I once saw a sign on an American house that said something along the lines of 'If you break into my house I'll shoot you'. That's fair enough. You've been warned. If you then choose to break in your accepting the potential consequences.
Th problem there is that any burglar is going to make sure he himself is armed adequately to deal with the householder. You then end up with a situation where everybody is armed to the teeth and children pick up guns and shoot each other. Ah yes, the Americans are there already...
Unfortunately, the legal right to use firearms in the defence of property doesn't seem to deter intruders, even if they haven't access to arms themselves. If they are desperate enough, dumb enough, or off their heads they'll try it anyway and if the householder isn't there to defend his property he'll still lose it. I've seen the results of a failed break-in in South Africa - would-be thief disturbed before he even made it inside the building, fled, made it onto the road outside when he was stopped by a bullet in the back of the head from a .30-06. Pretty much decapitated from the roof of the mouth upwards. He was unarmed yet chose to attempt a robbery alone, on foot, in daylight at an out-of-the-way farmstead in open ground with no cover in which to hide or make an escape, knowing that if he was caught he faced almost certain death either from dogs or a bullet. A more desperate and futile crime it is hard to imagine yet he still took the chance. The farm owner who had fired the shot gave a statement to the police, a statistic was recorded, the body removed and that was the end of the matter. The rationale was that if he had been allowed to escape he would almost certainly have come back, probably at night and armed with a machete so best to liquidate him when the opportunity was there. Using lethal force in the defence of life where it is under imminent threat is in my view perfectly reasonable but don't expect having that right enshrined in law to act as a deterrent. It doesn't. And if that law is tested too frequently it slackens and stretches and before you know where you are you have pre-emptive killings and a brutalised society where life is cheap.
I used to house share with a copper. I asked him, off the record of course. What if an intruder was creeping around the house and I did the bastard some serious harm or even killed him... He replied "tell the attending officers that you were in fear of your life, you were trapped by the intruder and wanted to escape to safety". I wont say where he was a cop but he said most if not all cops will do their best to help decent honest people just protecting their loved ones and property.
Lived next door to an armed response copper (and fellow biker) for a few years. KTM got lifted from outside and he just thought we were moving furniture... useless [emoji23] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
My brother lives about 200 yards from David Cameron's family home. When he became Tory leader (Cameron, not my brother - he's got a proper job) he was given two personal protection officers who would sit in a car outside his house (when he became PM he got a proper security building in the grounds, a round-the-clock team and full surveillance). Directly opposite there is a pair of cottages with no off-road parking. The resident of one of these had a Land Rover and used to park it on the road outside Cameron's house. One day he came home and parked up on Cameron's side of the road as usual, a few yards in front of the two security guys in their car. He went into his house for a couple of hours and when he came out again his Land Rover had gone. Someone had nicked it. He rapped on the security guy's window and asked if they'd seen who'd taken it and they said what Land Rover? Sorry mate didn't see anything.
This happened to me and my wife a few years ago. We we're watching tv on a Sunday evening when where was an almighty bang at the frond door. As I went to the door at happened again, Not wanting to open the door I looked out of the side window and saw three guys in balaclavas taking it in turns to do running kicks at the door. Within seconds the door split in half and the three of them piled in. By this time both me and my wife were in the hall and in total shock as to what had just happened. Then one of them starts shouting at me to give him the keys, at the time I was responsible for a lot of property maintenance and had a lot of keys in the house. Not sure what he meaning I asked what keys are you on about, this seemed to piss him off as he then started to demand I get on the floor. I didn't get on the floor thinking this could go very wrong. Whilst all this was going on my wife grabbed the phone and ran past them upstairs, so one of them gave chase. Now I was beginning to panic, the big one shouting at me to get on the floor and my wife's screams from upstairs, out of sight. What seemed like a lifetime was just seconds as the car keys were demanded. I gave him the keys and they all ran out, jumped in to our then Audi S3 and drove off. Unless you are prepared and waiting, the shock of this type of burglary leaves you stunned. It certainly isn't like this in the movies!
That's absolutely terrible. I can't begin to imagine how scary that must have been for you and your wife. We can all sit here coming up with ideas of how to be a hero in such situations but in reality it's much different. Things like that change people's lives. I'm sure you'd have rather woken up in the morning to find the car had just gone as the ordeal you went through was on another level.
