Breaking and entering is not a victimless crime. As soon as someone enters your property you have been violated. I would happily give anyone a good hiding who invades the place where me and my family live, eat and sleep. Turning the other cheek is just inviting every other scumbag to take a pop at your house. A burglar has the choice to enter a house illegally, the resident of the house didn't get any choices. Simple as really.
I never suggested that it was a victimless crime. I have had it happen, I have confronted a burglar. The burglar is in the wrong. But, it's a strange perversion of justice where said burglar suddenly loses the right to life. The property does not matter. Your family is what matters. My argument is twofold, firstly, violence goes against my morals, no matter what the circumstances, that said I would not watch as someone attacked me or my family. Secondly, by the use or threat of violence, you would escalate the situation and put you and your family at greater risk than in the first place.
I would much rather have a go, than to leave the burglars to their own devices. A quick sharp confrontation works well against thugs. ask the police, or doormen, or any other professional who is confronted with potentially dangerous situations. As a burglar entering your house is an unknown quantity, you cannot afford to dither while they decide what to do. Take the shock factor out of their hands, put them on the receiving end and 9/10 scuzzbags would crap themselves. Edit: Like it or not, violence has a part to play in society. We inherited it from our ancestors, the primate. I am not trying to justify what I am saying, because I know that morally I would be wrong for attacking a burglar if the situation didn't call for it, but I really don't care what people think, it's what I feel and think that matters. So I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. I see my house as my security blanket, in which I have the right to live peacefully and without fear of my or my familys safety. If someone tries to take that away from me, then I will have a bloody good go at them.
I'm pretty sure that the ones who don't want violence will run when they're caught, with or without the threat of violence. And the ones who are gonna fight anyway are probably psycopaths, or in that spectrum, so you are immediately at a disadvantage against them as they have nothing to lose, whereas you do.Finally, others may be forced into violence if you attack first who might otherwise run.
So if they are hesitant, I should just ask them to leave politely, and hope they don't fall into the psycho catagory then? Quick decisive action would be whats needed.
No shout 'Get the f**k out of my house,' that should sort out the hesitant without escalation. If you appear to be in control of the situation, without backing them into a corner, that is the best way to get them to run. If it's a psycho, or someone that doesn't run, sure have a weapon or whatever else to hand and hope he ends up in a worse state than you. All I'm saying is that violence should be the last resort, not the first.
We will have to agree to diagree then I have faced violence both in my work and in my personal life as a young man. I found that you are half way to winning a fight if you have the element of surprise. I perceive someone being in my house while my family are present to be a serious threat to their safety and would react accordingly. My wife and I have had conversations along the what if lines before, and I always said that she was to barricade herself and the kids in a bedroom and scream the house down. I would be charging like a banshee down those stairs at them. It's easy saying it I know, and I would be scared silly, but I believe it would be the best way. Give a lowlife an inch and they will take a yard.
Cool, some rep flying your way too I know that what you are saying would probably be the sensible thing to do, but where my family is concerned I would come out swinging and ask questions later.
Both of you have some rep for acknowledging each others differences. It is far too often on this forum that we see an endless debate that eventually gets the mods involved. I think that the basic consensus on the forum (there are exceptions so i am not saying this is how everyone would react) is to wound or trap if they are no threat with the possibility of killing if they are a threat or if there are people in the house (kids, wife, gf, etc) who could be in harms way.
I'm not necessarily suggesting that a person should just roll over while the burglar takes what he pleases. If the burglar confronts you personally, then by all means you should defend yourself. I'm willing to wager that if the burglar sees the bedroom light come on, he will be more likely to run than to stick around for a possible confrontation. Given that, I don't see the value in chasing after him in an effort to incite confrontation. Try to get a description and call the police. If the burglar returns, continue filing reports. If the police have multiple records on file, then they can begin to build a strong case. If you simply take the law into your own hands then you're putting your safety, and possibly your freedom, at risk. I'd rather let the crook run away than incite a violent struggle that puts my family at risk. But then, I'm more of a pacifist, so my moral compass affects the direction in which I point my actions. -monkey
Of course violence is justified if someone enters your property. But thanks to socialists it's YOU who go to jail if you smash the burglar's face in.
I thought long and hard about this, and i came to a very useful conclusion; I haven't a clue. Is my property worth more than a human life? That depends. Isn't my property all i have? I am not in a position to replace high valued items should i lose them. Really, if i don't have my tools and computers, i'm royally ****ed. Is it worth killing the thief to prevent getting royally ****ed? How am i supposed to know if the thief is armed, what his intents are, what he is stealing, and what his motivation is? These are all things i would want to base a decision on, and it's all information i wouldn't have. A split second decision would have to be made in a confrontation. So i couldn't at all tell you if it is worth taking their life, but, generally speaking, if someone makes my life miserable, i'll do EVERYTHING in my power to make their life even worse. An eye for an eye? You wish. I hope you enjoyed having hands. Great, self discovery. Worse than killing someone, i'd rather torture them for making my life miserable. Bob, i feel like i'm starting to like you. Me. Us. That said - Now that i know i am a very revengeful little chap, how able am i actually to inflict serious damage to someone? I can sense most of you being rather confident of your fighting abilities - i am not at all. At 15 years, i can beat up most other kids at my age, and on occassion have gone totally bezerk to make sure they wouldn't mess with me or anyone else again. But could i really pull that kind of **** on someone entering my house? I used to spend a lot of time on sites like tM, and i know quite a few people who do B&E now. I'd be scared shitless if one of those entered my house! I don't at all think it's fair to say i would dominate them like most others here propose doing (i bet most of you wouldn't be a match for the guys i know either). BUT... I have 2 crowbars under my pillow (and one behind the bookshelf), a stanley blade in my socks (yeah, i regularly wear socks at night), BB guns hidden in books (and i am pretty good at aiming for the eyes), even pen blades convienently placed, should someone enter my room. BRING IT Bit-tech, a journey of self discovery. This post is way too long. TL;DR - i'm a 15 year old ***** who would probably get owned but hopes do to everything in his powers to crowbar your guts out.
ok for alittle background info i live in one of the worst neighboorhoods in edmonton and my house(parents house really) has been robbed a couple times in the last couple of months i'll explain what went down: the first time my parents and i were on vacation and our house was broken into. nothin really important was stolen the next time it happened was when my parents moved into an appartment near to the hospital (my grandma has cancer so they wanted to be closer to her) me and my brother stayed living in the house. we went to rent a movie and left the door open. this time the robbers took alot (a tv xbox and a few other things) the next time wasn't really a B&E but my girlfriend had just moved in and i was woken up by a sound in the kitchen and well i was still asleep i knocked her out with the rolling pin(she was pretty pissed off when she came too but she kind of understood,) but i had to sleep on a the couch for a week now to get on to the issue i believe that force should be allow to be used. That said i hit to knock out not kill but that being said if i had any idea that my gf or little bro was in any danger what so ever lethal force would be used. i'm sorry if that was a little long and boring
In case this is TL;DR for some people... I knocked my girlfriend out with a rolling pin EPIC! I bet some chaps here wish they could do that every now and then.
I nearly had to put what I have been spouting into action in the small hours this morning. My wife was woken up at around 2am, by banging outside. Some twats had gotten into my garage and were helping themselves to my scooter. It's my pride and joy that bike, having been heavily modded. They managed to break the steering lock on it. I ran down in my underpants but they were already out and running. They had dropped the sccoter when they ran away, and caused some other damage too. It turns out that these lads were having a busy night, they also broke into my Mum's neighbours shed, and were caught at it again. The lads are locals, and they were recongnised. It looks lile there will be more than me in the queue to give them a slap this morning What has pissed me off the most is the fact that I will have to pick up the excess on my insurance, mess about getting my scooter repaired, sort my garage door out and lose a days takings in the process. Now whoever say I wouldn't have had the right to give both these lads a good slapping, had I caught them last night, I reckon you are talking out your arse
Sorry for not having responded sooner... Undermining the law isn't a great idea I agree. And I think that the consensus on punishment for crimes is usually about right, however, they are punishments dished out by people with time and facts who can think rationally about whatever crime was commited - if someone breaks into your home, you don't have this option. I know that's not quite in line with my origional "if someone breaks in the deserve everything they get". My reasoning for that is that someone has chosen to break a law (set out usually by the consensus of society) which mitigates their rights in my mind. If I was walking down the street for example, I would expect not to be punched in the face, however if I was walking down the street and acting in a threatening way to someone, I would expect to be... I was using that to illustrate that if caught afterwards I wouldn't expect people to face the death penalty for a mild spot of breaking and entering. As soon as someone turns to run, or escape, they lower the potential threat to yourself or your loved ones - and I think the reaction you can take is proportionate. At this point incapcitating someone would be acceptable in my opinion (though obviously that's incredibly difficult without a lot of training and experience) as it allows the perpetrators to be caught and brought to justice. As stated in my first post though - I've never been in a fight in my life, never thrown a punch, never been seriously threatened (nothing I couldn't talk my way out of) and never been broken into whilst at home (though we've had garages and empty houses done) So my actual reaction would almost certainly be to hide somewhere and ring the police as subtley as possible. I have to say I found the points made about masculinity very interesting, and though I don't feel my own reactions are driven by that (being generally unaffected by peer pressure etc), I agree that at some level they absolutely must be. RwD
tl;dr, just found the thread too, schools keeping me off of bt. Personally, if someone comes in, they're invaded my home and im going to incapacitate them. Im they're exerting deadly force, they're going to get it right back. If not, they're just gonna get held captive till the cops come. Now if they go, try and break in, steal something and leave, Im going to chase them down and bring their ass back to the house and cuff them till the cops show. You can put them under citizen/civilian arrest till the cops show, and you have every right to. You dont have the right to go and kill someone because they are tresspassing, or breaking and entering.
Amen to that. What's really going on here is that defendants of violent/lethal reaction are simply itching to kill or assault somebody. Why else would you want to do so, if incapacitating them would be equally effective at protecting you and yours? Defendants of violence towards burglars, consider this. A burglar breaks into your house. You have a family and a lot of valuable property in the house. You can do one of the following: (a) Beat him to a pulp, and/or kill him outright. (b) Knock him unconscious and/or tie him up, incapacitating him until the police arrive. Think about it - both of these options protect your family and property completely. If you choose (a), it is therefore out of nothing other than a cloaked lust for self-righteous violence. There is no other reason to choose the more extreme option.
Your reasoning is perfect - provided said reasoning is performed after the fact/as a legal hypothesis before the fact; not during the fact. You can reason about the value of life and how you should view burglary versus family defense all you want; but what I think most "'ll kill him!" people here are talking about are taking into account the following: - being woken up, henceforth being confused - hearing noise, supposing someone may be committing crime in your home - quickly processing the potential danger the person/persons that may be in your home could cause on you/your family - decide between calling the cops and hide (leaving your family at risk?)/calling the cops and protect your family (how?)/investigate the noise (and risking yourself and your family?) In my view, the confusion plus the "protect myself/protect my family" thing leads to pure survival instinct - him/them or me. That leads to people considering the fact it'd be OK to kill a burglar, if they considered them a threat. Unfortunately for the burglar, he'll always be a threat well past the stealing stuff stage - you can't trust a criminal to just take stuff and leave. He's bound to rape your wife and kids, too, right? You can't be sure he will or won't, you can't be sure he'll take your stuff and run off; you'll have to presume the worst to be safe. The burglar(s) already chose to commit crime, for whatever reason, if they get confronted the end-result is entirely up to them. I will never defend or support a person who shoots or harms a burglar (or any other criminal) who is running away (with or without your property). If they're running, there's no threat to you or your family, and you should let the police handle it. If they don't run, however... too bad for them. I can't feel too much compassion for a burglar who gets hurt in the process of committing his criminal act. Most people can't.
