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this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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Self defense laws are pretty weird in Europe. I am spoiled on our second amendment laws, so let my bias be noted.
However, some guy can break into your house and if you defend yourself with a bat or knife, the laws there from what I hear (this isn't fact, I could be mistaken) can get you in trouble with the law. I remember reading that somewhere.
Sure it's like that in the US too but there are many protections for those who clearly have acted in self defense.
I think the difference is welf defense in Europe is defending your person, not your property. If someone breaks in, you don't have the right to hurt them. You call the police. If they were trying to attack you or you alerting them to your presence makes them come for you, then of course you can defend yourself.
Self defence is just that. Defence of the self.
One thing that your 2a right also means is that your criminals are likely to be armed. Ours are less likely to be and certainly much less likely for petty crime. The police in Ireland, for instanc, don't carry guns.
If someone breaks into my house. I'm not approaching them with hugs. I'm calling the police and grabbing a golf club or poker or similar.
This guy is extremely conservative and a former cop. (He doesn't fly his politics, but you can tell.) He has testified in dozens of deadly force trials as an expert witness. Here's what he has to say about defending property. Very eye opening.
“In the anti-gun Spokane newspaper, internet comments indicated that many people had the clueless idea that Gerlach had shot the man – in the back – to stop the thief from stealing his car. One idiot wrote in defense of doing such, “That ‘inert property’ as you call it represents a significant part of a man’s life. Stealing it is the same as stealing a part of his life. Part of my life is far more important than all of a thief’s life.”
Analyze that statement. The world revolves around this speaker so much that a bit of his life spent earning an expensive object is worth “all of (another man’s) life.” Never forget that, in this country, human life is seen by the courts as having a higher value than what those courts call “mere property,” even if you’re shooting the most incorrigible lifelong thief to keep him from stealing the Hope Diamond. A principle of our law is also that the evil man has the same rights as a good man. Here we have yet another case of a person dangerously confusing “how he thinks things ought to be” with “how things actually are.”
As a rule of thumb, American law does not justify the use of deadly force to protect what the courts have called “mere property.” In the rare jurisdiction that does appear to allow this, ask yourself how the following words would resonate with a jury when uttered by plaintiff’s counsel in closing argument: “Ladies and gentlemen, the defendant has admitted that he killed the deceased over property. How much difference is there in your hearts between the man who kills another to steal that man’s property, and one who kills another to maintain possession of his own? Either way, he ended a human life for mere property!” ― Massad Ayoob, Deadly Force - Understanding Your Right To Self Defense
What value to society does that thief's life bring? Most likely they are just a drain on society, so why is it wrong to stop the drain? Humans aren't in danger of going extinct, they don't need special protection even when they are obviously problematic. There is a net gain to basically everyone by removing a single individual like that.
I mean, yeah, killing every dead-weight Republican would result in a dramatically better society, but there are ethical reasons why we don't just execute all the shit-for-brains right wingers.
Who will be the judge to decide which people are a drain on society to kill?
Me. If they are stealing my shit, I am the judge of that.
Based on experience living in a redneck town, probably about half of trigger happy 'property protectors' in the US are recreational thieves who threaten to shoot people looking for their stolen stuff.
I'm not American, but I still find it crazy that I'm expected to huddle in a corner with a butter knife, hoping someone doesn't hurt me and my family, and wait for the police to never show up while someone rifles through my house. Fuck that.
Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
And that's why we should be able to shoot anyone that cuts us off in traffic 👍
Yah, that isn't disengenuous at all.
Just like your example was. There was a case in the UK like 15/20 years ago where a farmer(Tony Martin seems to ring a bell as the name) shot an intruder with a gun(legally owned). He was acquitted.
And yet it happens, seemingly regularly
If I lived in a country where this was something to worry about, if worry about it.
It's not something I've ever thought about or considered in Australia.
Sure break-ins happen but violent crimes during break-ins... it's so rare I've never heard of or met anyone that knows of it happening.
Most European countries have civilian arrest laws, for your information.
Self defense is of course allowed, but only so far as to prevent harm. It also needs to be adequate to prevent the harm the attacker tried to inflict. So shooting someone who entered isn't okay, you could've just held the gun at them. Which isn't relevant cause you don't have a gun and neither do they, most likely.
Man catchers should become more common.
Same bias as yourself. I find it stunning that the British police are so proud of the pocketknives they confiscate.
Yeah it's weird to see butterknives on public sites being confiscated as they're clearly a dangerous weapon. But surprisingly knife crime is really low compared to most of the world (yes I mean America)
America has a violence problem. Take away all the gun violence and we're still worse than other developed countries.