You are falling for U.K. party politics in citing the supposed legal limitations on people's ability to defend themselves and their homes in the U.K. (Dec. 8). It is not for nothing that the Daily Telegraph is known as the "Torygraph".
It is true that people are only allowed to use "reasonable" force but it is very rare indeed for anybody to be prosecuted for using "unreasonable" force.
There is one cause celebre which has provoked this debate. A man named Tony Martin was convicted of murder (later reduced to manslaughter) for shooting a burglar. But the burglar was shot in the back as he was running empty handed out of the house. We have never had the death penalty for attempted burglary. -- Jeff Richardson, London
For similar arguments, see Australian blogger Tim Lambert, Jul. 16, 2004 and Feb. 3, 2005. The Crown Prosecution Service guidelines on cases of this sort can be found here. We covered the Tony Martin case Mar. 10-11 and Jul. 20, 2003. For a defense of Martin, see Val MacQueen, FrontPage, Jan. 28, 2003. -- W.O.
Posted by Walter Olson at March 15, 2005 10:37 PMMost anywhere in the USA, someone who did the same as Martin would have been prosecuted for shooting a fleeing burglar in the back. But the other circumstances are not at all the same:
Martin's shotgun was illegal. UK laws require licensing of some kind even for a shotgun, and self-defense is not considered a valid reason. If Martin had merely scared the burglars off with a shotgun, they would likely have made an anonymous call to the police, and come back after the cops confiscated the illegal weapon. There is no jurisdiction in the USA where long guns have to be licensed. (There are a few - notably the District of Columbia - where keeping the shotgun loaded and accessible enough to be useful in a breakdown is illegal, but the burglars would hardly want to testify as to why they knew the homeowner hadn't had time to retrieve, unlock, and load a legally stored gun...)
The local police station closed at night. Is there anywhere in the USA where this happens? There are a good many places where the police response time is upwards of 15 minutes - but nowhere I know of that they simply close up shop during the period when the most crimes happen.
Martin had been repeatedly burglarized before. This is not unheard of in the states - but only in badly run-down big city neighborhoods, not in rural areas. Maybe it's because we actually put burglars in prison when we're caught. Or maybe because burglars that don't take care to not catch the residents at home are running a serious risk of getting shot.
Posted by: markm at March 16, 2005 12:37 PMRegarding Jeff Richardson's comment that there is no death penalty for burglary in the U.K., he misses the point. Tony Martin used excessive force, nobody disputes that. The U.K.'s apparent attitude toward burglary is the real problem, to wit, if nobody gets hurt it's more or less tolerated and that translates to government-mandated pacifism by victims.
Tolerating crime is tantamount to rewarding it. Any behavioral psychologist will tell you that you get more of the behavior you reward and less of the behavior you punish. Unfortunately, that concept might be a little too advanced for a socialist government to grasp.
Nicholas Chamfort said, "In France, we threaten him who sounds the alarm and leave him in peace who starts the fire." It appears to work that way in the U.K., too.
Posted by: Frank at March 16, 2005 02:41 PM