Burglars Rights?You must be joking

Pighead

"I find it difficult to take exception to the notion that you can use reasonable force to defend yourself and your family, and if that results in the death of the intruder, I think that has to be looked at with greater sensitivity to the person who was burgled.

"But if it was in self-defence I don’t think there should be a punishment. I have to say that personally, I have sympathy with Padraic Nally the Mayo farmer who was jailed for shooting dead a burglar.

"I am not saying we should be sleeping with shotguns under our pillows, but there has to be a recognition that people have a right to defend themselves properly and reasonably.

"The message it sends to the would-be attacker is: ‘Do not think you can come into Pigheads home and he will not defend himself with the right type of force that’s necessary’. At the moment it seems it’s the other way round. No respect for the burglars. :mad:

netwhizkid

This is a hige can of worms, i remember a british man was jailed for shooting dead an intruder a few years back, i think martin was his surname. (not sure though) There is some law saying you are allowed to use reasnoble force but obviously not kill the burglar !

DonkeyStyle \o/

So setting up a series of hiarious traps (ala Home Alone) would be illegal?

Pighead

netwhizkid wrote:

This is a hige can of worms, i remember a british man was jailed for shooting dead an intruder a few years back, i think martin was his surname. (not sure though) There is some law saying you are allowed to use reasonable force but obviously not kill the burglar !

Yeah it was announced in England today that the law isnt going to be changed.
http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=42102005
At the end of the day we're all animals and when the juices start pumping around your body its very hard to control your actions.

is_that_so

You can use golf clubs providing you are using them at the top of a stairs when the burglar falls. :rolleyes:

Sparky

TBH, id feel better beating the sh1te out of a burglar rather than giving them an easy option of death, their screams for mercy wouldnt be good enough, id make sure their scared for life.



/me goes to dr dementos office now.

Ro: maaan!

Bit crazy alright. But then what's to stop someone killing someone, brining the dead body to their house and just saying they broke in...?

edit: apart from discovery channel.

Rew

Guy has just been found dead in Tramore, Co. Waterford. Its suspected that he disturbed burglars...

http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0721/waterford1.html

Pighead

According to legal experts, normal household objects are acceptable forms of defence....

A pokker: Not a problem, a household item wih an innocent purpose.

A golf Club: Same as a pokker even if you don't play golf.

A baseball bat: Still classified as a household item.

A Knife: A kitchenKnife is OK but flick knife could be more iffy.

A shotgun: A tricky one. You can't shoot a burglar in the back but if he has a gun arming yourself is proportionate.

A handgun: Illegal, no defence for owning one.

Rew

Handguns arn't illeagl here

DonkeyStyle \o/

Pighead wrote:

According to legal experts, normal household objects are acceptable forms of defence....

Excellent.
*sets up a red-hot door handle and tins of paint*

StupidLikeAFox

make sure you have a few witty one-liners ready for when the burglers are foiled

Rhyme

ColHol wrote:

make sure you have a few witty one-liners ready for when the burglers are foiled

Knock them down... then 'put' them down, i like

DonkeyStyle \o/

"I'm over here, you big dummies!!"
Would it be considered pre-meditated if I had "Keep the change, ye' filthy animal" ready to play on the VCR?

Pighead

Rew wrote:

Handguns arn't illeagl here

First of all may i say your spelling is attrocious,secondly Handguns are not permitted even though they are not illegal - the Gardai (Police) simply refuse to issue licences for same. In 1972 the then Minister of Justice signed a thirty day Temporary Custody Order calling in all handguns and long rifles of a calibre greater than .22 In 1992 the Government released long rifles between calibre .243W and .270W No compensation was ever paid to the owners of these confiscated guns.
So basically they are illegal in everything but name.I know your just trying to get Pighead angry so he will call you a ninny and get banned but i'm afraid your little plan won't work.Pighead is gonna keep his cool,however i would love it if you attempted to burgle my house.

Hobbes

If you disturb a burgler you are more likely to come out worse over it then they are.

Being allowed to kill them on your own property opens a whole can of worms. For example whats to stop someone dragging a person into the house and killing them then claiming they were robbing the place?

Or another example, in Texas the Irish guy who was shot through the front door because he knocked on the door to ask for directions. Owner was let off in this instance.

Pighead

Hobbes wrote:

If you disturb a burgler you are more likely to come out worse over it then they are.

Being allowed to kill them on your own property opens a whole can of worms. For example whats to stop someone dragging a person into the house and killing them then claiming they were robbing the place?

Or another example, in Texas the Irish guy who was shot through the front door because he knocked on the door to ask for directions. Owner was let off in this instance.

Ah now thats a one in a million case,come on hobbes are you honestly telling me if a you found a burglar downstairs looking through your fridge,trying to steal your dairylea triangles and your wife and kids are upstairs,your telling me you wouldnt shoot his brains out.At the end of the day we're built to protect whats closest to us and weather that be dairylea triangles wives or kids we'll automatically do all we can to protect them
I am right aren't i?

Rew

Pighead wrote:

First of all may i say your spelling is attrocious,secondly Handguns are not permitted even though they are not illegal - the Gardai (Police) simply refuse to issue licences for same. In 1972 the then Minister of Justice signed a thirty day Temporary Custody Order calling in all handguns and long rifles of a calibre greater than .22 In 1992 the Government released long rifles between calibre .243W and .270W No compensation was ever paid to the owners of these confiscated guns.
So basically they are illegal in everything but name.I know your just trying to get Pighead angry so he will call you a ninny and get banned but i'm afraid your little plan won't work.Pighead is gonna keep his cool,however i would love it if you attempted to burgle my house.

The spelling is a dyslexic thing, I do my best but dont always spot them. For example I took an "e" off the end of "illeagl" after I had typed and thought it was right.

As for the rest of it you should check the current state of affairs or drop over to the shooting board. They have licenced handguns and large bore rifles for the last year or more. One guy even has a .223 semi automatic H&K SL8.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?forumid=466

You ninny!

muckwarrior

It's fúckin rediculous that theres actually no legislation regarding this matter in Ireland. In britain they have somewhat clarified the matter saying that you may use any reasonable force on an intruder in your home without fear of prosecution, even if it results in the intruder being seriously hurt or killed. What it deems as unreasonable force is if you continue to beat them after they fall unconscious or if you persue them outside your home and then beat them senseless.

The only legislation governing the matter in this country is the Offences Aginst the Person Act which makes no provision for acts of voilence commited in the course of a robbery. So basically an intruder on your premises is afforded equal rights to you! This is what I think is ludicrous. People shouldn't be made to feel hesitant about defending their property or their families. I'm not suggesting that they should be allowed to purposely set out to kill someone, but they should be safe in the knowledge that thay can use necessary force without finding themselves on the wrong side of the law.

Kernel

Rew wrote:

The spelling is a dyslexic thing, I do my best but dont always spot them. For example I took an "e" off the end of "illeagl" after I had typed and thought it was right.

Don't worry about the dyslexia, Pighead spelt 'whether' as 'weather', and misspelt 'poker' as 'pokker' twice... oh and also in 'atrocious', there's only one 't'.

There's probably more, I just haven't noticed them!

DonkeyStyle \o/

Hobbes wrote:

If you disturb a burgler you are more likely to come out worse over it then they are.

Yeah, it's a pretty sad state of affairs... even if you legally get away with breaking their ribs, you never know if they'll come back to settle the score.
If you don't take them down properly and swiftly, you could end up dead yourself. (like that unfortunate man who tried to chase away some skummers breaking into his car and got stabbed to death a year or two ago)
The only way out of this situation is to kill them and hide the body a few miles from your home... but even then, getting caught and having the book thrown at you, and living with the guilt and shame of killing someone... your life would be practically over... and for what? A TV and video?

I think the more important question here is why people feel it's nessesary to harm intruders... fair enough if they've broken into your house to rape and murder your family... but if they have no violent intent and will just leave by default, then what's the point in creating more trouble for yourself?
I think the main reasoning behind it, is that people feel the law is too soft on burlary... that it's treated more in terms of monitary loss than personal invasion and mental anguish.
And the "Ah sure the insurance will cover it..." mentality that a lot of these criminals use to justify their actions :rolleyes:
Money can't give you back the feeling of being safe in your own home... and that's the worst part... having to explain to the kids why the house is a mess, things are missing, windows broken, people crying.
Although I suppose that's better than having to explain why the police took daddy away and what's that human-shaped thing under that blanket with the hatchet sticking out of it.

The police and the whole justice system is there so we don't have to harm or kill intruders... so if people are taking it upon themselves to defend their home with force, then what does that tell you about our system of dealing with burglary?

My 2c anyway.

Rew

Kernel wrote:

Don't worry about the dyslexia, Pighead spelt 'whether' as 'weather', and misspelt 'poker' as 'pokker' twice... oh and also in 'atrocious', there's only one 't'.

There's probably more, I just haven't noticed them!

Fair play, I didnt see any of those. Iv never let it worry me anyway, never stopped me in my degree or masters. Poor spelling is very annoying for those that have to read it though.

Pighead

Rew wrote:

The spelling is a dyslexic thing, I do my best but dont always spot them. For example I took an "e" off the end of "illeagl" after I had typed and thought it was right.

As for the rest of it you should check the current state of affairs or drop over to the shooting board. They have licenced handguns and large bore rifles for the last year or more. One guy even has a .223 semi automatic H&K SL8.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?forumid=466

You ninny!

I dont usually let people call me a ninny and to be honest theres usually a lot of bllodshed and death on the rare occasions that i am called one but Rew you seem to know what you're talking about and i will let this instance pass.
Anyway back on topic in british law the situation is even more absurd. if somebody breaks into your house, but injures themselves whilst doing so, then you may be held liable and could be sued for damages. Apparently such cases have actually happened.

So, for example, imagine you've gone away on holiday part way through a spot of DIY, say replacing floorboards, and as such there's a big gaping hole in your floor. On return you find not only have all your valuables been taken, but there's a letter from the burlgar's lawyer, who has been hired on a "no win, no fee" basis, informing that you are liable to pay the guy that broke his leg in the process of robbing your house £20,000 for "loss of earnings"

This makes me want to vomit.These people really are the scum of the earth,basically its quite simple,stay out of my house unless i invite you in otherwise Pighead is gonna let loose

pred racer

If it was just a case of a burglar getting shot (specially a knacker burgler) then I would say tough ****.. But I think there is more to this case than just that. Along the lines of going for more ammo after the guy was down.

Beware knackers, my gate is 30M from my bedroom window, I have 2 shotguns, thats 5 shots, I keep 5 no.5 alphamax BB's and while I dont think Id Kill ya The Hiace is gonna take quite a bit of fixin!

alantc

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

The police and the whole justice system is there so we don't have to harm or kill intruders... so if people are taking it upon themselves to defend their home with force, then what does that tell you about our system of dealing with burglary?

Yeah, let's get an army by providing everyone with jobs whether or not they want them. Tell them that better jobs are easy to get by just telling someone what you like (apptitude test!).
If they don't want to follow the rules of our society they can't think to be part of it and get its prividges. For some there's only one thing they'll understand, if you ever expect them to stop, and we feel too above it (UN human rights...) to beat them. Only alernative is to lock them up.
So get a great police force by giving everyone jobs, a lot of whom can cover the jobs of people who might be more interested in being in the police.
So, give police huge budgets, prioritise police, and our new larger workforce will pay for itself.

Pighead

A burglar has no pressure on him to act, he chooses to. A murderer has no pressure on him to act, he chooses to. A person defending themself who commits what would be 'assault' or 'murder' in other contexts IS under pressure to act, but the legal establishment seems to think otherwise. They seem to think they don't have to take the circumstances of the incident into consideration, that they should consider the self-defender's act divorced entirely from the situation he was responding to.What a load of ****e. The reason why self-defence is prosecuted is because the wig-wearers don't understand how self-defence is very different to bashing an elderly person. Moreover, people who think that they need to protect burglar's rights WON'T try to understand that self-defence 'crimes' are of a different nature and
should be considered differently, as they don't want to. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a spanner
Thread locked.Anybody who dares break into this thread again shall be shot in the kidneys 7 times. :mad:

Prior Of Taize

Heres 2 weird scenarios for you...

1---> Someone tried to mug Jonah Lomu for his jacket (back when he was playing for the all blacks)

2---> There is a "club" in Texas (or some other redneck hole) called Dead Serious (couldnt find a link) which requests all members to deposit $10,000 dollars opon acceptance of membership. They are then provided with a sticker which they place on their door/window/whatever at the front of their house. Should any member of this club shoot a burglar dead on their property they recieve a "prize" of $100,000 from the club.

:eek:

pred racer

mugging Jonah Lomu, that must have been for a gang initiation or something.
Imagine going to court whinging about your rights after he beat 7 bells out of you.

Mugging scumbag. Your honour he beat the crap outta me!

Judge. WTF did you expect. 10 yrs for being an ar*ehole

Sparky

pred racer wrote:

mugging Jonah Lomu, that must have been for a gang initiation or something.
Imagine going to court whinging about your rights after he beat 7 bells out of you.

Mugging scumbag. Your honour he beat the crap outta me!

Judge. WTF did you expect. 10 yrs for being an ar*ehole

Jonah Lomu i think one flick of his finger would do enough damage to one burglar to put him in hospital.

dawballz

Looks like burglary is an easy job.

*Protection from the law(almost).

*Your own working hours(Be your own boss and all that)

*Excellent benefits, such as DVD players, money, cars, jewellery etc.

*Huge unexploited market.

Yep, when I grow up I wanna be a thief!

Sparky

dawballz wrote:

Looks like burglary is an easy job.

*Protection from the law(almost).

*Your own working hours(Be your own boss and all that)

*Excellent benefits, such as DVD players, money, cars, jewellery etc.

*Huge unexploited market.

Yep, when I grow up I wanna be a thief!

Also option of early retirement*















*Prison(only available if caught by officers or third parties, ie house owner)

DonkeyStyle \o/

alantc wrote:

So get a great police force by giving everyone jobs

We already have a reasonably good police force... in my experience, response times are good enough to catch burglars in the act... it's where they go from there that's the problem.
I'm not suggesting tougher sentences necessarily, since a heroin addict probably wouldn't care about doing 20 years in prison if he can just get enough money for his next hit.
You either have to turn peoples lives around and reform them completely, or have a deterrent powerful enough to stop them doing it in the first place.
I don't see that we have either... especially when you hear of someone appearing in court on their 60th offense... they haven't been reformed the first 59 times, and by the looks of things, they aren't in the least bit afraid of doing it again.
Everyone sees this on the news, Johnny scumbag getting out of court with a slapped wrist, giving the finger to the camera... you just know he's learned nothing from his brush with the law.
I'm not at all surprised people confront burglars when they've lost hope in doing things by the book.

I'm not sure what to make of the rest of your post, it strikes me as some kind of incoherent sarcastic rant... you'll have to speak more slowly for me.

Talliesin

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

So setting up a series of hiarious traps (ala Home Alone) would be illegal?

I know that's a joke, but there have been cases of firemen and cops being injured by boobie-traps intended for burgulars, hence it indeed being illegal.

toiletduck

if someone breaks into my property, i dont know if their intentions are to rob me or to injure/kill/rape my family and me, i wouldn't hesitate for a minute in using whatever means necessary to protect myself and my family.

the intruder forfited any rights they have when they break into someone elses property

shellby

apparently if they are upstairs and the are an immediate threat to you and your family and you can defend yourself the same applies if there are bedrooms down stair - please correct my if i'm wrong
the best thing to do in beat em up drag em outside then call the gaurds and tell em someone had been assaulted in front of your house (they understand what it means, but will side with you)
as for killing someone i have 3 younger sisters if someone proofed to be a threat ie placed one foot on the landing then if they happened to fall back down the stairs and die then i won't suffer from any sleepless nights there are there people in my house that would be unable to defend themselves if the intruder tried something

ionapaul

I think the more important question here is why people feel it's nessesary to harm intruders... fair enough if they've broken into your house to rape and murder your family... but if they have no violent intent and will just leave by default, then what's the point in creating more trouble for yourself?
I think the main reasoning behind it, is that people feel the law is too soft on burlary... that it's treated more in terms of monitary loss than personal invasion and mental anguish.

No, the reason we (humans) find it necessary to use force to defend our property and family is because it is human instinct, a feature that helped our ancestors leave more decendants than the next guy, and thus passed on via natural selection to all humans. It is something that is unthinking and comes natural to every one of us. If an intruder breaks into your home, you and your family will feel threatened (whether he plans to make off with your TV or rape and murder your children) and the instinct to protect what is yours by neutralising the threat will come unbidden into your mind. You will not have to think about it too much, I assure you! If a criminal breaks into your home for any nefarious reason, a struggle occurs when he or she is confronted and he or she is harmed in this struggle, you should not be liable in the law. Not in my perfect world, anyhow!

Jimi-Spandex

It's all a case of using reasonable force in the situation to protect you or your family.

Depending on the set of facts shooting a burglar in the back with a shotgun may be acceptable is for instance he was running at your wife/kids with a chainsaw or something like that.

There are no hard and fast rule regarding upstairs/downstairs but if the burglar is upstairs it is more likely that he was going to do damage to you/your family.

However if you came downstairs one night to find someone swiping your tv and you start beating him with a golf club upside the head till he's leaking brains, you are not going to be afforded much protection as this would hardly be a reasonable reaction.

Zapho

shellby wrote:

apparently if they are upstairs and the are an immediate threat to you and your family and you can defend yourself the same applies if there are bedrooms down stair - please correct my if i'm wrong
the best thing to do in beat em up drag em outside then call the gaurds and tell em someone had been assaulted in front of your house (they understand what it means, but will side with you)
as for killing someone i have 3 younger sisters if someone proofed to be a threat ie placed one foot on the landing then if they happened to fall back down the stairs and die then i won't suffer from any sleepless nights there are there people in my house that would be unable to defend themselves if the intruder tried something

I agree with you, but the law doesn't. I dunno, I've heard stories whereby a burgalur broke into a house and the father wrestled him to the ground and held him there until the police arrived. When they finally arrived the first thing they did was to ask the burgalur if he wanted to press charges against the father. I mean WTF?

Dades

I keep a Louisville Slugger in the house for just this kind of eventuality.

And a tarp, bag of lime and a spade.

KTRIC

Myself any my GF have a mutual understanding that if we catch anyone breaking into the house we kill them and dump their body in the mountains. I have no problem with this and neither does she.

BizzyC

Read in a thread a while back that a guy hooked his mains up to his garage door to stop romanian breaking in, and he got done when one of them was electricuted

ionapaul

Zapho wrote:

I agree with you, but the law doesn't. I dunno, I've heard stories whereby a burgalur broke into a house and the father wrestled him to the ground and held him there until the police arrived. When they finally arrived the first thing they did was to ask the burgalur if he wanted to press charges against the father. I mean WTF?

Don't know if I quite believe this. I know burglars have sued after hurting themselves while breaking in to homes and falling and such (absolute farce, IMHO, they should be laughed out of court), but this seems like an urban myth.

shellby

Zapho wrote:

I agree with you, but the law doesn't. I dunno, I've heard stories whereby a burgalur broke into a house and the father wrestled him to the ground and held him there until the police arrived. When they finally arrived the first thing they did was to ask the burgalur if he wanted to press charges against the father. I mean WTF?

well the gardia (unofficially) will advise you to do the whole throwing them outside your front garden thing
even if i had to do time in prison i would not think twice about deffending my family esspecialy the members of it who cannot defend themselves i'm also the eldest so that might have something to do with me being so protective

Rew

K-TRIC wrote:

Myself any my GF have a mutual understanding that if we catch anyone breaking into the house we kill them and dump their body in the mountains. I have no problem with this and neither does she.

Does she have a sister?

KTRIC

Rew wrote:

Does she have a sister?

Yep and she makes my GF seem normal.

Rew

BizzyC wrote:

Read in a thread a while back that a guy hooked his mains up to his garage door to stop romanian breaking in, and he got done when one of them was electricuted

I was going to do that to stop people pissing up agains the back door of a place I worked. It horrible having to have the smell of piss in the work shop in the mornings. Decided against it though.

shellby

Rew wrote:

I was going to do that to stop people pissing up agains the back door of a place I worked. It horrible having to have the smell of piss in the work shop in the mornings. Decided against it though.

in a mates college there was still fella who was getting alot of hassle off one of the lads so one day he followed him into the bathroom one day and hooked an electrode (or something) like that up to the urinal he was using before the lad coped what he was doing his gibely bits got fried he ended up in hospital and it's highly unlikely he'll have kids i think the other guy got charged so it's fairly serious (off topic i know) but just taught i'de mention it

Evac101

I remember many years ago a sister of mine living in New York state. A cop friend of her husband was around their place visiting and the subject of burglary came up as there had been a number in their neighbourhood recently. The cop advised them (unofficially of course) to buy a 9mm handgun and if they ever had a burglary issue to keep shooting until the magazine was empty. He also advised that my sister do the shooting as a jury would be more likley to beleive that she was feeling threatened the whole way through the magazine. The immortal quote from the friend was 'Dead men don't sue'.

While that seems a little extreme I would have no hesistation in 'tripping and falling' repeatedly on any burglar in my own home - I'm figuring that 20 stone falling repeatedly on them should pacify the situation...

Pighead

Evac101 wrote:

While that seems a little extreme I would have no hesistation in 'tripping and falling' repeatedly on any burglar in my own home - I'm figuring that 20 stone falling repeatedly on them should pacify the situation...

:eek: 20stone!.You are a whole lot of woman Eva,i like it,(a lot)
Anyway eva you're right so what if i have rotating blades, man-traps, explosives, electric fences, minefield, motar system, scarecrow with a shotgun, caltraps, tripwire claymores, huge ball rolling down a narrow corridoor, poison darts from the walls, pit with spikes at the bottom, room with ceiling that crushes, spiked walls, axes falling from the celings, stairs becoming a slide and the whole house filled with toxic gases.

I don't intend to cause harm, I just like to live on the edge. If someone breaks in, I can go to prison even though all the above is intended for my own personal amusement. Put a warning sign on the outside of the house and that way they can't sue.

Fcuk 'em they don't have rights, their breaking the law they should not be protected by it.

Evac101

LOL - uhm - Porkchop - I'm a guy - the handle should properly be identified as Evac (evacution) 101 (a basics course code common in American High Schools).

Evac101 = A basic course in running away - a handle coming from online FPS games:)

Sherlock

True story (and I have the letter my friend got from a solicitor).
A few years ago a guy was involved in the theft of oil tanks over in Sandyford industrial estate). One night one of the tanks came of its mountings and fell on his foot. He headed off to the local petrol station in Sandyford and asked them to call an ambulance ( I assume his pals left him). He was brought into hospital, gave a false name and left after getting treated. His next move was to see a solicitor who wrote to the company whose name was on the building (not the owner of the oil tank) alleging their lack of maintenance caused injury to their client who just went behind the tank to urinate. The real owner of the tank got the letter who passed it on to the guards who were very keen to contact the "client".
Two things....how can any burglar be stupid to try it on?....and can anyone underestimate the neck of some solicitors?