There are many variations, near my place there is a sign with a picture of dog saying: "I don't bite, I amputate." I also saw a sign with a picture of a Gun: "Forget about the dog, I rule here."
Perhaps we have a natural experiment, since California recently accidentally leaked a bunch of details about gun owners in the state: https://www.newsweek.com/gun-owners-personal-info-leak-outra...
Maybe in a year we can see if those owners experienced higher or lower than expected breakins.
Oh what a world.
Sounds pretty reasonable to me. In what world do you live in where someone can violate the sanctity of your home with impunity and you find that to be an acceptable outcome? Boundaries in society are ultimately always enforced with death as the final arbiter. You can put as many layers of abstraction as you want between that type of enforcement and the action that leads to it as you want, but it's always there.
As a pragmatic realist all I can do is work with the cards I am dealt. That is one of the many reasons I moved to a place I am allowed, encouraged and expected to defend myself, my family and my property. I do not consider myself or family to be replaceable. The best I can do otherwise is to mitigate getting into that situation in the first place by hardening my home but people will always find a way around it.
It is very explicitly threatening your life.
:-)
That said, not everyone who breaks in is just after your stuff, especially if they come at night.
However, it's important to recognize the small proportion of events that started as a burglary and evolved into something much worse. With this in mind, it stands to reason that burglaries are no ordinary encounters, and that the criteria for lethal force in that situation ought to be relaxed relative to e.g. walking down a crowded street at high-noon.
Even in America, I don't know anyone who honestly thinks that shooting a burglar is prima facie proportionate. The claim is usually more sophisticated, and has two parts:
1. Pointing a gun at someone who has unlawfully entered one's home is a proportionate response.
2. One cannot rightly expect the home-owner to prioritize the trespasser's safety over his own, even in ambiguous situations.
I'm tired of this trope, repeated several times in this, that is used to excuse people breaking into houses.
Anyone breaking into a house while people are in it are not burglars, they're attackers.
It's perfectly okay to defend your family with lethal force.
Criminals breaking into the car in the driveway? No point in lethal force. Collect from the insurance.
Criminals breaking into the house your kids are sleeping in? No amount of insurance is going to replace them, so it is stupid to wait and see if the criminals will direct lethal force towards your kids before defending yourself.
I repeat, it is stupid to rely on the goodwill of attackers in your home to not harm your children!.
Stop trivialising attacks by calling it theft.
And no, someone who breaks into a house with the intention of burgling is not an attacker, they're a burglar, regardless of whether other people are in the house. Someone who breaks into a house with the intention of attacking people is an attacker.
No, you couldn't, because they did not use force to get into the space of your children.
> And no, someone who breaks into a house with the intention of burgling is not an attacker, they're a burglar, regardless of whether other people are in the house.
If they wanted to burgle they'd come when there was no one home. The fact that they came specifically when people are there is because they don't care about doing damage to the people (in which case, yes, they are attackers), or they came specifically for the people.
Really, if a burglar wants something, there's tons of opportunities when the house is empty.
> Someone who breaks into a house with the intention of attacking people is an attacker.
You only find out about their intention after they have done the damage (or lack thereof).
The only clear indication you have of their intent is that they deliberately waited until the people were home.
I am saying it is stupid to wait until after someone has killed your child to defend that child, especially when that person intentionally waits for people to be home.
It's hard to feel sympathy for attackers who wait for children to be home before they break in. If they didn't want to be dealt with as attackers, they should break in when no one is home.
Why is use of force the line? What about burgulars who enter without using force?
But if you just preemptively murder anyone you want, you'll never know whether they were going to kill your child or not, and you'll think you're always right.
Who said that I want to preemptively murder random people?
I'm only preemptively hurting attackers. If people don't want to be dealt with as attackers, they should not attack.
After all, if they're only there to take your stuff, they can do so when you're not home.
Your logic that people who attack you should be left alone is, quite frankly, weird.
I expect in the vast majority of cases, if someone breaks into your home while you're inside, it's because they didn't know you were inside.
No, I did not. How are you defining "someone who uses force to get to me"?
My definition of an attacker specifically requires that they force their way to me and my children.
You are on some insane mission to trivialise the danger from someone who is prepared to force their way to you. Why?
(I'm generally curious, btw - why is your expectation that someone who forces their way into a house is peaceful by nature?)
There is no country that I know off where defending your kids against a successful home invasion will send you to prison.
None.
Can you name a jurisdiction where "defending your kids against a successful home invasion will send you to prison."?
I mean, that's specifically the scenario I started with, isn't it?
Of the ten most populous countries in the world, only China (2.114) and Indonesia (1.783) have lower peace indexes than the United States (2.337). Of the next ten, only four have lower indexes. In other words, two thirds of the twenty most populous countries in the world (of which the U.S. is third) are more violent than the United STates. Unless by the "rest of the world" we're going to ignore most of the people?
[0]: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-viol...
To say that the US has a worse peace index than the rest of the countries in the world is still hyperbole, but it's not so far off the truth.
The US has the 129th best peace index of 163 countries, right after Egypt, Zimbabwe, and Azerbaijan.
Even by that measure it is false. The only continents less violent than the one the United States resides are Europe, Oceania and Antarctica. The United States isn't even the most violent country in its own continent, that would be Mexico.
So really the unnecessary qualifier should be: "Well it might be bad in the U.S., but in Europe, Oceania and Antarctica..."
By the metric you've presented as a yard stick for violence (Peace Index), there are only 33 countries which are worse off than the US.
Sure, those 33 countries mean the US has a worse peace index than ~80% of countries, not 100%. I concur that (based on this metric alone) the US is not the #1 most violent country.
Having said that: being worse than 80% of countries on any metric, in my opinion, is easily enough to be able to say "worse than the rest of the world" and have a reasonable expectation for that to be understood as hyperbole.
It does not imply necessary that America is worst country in the world overall.