Politics of the Treatment of a Thief

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My Dad is a lawyer, he told me the other day that in ENGLAND, if a person breaks into your house while you are inside and steals all of your belongings. As long as they do not attack you personally you are, by law not allowed to touch them.

Am i the only one who thinks this is disgusting?

(P.S. if i am wrong in this matter or have left out details, then please explain it to me. DO NOT insult me as a some people on this board are famous for)

 

Wow. That sucks.

 

Remind me to send you a nice .38 special. Then you won't have to touch them. Just menace them a bit.

 

That's nothing, in the U.S. a thief can break into your house, trip on the front doorstep, break his leg, then sue your ass for personal injury do to negligence or some nonsense.

That's disgusting.

 

Both of those laws are an outrage. I live in England and if someone broke into my house i would still attack them even if they made no aggressive move toward me because they have broken into MY house in that way they are being agressive.
I saw about a thief who sued a person when they were on the roof and fell through to land on a meat cleaver and cut his leg in the jim carrey film Liar Liar.

 

If your father is a lawyer, I would like to get the word "touch" clarified. I am sure a law would never use such vague word ever. Untill then it is impossible to say anything good or bad.

 

Yeah, ArtEchoke, but you can still shoot his lamed ass.

 

That's right, just make sure it's a kill shot and you have a extra weapon to put in thier hands so there's no questions

 

I remember a while back a friend of mine from the UK was telling me that a thief broke into their house and I asked whether you're allowed to shoot them. If I remember correctly the answer was that you couldn't shoot anyone but that you could stop them using 'minimum necessary force'. I don't know if this really applies because they were in fact attacked as well as robbed.

 

I imagine that's selectively enforced- if a big brute decides to torture or beat to death a skinny little housebreaker, they'd throw the book at him. If a small woman hits a big thief with a baseball bat, the cops would probably look the other way. That would be my guess, anyway.

Bases for this thought: A (female) acquaintance of mine badly injured a mugger who cornered her. By law, she could have been tried for aggravated assault because although he threatened her, he didn't have a weapon. When she called the cops from the nearest pay phone to report it, the cop who answered the phone said, "We'll send an ambulance. I suggest you DON'T tell me your name, and go home before they get there". Good for him. Similarly, I once shoved a man who tried to break into my apartment down a flight of stairs. Technically, I could have gotten in trouble under a similar law to the British one- he hadn't touched me when I jumped him. But the cops were not remotely interested in arresting me- if anything, they found it hilarious.

 

Err... what about "trespassing" or "breaking and entering"? Aren't those against the law too?

 

seems stupid... but then again, there has to be some kind of limit to what you can do. I mean, just because someone breaks into my house, does that give me the right to break his nose? I don't think so. Obviously you should be allowed to defend your possessions, but not with at all costs.

That's what the police do, they make sure that you don't have to wrestle criminals yourself, At least in an ideal world.

 

idoru, in an ideal world, there wouldn't be any criminals...

 

With regards to the amount of force you may legally respond with if someone breaks into your house, it is like other areas of self defense in most jurisdictions. You can respond with an "appropriate" level of response and what constitutes appropriate is determined by looking what a reasonable person in the victim's (the person being mugged or having their house broken into) would have felt if that reasonable person was in the victim's position.

So, the police didn't look the other way at all when your friend hurt the mugger. It is reasonable for a small woman to feel a greater level of threat when confronted by an attacker and thus respond more drastically, she could justifiably pull a gun under the law in the U.S. (assuming the gun is legal etc.) If the mugger is a small woman, obviously nervous, and the person being mugged is a massive world class martial artist it isn't reasonable for him to pull a gun and shoot her on the spot.

So, if it occurred in the U.S. it wasn't a case of the police selectively not enforcing, it's a case of her reaction likely being deemed reasonable under the circumstances.

 

Well technically, even if we HAD an ideal world, it wouldn't be perfect anyways. And both laws are extremely ridiculous if you ask me. I might not go into extremes to fend off any trespasser, but I will not stand there, helpless, when someone comes to rob my house.

 

In Texas if you step on the properity of some one they by law have the right to shoot you with out question. Your on their land and they shoot you and you die...owell. The only problem that he has is that your going to stink for awile.

 

Ya gotta love Texas.

I think New Jersey has a similar law, only the person breaking in or whatever has to be all the way in your house. Last I checked, anyhow.

 

Shit,I'm moving to Texas, that will get rid of all the nuisances in my life

 

Sorvo, you better be sure you're a white protestant with a confederate flag and a shotgun mounted on the back of your American-made pickup.

 

Well...

I for one wouldn't hesitate to shoot an intruder in my home. Now don't get me wrong. I wouldn't be happy about it, and I hope to god I'm never faced with it. But if someone breaks into my house I'm gonna put him down. There are too many VERY bad people out there, and I'm not ready to put my life on the line hopeing that they just take all of my stuff and leave me alone. I'm simply not going to take that chance.