should have been revoked as he wasn't mentally fit to hold it but I can't remember offhand whether there was any illegality regarding the guns themselves.

As for the planning comment, he had allegedly been suffering from break-ins for a while and set himself up to shoot anyone else who did it. While you can feel sympathy for someone who has been subjected to repeated break-ins it's hard to feel sympathy for them when they've set out to shoot the next person regardless of whether they were any threat or not and then once they've done so to simply leave them to bleed out and die - if he'd shot Fred Barras but actually called the emergency services then his case might have turned out somewhat differently.
 
Alarm Mines
Pretty sure an explosive going off will wake you up and clear off anyone trying to be sneaky or even if they are being loud, its a hellva noise to hear when your not expecting it. Perfectly legal if placed correctly (not near a road or path)

 
jumpy said:
D'oh :(

I see where you're coming from and all, but I hope you don't have any kids who might have access to your rifle, especially if it's cocked and loaded when you are not present.
It's behaviour like that that make politicians attempt to circumscribe ownership of such things as air rifles and other types of firearms, when inevitably something goes horribly wrong and the anti shooting hand-wringers get their sweaty digits on a story like that.

For reference, mine live in the corner of the bedroom too, but neither is left loaded or cocked when not in use or in the case/slip. Plus I live alone.
Were it put to the test by the old bill, I doubt they'd fall for your 'forgot it was loaded' argument. As far as they're going to be concerned, you just left a loaded firearm unattended.

My personal favourite for uninvited guests is the trusty tomahawk that's part of my camping/outdoors kit, but they'd have fair warning to leave first. But the likelihood of such a scenario actually happening is slim to none; probably the first thing I'd reach for is the mobile.

As for the crossbows pictured on earlier pages... lol nice toys they are.
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Me and my parents only so nobody children, In all honesty I probably wouldnt take a shot at them, attempt to blind them with the laser sight if they're still at the bottom of the stairs then a good smack with the butt of the rifle. Less legal implications, I'd only take a shot if I could see they had a knife etc to slow them down.

As I also said the always on when no firing.
 
I've 3 dogs, although they're silly little things, they don't half make a racket when someone dares come near the house. The Lhasas might bite their feet, they're a bit territorial, the Terrier would probably just try and get the guy to play fetch, while yapping frantically.

I'm pretty sure that a burglar would far rather rob the next doors house instead of waking the entire street.
 
lead pipe (not so common now) or sawn off baseball bat,

as long as its short enough to get multiple swings in and heavy enough to do the damage, then alls good.

flashlight is a good tool as well, keeping it off untill you come across the intruder, switching it on and blinding them, while hitting with lead pipe :)

worry about the law afterwards, at least your alive.

its only 'victims' who worry about consequence, cross that bridge when it comes
 
If having a weapon in your bedroom you must create a reason for having it there, ie. knife for model work, in order to avoid being a victim of the UK's absurd laws on "pre-meditation".
 
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Castiel said:
I am surprised that so many people actually have various weapons by their bed in case they are burgled......there seems to be a significant amount of paranoid people frequenting OcUK.....
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You've at least got to have something in mind you'd grab if it hit the fan.
 
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semi-pro waster said:
I think at the time it was suggested that the firearms certificate Tony Martin held should have been revoked as he wasn't mentally fit to hold it but I can't remember offhand whether there was any illegality regarding the guns themselves.
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The issue was the shotgun he held which had over the legal capacity. The law only allows up to something like five rounds and his had seven. I can't remember the exact figures, but that was why one of his weapons was illegal. There was also the minor issue of him having threatened a passer-by with one of his shotguns - usually this would lead to instant revocation.


M
 
It has to be something you would reasonably have close to hand to grab if someone took you by surprise while you were in bed.

So that rules out swords, knives, bats, half bricks, chainsaws etc etc.

Limits you to big maglites and such really.
 
atpbx said:
It has to be something you would reasonably have close to hand to grab if someone took you by surprise while you were in bed.
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Are you sure about that?

It's about your use of reasonable force. You can grab a bat and use it to discourage someone out of your property or defend yourself. Providing you don't use that bat unreasonably then I can't see why it would be a problem.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
Lol at the keyboard Rambo wannabes here. Just LOL.
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It's amazing, isn't it? Worryingly, some of them are probably telling the truth and it's only a matter of time before they either (a) get stabbed or shot by a surprised yet prepared burglar or (b) end up making male friends in the shower unit of Her Majesty's finest after they mistook a machete for a keyboard.

This is the best thread :D
 
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