[Cthulhu_]

There have been quite a few stories where people that intervened were themselves charged with assaults. There's been burglars breaking into houses whose owners were charged with invasion of privacy for having security cameras in their own house.

Taking justice in your own hand - helping people out in a violent situation - is frowned upon and discouraged. Perhaps even moreso in the US, where it's much more likely that people carry guns and people - bystanders or those directly involved - get killed.

But as I'm sure is mentioned elsewhere, the main causes of inaction are the exceptionality of the situation (despite what the media wants you to believe) and a group mentality (nobody's doing anything, so why should I? Alternatively, maybe the group is seeing something I haven't, could be dangerous)

[josephlord]

> There's been burglars breaking into houses whose owners were charged with invasion of privacy for having security cameras in their own house.

I don't normally do this but extraordinary claims need evidence. Citation?

[FireBeyond]

I've never heard of an invasion of privacy suit against a homeowner, and I couldn't imagine it succeeding. What reasonable expectation of privacy do you have when being in someone else's home without consent?

And when you read more on many of those assault charges, you realize there's more to the story. Some I've seen:

Man's alarm and CCTV system alerts him to intruder. He doesn't call 911, but plans ambush, injures burglar, and only then summons help.

Man alerted to burglar as burglar is leaving premises, shoots burglar in back as burglar has left home but not property, attempts to claim he felt his life in danger, even though the burglar had not discovered him, and was in fact leaving the premises.