Want to stab a burglar? Go on, then.

[abigsmurf]

Very few home invasions are done with the intent of murder or rape. They want to get in, take the stuff in your living room, get out. 60% of burglaries are done with someone in the house.

Confronting one of these burglars raises the prospect of their being 2-3 and them carrying weapons. Again, you're risking making your wife a widow for the sake of protecting a few insured possessions.

If they are coming into your house with the intent to murder/rape, again the best thing to do is to get your family together, to call the police and to guard or barricade your bedroom door. They're out to harm you anyway, it's far better to confront them on your own terms and to try to hold out as long as possible until help arrives.

Most states in America let you use deadly force to protect your home if you feel threatened and all states let you have guns in your home. Their murder rate if 4 times that of the UK and they have very high levels of rape too.

[Guts]

But seriously, I think you should be able to defend yourself, even with deadly force if it comes to it. It can't be right that if some nutter kicks your door in with an axe in hand and you manage to whack him in the head with a baseball bat and accidentally kill him, you'll go to jail for manslaughter.

[averybluemonkey]

Very few home invasions are done with the intent of murder or rape. They want to get in, take the stuff in your living room, get out. 60% of burglaries are done with someone in the house.

Yet they do happen.

Confronting one of these burglars raises the prospect of their being 2-3 and them carrying weapons. Again, you're risking making your wife a widow for the sake of protecting a few insured possessions.

If they are coming into your house with the intent to murder/rape, again the best thing to do is to get your family together, to call the police and to guard or barricade your bedroom door. They're out to harm you anyway, it's far better to confront them on your own terms and to try to hold out as long as possible until help arrives.

You are massively underestimating how underfinanced and over stretched this country's police force is. Response times can be very long.

I completely disagree with your statement, you are sacrificing far too much of a tactical advantage based on an unknown variable - the morals and stability of criminals that you don't know. First of all you know the terrain, they don't and that gives you an advantage. In real life almost all fights are won by the person who lands the first blow, who has the element of surprise. You wait for them to come to you you have lost that element and whereas before you could have taken them one at a time now you don't have that option. Waiting in the bedroom leaves you no where to flee to, if you get to ground level you can get your family out and running. It's also likely you'll lose whatever weapon you have in the first scuffle if there are multiple assailants, the rest of the house offers a greater replacement range of weaponry and also allows you to arm your family. If you hid in the bedroom the fight is on their terms not yours end of story. It also sends a message of weakness that may spur them on. In lots of homes, such as my own it would be impossible to barricade the bedroom anyway.

You're also missing the fact that if you strike them, go on the offensive you have a psychological advantage over them. As in this case he didn't have to fight all of the men he just had to mess up one of them enough to put fear into the others and force them to try to extricate the body immediately to avoid being identified.

I would rather leave my partner widowed but safe then look into her eyes and see her know I was too afraid to take action in her defense.

Most states in America let you use deadly force to protect your home if you feel threatened and all states let you have guns in your home. Their murder rate if 4 times that of the UK and they have very high levels of rape too.

You have to be kidding me here? You don't think that, you know, there might be a few other factors contributing to those stats?

[Mayhem]

Most burglaries in the US occur while no one is in the house, for the reasons mentioned above. So the guns in the house permit certainly has an effect there.

[dataDave]

Watching A Clockwork Orange really made me think about the "what ifs". Imagine some idiots coming into your house and taking over, beating and pinning you to the deck because you were too weak to act properly whilst they rape your wife or girlfriend. This also happens (well, similar) in Akira too.

I'd gladly serve four years rather than face the lifetime of anguish and mental scarring something like that would do to me. It'd be an easy four years as well I reckon, not that I have experience of being inside like, but imagine going in and answering "so, what are you in here for then?" with "Some reckoners came into my place and tried raping my mrs... so I knifed one up and then bit his nose and ears off before ringing the cozzers". I'd honestly bite the nose and ears off for added effect to make sure I don't get bummed whilst inside. Who wants to bum someone who's sick enough to go ape-**** primal and bite bits off?

[nakamura]

Very few home invasions are done with the intent of murder or rape. They want to get in, take the stuff in your living room, get out. 60% of burglaries are done with someone in the house.

Confronting one of these burglars raises the prospect of their being 2-3 and them carrying weapons. Again, you're risking making your wife a widow for the sake of protecting a few insured possessions.

If they are coming into your house with the intent to murder/rape, again the best thing to do is to get your family together, to call the police and to guard or barricade your bedroom door. They're out to harm you anyway, it's far better to confront them on your own terms and to try to hold out as long as possible until help arrives.

So are you saying that if someone breaks into my house I should ask what their intent is before taking action?

[Grapple Convoy]

You are massively underestimating how underfinanced and over stretched this country's police force is.

Or how little they seem to be bothered about crimes when you report them, even crimes that could have potentially ended in death. See my police incident I mention above: I haven't heard back from the police, despite waiting in at home for two days as I was asked to.

[averybluemonkey]

Or how little they seem to be bothered about crimes when you report them, even crimes that could have potentially ended in death. See my police incident I mention above: I haven't heard back from the police, despite waiting in at home for two days as I was asked to.

Whilst it is indeed unfortunate that you had a singular bad experience in this regard it's absolutely not indicative of either that constabulary as a whole or the police force in general. It's also completely unrealistic of you to expect them to get back to you within two days, I'm afraid you have significantly underestimated the work load placed on officers in the current climate. The police often have to put up with time wasters who want attention, and it can be frustrating as it takes time away from helping those genuinely in need. They just have to ask those kind of questions, if you then react badly to them of course it is going to provoke a reaction, again you underestimate the amount of abuse these people have to put up with on a daily basis. It may have just been the case that the person was having a bad day, can you honestly say hand on hard you have never once been in a mood at work?

It's easy to judge, but I don't think the likes of you or me have any right to. These people do more good in one year of their life than people like us do across our entire lifespans. Officers work very long hours, often with unpaid overtime, for not great wages. Sometimes family holidays have to be cancelled at short notice if a court date appears, that's just the way things are. The shift patterns are often extremely physically demanding, seriously restricting any kind of hobby or sociallising outside of the service They are subject to abuse and threats of violence on a regular basis, often coming home covered with bruises. It's not just basic fisticuffs either highlights can include dog attacks, threats with serious weaponry and so on. They have a ridiculously high backlog and are massively understaffed meaning that stress levels are high. They have to put up with government officials bad mouthing them without having a clue and a society that often villianises it's very protectors thanks as people often forget these are human beings behind the badge. Very few people are capable of cutting it as a police officer so like I say it's easy to judge but to these guys it's a calling, not a job. They put up with conditions that very few of us would because they want to help people.

[abigsmurf]

So are you saying that if someone breaks into my house I should ask what their intent is before taking action?

Better to hole up in a room with the rest of your family then to charge in with a knife only to find there are 3 of them and they all have crowbars.

Every police force, every crime victims charity etc. will repeat what I'm saying as by far the safest course of action.

Why risk escalating 95% of situations for the sake of a very unlikely situation? Especially when in that minority, barricading yourself in a room is easily the best course of action?

[merf]

there 2 different arguments here though that are getting a bit merged

argument 1 - if there are intruders in the house what's the most sensible thing to do ?
argument 2 - if there are intruders in the house should you be allow to batter them without fear of criminal charges being raised ?