Volya, you have no idea what happened or why. I don't care about your garbage opinions on my life, so keep your asinine feelings about me to yourself. Attempt to improve silence.Originally Posted by Volya
Volya, you have no idea what happened or why. I don't care about your garbage opinions on my life, so keep your asinine feelings about me to yourself. Attempt to improve silence.
Varenne.
Your posts (and art) are the heart of this site. I always look first to see if you have contributed. There are so many different scenarios of home burglaries, it's difficult, at least for me, to summarize my own thoughts; not even sure of the right questions. As you know, I was assaulted and seriously injured by a burglar who repeatedly stabbed me about my head, neck and chest with a knife in my home this past July. The experience changed my life, physically and mentally, not all for the worse. It was early morning. I was unarmed, in only my underwear, on my way from the bedroom to brew a cup in the kitchen. There would have been no time to grab a gun. On reflection, I still can't think of a safe way to own or effectively carry one for protection. The police gave me suggestions, but none befit my lifestyle. My incident was like being struck by lightning, a post-modern event. I still have trouble sleeping. I have resolved that learning self defensive skills, and taking sensible protective measures, are more important to me than I thought previously. None of the home alarm systems I have considered to date work for my home layout or for my budget. I have a dog (small munsterlander), but for some reason she did not bark on the fateful occasion. Not able to end with a strong sentence, perhaps later.
Hawg
According to our creation story, night came first: darkness upon the deep. Put another way, night is older than day; night is older than time; night is the womb from which the world emerged. ... I’ll have you praying for dawn. Excerpts from Night Shifts, by Elissa Wald.
They'd have a job taking my TV as I dumped it earlier this year. In a liberal democracy, it's not very clever to keep anything of value in one's home unless it's part of a gated community or some similarly protected area. So apart from my computer and music centre there would be nothing else to gain from burgling my home; I don't think they could carry the piano.
However, joking aside, there have been cases in the UK where people have been subjected to extreme violence and even death at the hands of burglars. Now I have to ask myself what those who object to burglars being shot would do if they were in the same situation? I live in one of the most populous cities on earth and the chances of being a victim of crime are probably greater than if I lived in a village but even there one isn't safe. A couple of friends who live in just such a place returned home from staying the week-end at their holiday home to find that they had been burgled. There was also the notorious case of Tony Martin, a farmer living in a remote Victorian farm house, appropriately called Bleak House, who heard burglars downstairs one night and came down with a shotgun and killed one and wounded the other. The gun was unlicensed but that had no bearing on the case as he would have used it either way. To say that I was furious when he was charged and found guilty of murder would be more than an understatement and there were many other people who made their feelings felt through the media. But here's the point: the surviving burglar was sentenced to 3 years for burglary and released 1 year later after a parole board hearing, subsequent to which he was arrested for drug dealing and again for stealing a car. Now I can't help feeling that it was a pity that Martin, who wounded him, didn't finish the job properly. Anyway, Martin was released after three years but it still makes me ashamed to be British.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
Oh, the irony
It appears, Emil, that you consider the criminal worthy of consideration after all. Or is it not insanity to consider the convicted killer who shot two men with an illegal weapon?
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Thank you, Hawg. I really appreciate your contributions here, and your kind words. I appreciate Volya, too. In this case, I probably got too personal, and Volya responded without knowing the details. My fault. My brother didn't break into anyone's home. He took seventeen dollars from the cash register at his work. They could have just fired him, but they wanted to make an example of him. When the police went to deliver the charges, Kenny had a small amount of marijuana on him. The judge in his case hated drug users and sentenced him to five years in state prison. I believe it was the maximum penalty at the time for that offense. His sentence was reduced to two years, and he was planning on going back to college after his release, but he was killed a little over a year into serving his time. Death penalty for $17 and pot is what it amounted to. Some people might see that as justice. I'm at odds with that way of thinking.
To clear up any confusion, my brother was not one of the family members I lost to gun violence. Those were my father, my step-mother, and my young cousin. I am not referencing these things to garner sympathy. I felt they were topical and I have tried not to go into grotesque detail. Beg pardon of anyone who didn't view my portion of the discussion as beneficial. Further questions, if any, on my personal losses should be redirected to private conversations.
Getting back on point; like you, Hawg, I have been in situations in which I would not have been able to use a gun against an armed assailant. Not if I had a cache of a thousand semi-automatics in my basement. Not if I had a pistol in my pocket. By the time there is a weapon pointed at a person, there is little or no time for anything accept hoping. I'm sure daring heroics have happened in extreme cases and luck prevailed, but I still think prevention is better than reaction.
Not at all. I agree that Martin had an illegal weapon and I wouldn't feel sorry for him if he were charged with that offence. But I do feel sorry for him being charged with murder when trying to defend himself on his own property from two burglars who, in my view and also that of many others judging by the stir it created in the UK media, got what they deserved.Oh, the irony
It appears, Emil, that you consider the criminal worthy of consideration after all. Or is it not insanity to consider the convicted killer who shot two men with an illegal weapon?
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
Sounds to me like Martin had a lousy barrister. He should've gotten Johnny Cochran.
Uhhhh...
He did. In fact the defence lawyer who represented him later wrote an article for a leading newspaper in which he said that it was wrong for anyone to shoot a burglar. So with that kind of representation, who needs enemies ? Here's what the appeal judges were told about the case when Martin, who had changed his legal representative, appealed against his sentence and had it reduced to manslaughter:
The appeal judges, Lord Woolf, Mr Justice Wright and Mr Justice Grigson, were told that the case put forward by the defence at the original trial had only ended up helping the prosecution.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
It seems to me that it's a ridiculous situation where you have to fear for yourself when somebody breaks into your house or attacks you - not because the criminal will hurt you, but because you could go to jail for defending yourself.
There is quite a difference between self-defence and killing someone breaking into your home as they run away. Such as Joe Horn killing two men who broke into his absent neighbour's home. He shot one of them in the back as he was trying to run away. This, after being told repeatedly by the 911 dispatcher not to get involved as police would be there shortly. A plain-clothes detective even arrived in time to witness the shooting. The transcript of the conversation with the 911 dispatcher is available. Joe Horn repeatedly suggests that he won't let them go, and is going to go out and kill them, and suggests it is self-defence. He was acquitted on all counts. He killed two human beings over a home burglary next door, two men not threatening him, but trying to run away, as the police were arriving on scene. He should have been sentenced to life in prison for this, instead, he walked.
This was in The Economist:
If Americans want a society where schools do not, as the one in Newtown did, have to drill their children in emergency lock-down procedures, more drastic measures should be contemplated. Handgun bans, such as those that operated in Chicago and Washington, DC, before the Supreme Court struck them down, would be needed on a national scale. Gun licences, obtainable only after extensive police and medical review as in most other civilised countries, would be needed for hunting and sporting weapons. Tough police action, coupled with an extensive “buy-back” programme, would be needed to mop up the hundreds of millions of guns that are already held. If, as seems probable, this is held to conflict with the constitution, then the constitution needs to be amended.
Senator Dianne Feinstein is proposing a bill that appears " modeled on the federal assault weapons ban that was in effect from 1994 until 2004." This is a bill that is expected to save only about 400 lives per year. I support this law, and I sincerely hope that this tragic affair causes America to examine closely their priorities and what they hold dear. I would hope that changing the law would start us on the road to changing our culture, but as you can see, we have a long, long way to go.
The NRA, meanwhile, would like to "coordinate a national effort to put former military and police officers in schools as volunteer guards." I have heard this before, anytime there is an incident with a gun, the rational is "if only that person had had a gun." At this point we should be the safest country in the world, but from where I sit it doesn't appear that we are.
Dear God. This one incident and the follow up illustrate how maddening and difficult it is to solve these problems. Still it seems like there ought to be some workable solution. Let us know how things go, Hawg.
I am so sorry, Varenne. That is not only a tragedy but a travesty of justice.
Last edited by qimissung; 12-23-2012 at 08:52 PM.
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its' own reason for existing." ~ Albert Einstein
"Remember, no matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Bonzai "Some people say I done alright for a girl." Melanie Safka
And so it does to anyone who can add 2+2 and get 4 but, in the face of opposition from a self-serving legal profession who will do anything to prevent a halt to their gravy train, Mr Grayling the Justice Secretary, under pressure from the public and certain sections of the media, has decided to change the law in order to give people the right to protect themselves against burglars. However, the BBC (who else? ) has thrown in its lot with the lawyers and wheeled out that well-known Labour lovie James Naughtie to argue the case for maintaining the status quo. Here he is being put in his place by the Rev. Peter Mullen the conservative cleric in an article from the Daily Telegraph. The bolding is my own.
But Mr Grayling received only rough justice mixed with deliberate incomprehension from James Naughtie, the Today presenter. Naughtie put it to Mr Grayling that if in the night you saw a shadowy figure, out of it on drugs, in your “front hall” – interesting to have this revelation of the sort of house Naughtie imagines we live in – and shoot him dead, then surely that would be disproportionate?
Naughtie completely misunderstands what sort of thing a burglary actually is. By definition it is something which takes place in the dark hours. I offer an alternative scenario to Naughtie’s, one which I think is nearer the likely reality. You are fast asleep and suddenly you are awakened by a noise. It is dark. You fear for your family’s safety and your own. You cannot see clearly what’s going on. All you know is that there is an intruder.
Are you to arise serenely from your bed, unarmed of course, approach the intruder and gently enquire as to his business in your house in the middle of the night? If that’s what you decide to do, then there is a fair chance that it will be you, the householder, who gets clubbed or knifed or shot dead, and the burglar who gets away, perhaps with a sackful of your treasured belongings.
A burglary discovered while it is taking place is a crisis. And in such a crisis there is no time or room to make assessments. The disturbed householder is obliged to react instinctively to defend himself and to protect his family and property. If this means that he hits the intruder over the head with the frying pan or shoots him with his shotgun, then that should be permissible – even if the shot happens to kill the burglar.
All Mr Grayling was saying – though Naughtie chose not to understand him – is that the law should be on the side of the householder who should not be arrested for defending himself and his household. That is eminently reasonable. But what about the burglar’s human rights? There are no rights in wrongs. By his criminal act, the burglar has forfeited his rights. When we used to speak plainly, we had the right word for such a criminal: outlaw.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
This story explains some of the mental health issues that I am concerned about better than I have been able to:
http://www.salon.com/2012/12/23/how_...op_a_massacre/
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its' own reason for existing." ~ Albert Einstein
"Remember, no matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Bonzai "Some people say I done alright for a girl." Melanie Safka
Thank you, Qimi. Your entire post is very insightful.
I used to think these things occurred at night until there was a series of burglaries in our town home community a few years ago. This was done by a team of two or three from outside the community who worked the area until they were finally caught. Some people had valuable jewelry in their homes. This could not be recovered since it would have been melted down immediately and sold for the value of the metal. What they recovered was what was covered by their insurance.
The local police held a meeting and informed those of us interested in attending what we could do to prevent ourselves from being targeted. I remember the following items:
1) Most burglaries happen during the day, during the week, because that is when no one is expected to be home. They are not done at night.
2) Don't leave the garage entrance open or have the windows unshaded so that passers-by can see that all the cars are gone. The burglar will know the house is empty.
3) Don't leave valuables such as purses set on a counter where they can be seen by passers-by looking through a window. The burglar will know there might be something in the house worth breaking through the door.
4) Lock your doors although a locked door will not stop someone wanting to get in.
5) Don't try to confront or trap the burglars if you happen to run into one. That is, allow them a chance to exit without being forced to fight. They would be more motivated and prepared to fight than we would be to bring them to justice.
We were not affected. They would have been disappointed anyway.
The moral of the story: Common sense prevention is the best defense.
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
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