At 03:15 15-3-01 -0600, Ronn Blankenship wrote:
>Then what method do you recommend that the safety-conscious, law-abiding
>homeowner have ready to defend his home and the lives of his family
>members from an intruder armed with a potentially lethal weapon (gun,
>knife, crowbar, etc.)?
Let me start by kicking in an open door:
The best defence is making it too difficult for a burglar to get into your
house in the first place. There are a few things burglars don't like: good
locks, sound and lights. You can make your house quite safe when you put
good locks on your doors and windows, and install an alarm system that lets
lights go on inside and outside your house (think "floodlights") and
produces a lot of noise (think "siren"). The local police can usually give
you advice on which locks and alarm systems to install.
Having a large dog in the house may be quite useful, too.
What if you keep a gun in the house anyway? A safety-conscious gun owner
will store his gun unloaded, and keep the ammo in an other room. When
someone breaks in, do you really think you can get out of bed, get your
gun, then get your ammo and load the gun without the burglar noticing
someone woke up?
What if you're less safety-conscious and keep a loaded gun in the house?
There's a good chance the burglar finds it before you can get to it. You
wouldn't be the first person to be shot with his own gun in his own house.
Now, let's say you're not safety-conscious and keep a loaded gun in your
bedroom. If you're a good sleeper, chances are you won't wake up till that
burglar is standing beside your bed -- in which case you won't have time to
reach for your gun. Worse yet, there's a good chance the burglar already
found your gun and you find yourself on the wrong end of it.
OK, so you're a non-safety-conscious gun owner and a light sleeper. You
wake up from a sound in the kitchen, grab your gun and go downstairs. Then
what? Burglars don't like much light so it's probably dark in the kitchen.
Do you first turn on the lights to see who's in there, or do you play
"Miami Vice", yell "FREEZE!" and fire your gun? Both scenarios can go
horribly wrong.
In the first scenario, the burglar may act on instinct and shoot you first
(provided he has a gun). In the second scenario, you don't know who you're
shooting at. Maybe it is a burglar. Or maybe it is your son who woke up
hungry at 2 a.m. and went downstairs to get a snack. It wouldn't be the
first time a family member gets killed because he's mistaken for a burglar.
Assume it actually is a burglar. The only time you can get away with
shooting him (at least, in the US) is when it is obvious it is a burglar,
the guy points a gun at you, and you shoot first. However, if you shoot
first without knowing if the intruder is armed, chances are *YOU* are the
one going to jail, for manslaughter or perhaps even murder -- especially if
it turns out the intruder wasn't armed.
As other people pointed out, if you catch the burglar when you're not
armed, you aren't a threat to his life. If you *are* armed, the burglar may
not take the risk and shoot you.
The question remains, will a burglar want to shoot you? Probably not; it's
safer for him to run away. If he gets caught when breaking in, he'll get a
few years in prison for burglary. If he gets arrested for shooting you,
he'll spend most (if not all) of his life in prison for (attempted) murder.
If it's murder, he may even end up on Death Row. I doubt many burglars will
want to take that risk.
My advice: don't buy a gun, but get good locks and an alarm system. Store
your valuables in a safe; that way the burglar can only take consumer goods
like your TV and your stereo (he won't get any money for your family photo
album so he won't take it). Your TV can always be replaced; YOU can't be
replaced when you're killed.
Leave the burglar-catching and the use of fire arms to the police -- they
are the ones with the proper training, not you.
Jeroen
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