🚀 go-pugleaf

E. Barry Bruyea <noemail@scam.com>  wrote :

> 
> Has anyone heard whether the Crown has charged that poor bastard in
> Hamilton, who found the drunken punk in his house and beat the crap
> out of him?  The fact that anyone is thinking about charging the man
> is totally ridiculous and should put the fear of God in the rest of
> us in regards to defending your own home.

Guess you're not allowed to then.

The bum got off easy with just a beating. Here in Colorado we're allowed 
to shoot them, no questions asked.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?
xml=/news/2004/10/31/nburg231.xml

How the 'Make My Day' law cut epidemic of violent burglary

By Charles Laurence
Last Updated: 12:32am BST 31/10/2004

At 3.30am on January 6, 1987, Dr Frank Sommer, a dentist in Tulsa, 
Oklahoma, woke to the sound of his garage door opening. He looked at the 
clock, mentally scolded his son, then 18, or his daughter 20, for 
getting home so late, and waited for the sound of their footsteps 
downstairs.

"After a few minutes, I thought that it was odd that I had heard nothing 
more. I took the gun from my nightstand, left my wife fast asleep and 
went downstairs to make sure everything was OK," he recalled yesterday.

What happened next was an experience of pure terror. As he looked 
through the peep-hole from the kitchen into the garage, he saw two 
strange men. One was pilfering from his wife's car: the other was 
standing at the opened door, by the tool racks.

Just as he stepped through the door to challenge the intruders, the 
lights went out. "It was total darkness and suddenly I was very, very 
scared. I fired one shot and yelled a warning. I saw one figure run off 
and as I went towards the driveway I saw a body in the doorway. 'Oh 
no!' I thought. 'He's dead.' "

In those few seconds Dr Sommer, 66, had been plunged into a case that 
changed the law in Oklahoma and may yet influence a change in the law in 
Britain. Within weeks of the incident, the Oklahoma state government 
passed legislation that became known as the Make My Day Law, named for 
the celebrated scene in the Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry film.

The law was pushed through by Sen Charles Ford, a Republican, the 
opposition party in the state. "The purpose of the law is to protect the 
victim of crime who defends his home and his family against unlawful 
intrusion from any criminal prosecution or civil action," Sen Ford said 
last week.

"We considered it outrageous that someone who protects his home and 
family should suffer. Our law says you can use any force, including 
deadly force, to defend your home."

It has been an unqualified success. Since the Make My Day Law came into 
force, burglary has declined by almost half in Oklahoma. In 1987, there 
were 58,333 cases; in 2000, just 31,661.

While crime rates throughout America fell in the 1990s, Make My Day 
supporters point to a second statistic in Oklahoma they say proves the 
impact of the new law: while burglary rates plunged, other forms of 
theft stayed constant. In 1988, there were 96,418 cases, in 2000, 
96,111.

Similar anti-burglar laws have now been adopted in Colorado and Arizona. 
The reason, said Sen Ford, was simple: "The law works. We were in the 
grip of a violent burglary epidemic when Dr Sommer's home was invaded.

"Over that Christmas, we had six people in their 70s and 80s killed, 
bludgeoned to death by burglars in their bedrooms. How were they meant 
to defend themselves if they could not legally resort to lethal force?" 
he said.

Giving householders immunity from criminal and civil action was also 
inspired by Dr Sommer's experience. Although he was taken to the police 
station and interrogated, the District Attorney read the public mood 
over the series of deadly burglaries and decided against charging him 
with the killing of the burglar, Russell Bryant, 19.

An "ambulance chaser" lawyer contacted Bryant's family and sought 
damages for a lifetime of lost earnings on the grounds that the killing 
was unlawful.

"This was outrageous and focused attention on the vague state of the law 
which left the victim of burglary vulnerable," said Sen Ford, 73.

Prior to the Make My Day legislation, the law, as it remains in most 
American states, sanctioned force in self-defence and the defence of 
property, but only on the basis of "reasonable" response to the violence 
offered by the criminal. This allows a baseball bat against a baseball 
bat, a knife against a knife, and a gun against a gun - although in 
theory the householder should allow the burglar to shoot first.

There have now been at least 11 cases where intruders have been shot 
dead in Oklahoma and the householders who pulled the trigger have 
escaped any sanction under the Make My Day law.

While Dr Sommer is a fervent supporter of the law protecting 
householders, he said that killing Bryant had left him into overwhelming 
feelings of guilt and that for years he was tormented by the thought 
that he had committed the "ultimate sin".

"Every time I go into that garage I think about it," he explained. "But 
I do not regret it. My wife and children were in our home. I am sorry 
that young man was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that was of 
his choosing."



-- 
IF YOU'RE NOT VOTING FOR LIBERTARIANS, YOU'RE ONLY VOTING FOR YOUR 
RULERS! If the government wasn't allowed to initiate force, the vote 
wouldn't be that important. It's only important because they can.

Why is it that the liberals define things as slavery that aren�t 
slavery, like voluntary mutually consenting employer-employee 
relationships, while not defining things as slavery that are slavery, 
like taxation?