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No, it can't be. If you believe that, then you believe that it can include stepping over a threshold. Words in the English language have meanings, including "force", and everyone understands what they mean except you.
A closed door is not a bar to entry, and is not intended to bar entry. A locked door is. That's the difference.
I don't believe that everyone who commits a crime should be summarily gunned down in the streets by gangs of trigger-happy vigilantes foaming at the mouth. When someone argues that they should be, I stand up for the criminal. When someone stands up for constitutional rights and due process, go ahead and call us cowards. I think a coward is someone who kicks a guy who is already in handcuffs.
Legally, any force applied to enter, including the opening of an unlocked door by turning the doorknob, qualifies as "force" under the definition. Pulling aside a sheer curtain would be measured the same by the court. So by your definition, someone who I find in my home uninvited at night, who appears by all reasonable measure to be there to cause harm, cannot be stopped by the measured application of lethal force? What would you suggest I do? Ask him to kindly leave? Call the police while he stands there watching me? Offer him a beer and talk it over?
Answer the question - what would you do?
I think a coward is he who refuses to defend himself, his family, his home or his country in the face of danger of any kind.
No one has a constitutional right to enter the dwelling of another for the purpose of causing harm without facing the possibility of immediate and severe consequences, including death.
Legally, any force applied to enter, including the opening of an unlocked door by turning the doorknob, qualifies as "force" under the definition. Pulling aside a sheer curtain would be measured the same by the court. So by your definition, someone who I find in my home uninvited at night, who appears by all reasonable measure to be there to cause harm, cannot be stopped by the measured application of lethal force? What would you suggest I do? Ask him to kindly leave? Call the police while he stands there watching me? Offer him a beer and talk it over?
Answer the question - what would you do?
I think a coward is he who refuses to defend himself, his family, his home or his country in the face of danger of any kind.
No one has a constitutional right to enter the dwelling of another for the purpose of causing harm without facing the possibility of immediate and severe consequences, including death.
What, exactly, do you mean by "measured application of lethal force". How do you measure lethal?
Nothing you said contradicted anything I said. I did not say it was not a burglary, I said it was not violence, in the sense that kicking your face is violent.
I disagree with you that it is an act of heroic courage to walk down the street killing every person who looks mean, thus defending oneself and family against "danger of any kind" and imposing constitutionally protected immediate and severe consequences, including death, in the face of that danger.
What, exactly, do you mean by "measured application of lethal force". How do you measure lethal?
Well, I would pretty much call it lethal when he's lying motionless, with no detectable signs of life. How about you? How do you define lethal?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88
Nothing you said contradicted anything I said. I did not say it was not a burglary, I said it was not violence, in the sense that kicking your face is violent.
Legally, any application of force (see my earlier post on this) can be defined as violent. Breaking and entering is by definition, a violent act.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88
I disagree with you that it is an act of heroic courage to walk down the street killing every person who looks mean, thus defending oneself and family against "danger of any kind" and imposing constitutionally protected immediate and severe consequences, including death, in the face of that danger.
I never said that killing every person who may look mean is heroic or even permissable. Where we disagree is that I contend that killing intruders, who are there (or may be there) to cause harm, within one's home, is. Such intruders have no rights, human or constitutional the moment they break the plane of the home which divides inside from outside. "Down the street" never entered the conversation until you brought it up, and it really doesn't fit.
You still haven't answered - what do you consider the proper response to an intrusion into your home? Armed response or tea time? (Please consider that when seconds count, the police may be there in minutes at best.)
You still haven't answered - what do you consider the proper response to an intrusion into your home? Armed response or tea time? (Please consider that when seconds count, the police may be there in minutes at best.)
Vacate the building, then call law enforcement, or scare the bastard away if it's some tween showing off, alternately keeping the burglar in check until the police arrive. I certainly wouldn't kill someone over a tv and a stereo.
You still haven't answered - what do you consider the proper response to an intrusion into your home? Armed response or tea time? (Please consider that when seconds count, the police may be there in minutes at best.)
Seconds are only relevant if the perp has a loaded gun, it is aimed at me, and I have good reason to believe he will pull the trigger. If I react in a threatening way, that significantly increased the likelihood that he will indeed pull the trigger. So that would be a rather stupid and mortifying response.
The reason burglars break into houses without announcing themselves is because they do NOT want a confrontation with the occupants.
I own guns an I am a member of the NRA. But I am not so barbarian as to think using them against human beings is an event that will "make my day", so I am completely unprepared, mentally or arsenally, to blow people away.
As for your direct question, if I cannot deter the guy by merely announcing that he has been detected, I would carry my pre-HD TV down to his car for him if he wants it that badly. I would be lucky to get $100 for everything I own in a yard sale, which is my best defense against theft and fear.
I really don't want the police at my house any more than I want burglars. I fear the police more than I fear criminals. They have the power to do much, much more harm to me for the rest of my life.
Vacate the building, then call law enforcement, or scare the bastard away if it's some tween showing off, alternately keeping the burglar in check until the police arrive. I certainly wouldn't kill someone over a tv and a stereo.
That takes time you will not likely have. To evaluate his intentions, judge his likely range of actions and what he might choose to do, and get your family out. He may be in a location which precludes safe and quick evacuation and further threaten in the time it takes to try. The wiser course of action is to press whatever momentary tactical advantage is available, and eliminate the threat. I would feel no compunction about eliminating any threat, regardless of the age. A 13 y.o. can just as easily pull a trigger as the 51 y.o. in the original story.
The fact is you don't know if they're there for or will be satisfied by a TV and stereo. Can you instantly determine if this is a 'tween showing off' or a drug-addled adult? Can you immediately know if they are armed and willing to shoot if given the chance?
I do threat evaluation and risk management on a regular basis. After considering the facts likely in such a situation, I've decided in advance to "follow the numbers" and take action as I've stated. Logic dictates this is the best course. All you bleeding hearts are putting way too much emotion into this. The calculated decision says to terminate the threat as soon and as efficiently as possible. Castle doctrine agrees.
That takes time you will not likely have. To evaluate his intentions, judge his likely range of actions and what he might choose to do, and get your family out. He may be in a location which precludes safe and quick evacuation and further threaten in the time it takes to try. The wiser course of action is to press whatever momentary tactical advantage is available, and eliminate the threat. I would feel no compunction about eliminating any threat, regardless of the age. A 13 y.o. can just as easily pull a trigger as the 51 y.o. in the original story.
The fact is you don't know if they're there for or will be satisfied by a TV and stereo. Can you instantly determine if this is a 'tween showing off' or a drug-addled adult? Can you immediately know if they are armed and willing to shoot if given the chance?
I do threat evaluation and risk management on a regular basis. After considering the facts likely in such a situation, I've decided in advance to "follow the numbers" and take action as I've stated. Logic dictates this is the best course. All you bleeding hearts are putting way too much emotion into this. The calculated decision says to terminate the threat as soon and as efficiently as possible. Castle doctrine agrees.
Pardon my french, but castle doctrine is fu**ing ridiculous.
Fact of the matter is most home intruders are burglars, they want your possessions, I don't own anything worth killing over. You see, I live in the real world, where I don't worry about raging murderers around every corner, because guess what, they're far and few between. In the US, which has something like 10 times the murder rate of where I live, you still only face a 0.007% chance of being killed. I'm at more risk eating peanuts.
Now if you want to kill someone because some junky is trying to fund their next fix, then that's on you, personally I prefer to take a slightly more reasonable and less emotional response.
All you bleeding hearts are putting way too much emotion into this. .
What? You're the emotional one who wants to go off half cocked and "courageously" kick the faces of harmless handcuffed non-violent people, with the expectation of getting a medal for it. You're the one who tumesces at the thought of some poor dope "making you day" by goading you to fill his head with hollow-point rounds.
You just outlined a scenario in which the burglar is a master tactician capable of outwitting Clausewitz, whose every move can be anticipated and neutralized by a well-planned flank attack with adequate logistics and communications. What kind of people do you think break into houses?
What kind of people do you think break into houses?
This is what kind of people break into houses. He broke into his victim's house. Would you say he deserved to be shot had it been possible to before he acted?
"Powell described how he went to Stacie's house because he was angry at her for having a black boyfriend. He wrote that he attempted to rape her and then stabbed her in the heart when she fought off his advances. Afterward, Powell went downstairs, smoked a cigarette, drank some iced tea and waited for her younger sister, Kristie, to come home from school. He raped her, slit her throat, stabbed her and left her for dead."
This is what kind of people break into houses. He broke into his victim's house. Would you say he deserved to be shot had it been possible to before he acted?
"Powell described how he went to Stacie's house because he was angry at her for having a black boyfriend. He wrote that he attempted to rape her and then stabbed her in the heart when she fought off his advances. Afterward, Powell went downstairs, smoked a cigarette, drank some iced tea and waited for her younger sister, Kristie, to come home from school. He raped her, slit her throat, stabbed her and left her for dead."
Firstly, those kind of things happen very rarely, most break ins are not in any way related to this.
Secondly: I don't think anyone's opposed fighting off a real threat to your life, with lethal force, if needed (or frankly if that's the result even though you didn't go for it). Neither me nor jtur88 has said anything like that.
So I would say that protecting herself, even with a firearm, once the man started to try and rape her would've been a completely acceptable use of force.
But again, that is NOT the modus operandi of most burglars, in fact, very few actually do things like this.
It is very sad that things like that happen, and we should do what we can to prevent it. But you can't base all burglars on that presumption, as few of these things happen each year.
Most people who are killed by an intruder, either knows them or surprise the thief, who then panics. And those are both situations you can control.
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