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[RedKing]

Don't strawman, RedKing. This is completely beyond the scope of the discussion and even if it were only your strawman would be arguing for a "mass pardon" just because "physical" criminal behavior has a general cause.

This was a sarcastic hyperbole response to an equally sarcastic hyperbolic statement. Not really strawmanning (though also not particularly helpful as a rhetorical tool, on either end)

^^^^^
This.

One thing that may be lost here (especially to our non-American friends) is a deep-seated American notion of "a man's house is his castle". Or put another way, there's a long tradition of allowing the homeowner to select the level of response when dealing with unlawful trespass. I mean, it's not unusual to see signs that say "Trespassers Will Be Shot On Sight".

Thus, the analogy to poking a bear with a stick.
Most people understand that provoking a large, potentially violent animal can result in serious injury and/or death.
Most Americans *should* understand that unlawfully trespassing on another's property is opening yourself up to a potentially lethal response by the property owner, especially if done in the commission of a crime.

[Leafsnail]

One thing that may be lost here (especially to our non-American friends) is a deep-seated American notion of "a man's house is his castle". Or put another way, there's a long tradition of allowing the homeowner to select the level of response when dealing with unlawful trespass. I mean, it's not unusual to see signs that say "Trespassers Will Be Shot On Sight".

It's not a uniquely American concept.  Heck, the original phrase is "An Englishman's home is his castle".  I understand it.  I just think it is bad because it results in people dying unnecessarily.  Maybe you feel that some of them "deserve it" (at least that's what I got out of your response) but extrajudicial killings are never going to be fair.

Thus, the analogy to poking a bear with a stick.
Most people understand that provoking a large, potentially violent animal can result in serious injury and/or death.
Most Americans *should* understand that unlawfully trespassing on another's property is opening yourself up to a potentially lethal response by the property owner, especially if done in the commission of a crime.

A bear is an animal.  It cannot be expected to understand that attacking someone who provokes it slightly is wrong.  Therefore it is our responsibility to not provoke it.  Wheras a person can be expected to know that shooting someone is wrong.  That's the problem with this particular analogy (IE the reason why I would blame someone for poking a bear while not blaming a trespasser for being shot), but I guess there is something else to be addressed here.

The fact that they "should know the risks" doesn't make them more deserving of being killed.  My argument is nothing to do with whether they know the risks or not (I guess it could be a problem when you factor in drunken behaviour and/or young/ mentally disabled people though).  It's to do with the fact that some trespassers are not necessarily bad people, and that a courtroom could better decide an appropriate punishment than a startled homeowner with a gun.  Heck, even if their motivations were selfish then maybe an appropriate sentence could have them reformed in a way that a bullet through the head would not.

[ChairmanPoo]

Some tacit support to MSH's position:
Whereas I don't think that vigilante justice should replace the rule of law, and think there should be regulations upon gun ownership, I nonetheless defend the right of citizens to defend their home from invaders in whatever way they can. We're not exactly talking about harmless doves: thieves can and do result to violence if given the chance, so a homeowner can hardly be expected to put a criminal's well-being before his own.

[RedKing]

@Leafsnail:
In a perfect world, yes.
However, in an imperfect world where brutal home invasions are not unheard of and police action is primarily investigative and punitive *after* the crime instead of protective or intervening...I'm okay with deferring to the homeowner's discretion. Don't break into someone else's house, and you greatly decrease your chances of getting shot.

Obviously, cases like Trayvon Martin are a different instance...there was no trespass involved and hence no right for Zimmerman to engage with ANY level of force.

[Leafsnail]

I was addressing the more specific "Is it a bad thing when people get shot, even if they were trespassing" argument (so I'm ignoring other considerations for now).  There are a lot of other things I would bring up in the broader "Should we allow people to shoot trespassers" argument, but I don't think we want to have that.

I really don't get how the Trayvon Martin case would've been any better if it had started with Trayvon trespassing on Zimmerman's lawn, but whatever.

[RedKing]

Ahh okay, I see what you're saying if you're talking in the narrow focus then. I don't think it should be considered a "good" thing when anybody gets shot, but "not good" != "bad".

If someone winds up killing themselves by doing something stupid (let's say, trying to light a gas grill by bending over and using the lit cigarette in their mouth), that's not a "good" thing (unless you're incredibly cynical and look at it as Darwinian gene pool cleansing) but it's not something that most people are going to spend any amount of time mourning, other than the deceased's next of kin.

I think for a number of us, we'd classify trespassing/burglary/etc. as something stupid that *can* (not *should*) get you killed.

[scriver]

1. Simply trespassing is not enough to justify violent "self defence". In fact, if you attack someone just for being in your house or on your land, you are the aggressor and the trespasser have a right to defend themselves against you. They have to threaten or attack you first.

2. Self defence does not give you the right to do whatever you want to your attacker. Reasonable force and all that.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

If they didn't want to get shot they shouldn't have been stealing. I'm not going to say it isn't sad, but they brought it on themselves.

Victim blaming is always fun, isn't it.

Now this seems like an exaggeration of the term. Tell me, at what point does someone become responsible for their own actions?

People are always responsible for their own actions. Getting shot is not the thiefs action, it is the shooter who is shooting him. Hence the thief is the victim of the shooting, and blaming him for getting shot is blaming the victim.

Being a victim first requires you to be innocent of the situation. A thief is not innocent of the situation. They have entered your residence and are trying to deprive you of property. They may or may not harm or kill you themselves if given the chance. If someone is in your house unlawfully, they may not be a thief in the first place. They may very well be out to harm or kill you as a primary objective. You have no way of knowing any of this, aside from the fact that they've broken into your home.

Responding with lethal force in this situation is completely justified.

And here we what seems to be the number one cause of America's troubles; no solidarity and too little empathy tor your fellow man.

There is no number one cause for America's troubles. The world is not that simple.

I don't want thieves to die, but the thief is the one instigating the situation. They are the ones at fault, and if they suffer for it, up to and including dying, then that's the price they paid for thievery.

[Truean]

It keeps coming up for some reason:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=85981.msg2980743#msg2980743

Forgetting all that; both sides have merit:
a.) Death isn't good....
b.) You almost assume the risk of force being used against you if you use force.... Someone fought back? What did anyone expect...?

Try to use less than deadly force, or better... no force, when possible, clearly. When this isn't possible, people should expect to have to explain why they took another human life, or even harmed one... quite frankly. That said, there are excuses to harm or even kill another person in certain situations I hope none of you ever experience. And quite frankly, I'm biased here, because it's hard to represent the corpses of criminal defendants, but even if someone is a damn thief, theft isn't punishable by death.... Prison yes; death no. I will, however, admit: it's hard to tell a thief from a violent criminal at times....

The problem with the Zimmerman thing in Florida is that honest people used to ... resort ... to practicality: RESORT, as in last resort.... Now it's the first thing we all reach for. Used to be the right thing to do was to lament being forced to chose the lesser of the evils. Now its standard practice. This was the reason self defense law, especially deadly force law, had a "duty to retreat," to make sure people weren't just shooting to kill for the hell of it. IF you ran and the attacker pursued, there was less doubt, though the system was clearly imperfect. This "stand your ground" law, gives a free pass to kill. It may be practical, but just isn't good enough to say it's a bother to so much as explain after the fact why a human life was lost....  It's just not good enough, damn it....

Edit: Somewhat ninja'd by MSH

[kaijyuu]

1. Simply trespassing is not enough to justify violent "self defence". In fact, if you attack someone just for being in your house or on your land, you are the aggressor and the trespasser have a right to defend themselves against you. They have to threaten or attack you first.

2. Self defence does not give you the right to do whatever you want to your attacker. Reasonable force and all that.

Yeah, this.



Self defense requires some sort of aggression against you, not your property. And your property isn't worth the thief's life. Not by a long shot. Sorry.

[Frumple]

It keeps coming up for some reason:

Conjecture: Because we have a fairly noticeable not!American forum population and the American attitude re: the subject doesn't fly quite so easily in other parts of the world. But! The subject is so damn violently charged on the political scene in the states we get prickly about it.

I could probably get into something about how increasingly fucked up the justice system and concepts involved therein are over here,* but it probably wouldn't move the discussion to anywhere better so eh.

Spoiler: * (click to show/hide)

Short form: Eye for an eye may leave the world blind, but at least it's equitable. We've reached the point we instead effectively tear out both eyes, cut off the head, set the body on fire, and then go after the person's family and no one blinks an eye. Collectively, at some point the USA seems to have either lost a belief in the justness of punishment fitting crime or any perspective whatsoever as to what that belief actually looks like

Tentatively, I'd blame either drug war propaganda (tough on crime tough on crime *parrot*) or the privatized prisons getting their shit into things.

[scriver]

Being a victim first requires you to be innocent of the situation. A thief is not innocent of the situation.

No. For someone who just used the "the world is not that simple" card it's strange that you fail to realise that "one" situation can have several victims. The shooter is a victim of thievery, the thief is a victim of getting shot.

They have entered your residence and are trying to deprive you of property. They may or may not harm or kill you themselves if given the chance. If someone is in your house unlawfully, they may not be a thief in the first place. They may very well be out to harm or kill you as a primary objective. You have no way of knowing any of this, aside from the fact that they've broken into your home.

Responding with lethal force in this situation is completely justified.

If they attack you, you can defend yourself. If they don't, you can't attack them. If you do not know they are out to arm you then of course you do not have a reason to harm them to begin with. If you do, that's not self defence, because you are the aggressor and the instigator. Somebody just being in your home unallowed is not enough to shoot anyone, let alone murder them, which I hope you realise is what "lethal force" implies. You can't justify the murder of another man with "oh he could've have possibly been meaning to harm me, really!" That's a completely horrible way of thinking, and the exact kind of stupidity that led to the "Stand Your Ground" kind of laws.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It's not a "card", it's telling you that the (false) perception that Americans have no empathy wouldn't be the cause of all our problems even if it were true!

There can be multiple victims in a situation, but there are prerequisites to being a victim, and by the time you are breaking into people's homes to make off with their valuables you've lost those prerequisites.

If they attack you, you can defend yourself. If they don't, you can't attack them. If you do not know they are out to arm you then of course you do not have a reason to harm them to begin with. If you do, that's not self defence, because you are the aggressor and the instigator. Somebody just being in your home unallowed is not enough to shoot anyone, let alone murder them, which I hope you realise is what "lethal force" implies. You can't justify the murder of another man with "oh he could've have possibly been meaning to harm me, really!" That's a completely horrible way of thinking, and the exact kind of stupidity that led to the "Stand Your Ground" kind of laws.

The intruder is instigating. They instigated when they intruded, hence the name. Lethal force does not imply murder. Lethal force implies killing. Murder is a legally defined crime, killing is an act which is sometimes in line with that crime and other times is not.

As for "Stand Your Ground" laws, I am and always have been completely and totally alright with being able to stand your ground in your fucking home! I'm not just going to run away and let some asshole make off with my livelihood because he decided I'd make a good target! Being robbed can ruin your entire life, and I sure as hell don't care if the person trying to make that happen loses theirs in the attempt.

Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law is the one that was stupid, because it increased the range from your home to anywhere.

[scriver]

It's not a "card", it's telling you that the (false) perception that Americans have no empathy wouldn't be the cause of all our problems even if it were true!

There can be multiple victims in a situation, but there are prerequisites to being a victim, and by the time you are breaking into people's homes to make off with their valuables you've lost those prerequisites.

Being a victim has only one requisite - that somebody does something bad to you. You can't "lose" that. Doing something wrong does not make wrongs done to you right. I don't understand how you can't get that.
 

The intruder is instigating. They instigated when they intruded, hence the name. Lethal force does not imply murder. Lethal force implies killing. Murder is a legally defined crime, killing is an act which is sometimes in line with that crime and other times is not.

No, the intruder has broken into your home. If you start a fight with him, you are the instigator and attacker, and he has a right to defend himself from you. Being a robber does not deprive him of any rights, it makes him guilty of a crime. Nothing more.

And don't get all semantics on me. Killing another person is murder. That's were the legal term came from. You can call it "killing" or "made passed away" or whatever else expression makes you feel better about it, but it doesn't change what it is. You're taking another man's life, for no other reason than him being in your home, without even knowing if he is a threat or not.

Being robbed can ruin your entire life

That's funny, I heard that so will getting murdered. But I guess your life doesn't matter if you've picked a lock or broken a window.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Being a victim has only one requisite - that somebody does something bad to you. You can't "lose" that. Doing something wrong does not make wrongs done to you right. I don't understand how you can't get that.

We lock people up in tiny concrete rooms with other people who may or may not be violent, giving them all nothing but the basic supplies to stay alive, for years and years and years. If you did that to someone who wasn't a criminal people would find you abhorrent. Indeed, we find it so abhorrent to do that to an innocent person that if it does happen the level of money they're usually compensated with upon release could be lived off of for many years.

But we don't think it's bad to do that to people who are actually criminals.

And don't get all semantics on me. Killing another person is murder. That's were the legal term came from. You can call it "killing" or "made passed away" or whatever else expression makes you feel better about it, but it doesn't change what it is. You're taking another man's life, for no other reason than him being in your home, without even knowing if he is a threat or not.

I'd love to see Truean's comments on that. Murder is not just killing. Soldiers kill people, and while I'm not sure about how you feel towards them I certainly don't see them as murderers. Cops kill people, and while I hate the hell out of cops in general there are situations in which they aren't murdering by killing people, such as in the recent incident with the Florida "Zombie". Anesthesiologists kill people, but those are accidents because anesthesiology is extremely dangerous to patients. And normal people who have the will to defend their livelihoods and sometimes even their lives are sometimes thrust by misfortune into a situation where they end up killing someone, and that isn't murder either.

Sometimes, people on that list do kill others in such a way that it is murder, but that isn't all of the time.

That's funny, I heard that so will getting murdered. But I guess your life doesn't matter if you've picked a lock or broken a window.

They made that choice themselves. Sometimes your choices end up costing you more than you intended.