Every state has different laws about when/why you are allowed to engage with deadly force against another human being. Generally it is permitted when you face a threat of inescapable, serious bodily harm. Sometimes the law is more permissive than that. Look up "duty to retreat," "stand your ground law," "castle doctrine," and "justifiable homicide."
If an unarmed person is stealing your car in California, it's unlikely that shooting at them would be lawful. However, California law imposes no duty to retreat, this article is about "violent robberies," and it specifically discusses getting held up at gunpoint. Someone under those circumstances would likely be permitted, under law, to kill the robber. That may not be true in states with duty to retreat laws.
The fact that every state has a unique approach to this question means that there really isn't a satisfying and succinct answer to your question.
Its either 'redneck' approach when any such encounter is a gun encounter (with its consequences), or just give them wallet/phone and accept the loss&hassle in exchange of much higher chance of surviving.
Many perps aren't completely stupid. They realize you'll call cops if they missed your phone. You'll cancel credit cards immediately. An APB will be issued for your vehicle. You can IDENTIFY them. Everything they took may be rendered useless in minutes.
So instead, they may shoot you, or take your daughter hostage, or ignore your cries that the baby is in the child seat in back.
If you give them complete power maybe they take you to three ATMs, then force you and your family back into your home, and terrorize you, doing or threatening unspeakable things. Think this is made up crap, cherry-picking stuff? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Channon_Christian_a...
30 yrs ago a young single woman I know had most of this happen to her. She was held captive, bound, gagged, blindfolded, tased, and raped for 3 days. She escaped by total dumb luck while the perp was paying for a pizza delivery from her purse. Her life is fucked up forever. She moved to the midwest, in with her parents. She's terrified of people.
I do what I can. I train.
As others have pointed out, some states like California have laws and enforcement policies that at times appear to favor criminals over self defense. Other states, like Florida or Texas, tend to better enable self defense with lethal force.
The whole thing is an equation you really do not want to find yourself in. Even with justifiable/legal use of deadly force in a defensive situation you are likely to wind up embroiled in a lot of hassles, law suits, and associated costs.
Had the situation had been different, say I was alone and it was merely a robbery by some kid or something, sure, I would feel differently if I killed them (and I wouldn't). I just don't accept the initial premise of your statement for my experience and those I have spoken to in similar situations.
Edit: also why is the other post expressing the same sentiment dead? Along with all the other posts by that person? The part about banning healthy violence resonates with me. Young people fight, young animals fight, if it doesn't cause permanent damage it is a healthy part of learning how to relate to each other. And if non lethal violence was less taboo I suspect letha violence would be less common.
He got banned somewhere around here: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=iwillbenice&next=334.... The account name (and the fact there was no mod warning post) makes me think that wasn't the first time.
Though I suppose seeing the people you care about getting killed or injured also "isn't a memory you want in your head," either. Seems like a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of situation.
This is not the case in all states but in California you cannot shot a thief unless he is threatening you will deadly force.
It does occur and it isn’t usually terribly newsworthy (here’s a recent one: https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/calumet-heights-shootin... ) unless there is something else around it.
Stand your ground laws exist but even then the training literature is quite clear - you run the risk of ruining your life at least financially by pulling the trigger so you better have that as the better option compared to death or serious bodily harm.
Depends on the particular laws of where you are. The reality is that even if the laws favor shooting back, if the criminal ends up injured or killed it means years of legal issues for the shooter. This is true for any physical altercation regardless of if weapons are used.
That said, as OP was saying the overwhelming take (from what I’ve seen) in the gun/conceal carry community has a pretty high standard for deadly force. In reality the standard for “fear for your life” is actually really high for most people. As you say “shooting back” - which implies you were shot at first. I think in that case “fear for your life” is very reasonable and push come to shove anyone with a gun would use it.
This take even stretches into robberies like this. If someone comes up to you on the street and demands your camera (even with a weapon) it’s best just to cooperate and hand it over. All but the most fervent gun people at their core realize that real life isn’t Hollywood. The vast majority of people who say otherwise are keyboard warriors/wanna be tough guys that have never been in such a situation and have some delusional fantasy of themselves channeling John Wick when/if it happens to them. Obviously that’s not reality.
Clearly the US has a ton of guns and there are many millions of people who are armed at all times. Stories in the news of people using a gun to defend themselves are few and far between because 1) violent crime is actually exceedingly rare statistically and 2) even most gun people realize it’s not OK to kill someone over a camera/wallet/etc even though you may have the means to and the law is technically on your side.
Without a concealed carry permit, any law-abiding citizen who travels with firearms in California must keep them unloaded and in a locked container [0].
It used to be incredibly difficult (nearly impossible [1]) for regular citizens to obtain a concealed carry permit in San Francisco because they had a "Good Cause Requirement" which essentially meant that your cause was not good enough.
Apparently, that changed in June of 2022 with a recent Supreme Court Ruling [2].
There are also [3] many stories of victims who shoot their attackers either being prosecuted criminally or sued for civil damages.
Lastly, while the views on concealed carry vary widely throughout the US, most social environments that I ever encountered in Northern California would find it repugnant.
[0] https://oag.ca.gov/firearms/travel
[1] https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/nation/california/2022/...
[2] https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/get-service/carrying-conc...
[3] Oregon, not CA https://www.gilmanbedigian.com/man-who-shot-intruder-in-his-...
Texas is not the only state with castle doctrine, but it's the least surprising one where it's legal to kill intruders to protect your land.
When it comes to protecting your property, as in your domicile- you are having your safest place violated. Your life is more likely in danger, and laws are also more likely to favor you, lessening the legal risk.
If I'm carjacked, I have insurance, if someone breaks into my house, where I have several guns and my family- I have much less to lose by killing the intruder.
See section 9.31 here.
Think of it as a "barbarians at the gate" type situation. You're defending civilization from lawlessness. Whether or not your life is in danger doesn't matter in many places. You similarly only have an obligation to deescalate in some states.
OP used the word property responding to comments using it in the sense of chattel property like a car or a wallet or purse. You're bringing up links to real property like someone's home or livelihood. There's a big difference well recognized in the laws of some states as you point out and totally consistent with OPs point that using lethal force to protect chattel property is not something anyone sane recommends for very practical reasons.
The other situations are circumstantial, but if I am being accosted by someone in public, I'm drawing on them. As a pizza delivery driver in my younger years, this happened a lot more than I would have liked. No one got shot because they retreated. If they made a motion towards their waist, back, or lunged, they would have been.
In this case, I have issued a warning that this will end badly if you continue, and any further threatening act will get them shot.
If you're talking about witnessing a robbery, even of my own property, and the thief running away, then no, that is insane.
There are plenty of societal sticks that are not homesteaders with a rifle.
For people who say "You value object X over peoples lives", my reply is "Why does that criminal value that object of mine more than his own life?"
This is very much false. Rural areas have very little violent crime, in both absolute and per-capita terms. I encourage you to spend some time looking into this, with the focus on “why did I ever think this could be true”.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-07/is-new...
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/gun-violence-in-rur...
It’s true that New York City was exceptionally safe from 2000 to 2018 or so. But the same data shows big cities have double the homicide rate of no metro areas.
> The NCVS involves about a quarter of a million interviews each year with a nationally representative sample of U.S. residents. The federal government’s field agents ask respondents whether they were the victim of a crime within the past six months. According to the NCVS, violent crime in urban areas rose 29 percent from 2020 to 2021, from 19.0 to 24.5 victimizations per 1,000 persons aged 12 or older. From 2018 through 2020, the NCVS found that the violent-crime rate in urban areas was between 29 percent and 42 percent higher than the rate in rural areas. In 2021, however, the violent-crime rate in urban areas was 121 percent higher, more than doubling the rate in rural areas (24.5 victimizations in urban areas, versus 11.1 in rural areas, per 1,000 persons). In addition, the violent-crime rate in urban areas was 48 percent higher in 2021 than in suburban areas, more than tripling any difference in urban and suburban rates registered from 2018 to 2020. The property-crime rate in urban areas was nearly twice as high in 2021 as in suburban areas (157.5 to 86.8 victimizations per 1,000 households) and nearly three times as high as in rural areas (157.5 to 57.7 victimizations per 1,000 households).
Bloomberg travels with a contingent of bodyguards armed with FULLY automatic weapons. He caused quite a stir after landing in Bermuda for a stay. Bermuda is so anti-gun that even its own police force isn’t armed, but Bloomberg's guards were.
It depends on your definition of "regularly".
"From 2000 to 2021, fewer than 3% of 433 active attacks in the U.S. ended with a civilian firing back, according to the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center at Texas State University. The researchers define the attacks as one or more people targeting multiple people." https://www.fox13news.com/news/how-often-does-a-good-guy-wit...
Obviously, the solution is more good guys with guns.
As another data point, a Harvard University analysis of a National Crime Victimization Survey concludes that people defended themselves with a gun in almost 0.9% of crimes from 2007–2011: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00917...
Guns were used in self defence in 0.9% of crimes where the victim of the crime was present. It doesn't state whether the gun was fired or not but given the low percentages of a gun being involved at all I guess there aren't many 'bad guys' being shot (or shot at).
I think it's a really interesting question though - if the point of allowing firearm ownership is self-defence etc., then surely should be looking at the usage metrics for that - when people own them, do they actually use them in such circumstances, is it effective, do non-owners have worse outcomes, etc.
> just the knowledge that there are a lot of guns out there is an implicit threat
which makes the comparison against the outcomes of non-owner victims that I suggested valuable right?
this is really the crux of your question. gun violence in America is a multifaceted problem, but if your source of information is headline news, you will get 0 meaningful information.
> Do thieves and robbers get shot on a regular basis
this depends drastically on the local/state laws. San Francisco, for example, does not issue permits to carry concealed firearms and openly carrying firearms is illegal. California is simply a very gun unfriendly state, so you will almost never see a citizen defend themselves from a robber with a gun there. Even if you can carry a gun somewhere else, as a sibling goes into more detail, there are various laws with wildly different requirements to be able to employ lethal force. They range from requiring you to attempt to run away first to allowing lethal violence in defense of your property (like a vehicle with cameras in it).
for what its worth, gun violence in america has little to do with so-called mass shootings that make the headlines or the hated "assault rifles". the story of gun violence in america is something like 90% pistol shootings in economically damaged, inner city slums.
For self defense (including cases where the defendant is being personally robbed) there is definitely a deterrent effect of guns.
For robbery where the owner isn’t present (the case you replied to, and also the vast majority, obviously) there doesn’t seem to be much of a deterrent.
It would only make headline news if the perpetrator was white. In the event that the perpetrator was black, the story would be quickly buried.
Is the situation different in other states that do have concealed carry laws?
It means a person can get a license to carry a concealed gun on their person. Typically it requires a bit of training and a test. I live in a more free for all state, and you can get a CCW with a couple Saturdays of class and a hand gun shooting test.
Some states allow you to protect property with deadly force and others do not. You have to read state law to understand the nuance.
In San Francisco you can generally take anything you want from anybody and the victim will generally get in trouble trying to stop you. You may get arrested for the crime but there is no guarantee. The police will release you soon after you are arrested, often on a signature bond with zero deposit [1]. You can rinse and repeat this process dozens of times per year because it is unlikely you will spend any significant time in jail or prison. You'll have a database record but no problem making ends meet upon release.
Sounds like what happens to the rich and well connected when they get in trouble with the law. Seems like equal justice to me.
California doesn't allow 'open carry', which many other states do. This allows you to carry a pistol in a holster outside of your jacket/shirt so that it can be seen.