Want to stab a burglar? Go on, then.

[abigsmurf]

If someone is in your house, the best way you can protect you family is by staying with them and calling the police.

You're going to risk making your kids fatherless over a few hundred quids worth of insured goods? Most burglers amazingly enough, don't want to be murderers.

Even assuming they're after you and you're family. It's a hell of a lot easier to defend a room than to go around wandering with an unknown number of assailants coming at you.

[Robster]

Very strategic smurf and solid advice.

I shall it keep in mind for the future but I dare say my rage of someone being in my flat would take over.

Are you ex-military per chance ?

[abigsmurf]

No way I'd ever pass the fitness for the military.

It's just a bit of common sense really. They've got to come through a narrow door, they don't know your house layout, those are both things to use to your advantage. You only need to buy a few minutes until the police get there anyway.

[davek22]

I reckon the tories are expecting lots more burglaries in the future as poverty spreads during the upcoming economic apocolypse so they are putting their ducks in order now. I guess the way Ken Clark sees it one dead burglar is one less ritz level prison bill to keep the poor bugger in jail.
I also bet sales of kitchen knives triple after this announcement. Paranoid homeowners will have one stashed in each room ready to perform the death wish on the spot sentencing

['Press Start']

Anyone in my house uninvited in the middle of the night will be treated as a murdering rapist.

I will grab my phone and call the police whilst sitting at the top of my stairs. Any attempt to climb the stairs would be preceived as a threat to my families life.

All bets are then off.

[^Katsu]

If someone is in your house, the best way you can protect you family is by staying with them and calling the police.

You're going to risk making your kids fatherless over a few hundred quids worth of insured goods? Most burglers amazingly enough, don't want to be murderers.

Even assuming they're after you and you're family. It's a hell of a lot easier to defend a room than to go around wandering with an unknown number of assailants coming at you.

In all fairness the 1st I'd be doing is calling them an Ambulance!

Polite sporting fair playing burglars? You must live in Balamory! They are out for what they can get & will go to any means to get it, being seen is a massive risk.
Addicts are irrational, pro's can't afford recognition, gangs will go all out on you... They all came for something other than conversation and unless you firmly demonstrate you are not a walkover you will probably be smeared across your home, the tv & newspaper.

At the end of the day it's a gamble either way.


Also, have you ever called the police? 4 Mins walk from the station, 2 joyriders on another planet, restrained on the floor not wanting to be arrested 1AM.. Emergency number called 20 mins before I dragged the driver out the car, let alone sorted crazy screwdriver co-pilot.
Police on the scene 55 mins after restraint! On bicycles Van (not peebles) arrives 20 mins after that? Oh and it was raining and fecking freezing! This was when the force was flush too!

[QualityChimp]

Technically speaking, was Leatherface within his legal rights to defend himself after those teens trespassed on his property?

Not sure a court would approve of him using a chainsaw, but I still think he wasn't breaking the law...

[Matt]

If someone is in your house, the best way you can protect you family is by staying with them and calling the police.

You're going to risk making your kids fatherless over a few hundred quids worth of insured goods? Most burglers amazingly enough, don't want to be murderers.

Even assuming they're after you and you're family. It's a hell of a lot easier to defend a room than to go around wandering with an unknown number of assailants coming at you.

I take it you have never had to call the police. They'll do their best, but they're not parked 10 seconds down your street.

You are also missing the point. FOUR men in your house, masked. Who knows what the **** they want. Do they stop and say, "It's OK mate we're just robbing you, go back to sleep!" You're assuming you know they're "only" burglars. I gather you've never been in a confrontational situation before, one where there is a very real, very immediate threat of violence. I've dealt with escalating situations in a previous job working security, and things can get out of hand real quick. You man up, you defend you and yours with your life.

You cannot apply law-abiding rationale to a situation like that. You don't know how you'll respond until you are in that situation. And if you do see red, if your animal, survivalist instinct takes over, you may well not stop until you've done them some serious harm. Or you may piss your pants hiding beneath the bed cover. It really is impossible to tell, regardless of imaginary machismo. Hopefully none of us will ever be in that situation.

Whatever way you respond, if one of the dickwads gets killed, then so be it. You think you'll give them a slap on the wrist and tell them to go home? Reasonable force means, what, one stab? Or multiple? Because you're freaking out, all your thoughts are in protecting your family. You cannot apply rationale.

They instigated the crime, anything which happens after that is their fault, not yours.

[nakamura]

Matt is spot on, when you are in a situation that is confrontational your instincts kick and and it is all about protection at all costs.
I have been in a confrontational situation on several occasions at work and it is very hard to keep your cool if someone is threatening you with violence.
Now I am far from being a strong or threaten guy but needs must and it is amazing how you stand up when there is something at stake. This is just work too, nothing I overly hold dear to me, just the protection of my customers and my staff.

If something happened at home and my wife and daughter were under threat I would do anything possible to protect them.

[Neil]

If something happened at home and my wife and daughter were under threat I would do anything possible to protect them.

QFT. Spot. On.

[averybluemonkey]

Ken Clarke says that nobody should be prosecuted for using "reasonable force" to protect themselves and their homes, which is a reaction to that case the other day of a burglar being stabbed to death.

This basically means that if you stab a burglar to death, you're in the clear. I wouldn't call stabbing someone to death "reasonable force" necessarily, but it's all it can mean considering the case that he's referring to.

Please do feel free to explain how you would go about knifing someone without the risk of them bleeding to death in the process? It's an unavoidable risk with this type of weapon but that doesn't make it not reasonable defense.

Here's the thing - home invasions can and do end up in rape or murder. Added to that is the fact that the majority of burglers are druggies, not exactly known for acting reasonably. If they're on something you can jack their pain tolerance right up making reasonable force hard to define. If you wait until they make a physical move on you then it is already too late, you're done and you're family are at these people's mercy. The very fact they are in your house is a threat to your wife/girlfriend/children/whatever because you have no idea what their motives or morals are.

If you have ever truly loved someone how can you condemn a person for taking this kind of action? What would you do, ask the nice masked man kindly if he wouldn't mind not sexually assaulting your loved ones? Because how can you tell they just want your things and won't commit more serious crimes? Given they are already breaking the law you would you genuinely gamble the safety of your family on those odds?

If you love someone it means you'll do anything to keep that person safe. Not all lives are equal and showing any kind of leniancy in this kind of a situation is putting yours and your family's lives in jeopardy. If presented with this scenario I pick my partner over the criminal violating my home. There's a saying "Better to be judged by 12, than carried by 6" which I think sums it up perfectly.

While on the face of it this law is desirable because the burglars shouldn't f**king be there in the first place, I'm sure there's a reason why this isn't specifically the law right now. Want to invite someone to your house and then stab them to death and claim that they were robbing you?
Go for it!

Please. How's that really any different from what you could do now by placing a weapon on their person and claiming self defense?

[averybluemonkey]

Three times my old work place got broken into and three times the police couldn't find the kids who did it, despite CCTV and footprints everywhere. Useless.

This is a pretty unfair criticism. To ensure a prosecution you need to be able to identify the people in the CCTV images, if they aren't facing the camera directly with no obstructions this is much harder than it sounds and then pick them out of a lineup. Footprints are useless unless the prints are extremely distinctive and even then are nothing more than circumstancial.

[Grapple Convoy]

Speaking of robbery, but street robbery specifically, I got mugged the other day at knifepoint, and the mugger didn't obscure his face at all, which I thought was odd. Looked pretty old, too, someone I could imagine having grandchildren. Druggy, almost certainly.

(Local police I'm not impressed with at all, incidentally. Beat officers who saw me almost immediately were nice, but the CID woman bullied me into not taking it further, accusing me of making it up to get attention and compensation money, which would be barely a tenner. I reported what happened mostly to alert the police of a scumbag on the lose, but was treated as if I was only concerned with property and compensation.)

[speedlolita]

As the song says, **** the police.

[Harry]

Originally Posted by nakamura

If something happened at home and my wife and daughter were under threat I would do anything possible to protect them.

QFT. Spot. On.

Exactly. Including a bit of stabbing if neccersary.

I hate how some British people beat around the bush and go "oh that's bad", like you shouldn't attack or defend from an unknown invading your home so they can rob, rape and pillage. Especially while a lot of them are thinking completely different.