http://www.spokesman.com/stories/201...ief-senseless/
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Car insurance covers theft. If its worth killing over, its worth insuring. If its insured, killing a thief is senseless.
In addition, good cars have antitheft devices. Bad cars arent worth killing over.
On the other hand, FUCK THIEVES. Its my stuff, fuck you. DIAGF
My thoughts: Man I'm so torn on this issue. I think that the dude is a retard and that when you steal you open yourself up to risk of being killed, especially in America. On the other hand I think shooting someone in the head when they represent no existential threat to you is morally wrong. This doesn't even fall in the realm of castle doctrine. When someone breaks into your house you don't know if they are a survival threat to you so its ok to kill them because of the uncertainty, but if they are driving off in your car there's no question of whether they are a threat. They aren't. I guess I'm not so torn after all, I def think the shooter should face charges.
Killer should get the death penalty. Whoooooooo Americaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!
Killing someone for stealing your car is insane. Now the shooter risk to get very long time behind bars becuase someone stole his CAR? What a moron :)
I agree with kingnat. There is no reason to kill someone who is running away from you with stolen property. Certainly not residential property. If they are not posing a direct threat to life, the use of lethal force is unwarranted.
I mean a kidnapping, maybe... MAYBE, cause risk to the kidnapped. Military scenarios, probably... usual caveats for any ethical position.
That reminds me of those police traps they set up where they leave a car open with the keys in the ignition and as soon as someone picks it up, they get busted.
As if organized car thieves run around looking for unlocked cars. That's thievery as much as much as walking through an open door is breakin an entry. There might techically be an "employers only" sign, but that doen't mean you deserve to be shot on sight.
And that's why people call for gun control. Our frontal lobes are too small, and the adrenal glands are too big. People are not going to make sensible decisions regarding life and death in the heat of the moment.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2000/ap...artin.ukcrime3
This guy shot and killed burglar in his remote farmhouse in the middle of the night.
He got life in prison.
Go team Europe.
(ps if you really look the case, the guy was a nutter and was rightly IMHO given jail)
Defending the killer is defending "an eye for an eye" mentality, except in this case it's more like "your whole head for my eye". Not the kind of model society should follow. It's essentially condoning vigilantes to carry out the death penalty for theft.
The more people who do this the better. I want the thieves to have more risk, I'm just not willing to kill anyone myself. But other people, that's fine.
Morality is subjective. I think it's probably a toss-up on whether he should have pulled the trigger or not. I don't really care either way.
However, a massive piece of shit was removed from the gene pool. Tax dollars won't go to any of his leech-ass offspring that he would have had in the future, or their leech-ass offspring, or their leech-ass offspring. Who knows how many crimes were prevented by this piece of shit's death?
The majority of people who burgle houses don't want to cause the occupants any harm whatsoever. They are there for the money, the law has a large distinction between burglary and home invasions.
If I remember correctly the farmer shot the lad in the back too, making it impossible for him to be causing any immediate threat to the farmer. Also killing someone clearly isn't reasonable force the majority of the time.
"Majority" is not strong enough for me to decide not to mitigate my risk of death by shooting a person. If only 10% of home burglaries resulted in injury of the occupant then he'd still be justified because no just citizen deserves to roll a ten sided die for his life.
Also, a lot of this is in the eye of the beholder. In a society where we've decided its ok and lawful to own guns (and we have, sorry Europe), we have to be ok with the use of guns and make distinctions for the appropriate measures of self defense. Someone breaking into your home while you are in it poses a threat to your life, statistically speaking, even if the majority poses no threat. While this uncertainty exists, you are justified in defending yourself. As soon as the threat is gone i.e. he took your shit and is on his way, you have no right to mete out retribution as that is the job of the authorities.
I wonder what kind of society we would have if every criminal that was caught was killed even for something as small as theft no matter the value. I'm not sure I hate criminals having more fear of getting caught than victims of losing their possessions.
wat
I've always felt that the judicial system was just a little too civilized, a little too 'progressive'. What could possibly go wrong with letting armed vigilante justice run rampant?
As the story was described, it most certainly was not self-defense. It was most definitely senseless. The shooter should be held accountable for manslaughter.
lol you must be joking. Why should the risk of that situation be on the person who is innocently in his/her home and not on the person breaking in? (Assuming you are male), pretend you are a female and 2 large men kick down the door to your flat... what's your play here?
Onto Renton's OP...
First there are widely varying laws regarding self defense and even property defense in different jurisdictions. Further there are widely varying interpretations of those laws, and people have different personal opinions on the ethics of those situations.
Personally I think that shooting someone who is driving away in a stolen car is ethically wrong, unless there is some spectacular mitigating circumstances. I'm not sure whether that was a legal shot in that jurisdiction (it wouldn't be in most) but regardless, that is certainly not in the spirit of any self-defense or castle doctrine law. Again, that's my opinion.
This is different than situations like armed robbery where there is both prospects of stolen property and threat of bodily harm. It's the latter point that makes it a self-defense situation. Just speaking in generalities here now
Ok so how do you suggest that she defend herself in that situation? Police are 5-10 minutes away at best, and a baseball bat or pepper spray isn't good enough.
The part about being female was mostly for effect. Take a large, strong, adult male who is a skilled fighter. Such a person would destroy the large majority of the population in a fair, 1 on 1 fight. That person would also be a longshot in a fight against 2 men, and hopelessly lost versus 3 or more. Similarly, he would be hopelessly lost vs 1 man with a large knife, crowbar, or gun. That is reality. What you see in movies is fake.
Do you guys also shoot the kids who steal candies in the shops? Good for them imo, why give them a chance to grow up and steal your car later?
I have no doubt that the threat of getting killed deters some amount of petty crime in the U.S. The question is not really of whether the thief was a piece of shit or took a risk or whatever. The question is whether it was ok for that man to shoot him.
Someone made a good point about gun control. I had my iphone stolen a few weeks ago. Literally snatched out of my hand by a guy on a motorbike while I was on an open-air taxi. It pissed me off so much that I'm certain I'd have shot at him if I was carrying a gun. Humans are quite flawed in their ability to deal with stress at a moment's notice.
Unfortunately, gun control is a terrible idea for the U.S., and only really works wonders in countries that aren't deeply rooted in gun culture to begin with and, perhaps more importantly, don't already have a shitton of guns. I think the best we can do at this point is shun people who worship and collect these death machines and teach our children not to fucking kill people for petty reasons.
Oh and also, we could make the laws more clear on what constitutes self defense and lawful use of deadly force. As it currently is in many states, including WA, you can pretty much shoot anyone you want and make at least a decent case for justifiable homicide. Especially if the victim is big, black, or has any sort of criminal record. The status quo cultivates a sort of laissez faire attitude with regard to the use of guns. Maybe this dude wouldn't have shot the guy if he wasn't 98% sure he'd get off?
and bonus justifiable points if you hit him in the front!
She should be able to protect herself just as any guy should also be able to protect themselves. There isn't a difference in gender. A threatening position is a threatening position for anyone. I only said she because I was talking about the example you gave.
Realistically though very few burglaries are kicking peoples doors down once again, the idea is to not get caught. In your proposed situation (man or woman) in America someone probably gets shot and seriously injured or dies. In Europe, probably not.
There are other states like Florida that have very, very laxly written laws that fit your description of being able to make a decent case of justifiable homicide even in cases where it clearly shouldn't be.
I'm sure I come off as very pro-gun, I consider myself to be pro-gun, but there is certainly a limit. The points you brought up about specific 'stand your ground' laws and the laissez faire attitude regarding the use of guns (i.e. killing or severely wounding people) is very concerning. It is a horrible trend.
I don't really agree with your comment about people who collect guns. It is a legitimate hobby. There are surely countless hobbies out there that neither of us really understand. I know what you're getting at though.. you don't want to cultivate that mall ninja type who carries 2 glocks and enough ammunition for a short war everywhere he goes and who is itching for someone to cross the line of what would allow lethal force. That type frightens me too.
You probably can't change it at a moment's notice. What you need to change is the culture by properly educating the kids, then in a couple of generations you might end up not living in a country of gun nuts.
Start by stopping to spread that myth that owing or carrying guns is any good for self defense and explaining that it only makes things worse the majority of the time.
If you're worried about home invasion, you'll be much better off with a strong room and an alarm system. Starting a shooting only increases the chance of you or your family getting shot, or you killing someone you shouldn't have killed.
My TV or my car are not worth risking my family's or my own life for. Not even the one of the thief.
too many black presidents
As for home thieves, yes, the vast majority want to avoid confrontation. That's probably why an immense majority of burglaries are committed in empty houses.
If you start assuming that any petty thief should get shot on sight because he potentially could be a murderer or a rapist, where do you stop? Hell everybody I come across with in the street could potentially be a murderer or a rapist.
The point was that there really isn't a way for a female to protect herself in that situation without a gun. I'm open to other ideas that don't involve the female being at the mercy of the intruders or getting beat with her own weapon.
And yes the same is more or less true of guys, although I tend to think they have slightly more recourse wrt self defense just on the grounds of being generally bigger and stronger, and probably have a little less to worry about in general (e.g. rape). He/she really wasn't meant to make a big difference. Did you even read what I wrote? :D
I think you are exaggerating this a little bit. Either way though the risk should be on the burglar and not the home owner. That's just the way I see it. Does that mean I'm automatically going to shoot any stranger who walks into my place? No, of course not. Should I have the right to defend myself with a gun or other weapon against an intruder if I feel threatened? Yes I should have that right (and do.) I can't possibly see how anybody would feel differently.Quote:
Realistically though very few burglaries are kicking peoples doors down once again, the idea is to not get caught. In your proposed situation (man or woman) in America someone probably gets shot and seriously injured or dies. In Europe, probably not.
All the time.
But Europe has more of this and is better. Interesting.
So many judgement calls involved in what you just said. Maybe you can make all them decisions well. Do you really believe the general public can? In fact when the majority of crimes like this happen in places where people are less well off and less educated and less intelligent a lot of the time, do you think the bottom 30% of society has the abillity to make all them judgement calls?
If we want to go back to your woman example, the safest thing she could possibly do in that situation if she has the ability to is run and/or hide. There shouldn't be any materialistic object that she owns that should be more important than her life, or even the people robbing hers life. The one exception which comes to mind is obviously small children, which changes things.
It seems like the american way of dealing with problems is to repeatedly bash it with a stick while loudly explaining: "BAD THING! DO NOT WANT!".
Instead of taking a step back and figuring out how to solve things long term.
If you want to know what a society is like when it's governed by vigilantism and crimes are punished with death, take a look at the Liberia-Ghana region. Spoiler alert: Hell on earth.
It's not like we don't have extensive studies of that in all shades, and the result is uniformly the same. You can either care and look into that, or you can keep beating it with a stick and wait for it to go away.
And that morality is subjective and this is a "coinflip" is probably the dumbest shit you ever said, spoon. Fuck me!
I might spell this out for you, if you insist, but I just want to have it said that you are not as smart as you think you are when it comes to anything outside math, apparently.
Your main method of argument is to immediately go into ad hominem when someone attacks your position, which is just very frustrating and boring to deal with.
The standard argument here is that as soon as you have a gun, your chances of getting shot (by the other person, not by yourself as in that bill burr bit) go markedly up rather than down.
I'm not arguing to take away your right, even, but I would not use it myself (and consider myself as defenseless as a small girl + have a tight ass).
I'd also say that while ImSavvy is maybe exaggerating somewhat, everyone on the other side of the argument seems equally unjustifiedly convinced that burglars in your house are definitely there to rape and kill you, rather than wanting to get stuff with as little conflict as possible.
also the irony is strong in oskar
Do I fucking have to define morality? Read a book, will you. Goddamn. >_<
You want weak arguments? -> NRA website
The point is where does it stop? At what point should you be allowed to shoot someone?
The other point is that people who think that pulling a gun is the best thing to do when they feel threatened are most likely mistaken. In the vast majority of cases, there is far more chance of harm getting to them if they do than if they don't.
Nope, above comment was limited to you ad homineming spoon for ad homineming
This is a key thing for me. I don't really get how someone thinks they'd have an edge in this situation where there's one or more armed burglars in their house and they have a gun. 100% of the time the criminals are going to be more mentally prepared for the immediate situation than you are (in that they know they're breaking into your home, you don't) and in general terms it seems a pretty safe assumption that they're more comfortable with weapons and weapons in high pressure situations than you are.
Awesome! Now go put Earnest Brecker and Sigmund Freud on your reading list, and we can move on.
** Also I probably wrongfully assume that everyone is familiar with Kant, which might not be the case outside of german speaking countries. But the point is there is and has been for some time a definition of what is moral that is broken down logically. Any truly subjective morality should be irradicated because it's not needed and is ultimately going to cause more harm than good.
Run and hide lol... come on man. You are 3 days late with that.
And again it's not about materialistic objects. If somebody breaks into your home and is unfazed by the fact that somebody is actually there, it's not about your 'things' anymore, it's about you.
We're just going to have to chalk this up to an American vs Euro thing.
Its just risk calculation :/
Is it likely you will be killed anyway? Raped? Kidnapped and sold into a sex trafficking ring and then raped and killed? Is the invader some guy you cut off on the way home and is clearly intending to cause you an unknown amount of physical harm? Is he masked? Stressed?
No, pulling a gun will not save you some/most of the time. But othertimes it will. Evaluating when to pull it/how to act/etc during the invasion would also be something you'd consider.
Obviously, we arent concerned with prosecuting homeowners that shoot invaders...so im not really sure where we're going with this. Courts decide selfdefense type arguments on a case-by-case basis and take all the factors of the shooting into consideration when deciding if it was reasonable or not...we dont have bright line rules defining it because of the difficulty yall are having right now making one.
Maybe I'm offbase here, but it's starting to seem like the 'American' argument is: "In the worst situations, it will be a positive to have a gun"
and the 'Euro' argument is "In bad situations that aren't these worst situations, having a gun is going to be a negative not a positive"
ie. not really an argument that's coming head-to-head
edit: looks like JKDS might've beaten me while I was typering
No it's about common sense. If three gunmen break into my house, the last thing I want is to start a shooting because my family and I then have very little chance of survival. Besides, it's the night and we're sleeping so if it's after us they are, they'll probably be in our or the kids' room before I even have time to grab the gun.
Best defense imo if you are worried about that is to have a good alarm system linked to a security firm and a strong room with comms where you can lock yourself up while help arrives. That's exactly what companies having offices in high risk countries do. Your strong room doesn't need to be more than say a bathroom with a strong door. That and the alarm system, can't cost much more than a few assault weapons.
OK you can have a shotgun in the strong room as a last resort if you want.
That is a reasonable viewpoint. There are a lot of people out there who shouldn't own a gun. For example those who are hotheaded, chronic drunks, or who otherwise might make extremely poor decisions in stressful situations probably would be better off keeping their cell phone charged and hoping for the best.
In a legitimate life or death situation though I can't imagine that having a gun would actually be a liability more than an asset. I would be curious to see some statistics or related stories to back up that point. I'm open to that possiblity but it would be very counterintuitive. There are countless stories out there of home defense with a firearm, as would be expected in a country of ~300 million people with a generally pro gun mentality.
What do you mean by a life or death situation?
If someone is setting out to kill you, then yes a gun is obviously a good thing to own. Having a gun turns situations that aren't life or death into life or death situations though. For example, burglaries.
The stats and stuff are all available online, I'll let you search for them yourself.
I typed up a response to this but seem to have lost it. It seems like we are on the same page though with the inclusion of that last sentence.
I would probably give myself a little more room than just a bathroom though, and if you are going to go through all of that trouble, some motion lights and a dog would probably be helpful too.
I'm pretty sure there are statistics to back up that gun "defenders" or however you call the occupant of the home get shot/injured more in home invasions. I'll google for 'em now, but to be honest these days I often feel like there are statistics to back up both opposing sides of any argument, on god's green internet. Statistics aside, the line of reasoning at least is like this:
Home invader has a weapon simply because he wants to scare you into compliance but has no intention to use it. Suddenly he's faced with the occupant of the house also having a weapon, and so home invader and home occupant alike find themselves in a "him or me" situation and use their weapons.
So it's not that you'd be better off in a life-or-death situation without a gun, but that having a gun in the first place could be what transforms things into a life-or-death situation.
edit: first google hit is this: http://www.newscientist.com/article/...nd-killed.html about carrying a gun rather than having one in your home.
second google hit is an article about why the first is stupid (and probably so on and so forth throughout all the results)
The point is that if you are home, you don't really know if it is a burglary or a home invasion. It's easy to classify them after the fact but with what you are suggesting, all of the risk is on the innocent home owner.
I would rather see 10 burglars get shot and killed than see 1 innocent woman be raped and killed. Of course I would rather see NONE of these things happen, but it is the home invader that is pressing the action. If there is a deterrent effect even better (and there is.)
As it is we are almost certain to disagree on this and that is fine with me too.
I guess a question would be how many innocent women are you willing to see shot and killed defending their TV under the mistaken belief they're defending their life and vagina, in order that the one woman who was legitimately about to get raped and killed kills her assailant?
Yeah statistics can often be used to argue just about any point being made. I have seen them used both ways and am often left extremely disappointed with the point being made.
2 examples, one from each side of the coin:
- stats comparing states that invoke CCW and castle doctrine laws, which typically show a decrease in violent crime
- stats comparing Europeans with us crazy, violent, gun-loving Americans
Neither are really conclusive because there are so many confounding variables, and people with extremely strong viewpoints on either side who actively seek data to back up their respective opinions, rather than being as unbiased as possible. That's just how it goes in political discussion.
edit: I use the term 'states' like an American, that is talking about the 50 states that make up the United States. I should probably use a more unambiguous term in these discussions.
It's not just rape. It's all types of violent/injurious crime and forcible felonies. To answer your question I don't know. And like the buttons questions, it's interesting and worth debating for us game theory nerds, but I'm not sure how practical the discussion is.
Yeah, exactly. Being neither an american home owner nor someone with aspirations to home invade I don't really have a stake in this discussion either way, but as I grow a bit older I find it interesting to revisit issues like this where I grew up unquestioningly on one side of it ( in this case on the no guns team by default due to country of birth ) without having actually thought through the other side of it beyond "bah they're prolly fools who like bangsticks and don't know my flashy percentages"
This post implies that all people who rob are bad people, that's not true for a start.
The actual solution lies in sorting out the social problems which leads people to do things they shouldn't do, like rob peoples houses. Guns don't deter people, very few people rob houses for shits and giggles. They do it because they need the money. All guns seem to do is escalate the majority of problems which they are supposedly meant to alleviate.
And like I have said, if someone is imposing an immediate real threat to you in your own home I have no problem using self defence, even if that does mean shooting someone.
meh at that point you can start to extrapolate this whole thing to "why capitalism is bad" or "why good parenting is important" to avoid discussing guns ever again
If we just kill all the women then in a hundred or so years things should settle down nicely.
Yeah.. it is hard to change viewpoints on something you have felt strongly about for a long time. That goes both ways of course.
One thing to keep an eye on is that various U.S. states are going in very different directions regarding gun laws. You have states like California, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York that are enacting some pretty tough gun laws by U.S. standards. There are other states like Texas, Florida, and many states in the deep south (using that term culturally as well as geographically) that are much more lax wrt guns.
I am curious to see how certain markers like gun deaths, homocide, violent crime etc. respond to those laws. I'm not going to claim to be an expert on it. It's just one of those things I try to keep up with, you know?