A relative has been burgled while she was out, right before Christmas. I’m feeling more sympathetic than ever towards Munir Hussain. For some reason I feel particularly angry about the laptop that I helped her choose and spent all day setting up and making perfect.
Things are not just things. They represent time and effort out of your life. That’s what justifies lethal force in defence of property.
Insomnia-blogging. Man comes home to find three masked men in his house. They tie up him and his family and threaten to kill them. Teenage son escapes and fetches uncle. Burglars flee, man and brother chase them and catch one, subject him to a “sustained attack” with a cricket bat leaving him with brain injuries. Man and brother get 30 months in jail.
What’s the libertarian analysis? Self defence is allowed. It would be perfectly right to shoot all three burglars dead on discovering them, their trespass being a threat to life, but the family were prevented by the state from having sufficient means of self defence. Attempting to apprehend the burglars after they fled also makes sense: they might come back, they be a threat to others, and they owe reparations to the injured family. But beating a man who is lying on the floor and either unconscious or otherwise no longer a threat is obviously not self defence.
So a lot depends on the exact details of the events. Was the burglar beaten after he was no longer a threat? Or was he a threat up until the point when he was struck the brain-injuring blow with the cricket bat? And did the brothers then stop attacking him?
The law allows for people to use reasonable force to protect themselves or others, or to carry out an arrest or to prevent crime.
[...]
A document jointly published by the CPS and Acpo says people are not expected to make fine judgments about what might be reasonable force in the heat of the moment, so long as they only do what they honestly and instinctively believe is necessary.
However, force used after chasing someone who runs off may not be considered to be reasonable. Acting out of malice and revenge with the intent of inflicting punishment through injury or death would not be reasonable, it adds.
Part of the problem is that when your weapon is a cricket bat it’s hard to moderate the level of force. I wouldn’t know how hard to hit someone with a cricket bat to incapacitate him. As hard as possible is the only thing that makes sense. It’s easy to imagine the burglar being hit once, trying to get up — oh no, he’s still a threat — and being hit again even harder. Is this a “sustained attack”? I imagine the case rested on details like these.
But I’d give these brothers the benefit of the doubt. They were put in the stressful situation by the burglars. Being in a blind rage after your family has been tied up is understandable, and the sort of thing you should expect from someone whose family you’ve tied up and threatened. The brothers arguably owe no reparation to the burglar and are not an ongoing threat to society, so putting them in jail can’t be defended from a libertarian point of view.
Update: Here is an excerpt from the judge’s sentencing. He has seen all the evidence, in particular the injuries and a eyewitness.
Salem was apprehended and cornered in the front garden of …[another house in Desborough Park Road] and brought to the ground.
Four men including, as the jury found, the two of you, armed with weapons then proceeded to carry out a dreadful, violent attack upon him when he was defenceless on the ground.
That attack involved kicking and punching him, stamping upon him and striking him with weapons, including a hockey stick and a cricket bat.
The witness, Miranda McCloughlin, who was at the window immediately adjacent to where the attack was taking place pleaded with you and the two others to stop, telling you that you were going to kill the man on the ground.
She was disregarded and the attack continued. She described you and the other two men involved as acting like a pack of animals. It is purely fortuitous that the man Salem was not killed.
As it was, he suffered a number of fractures, including a skull fracture, and brain damage, giving rise to permanent injury.
So they did indeed beat him to a pulp while he lay on the ground. If this had occurred in Texas he’d have been shot dead in the house and no charges would have been brought. He brought it upon himself, it’s hard to have any sympathy for him. But there comes a point when it’s not self defence any more.
A week ago Bishop Hill described perfectly the kind of no-win scenario a homeowner can find himself in when faced with an intruder.
It seems pretty clear to me that the homeowner, unless young and strong, is placed in an impossible situation. If the burglar is violent, they will probably die. If not, then the thief will be able to make good their escape unmolested.
[...]
So the question we must ask of Jacqui Smith is, why the only people who can deal effectively with an intruder are young strong men and a few farmers. What about the rest of us?
Then a couple of days ago, he discovers a new law intended to help beaten wives that might also inadvertently help homeowners facing intruders. Interesting.
The BBC has a report about a Texas man who shot burglars and was let off without charges. I’m not sure why the BBC reports this particular case when this sort of thing happens all the time without the BBC mentioning it. After all, Texas is a civilised place where one does not expect to break into another’s house unchallenged. Perhaps it is because the burglars were black, and there were protestors who claimed the shooting was race related. The reporter says this is an example of America’s “difficult” relationship with guns. Seems like a perfectly healthy relationship to me.
In Britain, only the criminals are armed. A doorman writes about how this affects his work.
I’ve spent more than a decade working as a nightclub doorman. I’ve been involved in hundreds of violent incidents, including many away from the club. I can state unequivocally that in situations where some of these punks decide they’re going to pick on myself, or someone with me, with the intention of stealing our property, terrorising us or just for shits and giggles, on the occasions I’ve been armed, the situation has suddenly resolved itself when I produce a weapon. It’s true that the people who come after you with weapons are cowardly fucks, so much so that even when they massively outnumber you, if you present a viable weapon they are unwilling to take the risk of even one of them being hospitalised. Predatory criminals prey upon people they perceive as weak. There is a massive fucking difference – not recognised in law – between carrying a weapon and initiating force or aggression with it and carrying a concealed weapon purely for defence of yourself and others.
The way the attitudes to and laws regarding self-defence in this country work do everything to disempower and terrorise the ordinary citizen, whilst maximising the power that the wannabe gangster fuckwads then have over them.
I’ve also had dozens of very negative experiences with the police in this regard – when as the default monopoly on force, they have been called to deal with an incident involving armed shits and, either failed to turn up (even though we know they have units in the area), turn up and watch from a distance and – in several cases, turn up, watch what happens, then come and harass us (the door team). I can’t express in words the frustration and anger this has led to in the past and I’m willing to go on record with most of this, along with many other lads who can share similar experiences with you. In many cases the police actually facilitate the operation of these gangs, not defend people against them.
Unfortunately the media is often complicit in keeping this kind of thing off of the radar. Here’s a recent example: Reporting in the Sheffield Star on a murder in a Sheffield nightclub last weekend. The story mentions “Two other men, both in their 20s, were also injured. One worked at the club and he was treated in hospital for a cut to the stomach and later released.” Those “two other men” were doormen who were trying to save Brett, who was killed, they were among four doormen at the venue who all received stab / knife wounds as a result of trying to save the victim (n.b. batons – if they had them- could have foiled at least some of the attacks). The lad with the stomach wound is in fact still in hospital.
Here’s the absolute nugget of gold though, the article finishes: “”We are still trying to find out exactly what happened, the club was busy at the time and we’re appealing for anyone with information to come forward,” a Police spokesman said.”. Here’s something else the article fails to mention: Two of the wounded doormen came out of the nightclub covered in blood, there were at this point already lots of police officers outside the building. One of the lads demanded that the police go in to stop more people getting hurt and arrest the people involved. The police refused. The doorlad then said “you’re all fucking useless”. They then arrested him for a public order offence. Meanwhile the knife attacker somehow managed to escape the building.
This isn’t a one off incident. This is part of a recurring pattern with police (and “gang” behaviour). Don’t get me wrong. The police aren’t always like this and there’s no way I’m of the ACAB disposition. However, it is a regular occurrence, especially when it is a major violent incident – somehow the police consistently seem unable to get involved or even turn up at the most serious altercations. The least violent offences are punished vigourously, whilst the most violent appear to be given free rein.
– Posted by a doorman on a private forum.
One of the stories on Radio 1’s Newsbeat this morning was about a campaign to introduce concealed carry licenses on Virgina Tech campus. It’s also covered on the website story, although you have to scroll down a bit.
It goes without saying I agree with the campaigners that allowing weapons to be carried would make the campus safer.
What I find interesting is that the BBC is introducing to Radio 1 morning show listeners in their teens to 30s the novel (to them) idea that guns have a self defence role. I think this is new.
I saw the latest Tarantino movie last night, Death Proof. It’s a fun film. If you like Tarantino, you’ll like it, if you don’t you won’t. It looks fantastic. It’s slow, so I settled down and sat back to enjoy it, only for it to suddenly shock me with its brutality. It’s full of the usual Tarantino dialogue.
This is my favourite bit:
Lee: You carry a gun?
Kim: Uh-Huh.
Lee: Do you have a license to carry it?
Kim: Yeah, when I became a secret service agent, they gave me a license.
Lee: Oh, I didn’t know you were… Ok. I didn’t say it. Stop looking at me. I didn’t say it. God! Did you know Kim carried a gun?
Abernathy: Yes. Yeah. Do I approve? No. Do I know? Yes.
Kim: I don’t know what futuristic utopia you live in, but in the world I live in, a bitch need a gun.
Abernathy: You can’t get around the fact that people who carry guns, tend to get shot more than people who don’t.
Kim: And you can’t get around the fact that if I go down to the laundry room in my building at midnight enough times, I might get my ass raped!
Lee: Don’t do your laundry at midnight.
Kim: Fuck that! I wanna do my laundry whenever the fuck I want to do my laundry.
Abernathy: There are other things you can carry other then a gun. Pepper spray.
Kim: Uh, muthafucka tryin to rape me, I don’t want to give him a skin rash. I wanna shot that nigga down!
Abernathy: How about a knife at least.
Kim: Yeah, you know what happens to muthafuckas who carry knives. They get shot! Look, if I ever become a famous actress, I won’t carry a gun. I’ll hire me a dude dirt nigga and he’ll carry the gun, and when shit goes down, I’ll sit back and laugh, but until that day, it’s wild west muthafucka!
(It’s part of a double bill called Grindhouse in the USA but was released on its own as Death Proof in the UK.)
Jack Straws self defence law review might be welcome step in the right direction, but undoubtedly won’t go far enough. Until I’m certain of being least as well armed as the criminal I’m up against, I’m going to think twice about intervening. This might go some way to explaining why women can be attacked on trains and a carriage full of people ignore what’s going on.
Private police forces are springing up in Rio de Janeiro because the government police aren’t doing the job well enough.
For as long as anyone can remember, the cracked asphalt soccer field in the Roquete Pinto slum was off-limits to children — “reserved” by gangs selling marijuana and cocaine. Then, a few months ago, a mysterious squad of beefy men with submachine guns started patrolling on foot, and the drug dealers disappeared.
It’s working, but the state likes to maintain its monopoly on the use of force, and the state doesn’t like it.
“It’s the state that establishes law and order, not the militia,” said Sergio Cabral, governor of Rio de Janeiro state. “We won’t accept this under any conditions.”
But it’s working so well that for now authorities have no choice but to turn a blind eye.
Link via Spontaneous Order.
Heather Mills has been receiving death threats. A “panic alarm” might have been installed in her home. Police have been briefed and are ready to provide an immediate response.
I’m sure that will be very comforting when she’s being stabbed or bludgeoned or lying in a pool of her own blood. How immediate can a police response be? Unless she’s got a policeman by her side 24 hours a day, not immediate enough. Why can’t they stop being so wishy-washy and allow her to take measures to defend herself?
It’s almost as pathetic as giving rape alarms to prostitutes in Suffolk.
The correct thing to do when someone is trying to kill you is not to call the police or sound your rape alarm, it’s to shoot your attacker in the face.