Kill someone for burglary?

Okay no idea where else to ask this so here should be fine right? If not please move it thanks.

In Ireland there is a serious debate going on by some people in government to give homeowners the right to defend there house to the death i.e. if someone breaks into your house then you are granted the legal right to kill them because they are endangering you and your family.

Before hand you would probably go to jail for a few years for manslaughter should you kill a person if you were trying to defend your family and home. The way the law sees it now is that if someone breaks into your house you must flee the building and call the Gardaí (Irish police force) and that any harm you do to the burglar was entirely your fault and you would be punished to the full extent to of the law for it.

However recent events in Ireland, lots of robberies, with many people being severly injured and even killed by the burglars, have taken place and there is a public out-cry for a bit more protection on the peoples side. Most people nowadays feel the law is too heavily sided towards the burglars rights.

My question is do the people of ATS/BTS think that a man/woman should be allowed to kill another man/woman for breaking into their house, even though the state itself carries out no form of capitol punishment.

The way i see it is that it will only exacerbate things. If a burglar is going to enter a house knowing he could be killed he might be prepared to do the same himself and quickly, generally you dont hear of many armed robberies on houses but if I can legally kill the guy it might just become necessary for a burglar to carry a gun.

Or do you think that it will make more burglars think twice before doing so?

I'm of the opinion that after they decided to break the law and enter the home, you should assume they're willing to break as many other laws as they would feel is necessary, in order to escape. Meaning, in a moment of panic, humans are capable of horrible things, even if they didn't intend to do so in the beginning.

As you said, some people have already been murdered; I wouldn't be surprised if most house-robbers brought a firearm already. Sure, arming themselves might become the norm, but once a handful are shot dead, it might not seem such a lucrative venture.

Typically a burglar will not bring anything more than what is needed to do the job (if they are any good at what they do). They also have a huge disadvantage as most homeowners could run around their houses with their eyes closed, and the burglar would not be familiar.

I believe in common sense. A person who breaks into another person's home for any reason deserves to be shot. They are part of the idiocy in this world, and cutting dead weight from the population is not a bad thing.

I would hope that the homeowner (or lessee, renter) would use critical discretion in the deciscion to kill a burglar, however I also believe that they should have the legal right to kill the burglar.

As said very well by Saidin, [paraphrased], it's not an unreasonable assumption that a person who has broken into your house for the purpose of theft would be unwilling to harm or kill you to escape prosecution.

I have been in this situation, once in my life. The burglar did not die, but was prosecuted. I could have easily killed him. It was alegal and personal ordeal, and I wished I'd have just let him go -- he did very little time, and I was looking over my shoulder for quite a while after that.

Do I think I should have shot him? Nope. In truth, after he threatened me in court, I probably should have hunted him down.

I'm glad it turned out the way it did. Maybe he's a happy daddy.