Beating up buglars

[sobrique]

Well, the news today, is that the Gov'mint has issued advice as to when you're allowed to beat the snot out of some scallywag nicking your stuff.

Basically, up until the point at which he tries to leg it, you're entitled to almost anything 'in self defense', and you won't be prosecuted.

The real point of the law seems to be, that if you're pausing to consider if 'you can get away with it' then you probably can't. Ya'know, if you're thinking, at any point during your engagement, that "I could chop his hand off, and they can't do me" then at that point, it becomes pre-meditated.

If you leap to your defense, and smash the blighter in the face with a golf club, and then go 'oops' then "that's ok". Provided you then don't get the boot in.

I think a much simpler solution would be to remove the protection of the law, from those who are with malice and forethought committing a crime. (Maybe just a crime for which there has to be someone pressing charges.)

So if you're breaking into a house, and someone spots you, the entire street can line up and throw knives and bricks at you. Well, provided they ain't damaging the property of the home owner.

If you're some grotbag who's painting graffiti on the walls of the tube, and someone mugs you whilst you're doing it, tough luck.

Of course, then you'll get arguments over the semantics of 'malice and forethought'...

Comments

[mrph.livejournal.com]

But then you end up drifting towards the Texas situation, where a stranger rings your doorbell to ask for directions and you shoot them without fear of reprisals because you can always say you thought they were a burglar/rapist/serial killer...

The protection of the law should still apply to anyone who breaks the law. Especially when you haven't yet proven that they broke the law, it's a more general issue too.

As the BBC points out, there have been an estimated eleven prosecutions in the last fifteen years, six of which led to guilty verdicts. And of those six, one was Tony Martin and one was a man who "laid in wait for a burglar on commercial premises in Cheshire, before beating him up, throwing him into a pit and setting him on fire".

I've seen no evidence that the law is broken, despite the tabloids harping on about it, so why the big effort to 'fix' it? They're just being scared of the tabloid hype again, aren't they?

[dan-lane.livejournal.com]

Well your honour, he was smoking on the train and I know thats illegal so I was going to say something because it plays with my asthmer something terrible... but I was scared he'd hit me if I said something so I shot him in the face.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

I find it a little hard to visualise smoking 'with malice and forethought'. Although lighting up in a no smoking carriage is certainly anti-social behaviour...

[jambon-gris.livejournal.com]

Having been court with a fat one on a train the three hour lecture i got was on balance only maginally better than being shot