“The public’s mood has changed irrevocably; on crime and punishment, social attitudes will have hardened permanently as a result of the past week’s events. Strong speeches from the prime minister are a step in the right direction, as is the much more effective policing of the past 48 hours, but the public wants real, permanent change, not just temporary, emergency measures. A YouGov poll found that 85 per cent of the public believe that most of those taking part in the riots will go unpunished – they have lost faith in the system. This is understandable: it also reflects the perception of the thugs themselves. Criminal activity is far more rational than people believe, especially in wealthy societies such as ours: there is a lot of empirical and statistical work that shows that criminals implicitly weigh up the costs and benefits of crime. A high probability and cost of detection reduces crime, all other things equal; a low likelihood of detection, a low likely cost (such as a negligible prison sentence or a caution, as has too often been the case in the past) and a larger payoff (flat screen TVs or expensive trainers) raises it. Many of those storming shops made that very calculation this week, albeit implicitly and in some cases incorrectly.”
Allister Heath, editor of CityAM. Read it all.
The political party that most intelligently grasps this change of mood, and responds to it by a re-assertion of the right of individuals to defend themselves and their property, and which unravels the disaster wrought by welfarism, supine policing and a hopelessly over-regulated labour market, should win the next election. The question, as ever, is which party has the nous and courage to do this. So far, the signs have not been very encouraging.
I can suggest a libertarian petition that would really stand a strong chance of passing: A law to liberalise completely the ownership and storage of shotguns.
Handguns and small sub-machine guns are the weapons of choice for the criminal and hoody class because they are concealable and are primarily useful as OFFENSIVE weapons in the commission of crime. Assault rifles and auto loader hunting rifles are probably a political step too far – too American. There’s no way a British politician could propose we all get M16s.
However, shotguns have a much softer image. Every farmer has one and tens of thousands are legally held in the countryside. Gangstas do not own Purdeys.
If we were to allow anyone to own a shotgun (yes to be registered but not to be legally disbarred other than for those with a criminal record) we would not see people having to defend their property against scum armed only with hockey sticks. Traditional double or single barrel only – no sawnoffs, pump actions or auto loaders (too militaristic). A 12 bore loaded with 00 buckshot is going to ruin any looter’s day.
It is quite clear that the state is not our friend and wants us not only disarmed but intends to do precisely fuck all to protect our property and uphold the law. This would be a small, symbolic but also very practical step back towards sanity.
(If we could also get a change in the law about the use of deadly force in defense of one’s property that would be icing on the cake)
@Patrick: its your last point that is the crux of the matter. Householders need to have the full backing of the law to allow them to defend their property, by whatever means, deadly force if necessary. Liberalising the shotgun ownership laws will be useless if householders are still operating under the current ‘reasonable force’ rules. All you’d end up with is loads of Tony Martin cases.
Allister is entirely correct. My recollection is that a high probability of detection has a greater deterrent effect than severe punishment.
The political party that most intelligently grasps this change of mood…
Well, yes, but they won’t, will they? The post war boom and its artifact the welfare state are over, and the first country to face this wins. In practice, of course, the politicians are wedded to the system that sustains them and will never give it up willingly.
JIm,
you are, of course, absolutely right. (Although I do think the small chance of becoming the next Fred Barras might have some small deterrent factor).
Am I right in remembering that the presumption is guilt rather than innocence in the case of deadly force for self defence?
What change in law – if any – would be required to make a fundamental change from the status quo?
@Patrick: I think the change has to be that a householder is entitled to act ‘to prevent entry to his property’, not just ‘act in self defence’. Because the latter just means that you can defend yourself, but not your house and belongings (or livelihood, in the current case of shopkeepers).
There also needs to be a presumption that householders are entitled to use disproportionate force in defending themselves and their property. Thus it should be OK to use a baseball bat on an unarmed intruder, a gun on an armed one (whether knife or firearm). I think the caveat should be that this would ONLY be allowed on the householders property. Thus if the rioter enters your home he leaves (some) of his ‘rights’ at the door. If people then give chase, or roam the streets, they would be subject to the normal rules on assault/murder.
I’m not so sure that Jim is entirely right. If the property crime in Britain is serious enough (and so it seems, even in non-rioting times), then a lot of people owning shotguns means a lot of them using them to defend their property – which means too many people for the state to persecute against public sentiment. It’s the latter (‘public sentiment’) that is the real dealbreaker in all this. Get that right, and the laws will (grudgingly) follow.
Jim, I was referring to your earlier comment…
Personal weaponry is essentially the great equaliser. The authorities have always been reluctant to allow them simply because it puts citizens on an equal footing with the law enforcement, should they turn to crime.
For those instances where criminals obtain weaponry, the police have one other factor in their arsenal – organisation. Radio communications allows police to rapidly congregate in the area of concern, to outmanoeuvre, fast and overwhelming response is the common method of securing a criminal in the case where equal firepower is being used.
What the riots have shown is the police have lost this advantage, the rioters had the organisation too, through mobile instant public communication that a decade ago was only available with specialised equipment. It was clear that fires were started as distractions so that concentrated looting would take place elsewhere, this smacks of involvement by the little armchair revolutionaries 101st keyboarders.
The police need to get into the information age, they have proved they know facebook, twitter and flickr, once any indication of an organised activity starts, it would be easy for the police to instantly infiltrate or shut down the public internet based social networks being used. They have RIPA to allow instant access to accounts already.
The answer to the prevailing riot mentality is not arming the citizenry.
However, the issue still remains that citizens are not allowed to defend their property using non-lethal weaponry, this does not need a riot as a prelude to this argument, we have always known this is the case, nothing has changed.
An issue which no-one seems to have addressed is the one of suitable punishment for thugs who have been brought up without discipline and to whom an ASBO or a small custodial sentence are marks of pride.
Can I suggest in all seriousness that we bring back the cat (o’nine tails). A cheap punishment for the funders of law and order but laugh that one off, rioter, looter or serial thief.
I once long ago saw an interview on TV with one of the last people to have been catted in the UK. He at least found it a major deterrent to reoffending.
Jim wrote:
‘Householders need to have the full backing of the law to allow them to defend their property, by whatever means, deadly force if necessary. Liberalising the shotgun ownership laws will be useless if householders are still operating under the current ‘reasonable force’ rules.’
But how are you going to determine whether deadly force was ‘necessary’ unless you apply a ‘reasonable force’ standard?
Or are you suggesting that the standard should be that a householder can use deadly force against anybody inside his home?
On a second note, allowing the free and general ownership of shotguns by law-abiding citizens is a good thought, but useless unless you allow the ownership of short-barrelled (< 12") weapons that hold more than two rounds and do not have to be broken open to reload. A field style, single- or double-barrelled break-open shotgun is all very Purdey and Boss, but in a home invasion it's way too big and unwieldy, and after you shoot the one or two cartridges it contains, it's an elegantly-engraved cricket bat. These guns were perfected for use in pairs, with a loader, who may be hard to get woken up and ready when the burglars come a’knocking. Plus, if that’s all you allow people to have, then you effectively limit home defence to the well-to-do, since ‘traditional’ break-open shotguns are expensive to make. Or are you suggesting that poor people shouldn’t have the tools for home defence available?
And if you’re going to allow the ownership of effective shotguns, then just allow people to have handguns, the perfected solution for personal and home defence.
llater,
llamas
I’m sorry, fat fingers on a laptop. Second para should read:
“On a second note, allowing the free and general ownership of shotguns by law-abiding citizens is a good thought, but useless unless you allow the ownership of short-barrelled weapons (<12") that hold more than one or two rounds and do not have to be broken open to reload. Field-style single-or double-barrelled break-open guns are all very Purdey and Boss, but they are way too big and unwieldy to use effectively inside a home, and after their one or two rounds have been used, they are effectively an elegantly-engraved cricket bat. These guns were perfected to be used in pairs, with a loader, who may be hard to get woken up and ready when the burglars come a’knocking. Plus, if that’s all you allow people to have, then you effectively limit home defence to the well-to-do, since ‘traditional’ break-open shotguns are expensive to make. Or are you suggesting that poor people shouldn’t have the tools for home defence available?”
llater,
llamas
Not fat fingers at all – it doesn’t like the ‘less than’ symbol.
Try this:
‘On a second note, allowing the free and general ownership of shotguns by law-abiding citizens is a good thought, but useless unless you allow the ownership of short-barrelled (less than 12″) weapons that hold more than 1 or 2 rounds and do not have to be broken open to reload. “Traditional” single- or double-barrelled weapons are all very Purdey and Boss, but they are way too long and unwieldy to be used inside a home, and once their one or two rounds are expended, they are nothing more than an elegantly-engraved cricket bat. Watch a skilled trap or skeet shooter empty and reload a double without looking. Now ask yourself how many times he had to do that to get so good at it? Now try it in the dark, with blood running in your eyes. These guns were perfected to be used in pairs, with a loader, who may be hard to get woken up and ready when the burglars come a’knocking. Plus, if that’s all you allow people to have, then you effectively limit home defence to the well-to-do, since ‘traditional’ break-open shotguns are expensive to make. Or are you suggesting that poor people shouldn’t have the tools for home defence available?’
llater,
llamas
Nor really. The rational decision to riot and loot is a amoral cost/benefit analysis. Raise the cost sufficiently and the looter does not loot. The prospect of a shotgun blast in the face greatly increases the cost of looting.
The reason Korea Town in LA is still there is down to armed shop owners, not armed police… armed families and armed employees rallying to defend their livelihoods… such people are both far more motivated than the rioting barbarians and most importantly, they are always going to be in the right place where they are needed to face down the thugs as they are at the probable target of said thugs.
“…the disaster wrought by welfarism, supine policing and a hopelessly over-regulated labour market…”
Most of these things came from the EU or are now covered by EU regulations and competencies, so no British party (and no elected authority whatever) can make any changes to them.
It doesn’t matter who wins our next local election.
Severely curtailing welfare in addition to sensible gun and self defense policies would go a very long way towards curbing this cancer on the body politic.
No, the public’s mood has long been that the punishment does not fit the crime and that the welfare supported underclass and its enablers are a destructive weight on our society.
What’s changed – far from irrevocably – is that a proportion of the chatteratti are briefly voicing opinions that marginally reflect the view of most of the public.
In a month’s time, the football season will be in full swing and the elite will have changed the subject. In a year or two’s time, the various enquiries and commissions of the great and good will report and ‘lessons will be learnt’, ‘solutions’, (involving new departments, more form-filling for police and lots of taxpayer’s money) will be implemented, and the destruction of our once decent civilisation will continue apace.
The UK needs a “Castle Doctrine” similar to that of South Carolina’s.
http://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t16c011.htm
British readers will find the above link interesting but especially Article 6.
Nothing whatever will change.
The rational decision to riot and loot is a amoral cost/benefit analysis. Raise the cost sufficiently and the looter does not loot.
In a world with legal ownership of shotguns, a mobs of rioters are just ordinary citizens with legally held weapons up to the point they open fire on a similarly armed shopkeeper with intent to loot afterwards, the cost-benefit in such a world would just be to have armed looters. Arming doesn’t prevent riots, even though it may up the stakes (for both rioter and shopkeeper) and it may reduce the numbers taking part.
The reason Korea Town in LA is still there is down to armed shop owners
Did it stop or prevent the riot ?
My point is that rioting is nothing to do with the right to arm yourself for defence of person or property, that argument exists irrespective of riots and we should not be using the current crisis to push that fact forward.
The police cannot defend citizens in a riot any more than they can defend a citizen in a single burglary, so why make a different point ?
Kevin B is correct, sadly.
Politics always and only ever seems to be temporary.
Shifting sands.
There was a demand for definite, strong and irrevocable change in the 1970s. True it did last a decade or so.
It will just take another crisis in a different direction for a new attitude and new priorities to be engineered.
The human race seems to stagger from crisis to crisis, responding rather to the immediate demands of survival, than any real commitment to the truth or long term reality.
Survival, biologically, is the truth?
Perhaps that perception is part of the problem.
Ian F4
“The authorities have always been reluctant to allow them simply because it puts citizens on an equal footing with the law enforcement, should they turn to crime.”
Yes, it would be good to have a gun if the authorities turn to crime.
“The police need to get into the information age, they have proved they know facebook, twitter and flickr, once any indication of an organised activity starts, it would be easy for the police to instantly infiltrate or shut down the public internet based social networks being used. They have RIPA to allow instant access to accounts already.”
Are you serious?!
If the British public let this go so long as they have their bread and circuses, then perhaps they do not deserve what they get.
There is a way a change could be non-violently encouraged.
Crossbows are legal in this country, and you don’t need to provide a reason when buying one. They are deadlier than a lot of things you can only get on an FAC.
You are usually expected to imply you want them for “archery” even if you want them for home defence.
But what if, in the wake of the riots, a great many people start openly buying crossbows for self defence?
The leftys wouldn’t like it. The state wouldn’t like it.
But could they possibly justify their usual recourse to a ban in the current climate? This would open up the debate.
The tricky part would be encouraging open and unapologetic crossbow purchases so as to alter the public discourse.
Andrew Duffin,
I am, of course, well aware that EU rules hobble the ability of the UK state to make certain changes. However, in the current climate, I get the feeling that the Tories, and even the less dense Lib Dems, would realise they face electoral suicide unless certain changes take place.
Given the fiscal disaster across the English Channel, I am also of the view that the European experiment has reached its high point and that from now on, there will have to be retrenchment. I find it said that the Tories have not used the opportunity to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU, at the very least to hack away at certain interferences with the labour market and legal system.
So many of these issues interlock. A much looser relationship with the EU is part of the solution.
Unless urbanized England (as distinquished from the balance of the U K) begins to dismantle the Administrative State, which with its bureaus and “rules,” has displaced the “internalized controls” (the individual sense ought and ought not) of a larger and larger number of the populace, the current trends of increasing frequency and intensity of disorders will continue.
The Administrative State susbsists by the support or suppression of its populace. That suppression extends to the bad, the ugly and the good.
The “rules” must prevail.
The main reason the initial riot spread was the passive tactics of the police. If they had waded in and broken a few dozen heads, the looting would have been stifled in the bud.
Secondly, the last time that central London suffer damage on this scale was during the Blitz and it was caused by our then enemies the Germans.
We should treat the looters as traitors and enemies. None of them should set his foot on a British street again.
Maybe a Bill of Attainder would be appropriate?
All this is academic of course. Our ruling Elite will never ever let us have our guns back. And unlike the petition for the bringing back of Capital Punishment (which they certainly won’t do) they have the backing of the vast majority of UK citizens, who think that guns are simply evil per se.
Try telling a stranger in a Pub how you’d love to have a big body stopping hangun that you could carry around with you (just in case) and see how fast they scamper down the other end of the bar, muttering “sinister weirdo” as they go.
But for myself, I find that “The Darkness” is closing in much faster than even I expected. I had been contemplating buying a top of the range iPad or a really decent camera, but I am now going to go for the Firearms Certificate and a 12 bore, plus a rifle. I will have no trouble getting these I’m sure, as I am of impeccable character and have referees up to Chief Superintendant and High Court Judge level.
Yes a shotgun is not ideal in a domestic situation a semi automatic handgun would be the ticket,and a rifle is worse than useless, but this is all that is left to us in this country at this point in time.
This may change rapidly. If you think things are bad now, wait ’til the lights go out and the computers crash, the mayhem that will then ensue will make this bout of Ghetto Shopping look like a walk in the Park.
Ian F4,
The idea that shop owners having weapons just leads to the attackers being armed mistakes the motivation of the looters. These looters are not people determined to loot for some particular reason who will respond to an obstacle by trying to find a way past it. They are (as are most criminals) simply trying to get something for no money, a little time, and no real downside risk. They’re not interested in a fight they can win – they want one that they know they’ll win without getting hurt.
Even armed criminals will generally run when confronted with a weapon. The purpose of the criminal’s gun is to more to make the victim less likely to fight back, than to actually be used. A criminal is perfectly willing to risk killing you for $100, but that doesn’t mean he’s willing to risk himself.
No, the public’s mood has long been that the punishment does not fit the crime and that the welfare supported underclass and its enablers are a destructive weight on our society.
What’s changed – far from irrevocably – is that a proportion of the chatteratti are briefly voicing opinions that marginally reflect the view of most of the public.
+1 to Kevin B.
Ian F4 –
I’m not sure where to begin, but every study undertaken in the US has shown that where concealed carry is legalized violent crime drops.
Criminals are opportunists, not risk takers. If there’s a real risk of getting shot, they are less likely to attempt anything.
If this sort of rioting and looting were to happen in even North Boston (not a bastion of gun rights) you can bet that it would have been put down in a hurry.
Well, it’s nice to see that mainstream Britons have had enough. But that still doesn’t obviate the fact that they shall remain disarmed and subject to prison terms for defending themselves and their property with so much as a cricket bat when the next round of thug swarm is unleashed. I can’t help but feel that this is all part of some twisted, socialist “conditioning” program to get the masses on both sides of the pond acclimated to the new order – wherein the lawless rule the street and the taxpayers who feed and shelter them know t’is best to meekly submit – naked on the street, if necessary.
Deputize all adults to enforce the law upon their own premises. Make it their responsibility, as well as their privilege or right.
I love the UK, I attended primary school there in the 50s and lived there from 1978 – 1984. I saw the Brixton riots and thought the breakdown in that society could not get worse; I was wrong.
My wife and I revisit Great Britain every two years or so and the changes have been dramatic. In 2009 I had to use my passport as ID before I was allowed to buy a small cheese knife. I guess had I gone on a cheese knife wielding attack in the Lake District they could have ID’d me.
I guess chair legs will be retricted from sale next.
I worked for a high tech company that had (operative word; “had”) a massive server building in the north of England.
It was broken into more than five times in one year.
We had super CCTV and identified the thief, yup thief, singular. The same guy broke into the same building five times including the day after his trial for the previous four B&Es. I guess that was his way of punishing the company for prosecuting him.
During each theft he took tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of physical equipment, not to mention the data disruption each theft caused.
He never spent a day in jail and the company moved the server operations to Ireland in a desperate attempt to protect the company’s assets.
How many jobs and economic hits to the local economy did that one yobo cause?
As a corporate security consultant I would caution any company to re-think any plans to set up operations in England. There is little chance their assets will be protected by the police nor will the courts take any actions against recidivist career criminals.
The riots are just an extension of the moral rot that has taken hold in England and I morn for a country I love.
Those who served Her Majesty with honour should be encouraged to own whatever firearm they choose (shotgun, scary looking ‘assault’ rifle, colourful ‘assault’ rifle painted queen pink with poof sparkles, pistol, revolver, crossbow, etc).
Those who have not served, while free of criminal history, should be encouraged to own whatever shotgun or pistol they choose. Your old Aunt Mildred with arthritis will have trouble with a shotgun, why can she not own a pistol?
If you shoot a stranger dead or otherwise on your property/business then the police ought to acknowledge your castle was violated, assisting you with seeking damages from the stranger’s estate.
The Americans have something very right as evidenced in this photo(Link)
IanF4 said:
Indeed. There’s a saying from the American West to the effect that, while God made men, Samuel Colt made them equal. I know Brits like to sneer at American cowboys. Fine, but I live in San Antonio, Texas, and we’re not having any riots. We’re not likely to, either. Whether you like it or not, there’s a connection.
Colorado has a “Make My Day” law (named for Clint Eastwood in one of his western movies) that essentially says that if you shoot someone who is attacking you, you’ll probably be ok. In other words, shooting him in the back is NOT ok because he’s leaving the scene.
I do not sneer at cowboys but I sometimes sneer at people who make sweeping nationalist generalisations.
One thing the Brits have done to themselves is made defense of self and property a highly chancy proposition. From numerous media reports it seems obvious that defending oneself can result in prosecution, and defending one’s personal property – especially with anything more than bare hands – WILL result in prosecution. Even if acquitted, it will cost thousands of pounds. If not acquitted… well best not to contemplate THAT.
One thing I noticed from the coverage of the riots is that the groups who came out in force to defend their property were all immigrant – Sikhs, Kurds, Turks. And it worked.
The “chavs,” “yobs” and other assorted neer-do-wells do indeed run a cost-benefit analysis for their actions. And that analysis is greatly affected by the fact that they almost never suffer an acute failure of the victim selection process.
the welfare state allowed the riots to progress exactly to litgitimize the welfare state. they are attempting now to suggest this is a class war of wealthy vs. poor and in fact what is needed is more welfare state in order to stop the violence
Posted by Vinegar Joe at August 11, 2011 01:10 PM
Reviewing South Carolina’s Castle Doctrine, I find that it is superior to the one we have in Colorado. SC allows the defense of one’s place of business. Colorado does not do so explicitly, although owners and employees are allowed to protect themselves within a place of business. We tried to remedy that last legislative session; and the Democrats [who hold one house] killed it invoking images of shopkeepers running amok, wantonly slaughtering their customers without warning. Gotta watch those dangerous small business owners, you know.
I recommend the SC version to Brits, wholeheartedly.
Rather than limiting to old fashioned “break” shotguns which are unrealistic as a practical defense weapon [if it is a mob, one or two shots will not be sufficient. If it is within the home, you are going to be nervous and may not be accurate the first shot.], I think that if you are going to go for it, try to get pump shotguns legalized. If there are worries about too much firepower; pump shotguns can have the magazines plugged to limit it to 3 or 4 rounds as a condition of legality.
Pumps have an additional advantage. The sound of the action being “racked” to put the first round into the chamber has a tremendous psychological effect. It means that you are in fact being covered by a shotgun, and probably the shooter is not going to miss completely due to the spread of shot.
Personal experience. 3 felons chasing a victim. I racked the 12 gauge, and ordered them to freeze. It looked like a cartoon as they literally did freeze in mid-step at the sound. When they came to a stop, it was with hands raised. They were handcuffed in short order.
Finally, if you are going to use a shotgun for home defense, do not load with larger than #4 to #6 shot in the shell at most. You do not want the shot penetrating walls and inadvertently hitting bystanders. If you are defending outside, that may be increased pro re nata.
Mind you, the odds of success in getting anything that allows self defense are rather long. Your 85% polled are likely right; and if the right to self defense ever comes, it will be after one or two more episodes of widespread riots with multiple casualties of victims.
Y’all are in for a real long, hard ride.
Subotai Bahadur
How can any nation that prosecutes people for self-defense be considered civilized? All that says is that the rights of the thugs outweight the rights of the victims.
“And what makes robbers bold but too much lenity?”
— William Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI
It’s surreal as an American to see this discussion take place among people with British sensibilities. I won’t knock your views or say ours are superior…but it certainly is strange to American eyes.
If you’re going to begin again to allow people the right to bear arms for self defense, though, I would question limiting it to long-barrel shotguns. Contrary to popular media depictions, the shall-issue laws in the US have DECREASED gun crime everywhere it’s been initiated (well over half the states). Any time you’re in a public building or crowd containing more than 50 people or so you most likely have at least one carrier there with you. I’m 43 and have yet to witness a gun being fired outside of hunting or target practice.
People really don’t lose their minds just because you put a gun in their hand. By all means, if the culture demands it then limit it however you must, but please keep in mind that even if law-abiding citizens can only have a long shotgun, the criminals will still have their semiautomatic pistols (or even machine pistols, though that gives them much less of an edge than you or they might think).
For my part, I’ve been planning on getting a Glock 9mm for some time, and I think the time has almost arrived.
As American who lived in the UK (1995 – 2001) I was amazed at the ubiquity and acceptance of property crime. Moving into our house in Nottingham we were told by neighbors to expect our car to be stolen or vandalized at least once a year and to NEVER try and stop a burglar from entering our home. Vandalism & theft are common and rarely punished. In 1999 they announced a “motivational Programe” for young offenders that included a visit to Euro-Disney. This for Yobos who had been apprehended enough times to be incarcerated. What sane society would reward anti-social behaviour by a trip to Disneyland? One day at work in the City I got a call from our security head, he was watching a couple of hoodies on the CCTV going through the offices (empty at lunchtime) picking up phones & laptops. I volunteered to run downstairs and grab the thieves but was cautioned not to interfere. They were allowed to escape the building unmolested. I loved my time in the UK but could not understand how the people had allowed themselves to become so cowed and afraid that such behavior was commonplace. I don’t see much hope until HM Government tells the EU where to stick it and not only allows but encourages defending ones self & property.
I alos like the SC version of the Castle Doctrine expressed in sdtatute law – it is as close to perfect as has been gotten so far. Thank you, Vinegar Joe, for posting it. I believe that this is ‘model ‘text that will be found in several other states also.
No duty to retreat, anywhere you have a right to be.
May respond to a forcible attack on the person with force, subject to a reasonable-man standard.
A (rebuttable) presumption that an unlawful, forceful breakin is the precursor to other crimes and grounds for reasonable fear for life and limb. But the breakin must be occurring or have occurred. ie, you can’t have that presumtion and so use deadly force against someone who you think might break in, or against someone simply because you found them inside your home.
The overriding purpose, stated multiple times, that the use of deadly force is for the protection of life and limb. So you can’t use deadly force in SC merely for the protection of property.
Yes, I like it a lot.
llater,
llamas
As a matter of fact, American concealed weapons carriers report that carrying a gun has a sobering effect – on them. Makes sense, the legal and moral consequences of misusing one being so drastic. One reason “an armed society is a polite society” is that armed people are more careful to control their tempers.
Harold,
Your post brought to mind the Eloi and Morelocks from the old 50’s movie “The Time Machine”.
The calm calculation of a thief wanting what you have, that expression of his want might get him injured/killed, is why concealed carry works to reduce violent crime.
By UN stats, the UK has lead the “developed” world in violent crime per capita, to include gun crime since about 1993. The post about commonality of theft omits that several years ago the UK adopted a policy that certain crimes, to include burglary, would result in ONLY interruption by an officer, if one happened by, and being sent home to mum and dah. The UK is the poster child of why the UN treaty on small arms is wrong unto hell. A bleeding island, dammit, and guns are available easily and cheaply, if desired.
Notice that it is those from “less dainty” countries who pushed back, generally. Not “good and brave Englishmen”. Honor? What honor?
One thing that has changed is the ultimate legitimacy of government and its manifestations, which no one can say has improved. The only logical end is systemic collapse, with the winners being whoever uses force the longest. Now ,that might be the government and it might regain legitimacy, but major heartbreak is likely.
Nice speeches from Cameron or whoever follows are no substitute for a spine in the population. Government will cede power back to citizens or earn it back the hard way.
That a London mayoral candidate candidate supported the supine police, noting her preference for buring homes and businesses than police whacking rioters with batons, illustrates how too far a bridge the Brits have jumped, again. How a sentient, serious person can feel comfy to spew such words is a marker on the depth gauge.
There is no easy way back and no, there will not always be an England.
Mr. Aitken —
In the interest of accuracy only, the sentiment “Make my day” was indeed uttered by Clint Eastwood in a film, but that film was “Sudden Impact”, set in San Francisco and environs, and Eastwood’s role was that of Inspector “Dirty” Harry Callahan.
A mugger/burglar was holding a gun to a hostage’s head in a diner while Eastwood was pointing his .44 Magnum at him. The mugger said something to the effect of “I’ll kill her, sucka.” Eastwood stuck the Magnum in his face, cocked it, and said with a snarl, “Go ahead. Make my day.”
1) Reduce welfare and unemployment benefits for all the moochers. Eliminate them completely for non-British citizens.
2) Give them a chance to get off their arses by opening up unskilled positions by sending recent immigrants home, and reducing current immigration.
3) Build more prisons, and send lawbreakers away.
4) Make it legal for crime victims to defend themselves. Self-defense is a God-given right.
Or are you suggesting that the standard should be that a householder can use deadly force against anybody inside his home?
Texas Rules.
What happened to you guys? You used to have balls. You used to recognize & value the exceptional & extraordinary contributions to human civilization & liberty made by the British people. The very notions of liberty were incubated in the old UK, the UK of John Bull. Now you seem like a bunch of pussy-whipped hand-wringing castrated citizens of the world.
Stand up! Be British for chrisake! Your right to defend yourself & your family & friends & property was given to you by God. No government can morally take it from you. Millions of Americans looked upon your pathetic impotence against barbarian thugs in disgust. BRAND NEW Americans understand their God given right to self defense better than you whiners in the incubator of individual liberty. Google “korean grocers rooftop
rifles 1992 los angeles riots” to see what freemen do to defend their property against scum.
Let’s put it this way: If I were Nick Griffin, chairman of the British National Party, I would be absolutely giddy with delight.
I’ve got a sawbuck that says the BNP will be making very significant electoral gains in the near future–maybe to the extent of replacing the Liberal Democrats as Britain’s third party.
Nothing will change, until something like this happens several more times, with escalating casualties and property damage, and then the dam will break. I doubt many readers of this blog will like what comes next.
I have been reading through the comments and I have to ask what someone up thread asks:
When are you people going to get a spine?
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If libertarians are so spineless I have to wonder about the rest of your formerly great country.
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We are all going to die. I’d prefer to do so on my feet rather than on my knees.
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As we like to say in the US:
Get a pair.
Until there is a penalty for bad behavior, it will keep increasing at a geometric rate. In the USA, the states with concealed carry have much lower crime rates, including much lower incidence of injury or death due to firearms. Legal ownership of firearms is the best deterent to the illegal use of firearms.
It seems that the social welfare establishment in England has created a generation of bullies that have never been told no, and have no penalties for misbehavior. Spare the rod, and spoil the child? It seems that sparing the rod has become standard operating procedure now in the once proud nation that held off Hitler’s minions by themselves in 1940-41…. I fear we will never again see the England that led the world for so many years.
As they say, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away. Unless you live in London where they are just…watching it all unfold.
http://i52.tinypic.com/11kf2hy.jpg
The British law on self defence is actually pretty sound, apart from the problem of not being allowed to own firearms or carry other weapons.
The idea that it is illegal to use force against criminals is a myth encouraged by the police.
Whenever someone kills in self-defence, there’s a huge shock, horror story that they have been arrested. Well, they did kill somebody, the police do have to treat it as a crime to start with. But if it was self-defence, they don’t prosecute.
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2008/02/tony_singh_comm.html is typical – there is the usual debate here, exactly as above, with the samizdatists ranting about how evil it is we Brits aren’t allowed to defend ourselves, and the dissenters ranting about how vicious and bloodthirsty we are and what a good thing it is we’re not allowed to defend ourselves. And two days later he’s released without charge, as normal, because, as it turns out, he was defending himself, which is legal.
From the South Carolina code:
For comparison, after a quick Gooogle search for “convicted of burglary” “sentenced to “:
From Dorset Police:
(Emphasis mine.)
From the Daily Mail:
(But note that the two sentences may well be served concurrently.)
I would be willing to place a small wager that burglary is less common in S.C than in Dorset or Buckinghamshire.
The daughter of Coronation Street star Johnny Briggs was today jailed for three-and-a-half years for burglary and theft. Karen Briggs, 35, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years for her part in a burglary in which pub landlord Ronald Hintz was stabbed. She was also sentenced at the Old Bailey to 12 months for theft at Staines railway station, west London.
This is robbery with violence and the sentence is too small by a factor of five.
A couple of weeks ago, a burglar (and attempted rapist) was shot and killed by a female hotel clerk here in South Carolina. She was not arrested. The story is here:
http://www.heraldonline.com/2011/07/26/3245108/sc-hotel-clerk-shoots-kills-attacker.html
I love Sheriff Lott’s statement:
AMcguinn, I don’t know much more about British law of self-defense than what I read here, but the flaw in your analysis is the “arrest” part. If someone kills another in apparent self-defense, and calls the police to report it and sticks around to provide the details, there is hardly any reason to presume that a crime occurred or that the “prepetrator” is a flight risk. They don’t “have to treat it as a crime to start with”, any more than they “have to” treat an automobile accident as a crime. Unless there is probable cause to believe that the action was not self-defense no one should be forced to undergo the inconvenience, indignity and expense of being arrested and incarcerated, even if it is only for “two days”. Would you appreciate spending two days in lockup for a non-crime?
That’s one of the important features of most “Castle Doctrine” laws in the US: the police are not permitted to arrest the person unless there is probable cause to believe that the action was not in self-defense (or there are other factors which make the Castle Doctrine inapplicable).
And by the way, if, as you say, “the idea that it is illegal to use force against criminals is a myth encouraged by the police”, that’s a pretty serious problem. As a practical matter, it’s not much different than if that truly were the law, since to most people the police embody the law. If they are actually misrepresenting it there should be serious repurcussions, not the least being a very public correction by the superiors. I haven’t seen any evidence of that, which leads me to suspect that it is your characterization of the law which is in error.
FYI, here’s a nice summary of Ohio’s Castle Doctrine which I just happened upon.
Laird wrote ;
‘If someone kills another in apparent self-defense, and calls the police to report it and sticks around to provide the details, there is hardly any reason to presume that a crime occurred or that the “perpetrator” is a flight risk. They don’t “have to treat it as a crime to start with”, any more than they “have to” treat an automobile accident as a crime.’
That’s all true – as far as it goes.
Now, step through this doorway and into the real world . . . .
If a person kills another person, and then calls the cops and awaits their arrival – that tends to show precisely NOTHING about whether or not it was a case of justified self-defense, because self-defense is the FIRST thing that bad guys will claim when standing next to a dead body. Hell, it’s what I’d do, if I were a bad guy. Fleeing the scene is an extremely powerful indicator of guilt (the judge’s instructions notwithstanding) and bad guys know this. Much better to stand pat and say ‘he attacked me, I killed him to defend myself’. Often, it’s true!
And furthermore (and bear in mind I have been a copper, and I also know the law of self defence and use-of-force inside-out and backwards), if I killed someone in self-defence, I would indeed call the gavvers and wait outside for them to arrive. But I wouldn’t say a damned thing to them, beyond name, rank and serial number, without the presence of an attorney.
Not A Damned Thing.
And I’m not going anywhere voluntarily – not to the police station, not anywhere. To take me away, they have to arrest me.
Because there has certainly been a homicide, the circumstances of which are unclear, and if it’s an unlawful homicide, then I am the prime suspect, by default, and what seems so cut-and-dried to me may not be nearly so cut-and-dried to the copper who arrives first, and all his buddies after him. For that reason, I wouldn’t tell them One Damned Thing. There’s nothing I can say that will make it any better, then and there, but there’s a thousand things I can say that will make it a whole lot worse. For me.
Well, what’s the copper to do? He can only detain me for so long before he arrests me, or I walk away – maybe never to be seen again, who knows? He’s going to arrest me – the dead body on the ground is probable cause enough, because I’m not talking. Unless there are 15 eyewitnesses, all of them members of the judge’s Bible-study class, who are all telling an identical story – llamas was sitting there, minding his own business and studying his catechism, when this total stranger came running up and started beating him with a tire iron, llamas drew a pistol, warned him twice, then double-tapped him. We all saw it! – I’m getting arrested.
I want to be arrested. Once I’m arrested, the clock starts, and I’ll be arraigned, maybe bailed, but I will certainly get to speak with an attorney, and the magic words – I have nothing to say, I wish to speak with an attorney – will prevent any further attempts at interrogation.
I’ll take a day or two in the county lockup for that. And, unless the case was absolutely, positively, totally, seamlessly, cut-and-dried, I’d counsel anyone else to do the same. But very, very few self-defence cases are like that – the number of random total-stranger attacks is actually surprisingly-small, which is why they always make the papers. Most self-defence killings, like most killings, occur between people who know each other and who often have a history that led to the killing. IOW, they’re muddy.
It’s going to take a day or two to gather and assess all the evidence that proves your innocence and justification for doing what you did. For those few days, you are most-likely going to be the guest of the county. If there is no evidence of wrongdoing, and plenty of evidence of justification, your lawyer will have you sprung soon enough.
Coppers do not have perfect insight, nor the gift of time travel. The chance of you killing somebody and walking away free from the scene is indistinguishable form zero. Remember that most ‘castle doctrine’ laws confer immunity from prosecution, not from arrest.
People spend ‘ . . .two days in lockup for a non-crime?’ all the time.That’s how due process works. Because we don’t simply take the word of one person that no crime was committed, and especially when the other witness is no longer available for comment.
Sunfish – if you please . . . ?
llater,
llamas
I bin smit, so I’ll try again.
Laird wrote:
‘If someone kills another in apparent self-defense, and calls the police to report it and sticks around to provide the details, there is hardly any reason to presume that a crime occurred or that the “prepetrator” is a flight risk. They don’t “have to treat it as a crime to start with”, any more than they “have to” treat an automobile accident as a crime.’
That’s all well and good – as far as it goes.
Now, walk through this door and into the real world.
Firstly, of course, the fact that the killer stuck around for the cops to arrive says precisely nothing about whether or not his claims of justification and self-defence are true or not. Most people know by instinct that fleeing the scene is a powerful indicator of guilt, no matter what the judge instructs the jury to disregard. Self-defence is perhaps the most common ‘defence’ that bad guys will claim when a body appears. It’s what I’d say, if I were a bad guy – he attacked me, I had to kill him to stop him. Often, it’s true, as far as it goes!
Most ‘castle doctrine’ laws provide immunity from prosecution – not from arrest. When the cops arrive to find a dead body, even if you called them, it’s entirely unclear whether or not a crime has occurred, and they’re not just going to take your word for it. The dead body on the ground is RAS to detain you, and 99 times out of 100, it is PC to arrest you. It’s going to take a day or two to gather evidence and either affirmatively verify your claims or conclude that there’s no evidence to the contrary, at which point, they’ll let you go. That’s due process at work. Plnety of people send a day or two in the cells for a non-crime. Doesn’t make it wrong.
Now, here’s a surprise. If (God forbid), I kill someone in self-defence, I will certainly call the gavvers and wait outside for them to come. But when they come, I’m not going to be saying anything whatever to them beyond name, rank and serial number. I’m not answering any questions or volunteering anything about anything without the advice of an attorney. And I’m not going anywhere voluntarily. To hold me, they have to arrest me. And if I’m not saying anything, they may not even be able to do that. They have to have some PC. Whereas, if I’m all ‘yes, I killed him, it was self-defence . . . ‘. I am going to be arrested, no two ways about it.
If I’m arrested, the clock starts, they have to stop asking me questions, I’m going to be speaking with an attorney, I’m going to be arraigned real soon, and then I’ll be out. I’ll take a day or two in the county lockup for that. Because there’s nothing that I can say at the scene or at the police station that is going to help me, and a thousand things I can say that may hurt my defence. Even if I’m completely innocent and completely justified.
And unless the case was absolutely, completely, totally and unequivocally cut-and-dried, I would counsel anyone else to do the same. Because the number of killings of complete strangers by innocent victims is actually surprisingly-small, which is why it always makes the papers. Most self-defence killings, like most killings, take place between people who know each other and who often have a history that led up to the killing. What is cut-and-dried to you, may seem very different to an outsider – especially an outsider who is looking for evidence of a crime. Even the killing of (let us say) a burglar who breaks in by night and attacks the sleeping homeowners must comply with a whole set of legal definitions and requirements in order to claim the presumptions and immunities of ‘castle doctrine’ laws. With a dead body in the morgue, it doesn’t take much uncertainty for a prosecutor to say ‘I’m not convinced, let him tell it to a jury’ and then we’re off to trial, which is really going to ruin your life. That’s how it should be – we should look at any killing with a very jaundiced eye. But if you killed someone in self-defence, your goal is not to be prosecuted, and the best way to do that it to say nothing and let the lawyers get you out. It’s the easiest thing in the world to talk yourself all the way to trial – even if completely innocent.
Let’s see whether that gets past the smite engine.
llater,
llamas
Llamas, I agree with almost everything you said in your quasi-double-post, except for your comment that “Most ‘castle doctrine’ laws provide immunity from prosecution – not from arrest.” That is simply wrong; indeed, an important feature in most such laws is precisely that they prevent arrest without probable cause and, especially where the killing has occurred in one’s home at night, provide a presumption that there is no such probable cause.
Consider the SC statute(Link) discussed earlier in this thread. It provides that “A law enforcement agency may use standard procedures for investigating the use of deadly force as described in subsection (A), but the agency may not arrest the person for using deadly force unless probable cause exists that the deadly force used was unlawful.” [16-11-450 (B)]
Or the Alabama statute we were discussing on another thread, which similarly provides that “A law enforcement agency may use standard procedures for investigating the use of force described in subsection (a), but the agency may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force used was unlawful.” [13A-3-23(e)]
I haven’t done an exhaustive study of US Castle Doctrine statutes, but my bet would be that is a feature of most, if not all, of them. Which is as it should be. Yes, a killing out in the street, where self-defense is claimed, might indeed be suspicious enough to warrant arrest. But when the action has occurred in one’s home at night, and the decedent is a stranger giving every indication of having been in the commission of a burglary, without more there is simply no basis for claiming that it is anything other than what it appears to be, and certainly no “probable cause” to justify an arrest of the homeowner.
And your statement that you “want to be arrested” is just silly. Yes, if that were the only alternative to being indefinitely detained without charge, sure, but that’s not the law. As you said, after a certain period of time you must either be arrested or released, and given the choice I (and, I suspect, you) would choose the latter. I don’t need to be the guest of the county for those two days; I’ll sleep in my own bed, thank you very much.
Laird – the provisions for immunity from arrest in most ‘castle doctrine’ laws are mere window dressing. A statement to the effect that ‘the agency may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force used was unlawful.’ is a statement of the bleedin’ obvious – if there is no PC to believe a crime has been committed, no arrest. If there is PC, then arrest. Well, duh. What counts – what has actual effect for the individual – is the provision for immunity from prosecution. After all, it matters little in practical effect if I am arrested on suspicion of using unlawful force, or arrested under the material witness statute – does it? What matters is what I am charged with. That’s what I need immunity from.
The most these provisions of the law will do is delay your arrest from ‘at the scene’ until a day or two later, which just gives you more time to inadvertently say or do something that will harm your defence. Thank you, I’ll take my medicine now, not later. And the jails are full of innocent people who said contradictory or incriminating things while they were not under arrest and not under caution, and who couldn’t later reconcile what they said to the satisfaction of a jury. Best to just keep quiet. A day or two of inconvenience beats months or years of defending yourself.
And yes, actually, in a situation like the one I described, where the case is not completely cut-and-dried, of all the possible outcomes, if being arrested is the price of remaining silent and asking to speak with an attorney, then, yes, I prefer to be arrested. Arrest is a specific legal position which gives me rights and forces the police to act in certain ways, all of which benefit me if I am innocent. Better that than some detainment limbo of ‘voluntary’ questioning, and being tossed to the wolves to be tried in the media. The county lock-up ain’t that bad, although the food sucks.
My point is that immunity from arrest will only be of useful effect in cases which are absolutely cut-and-dried. And those are few and far between – that’s why you read about them in the papers. If there’s a dead guy on the floor, and you’re not talking – the best course of action for the innocent party until you have legal advice from your own attorney – then you will be arrested and you should be, until the matter becomes more clear. You don’t get to walk away scot-free on your say-so alone, just because it happened in your home.
llater,
llamas
All those newspaper stories I read nearly every day argue to the contrary, llamas. The immunity from arrest provisions are much more than “window dressing”, at least here in the South where I live. In real life they’re observed by police all the time, and rightly so.
And if you know your rights you can insist on them whether you’re arrested or not, whereas if you don’t know them an arrest isn’t going to magically impart that knowledge on you (Miranda warnings notwithstanding).
I sympathise with the desire for legal protection from arrest, but it’s probably not realistic in Britain. However, by arguing in vague terms about the law of self defence, we are surrendering ground that, in law and in practice, if not in the public consciousness, we actually hold. The problem is not the law governing self defence, even without a “castle doctrine”; it is the attitude of the public and the police to self defence, and it is the law concerning offensive weapons.
If the existing legal right to self defence were better understood and better appreciated, the police would be less suspicious of those who exercise it. It would be better for the police to be on our side than for them to have to comply with further constraints on their discretion, of the sort that already cripple their effectiveness, as we have seen this last week.
The whole idea of a “Castle Doctrine” comes from the English common law as expressed by Sir Edward Coke, then Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who wrote “For a man’s house is his castle, et domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium”. US Castle Doctrine laws are an attempt to restore the legal situation to that which already exists in England; that a householder has no “duty to retreat” and may use all necessary force to defend his life, property and family. We don’t need a Castle Doctrine law; we already have it. We’ve always had it.
Castle Doctrine covers just a little bit more than one’s home. And if the UK has it, it seems damn few Brits know about it or understand it.
Vinegar Joe wrote:
Quite right Joe, English law allows the right of self-defence anywhere, not just in the home. The “duty to retreat” which is common in US state law just doesn’t exist in English law. That’s what Castle Doctrine laws in the US states are trying to restore. And you’re correct in thinking few in this country realise they have this right. But those who have to exercise it generally do so without sanction. Tony Martin was a notable case largely because he was convicted… usually self-defence cases don’t even get to court.
It is instructive to read the comments here, which betray the neo-nazi tendencies of the writers. You are all implicated in the casual slaughter of countless innocents in countries that have resources coveted by your elites. Now you want to begin murdering people on the streets. Domestic torture chambers and gas ovens are a minor development away.
Let us hope that they get you before you get us. Let us hope that the military — raised largely from increasingly impoverished and deprived sectors of society — learn who their real enemies are.
So taking action against violent looters is “Nazi”? You are a fool… or more likely, just another looter.
Or just another moron. (Admittedly, these are not mutually exclusive.)