I imagine some Non-Americans reading this are horrified.
But Americans know that this (a pre-shooting checklist) isn't a reason for door locks for every American. And I'd guess it only is for a small minority of Americans.
No, you can't legally shoot someone that walks in through an open door. You can ask them to leave, but youre going to have big problems if you shoot them and all they did up to that point was not leave instantly when asked, if they walked through an open door.
If the door is locked, and they break in, you are not shooting them because they broke a lock. You are shooting them because theyve shown criminal intent by forcibly making their way through a locked door.
I'm curious in how many jurisdictions simply "showing criminal intent" is sufficient to mean they're legally a target to be shot at, potentially fatally. I'd be pretty horrified to know I was living in such a jurisdiction.
Whereas somebody walking through my open door while clearly posing a threat to my life, or the life of family members (e.g. holding a weapon) I would have no hypothetical qualms over aiming a gun at, and should they continue to approach, firing. Mind you if that did result in their death I'd still expect to be required to provide evidence that it was a reasonable course of self-defence given the circumstances. Are you saying that isn't the case wherever you live?
Are you sure you can run all those calculations while breaking and entering is occurring in your home? It varies quite a bit from place to place, as you can see...
But the basic idea is that the natural right of self-defense extends to certain areas, including one's home. (That is, you do not have to wait until the intruder has his hands around your neck in order to defend yourself.) If you would prefer to not be allowed to defend yourself, that's you. In many countries (not just the US) invading people's homes makes for a dangerous and short career, as it should.
Thanks for that link, that is pretty interesting and I can't honestly say I know exactly what the law is where I live (in Australia, but not in the state that gets a special mention in that article).
And absolutely, if I happened to have access to a lethal weapon and I was sufficiently fearful I might well be tempted to use it on an intruder even well before they posed an immediate threat. But if I really were responsible for taking an intruder's life and the courts determined that they were never a realistic threat to anyone, nor was there any good reason for me to believe they were (e.g. I had a clear view of them, could see that had no weapon, and they weren't acting in any sort of hostile manner), I'd fully expect to go to jail for it.
Instead of trying to catch me making a language error on exactly what criminal intent is... Why don't you think about this like a human....
You are at home with your wife and kids. A large man wearing all black with his face covered has broken your door lock and forced the door open. He is now making his way up your stairs where all your family is.
Should you be able to legally shoot this man?
If not, what is your plan for protecting your family members from this person?
Not a question of language error, I'm just interested in how different parts of the world have different takes on when taking a life can be legally justified.
FWIW, in your scenario, if I simply shot the man and killed him, then I would fully expect to be questioned and possibly charged, and only acquitted if I could demonstrate killing him was a justifiable act of self-defense. I don't imagine whether he'd broken the door lock would be considered particularly relevant.
As it happens, I've forced locked doors open with no criminal intent - I'd simply lost my key and needed to get back inside my own house. It's not impossible the man in question had got confused about which house was his and was doing the same thing.
I got it. If a man breaks into your house, begins walking up the stairs while your wife and kids are there, you're going to be cautious to see if stopping him with deadly force is necessary. Maybe first let him strike you in the face too. You wouldn't want to kill him if he's punch only knocks you down and allows you to get up and fight him off like a super hero! And if he punches you so hard you loose consciousness, what's the worst he's going to do? Rape your wife?
By making it hard to obtain weapons.
The US thinking to me seams to go along the lines of handing out nuclear weapons to everybody so forces are balanced...
If the legal rule is "you can't shoot anybody", which is what the post I responded to said, wouldn't that make it impossible to legally obtain weapons? Why just "hard"?
If, OTOH, you mean make it hard to illegally obtain weapons, where has this actually been done successfully? My reading of human history is that criminals who want weapons have always been able to get them somehow.
> The US thinking to me seams to go along the lines of handing out nuclear weapons to everybody so forces are balanced...
I don't know where you are getting that from. The US thinking is very simple: since it is impossible for governments to prevent all violent crimes or to ensure that police show up in time to protect citizens from being harmed by violent crime, citizens must be allowed to have the means of self defense. The best way to minimize the number of citizens that feel the need to have weapons for self-defense is to extirpate crime--but unfortunately the US in recent decades has been moving in the opposite direction.
And the overwhelming majority of people, including thieves, don't do this, because the raised barrier to entry makes gun crimes vastly less attractive. Combine that with a broad social safety net that reduces poverty, and you miraculously get homicide rates dropping through the floor: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_countries_by_...
> because the raised barrier to entry makes gun crimes vastly less attractive.
Is that assertion based on study or "common sense?" It may well be that they don't feel the need to bring a gun because they know their victims are definitely not going to be armed anyways.
The real question would, do the criminals not use a weapon at all, or do they use weapons that just don't happen to be guns?
> broad social safety net that reduces poverty
People aren't being shot in the US because of poverty. The _majority_ of "gun violence" in the US is actually suicides. It's nearly 2/3 of that terrible statistical category. The remainder of murders typically involve alcohol and arguments.
The majority of murder victims in the US know their murderer by name and have been acquainted with them for years. Means. Motive. Opportunity. These things don't change.
This is a lame response. A man with a knife or a bat has the tools he needs to easily kill your whole family. So what is the plan to protect a family since knives and bats will always exist?
He was right leaning so you are probably correct.
But I would think his murder might have happened earlier if weapons were legal for most citizens as in the US.
I'm not so sure. The assassin took advantage of the fact that nobody was expecting a gunman. In an armed society, there would have been more defense measures present to prepare for such an attack
The number one, by far most effective thing you do comes well ahead of those armed, home entry thieves, and that is you make your home scream "GO AWAY!"
Get a dog
Employ great lighting
Put the home alarm stickers on, actual alarm optional, [3]
Clean up.
Etc...
The criminals work on risk reward. You can bias that equation away from favorable meaning the baddies pick another home, not yours.
From there, should you really feel this scenario could happen, maybe consider a gun. But if you do, please get gun education. One bad scenario is to have a gun, and face experienced users. Your chance of getting you, and or family, hurt go way up!
I do mostly identify with the left, but am gun friendly having grown up rural and well educated about guns.
[3] - no joke! Neighbors had done the sticker thing for roughly a decade. That, plus the other suggestions work well.
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But Americans know that this (a pre-shooting checklist) isn't a reason for door locks for every American. And I'd guess it only is for a small minority of Americans.