Alas, the burdensome and time-devouring task of keeping a humble roof over my head prevents me from exploring the blogosphere as much as I would ideally like to do. As a result, I suspect that there are stacks of interesting views and ideas that are simply passing me by.
So, praise be for the occasional lazy, hazy Sunday afternoon that affords me the opportunity to saunter through the Samizdata blogroll in search of tasty tidbits. Today, I stumbled across a very tasty morsel at ‘A Policeman’s Blog’ which (as the name indicates) is written by a serving British police officer.
Given the candour of his opinions it is easy to understand why he choses anonymity. Particularly when he says things like this:
As an NRA member (see link on sidebar) I’m in favour of liberal gun laws and I think it’s irresponsible of the state to take away an innocent person’s right to self-defence. As a Police Officer, I get tired of having to investigate crime that is unsolvable, yet has only occurred because the victim is weak and the perpetrator is a bully and knows he will get away with it.
To American readers, the British attitude to guns must seem very strange. On the one hand we want to ban law-abiding people from having guns, on the other hand it has never been easier for a criminal to obtain an illegal handgun. We worry about thugs and crime on our Council estates and at the same time refuse to give ordinary people the means to defend themselves and their property.
The Police have long since given up the traditional role of “law-enforcement” and have now become professional “evidence gatherers”. That’s not a problem for the Police, but it does pose a difficulty if you live in an area where you have a lot of crime. So who does the “law enforcement” nowadays?
Nobody.
That’s where widespread ownership of guns comes in. Together with sensible laws on self defence, guns have a habit of cutting through all kinds of complex arguments about the causes of crime. If I try and burgle your home, you might shoot me: that concentrates the mind. It also reduces reliance on the state and it makes people responsible for their own actions. Best of all though, it gives victims a chance against offenders, something they’ll never get if they involve the Police. All we do is “gather the evidence.”
Given the messianic zeal with which his superiors and their political masters have pursued (and continue to pursue) their policy of civilian disarmerment and compulsory passivity, it is uplifting to hear that at least one of their agents has managed to retain some common sense and a capacity for rational analysis.
But then this is a man who actually has to go in and mop up (quite literally in many cases I should think) the pitiful results of their boneheaded obduracy. Nonetheless it is still a testament to his strength of character that he has drawn the correct conclusions despite every fashionable injunction to the contrary.
We need more public servants like him.
URL to “policeman’s blog” not functional.
Yes, it is discouraging that a British public servant has to post such obvious facts anonymously.
But, he/she must figure that there is a receptive audience that will grow and work for legislative change.
Harold,
Apologies. Link now fixed.
The burglary rate in Europe is twice that of the US because we have the right to shoot anyone who invades our home.
Surveys of prisoners show that they fear homeowners with guns far more than they fear the police.
“The burglary rate in Europe…” is scarcely a meaningful single number even when you can find an equivalently defined crime in a particular jurisdiction. Europe doesn’t have a single policy on guns, let alone burglars.
The French appear to be pretty much at liberty to shoot intruders, and French hunters accidentally shoot passers by and each other with a regularity that’s quite alarming to either an Englishman or an American.
Don’t forget, either, much burglary is opportunistic in Britain (which is why poor people are more often burgled than rich ones). Criminals are usually so because they find it easier than other ways of life. The less densely a country is populated the more effort is involved in burglary.
Iffin they figured there was a chance of being shot in the execution of their chosen career, they might figure another way of life more to their liking.
Jake wrote:
‘we have the right to shoot anyone who invades our home. ‘
Actually – generally speaking, no, we don’t have that right.
Laws vary from state to state, but in the majority of the US, the use of deadly force is only justified by a real and present threat to life and limb – and not merely by property crime.
So, generally speaking, you cannot claim justification for shooting a burglar who’s merely burgling. In some less-developed states, to be sure, this is still the case, but in the majority of the US – no.
llater,
llamas
Llamas, in the best developed state, and one of the richest and freeest, the great state of Texas, yes. You don’t even have to be at home and caught unawares to despatch a burglar. If you see someone trying to steal your car, you are at liberty to shoot him. This is why there is so little auto theft in Texas.
Kim du Toit – over to you.
Verity wrote:
‘That is why there is so little auto theft in Texas’,
and, much as I hate to argue with such a well-respected contributor, here we have another example of ‘things we know, which just ain’t so’.
Here’s what the Texas DPS has to say about auto theft in Texas:
http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/criminal_law_enforcement/motor_vehicle_theft/
Here’s data on the 50 cities with the highest rates of auto theft, auto theft being primarily an urban crime.
http://info.insure.com/auto/thefts/cities401.html
Note that there doesn’t seem to be the slightest correlation between the rates of auto theft and either gun ownership or the particular state of the law on the use of deadly force. Dallas and Houston, for example, rank far above Washington DC in auto theft rates, as do several other major metropoloitan areas where the law on the use of deadly force is not unlike that of TX. Even sleepy Waco, TX, has a higher auto theft rate than Washington DC.
(note to foreign readers – Washington, DC, does not recognize a justification for use of deadly force to prevent auto theft, as Texas does, AND the ownership of any firearms in DC is essentially prohibited.)
Since you bring it up – we won’t hear from Kim du Toit. He doesn’t do data.
Have a fine day,
llater,
llamas
llamas is right. I live in Wisconsin and have recently reviewed that statutes one self defense of a home (I am considering posting notices on the windows of my house as to my stance on uninvited guests). Not only can you not use deadly force to protect property, you cannot THREATEN the use of deadly force on an intruder. So if the intruder says “I’m not here to hurt you, just take your stuff” I guess you’re supposed to sit passively by while they haul off your possessions. I guess you could threaten to call the police, but wouldn’t that be a threat on up to deadly force (you don’t know what the police might have to do)?
So, in essence, you cannot be the one to ‘up the ante’ after someone breaks into your house without risk of jail time or other sanction. I guess the idea is that life is more important the mere materialistic property, but then again who likes the idea of going around naked and property-less? Our property IS who we are, it is the definition of who we are as our INTERNAL value system has met the EXTERNAL material world. Without property, and without protection of it, it’s not “crass, grasping greed” of the material that is lost, it is WHO we are is lost as well. In fact, I’d say that the State is delving into a metaphysical statement by saying all human life is superior to anything non-human/material. That smacks of duality, that there is an internal ‘spirit’ that overrides all else, and dualism is the metaphysical foundation for religion.
The essence of the social contract is honoring another’s life and property. The act of ‘breaking in’ is a breach of that contract at its root, and it is the burglar who first breached it. Deadly force in response is justified. The act of breaking into a house is an attack on ‘life and property’ in toto.
But the State’s position is not surprising. They are of the opinion that your ‘ownership’ in property is only partial, if not tangential, in the first place. You are merely an agent on the State’s behalf, you owe an annual tribute of your property to them as is, so use of deadly force on the remainder isn’t merited. It is the very association in whom we trust to assist us in our protection of life and property who have become the biggest thieves. It would be rather inconsistent for them to allow you to protect your property in such a manner as deadly force. The Big Thief regulates the Little Thieves. We just need to keep our mouths shut.
Toolkien – excellent argument. I don’t agree with all you say, but you make excellent points.
I can’t agree that a property-owner should be able to claim blanket justification for the immediate use of deadly force against any intruder. I’m sorry, I just can’t. There must be a ‘reasonable’ standard, to keep homeowners in check – to every great natural right, there attaches the responsibility to use it in a way that does not outrage the conscience. Else what you get is some of the more egregious cases that we have seen out of places like eg Texas – the ‘lost Japanese exchange student’ case springs to mind. I can’t square that with my conscience and call that homeowner ‘innocent’.
That being said, I would sure like to see that ‘reasonable’ standard set at – well, at a more ‘reasonable’ level, for want of a better word. I think homeowners should be entitled to use one higher level of force (including its threat) than an unlawful intruder. But that’s a long way away from a blanket justification for using deadly force against any intruder regardless of circumstances – which is pretty much what Texas has.
llater,
llamas
Llamas – Clearly, not a sufficient number of Texans realise it is their god-given right to blow someone away if they try to steal their car. We need more gun education!
Speaking of ‘things we know’ … That Japanese exchange student who got shot was 16 years ago. Is this the best you can do? I don’t remember the outcome, but I would imagine the homeowner was charged with a crime as the boy wasn’t in his home. He had just come onto the porch to ring the doorbell. unannounced late at night in Texas.
It was a tragedy, but it was many moons ago and that it was such an exception was why it made the news.
I think ‘a reasonable standard’ already exists. If someone is in my home without my invitation, especially in the dead of night, that is my standard that he needs to be disabled.
to every great natural right, there attaches the responsibility to use it in a way that does not outrage the conscience.
That being said, I would sure like to see that ‘reasonable’ standard set at – well, at a more ‘reasonable’ level,
But we are talking about what is ultimately ‘opinion’ (whose conscience?, whose reasonable standard?). That is obviously what the State endeavors to do, balance one set of opinions against another and come out with something ‘reasonable’, presumably that Law which is the median or mean of the opinion pool, and not something three standard deviations away. But we don’t seem to have that today. We have a Statist mentality that we are all cogs in their machine. The tests for self defense of the home certainly aren’t reasonable by any standard accepted on this blog (as far as I can see or imagine).
In practice, do I champion the cause of “shoot first and ask questions later?”. No, I wouldn’t support that in practice, but I sure would allow a much greater latitude to the owner of the property over an ‘intruder’. That is a very wide line between what I ‘support’ and what I’d ‘sanction’. In between is the liberty I concede to other people, it is the zone of ‘disinterest’, a zone that is worn away under collectivist mentalities.
I see the social contract which gives rise to the State as the assignment of the proactive and retributive forms of force to the State (ideally I am an anarchist and would not have any State at all, this is essentially the starting point of compromise). When direct threats and breaching of life and property have occured, the use of force in play is never assigned to the State in the first place, and a sub-anarchy of a sort is in place. Once it is certainly established that property rights have been breached, the owner’s value system is what controls. I certainly would urge restraint on an individual’s part, but would be much more apt to defer to their judgement as to what force is necessary to protect their life and property and not have to answer to an outside authority any more than to prove the intruder was not welcome. As we have it now, we have egregious hair-splitting steeped in leftism (of course where property ownership, is again, passing or tangential) and the owner is usually in the wrong.
So, perhaps, my view is still somewhat idealistic, but I’d much rather have a deferment to the owner’s value judgement than super-impose my own. Who and what they are, at the most basic level, is what is beyond the window pane or threshhold of their house. As a member of the State, I’m sure they would not use pre-emptive use of force, or purposely track down a burglar once egressed, but when they are on the property, those circumstances, and the force necessary to protect life and property, are never assigned to the State in the first place. And again, in all cases of deadly force, I hope that all caution is used by the user, but will defer to their judgement and I will not sanction them (and that is how the State needs to be viewed, in terms of an active desire to sanction the behavior of others, not some pre-existing entity from which Good trickles). An agent of the State should be required to pass a more rigorous set of tests when force is used, but the owner of property is not an agent to anyone.
Verity – well, I guess we will have to agree to disagree about your ‘god-given right to blow someone away if they try to steal their car.’ I think that statement speaks for itself. I like my truck, to be sure, and I’d be right unhappy if someone stole it – but it’s not such a central aspect of my being that I can see killing someone for it.
Staying on that point for a moment – may I assume that you now agree that your statement
‘That is why there is so little auto theft in Texas’
is in error, and that therefore, the argument which you base upon that statement – that Texas law allowing the use of deadly force discourages auto-theft – is baseless?
Good. Then we can move on.
Yes, the ‘lost exchange student’ case is 16 years old. Does that make him any-the-less dead? or his killing any-the-more justified? Texas law has not changed since then – it still allows an absolute defence of justification for the use of deadly force against any intruder, no matter what the circumstances. It essentially justifies a penalty of death, without due process, for what may, in fact, be no more than a civil trespass – Texas law allows this defence if you shoot a trespasser in your yard. That may not shock your conscience, but it shocks mine. That’s why I referred to Texas law in this area as ‘less-developed’. This is a barbarous and anarchistic holdover from frontier days.
You may try and minimize this case as ‘an exception’ but it’s the exceptions which define the boundaries. Can you really look into your heart and call that homeowner an innocent man and a reasonable citizen?
Laws like this make deadly force the first resort, and not the last resort, which is what it should be. Massad Ayoob calls the use of deadly force ‘the gravest extreme’, and that is what it should be. As I said above, I’m all for the most tolerant application of a ‘reasonable’ standard, having regard to the actual circumstances of the individual case. But an absolute, blanket justification – that, I can’t agree with.
Yours for the right to keep and bear arms for the dcefence of the person,
llater,
llamas
In answer to Llamas and Toolkien, most US states recognize an affirmitive right to self-defense, including lethal force, if someone enters an occupied dwelling. In fact, I think all states do so, but I am not sure. I have lived in five US states and have been a police officer in two of them and have an interest in this matter.
Most self-defense laws state you can only use deadly force to protect yourself or another from death or serious bodily injury. Most also state you have to retreat (if accosted in the street, you must run if at all possible). However, in your own home you do not have to retreat since there is a recognition that you have retreated as far as possible. This is true in Texas and even in anti-gun Massachusetts.
So, if someone enters an occupied dwelling or one they should have realized was occupied, there is a prima facia assumption that they intend to commit serious bodily injury, otherwise why enter an occupied dwelling. Even if someone tells you they are just here to steal, you still can defend your home and yourself (I know, laws could vary).
In any instance of self-defense, a prosecutor will take look at the “totality of the circumstances” and see if you are in the wrong. It is a cost of self-defense, but the law is on your side, if you are in your own home. But, remember the burglar or his estate will sue–even if they do not win (this is a likely outcome if you followed the law), you will still have made your lawyer richer.
If you own a gun for self-protection, be sure to know your state’s laws.
I went and memory-checked. The Japanese exchange-student killing was not in Texas but in Baton Rouge, LA. LA law is very similar to TX in these matters. It happened in 1992, or 12 years ago. The shooting was at 8.30 pm in mid-October, which is dusk in Baton Rouge – not ‘late at night’.
The homeowner, Rodney Peairs, was unanimously acquitted of a criminal charge of manslaughter. He and his wife were subsequently sued civilly by the family of the dead man, and the civil jury found their claims of self-defence under the LA criminal law to be insufficient justification for the killing, and awarded damages to the plaintiffs.
http://www11.plala.or.jp/yoshic/criminal%20and%20civil%20trials.html
I think the example stands. Although Mr Peairs was able to claim justification under LA criminal law, even a LA civil jury could not stomach what he did as ‘reasonable’.
llater,
llamas
Denise – good post, except for this:
‘So, if someone enters an occupied dwelling or one they should have realized was occupied, there is a prima facia assumption that they intend to commit serious bodily injury, otherwise why enter an occupied dwelling. Even if someone tells you they are just here to steal, you still can defend your home and yourself (I know, laws could vary).’
That prima-facie assumption, part of the the so-called ‘castle doctrine’, applies in only a minority of states. As we have discussed, TX and LA are two of them, there are others. I don’t have the list to my hand but a good Google will make all clear.
There’s a difference between duty-to-retreat inside your own dwelling – which I think is an odious principle -and the ‘castle doctrine’ assumption that any intruder intends to commit serious bodily injury.
While almost all states recognize an affirmative right to self-defence, as you say, it must be said again that that refers to the right to defend life and limb, and NOT mere property, and most states also impose a ‘reasonable man’ standard on how much force you may use to defend yourself or others. Even those states which do not impose a ‘duty-to-retreat’ still generally require that you must not be the aggressor or contribute to the escalation of force – in other words, you may not use deadly force if the aggressor surrenders, or runs away, even if, ten seconds before, you would have been fully justified to do so.
Your post makes it clear why this is such a situational subject – as you say, to be judged on the “totality of the circumstances” – and that’s the exact reason why, I contend, a blanket justification such as that in the law of TX and LA, is offensive to the conscience.
llater,
llamas
Verity,
Alas, The Non-Person Known As llamas is correct. I don’t bother much with comparative international crime stats anymore, simply because there’s no point — collection methodology is different (not to say dishonest), and the way it’s defined varies too widely from country to country.
So I give up.
Clearly, according to the stats, I’m in more danger of having my car stolen in Plano, Tex than in, say, Reading UK, and I’m more likely to be mugged for my cell phone in Dallas than in London. Those same stats tell me that I’m certainly more likely to have my house burgled in Plano than in, say, St. John’s Wood.
Perhaps all the high walls, alarm systems, private security patrols and burglar alarms in SJW have something to do with it — because we have, alas, none of those things in Plano, Texas.
I feel so insecure, suddenly.
Texas law, incidentally, has an interesting provision: let’s say that I go away on holiday and ask my neighbor to “look after my house” in my absense. If said neighbor sees a man breaking into my house, and shoots the “alleged” burglar dead from across the street, the neighbor will not be prosecuted, even though his own life wasn’t in danger. (I’d look up the exact code, but I’m not an anal-retentive lawyer. Just take my word for it — it’s part of the concealed carry license exam we have to take.)
We Texans take property ownership a little more seriously than elsewhere, it seems.
One last thing: this being Texas, most thieves are quite aware that a majority of Texas houses contain armed householders. So if someone tries to steal something from me and I pop him, it’s no good bleating that “a life isn’t worth a TV set” or some such blather. The thief has already made that judgement call for himself, and figured the risk is worth the reward.
Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t. High-stakes poker isn’t exactly an unknown feature of Texas life, either.
“We worry about thugs and crime on our Council estates and at the same time refuse to give ordinary people the means to defend themselves and their property.”
Excuse me, but it’s important to get — and keep — this straight: it is plainly and simply not about “giv[ing]” anyone anything. It’s about leaving them alone to take care of themselves.
Always look to the language, ladies and gentlemen.
Yo, ‘llama’ : anybody who tries to steal my car is fucking dead, the instant I can get a bead on ’em.
Kim du Toit wrote:
‘Alas, The Non-Person Known As llamas is correct. I don’t bother much with comparative international crime stats anymore, simply because there’s no point — collection methodology is different (not to say dishonest), and the way it’s defined varies too widely from country to country.’
and, for what it’s worth, I agree with his conclusions, generally speaking.
However, what he fails to mention – quelle surprise! – is that the last time we went around the stats merry-go-round, (and by we, I mean him, Mrs du Toit and myself)
– there was never an issue of ‘comparative international crime statistics’ – the data on which he and Mrs du Toit were called and found lacking was all domestic US data. Nothing international about it.
– all of the data which refuted his and Mrs du Toit’s various assertions came from uniform sources such as the USDOJ uniform crime stats or the FBI, which have common methodologies. So there’s no question of different collection methodologies.
There is a comparative database of international crime data which does not suffer from the deficiencies which Kim du Toit describes. It’s called the International Crime Victims Survey, and it’s run by the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. It does not rely on governmental statistics, using instead a common methodology of direct population survey.
Its results actually support one of Kim du Toit’s assertions – that rates of crimes like burglary, mugging (inadequately defined) and auto theft are generally far higher in the UK than they are in the US. So far, so good. Since it does not do much breakdown beyond national boundaries, it is probably impossible to say what the comparative rates are between, say, Plano and St John’s Wood, for example. So an honest person would say ‘reliable data is not there, so there’s nothing to be said’, and move on.
What its results do not support is Kim du Toit’s larger assertion, which is that low rates of these crimes are associated with high rates of firearms ownership and/or legal concealed carry and/or liberal laws regarding self-defence. Correlation in one comparison is not causation in all. If one looks at all the results of the survey, one sees nations where firearms ownership &c is high and crime rates are also high. One also sees nations where firearms ownership &c is low and crime rates are likewise low. The same is true even within the US, where the quality of data should be more consistent. There is no common relationship between the two, which is what Kim du Toit has been trying to suggest.
While I was wrong – we did hear from Kim du Toit – I was right in that he doesn’t do data. But I do note that he continues to do ad-hominem insults quite nicely, the common resort of those who have been spanked on the facts. Perhaps I should sue for defamation – anal-retentive I most certainly am, but no person of spirit would take being called the l-word lying down when it’s not true. That’s just Kim’s guess, based on no data. Oh, but wait – a guess, based on no data? That’s what he does.
llater,
llamas
Mea culpa for actually having bothered to read the Non-Person Known As llamas’s snotty outpourings.
Apologies for the unpleasantness this may have caused the rest of the Samizdatians.
I won’t do it again.