I'm very curious to see what you guys at THR think about this. Someone breaks into your home and steals... your wallet as you walk in. He's running out the back door. Should you be allowed to shoot him to retrieve your property? Why or why not?
Should you be allowed to shoot him to retrieve your property? Why or why not?
When someone breaks into your home, you can legally assume he is threatening you with deadly force and respond accordingly in most states. Arkansas law, for example, provides that any force used against a housebreaker or arsonist is reasonable force, and should criminal charges be lodged against the homeowner, the judge is obliged to read the law to the jury.In this circumstance he has broken his way into your dwelling and his taking away what might be your sustenance for the next month. As far as I'm concerned, he gave up all his rights to life and liberty once he broke into the private home.
In many case, I agree with this. Much of what we call 'shooting over property' is really shooting a potential threat - someone to be considered a viable threat to life or limb because that individual has encroached upon a personal safety zone.It's not about 'killing someone over property', that's the words of the anti-castle doctrine Brady Bunch.
Yup.as a matter of principle, our society should not be in the business of *reducing* the risks of engaging in criminal activity.
We should be in the business of *maximizing* these risks.
A bit dramatic, but I can resonate with the sentiment. I think that this is the feeling that causes the most heartburn for folk - the notion that willingly allowing someone to steal our stuff subjugates us in some fashion (if only to the whims of the Insurance Company).To allow your stuff to be taken with no form of retribution is to become a slave.
According to some, you're supposed to flick on the lights and repeatedly ask 'em to leave before considering a non-responsive individual in your house to be a threat.But again, you are not defending property, you are defending your life.
I would hold fire for trivial, easily replaced property whose absence would not imperil me.
There are times and places when the ABSENCE of certain carefully husbanded property, such as food, shelter, critical tools, and the like would emperil me or my family.
You've just illustrated the critical point in this discussion. You can take action to stop a thief, or drive him off, but you cannot kill him -- no matter what the value in question.At what point should I be able to use force to stop someone from taking something which is mine - $1, 10, 100, 1000, 10000, 100000, 1000000, more?