Force against burglars to be allowed

Householders who react with force when confronted by burglars are to get more legal protection, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has said.

"Grossly disproportionate" force will still be against the law in England and Wales, but the bar will be higher than the current "proportionate" force test.

www.bbc.co.uk...

Another way to keep the bottom end of the pyramid destabilised.

There’s no way that you can apply a rational analysis to such a circumstance.

People breaking into your home should be doing so at ‘there own risk’.

When it’s dark and you’re in the ‘safety’ of your own home and you are confronted by an intruder, what you will not be doing, I guarantee you, is a risk assessment of the situation. Reason goes out the window and you will have to, as a human being, destabilise such threat. I don’t understand how one can come to a logical conclusion that allows the criminal ‘rights’ in a life threatening situation.

Oh baloney.

people have a right to defend themselves.

To say any other way is to infringe upon that right.

That ruling is a step in the right direction.

You can not rely on the police to protect yourself if you are attacked. They can not be there in time to protect you. They might be able to save your life, but if you are attacked you just can not rely on the police.

"Proportionate"?
So, you can hit'em with a ball bat but not a sledgehammer?
This is stupid. If someone breaks into your home, they do so at their own risk. If they get their head caved in, it's their own fault. The judges aren't there, they have no way to decide what's appropriate at the time. A person should be safe in their home and be able to use whatever means necessary to insure that.

reply to post by DAVID64


I'd just shoot them. We passed a "Castle Doctrine" law. If I can show that someone forcibly broke into my house it is legal for me to shoot them.

I'll watch this with interest to see if they bring this in before the next election, or whether they'll just put it out there as a carrot to voters, then do nothing about it afterwards.

Same with the "two strikes and you're out" they have said they will bring in. Two violent or sexual offences and you go to prison for life. Nice idea, but you know how politicians like to say things to get votes.

As for the force issue if a burglar breaks into your house, it's still not going to be clear enough what is enough, and hardly any difference to what the law is now.

At the end of the day, no matter how much us Brits disagree with some of the US laws, i do agree with the Castle law. Break into my house and put my kids at risk, then you get to read about it in the papers next day. I don't care what your situation is, or why you had to thieve something from another persons house.

I'm not an uncaring person, i'd give you my last penny if it made a difference, i've actually walked home barefooted before after giving my boots to a homeless lad....i do think about others......just don't help yourself to my property by breaking in, with or without force, as you'll see another side on me.I know i'm not alone there.

CX.

I think that you've got to be able to defend yourself against someone who breaks into your home.

Period

Stiff upper lip and all but how can a person be expected to maintain a level head and clear thought when some goon kicks in their door?

How exactly do you meter out a proportionate response when you're freaking out and fighting off an attack?

These bureaucrats make it sound like every confrontation should happen in a ring with gloves on.

Originally posted by JIMC5499
reply to post by DAVID64

 

I'd just shoot them. We passed a "Castle Doctrine" law. If I can show that someone forcibly broke into my house it is legal for me to shoot them.

What if you forgot to lock your door and someone, perhaps innocent, wandered In to your home...Would you blow them away to? Would your be legally protected if the "breaking in" part was in the grey area..

I see the ploy worked. You talk about this nonsense that will never happen. Reasonable force is clearly defined already and they are suggesting nothing new.

You don’t talk about signing away your employment rights with the offer of being able to buy shares in your company which may or may not have a share option which you may or may not be able to afford.

You don’t talk about another massive fail the IMF report shows and then all we hear about is the above and the buffoon boris.

This posted on a conspiracy site and it seems this poor excuse at diversion from the truth is going to work like a charm. Tragic

Originally posted by MDDoxs
What if you forgot to lock your door and someone, perhaps innocent, wandered In to your home...Would you blow them away to? Would your be legally protected if the "breaking in" part was in the grey area..

Has happened and will continue to happen.

Drunk intruder shot will face charges
Shot drunk thought he was at friends house

The lesson is not to get so blasted drunk you cant recognize a house.

reply to post by toocoolnc


To my understanding, we must wait until they get in the house and pop them as they face towards you (so as to prove they were not in retreat) so that when they drop the body remains inside.

A very astute move; pandering to the Daily Mail mentality encouraged by the Conservatives doing what they do: Delivering up ever increasing wealth to the upper classes and screwing the poorest in society. Perhaps if the wealth divide wasn't so grotesque then there might be less burglaries. No-one need worry about such technicalities then.


After such fiascos as BBC

The collapse of the West Coast Main Line bidding process, after the government found significant flaws

where we see the government completely fold when the threat of it's corruption being properly investigated and publicly exposed becomes reality (backing down the very day before the threat of a legal challenge was actually realised) everyone should be aware that this is a typical Tory government who, in the wake of their attempts at social engineering, have left us with the same results as they did back in the 1980's: mass unemployment, disaffected younger generation with no hope, the largest riots since those Thatcher's policies pushed society into. Hell, even the Falklands is hitting the headlines in the same vein.


The only thing I find puzzling about all this is that anyone alive at the time thought they would be any different. Don't take this to be a pro- Labor shout either - thanks to their term in power people (who never knew the previous Tory government) grew up thinking they just couldn't be any worse, a great legacy.

It's all just back slapping amongst the rich boys. Take a peek at just one PFI debacle:


publicfinance.co.uk

The last Labour government was a big fan of the Private Finance Initiative. As chancellor, Gordon Brown would castigate the PFI’s critics for putting new hospitals, schools and transport projects at risk. The alternative, he said, would be ‘reckless and unsustainable borrowing’.

But, as many pointed out at the time, the PFI is itself a form of borrowing, even if its impact on the national statistics is deferred. While upfront capital is provided by private investors, the taxpayer ultimately funds the whole cost of any project. Now, that essential truth is becoming evident in communities across the country.

Take the £256m Queen ­Alexandra ­Hospital in Portsmouth. This sparkling new facility was officially opened in October, and is undoubtedly one of the most impressive health care buildings in Europe. But the Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust is already struggling to meet the project’s £40m annual revenue cost. Its ability to pay was premised on achieving epic savings targets and big increases in activity, which failed to materialise. As a result, the trust has been forced to take out a £13m loan to pay its bills, while cutting 700 jobs and 100 beds. It is left with a £6m deficit and many more job losses are expected soon.

Yet the scheme has proved profitable for the investors. Last June, Carillion, a construction group, sold its shares in the project to HSBC ­Infra­­structure Company Ltd for £31m – a healthy return on the £12m it put into the deal in 2006. It will, meanwhile, continue to manage the new PFI ­facilities under a concession worth about £30m a year.

Answering a question on the Queen Alexandra deal in Parliament recently, Prime Minister David Cameron called the PFI programme a ‘shambles’ that he had inherited (although he was ­special adviser to Tory chancellor Norman Lamont in 1992, when the PFI was introduced) .

It's just that the Tories are more brazen: Kill all public spending, sell everything we can (via contracts to our boardroom buddies), hamstring the NHS (something that was realised initially only through fear of an angry and disaffected public who has just lost generations of loved ones to two wars - but hell, enough is enough. That generation are too old/dead to kick off) and privatise the police. Privatise the damned police, a great idea. Like most other privatisation the motivating factor being it's a great way to earn your mates a few quid with West Coast Main Line-esque dodgy contracts while giving the room to ship out concern/responsibility so you can just wash your hands and shrug when it all goes tits-up.

Dear govt. don't play on the fears YOU engendered. Don't threaten burglars with violent responses, stop screwing the majority of society and lower the potential for burglaries in the first place. I'd like to think no one would be hoodwinked by this problem-reaction-solution "Ooohh look, I am teh halping!" toss any more. It's as pathetically transparent a show as the faux Magna Carta ignorance.


PS: Please stop all this hand-waving gestures rubbish when you talk too, it's pathetic and annoying. Either go full King Lear and ham it up properly (at least giving us all a giggle) or admit public opinion is just not that interesting, spout your stories, get it over with and bugger off.

This IS Stupid.

The reason the people are demanding something be done is because they can't have guns like Americans to defend themselves. Robbers are breaking into homes with guns, threatening the owners - whats a home owner going to do - defend with a frying pan? No, They Need Guns. They need to be able to counter gun play with gun play.

This is why in the USA there are far less robbers breaking into homes with guns than in the UK. The UK home owners are easy targets for a gun toting bad guy.

Originally posted by MDDoxs

Originally posted by JIMC5499
reply to post by DAVID64

 

I'd just shoot them. We passed a "Castle Doctrine" law. If I can show that someone forcibly broke into my house it is legal for me to shoot them.

What if you forgot to lock your door and someone, perhaps innocent, wandered In to your home...Would you blow them away to? Would your be legally protected if the "breaking in" part was in the grey area..

What part of forcibly broke into don't you understand? Use some common sense. Unless you believe that crap that everybody who owns a gun for self-defense is trigger happy.

reply to post by JAK
I was waiting for the Labour party to discuss the West coast bid at their conference, nothing and still nothing.

Tories nothing and nothing likely. How many politicians of all parties have a vested interest in this industry?

If G4 had not made such an epic fail in providing security for th olympics they would I am sure be being hailed as the answer to privitising the police. I am sure they will re brand and try again.

This garbage 'kill a burglar' nonsense is such a poor distraction from the real issues I get angered when I see people fall for it.

Cameron has hinted he will put the EU question to the country via a poll. Yeah right.

This is not even slight of hand. They believe the ordinary voter is stupid and we do our best to live up to their expectations.

reply to post by JIMC5499


I did not mean for that to come off as being direct at you, was more of a suggestion of a hypothetical scenario. Holster your gun please Just kidding.

My only concern is the grey area around "Forcible entry"

reply to post by MDDoxs


My only concern is the safety of my family and property. You have to be alive to be arrested. Every time there is a thread on this subject, someone comes up with a dumbass scenario asking "what if", trying to make the person with the gun out to be some trigger happy lunatic. Twice I have pulled a weapon on somebody. The first time the person who I drew on had a knife and promptly crapped his pants. The second time, the person had a BB gun which looked exactly like the pistol that I pulled. I would have been justified in shooting him, except that he threw the BB gun away and ran like hell. It is a judgement call, everybody has all of the time in the world to second guess you, while you have just seconds. If I am going to make a mistake, it is going to be in my favor.

reply to post by JIMC5499


I am with you 100% that i would do anything to defend my family if I sensed they were in any kind of danger.

My point is, which you have mentioned, that if you do make a mistake, which you have said could happen, the end result with a gun can be more perminent....

I will concede that point that it really depends on where you live and the means at your disposal for defending yourself and your family.

I feel confident that i would not need a gun to effectively pummel someone into the ground to defend my family and i feel this is what the OP article is speaking to.

Originally posted by MDDoxs
I feel confident that i would not need a gun to effectively pummel someone into the ground to defend my family and i feel this is what the OP article is speaking to.

Unless they had a gun.

To me the OP article is saying that the government in the UK has given criminals free run by removing their SUBJECT'S ability to legally defend themselves and that this law is trying to possibly undo some of that. Where I live, we have had Prosecutors state that there is no such thing as self-defense by using a gun, even when the laws say otherwise.