ChatterBank1 min ago
Bash A Burglar?
50 Answers
http://
The government has managed to water down the promise that it would allow householders to use extra force against burglars.
Is anyone surprised? What happens is that governments make great promises about self-defence, generally in response to tabloid stories playing on the ignorance of their readership about the law, and then, belatedly, realise that the common law long established over centuries, summarised by the Privy Council in 1971 and put into statute as recently as 2008, makes perfect sense and tinkering with it in the way this government proposed makes it incomprehensible and unworkable
The government has managed to water down the promise that it would allow householders to use extra force against burglars.
Is anyone surprised? What happens is that governments make great promises about self-defence, generally in response to tabloid stories playing on the ignorance of their readership about the law, and then, belatedly, realise that the common law long established over centuries, summarised by the Privy Council in 1971 and put into statute as recently as 2008, makes perfect sense and tinkering with it in the way this government proposed makes it incomprehensible and unworkable
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It can certainly sometimes take a huge knock to kill someone or sometimes a single blow is enough, there is no telling until after it happens.
I always try to be a nice person, but in order to do that I have to constantly analyse what I consider to be right and wrong, and to moderate my actions accordingly. It's not healthy to dwell on regret, I have had a very good chance to observe that first hand, so I am as happy as I can be that I really would not give accidentally killing an intruder a second thought. I may be wrong but I would be very surprised.
I always try to be a nice person, but in order to do that I have to constantly analyse what I consider to be right and wrong, and to moderate my actions accordingly. It's not healthy to dwell on regret, I have had a very good chance to observe that first hand, so I am as happy as I can be that I really would not give accidentally killing an intruder a second thought. I may be wrong but I would be very surprised.
Some people can, and some people can't, shake off regret. Even over something that is stupid to regret. It's something I'd wish on no-one, to never be able to shake off demons. Anyway, moving on... I hope you never have to find out how you'd react to killing someone.
As usual Wikipedia is a good first place to go on this issue: http://
The following paragraph is particularly revealing:
[i]"The defence of self-defence is one which can be and will be readily understood by any jury. It is a straightforward conception. It involves no abstruse legal thought. ...Only common sense is needed for its understanding. It is both good law and good sense that a man who is attacked may defend himself. It is both good law and good sense that he may do, but may only do, what is reasonably necessary. But everything will depend upon the particular facts and circumstances. ...It may in some cases be only sensible and clearly possible to take some simple avoiding action. Some attacks may be serious and dangerous. Others may not be. If there is some relatively minor attack it would not be common sense to permit some action of retaliation which was wholly out of proportion to the necessities of the situation. If an attack is serious so that it puts someone in immediate peril then immediate defensive action may be necessary. If the moment is one of crisis for someone in imminent danger he may have [to] avert the danger by some instant reaction. If the attack is all over and no sort of peril remains then the employment of force may be by way of revenge or punishment or by way of paying off an old score or may be pure aggression. There may no longer be any link with a necessity of defence... If a jury thought that in a moment of unexpected anguish a person attacked had only done what he honestly and instinctively thought was necessary that would be most potent evidence that only reasonable defensive action had been taken."[i]
As usual Wikipedia is a good first place to go on this issue: http://
The following paragraph is particularly revealing:
[i]"The defence of self-defence is one which can be and will be readily understood by any jury. It is a straightforward conception. It involves no abstruse legal thought. ...Only common sense is needed for its understanding. It is both good law and good sense that a man who is attacked may defend himself. It is both good law and good sense that he may do, but may only do, what is reasonably necessary. But everything will depend upon the particular facts and circumstances. ...It may in some cases be only sensible and clearly possible to take some simple avoiding action. Some attacks may be serious and dangerous. Others may not be. If there is some relatively minor attack it would not be common sense to permit some action of retaliation which was wholly out of proportion to the necessities of the situation. If an attack is serious so that it puts someone in immediate peril then immediate defensive action may be necessary. If the moment is one of crisis for someone in imminent danger he may have [to] avert the danger by some instant reaction. If the attack is all over and no sort of peril remains then the employment of force may be by way of revenge or punishment or by way of paying off an old score or may be pure aggression. There may no longer be any link with a necessity of defence... If a jury thought that in a moment of unexpected anguish a person attacked had only done what he honestly and instinctively thought was necessary that would be most potent evidence that only reasonable defensive action had been taken."[i]
This is creepy, somebody tried to get into my house last night. The dog started just gone three this morning, barking and running upstairs. When I got up this morning, I found a chisel by the dustbin. Doubt if burglar would have got too far the alarm would have gone off if he'd opened the door and broke the circuit. Police didn't want to know , they asked if I needed a security leaflet.
