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Comment by MengerSponge | Hacker News Reader

There are plenty of pro-gun people who advocate killing to protect their property!

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.

https://www.dougmurphylaw.com/defense-of-property

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There's a big difference in protecting property in your domicile vs protecting your property while you're out and about. Most serious gun self defense legal advocates will advocate not protecting your property while out in public, unless your life is truly in danger, simply because you are going to incur immediate legal issues and at least 20k in debt. Whatever you were protecting is not likely going to be worth the legal, or emotional costs of self defense.

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.

Not in Texas — the Texas castle doctrine extends to your vehicles and workplace.

See section 9.31 here.

https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm

Again, depends on the state. If you're a white person in Texas? It's vanishingly unlikely that your interaction with the state legal apparatus will extend beyond a hat tip and a thank you sir/ma'am.

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.

I don't advocate killing to protect your property. But advertising that to criminals is like putting a sign up that says "take what you want".

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?"

Real property is one thing. Chattel property is another.

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.

My point is that a disappointing number of people fully believe it would be good and right to shoot a thief dead. They're sane. Radicalized, maybe, but as sane as they come.

In the case of my home, as the user mentioned above, consider me radicalized. If someone breaks in, I'm shooting them. I don't have the time, nor should I be required to carry out this mental calculus about the motivations of the person in my home. If you're in my house uninvited, the onus is on the intruder not to be shot. Luckily, I live in a state that agrees with me.

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.

My belongings are not free for anyone to come and take.

The punishment should suit the crime. Extrajudicial killing, as a rule, is bad policy.

There are plenty of societal sticks that are not homesteaders with a rifle.

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