Two reports in the paper today of criminals being injured in the act and the judge saying "serves you right". Am I dreaming? One guy bitten in the bum by a police dog another shot twice with an air rifle. Is it nineteen sixty something again?
John
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No, the world never changed much, just the reporting of it.
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>> another shot twice with an air rifle. >> John
>>
Jump over my wall... and you are up to no good.
One (shouted) question: "what are you doing here? STAY WHERE YOU ARE!"
any move towards me, and Bang.
And it ain't an air rifle.
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I read the "air rifle" report - seems reasonable. I wonder what sort of air rifle it was? There's a picture at: bit.ly/gwaUVb (this is "The Daily Mail").
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Hmmm
The guy who did the shooting keeps an air rifle in the house, what he thinks is a pitbull (its not) and a motorbike in the lounge.
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>> and a motorbike in the lounge.
>>
..."Which he kept there for safekeeping"
Yep, you can't even leave your bike outside, else some scrote nicks it.
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Judges have always had a keen nose for which way the political wind is blowing.
With a Tory-led government, they will feel a little freer to pursue a more populist law and order agenda.
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>> >> and a motorbike in the lounge.
>> >>
>>
>> ..."Which he kept there for safekeeping"
>> Yep, you can't even leave your bike outside, else some scrote nicks it.
>>
And that is a FACT even here in 'sleepy' North Devon. Believe me.
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>> Hmmm
>>
>> The guy who did the shooting keeps an air rifle in the house, what he
>> thinks is a pitbull (its not) and a motorbike in the lounge.
>>
I keep a pistol and ammo in the bedside cabinet, a rifle in the wardrobe and two dogs downstairs. I sold the bike a few years ago, but it stayed in the garage because Mrs RR wouldn't let me keep it in the lounge.
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your BB gun, your soppy labradors, and your scooter dont count.
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...I keep a pistol and ammo in the bedside cabinet, a rifle in the wardrobe...
Very rarely, high-level drugs dealers are brought to justice and appear in court.
I remember hearing evidence about a couple who were found with a pistol in each bedside cabinet and a machine gun in the wardbrobe.
The coppers who carried out the raid were unarmed - big brown trouser moment for them.
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>> I keep a pistol and ammo in the bedside cabinet, a rifle in the wardrobe
What sort (& are you in the UK)? I've been thinking about an Anics F1 to use for fun.
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>> What sort (& are you in the UK)? I've been thinking about an Anics F1
>> to use for fun.
>>
The pistol is a Gamo P23 Co2 powered, muzzle velocity of around 410fps. It shoots .177 pellets in single shot mode and 12 BBs from the magazine.
The rifle I only bought yesterday to replace a very old one that gave up the ghost. It's an SMK SYNXS .22 which is at the very cheap end of the market (£50 from my local gun dealer) but has had great reviews for accuracy and consistency and knocks the pellets out at around 9ft/lb, three below the legal limit but sufficient to get clean kills on rats in my garden.
I live in Wales.
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Thinking of buying a gas powered hand gun to have a crack at the Magpies in the trees at the end of my garden.
As they are only 30 yards away seems a bit unfair to target them with a rifle and telescopic sights.
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You can't be unfair to magpies. Make sure you don't shoot into anyone else's garden!
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Why do you want to kill the magpies?
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>> Why do you want to kill the magpies?
I dont like them..
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Birdwatching types will tell you "Oh, there's no point, they'll just infill from other areas".
That meand you have to keep shooting them.
You could contemplate a Larsen trap to cut down on the bother of having to shoot them.
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>> Thinking of buying a gas powered hand gun to have a crack at the Magpies
>> in the trees at the end of my garden.
>>
>> As they are only 30 yards away seems a bit unfair to target them with
>> a rifle and telescopic sights.
>>
You wouldn't kill anything at thirty yards with a handgun, they are limited to 6ft/lbs and you would be unlikely to find anything that would be over 5.1/2 as manufacturers play safe with the limit. Even at six foot my pistol won't get a clean kill on a rat with one shot and birds are well protected with their feathers. Co2 can be a bit unreliable as it loses power when the temperature drops.
A rifle is your best bet.
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That looks interesting. However, a Skif A3000 LB beckons. I'll let you know.
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>> I wonder what sort of air rifle it was?
Looks as though it might be a BSA Superten.
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I'm not sure what the big deal is here, and I think that the judge's words have been twisted somewhat. It seems that he wasn't charged because the police were happy that he acted in self defence.
The judge said that it must have been distressing for him, but that he got some "summary justice" by the fact that he shot him.
My take on it is that the judge was talking into context of the psychological effects of being confronted by burglars, and is saying that the guy will perhaps feel like less of a victim, because he did something to defend himself.
I didn't take it to mean that he was saying that it was OK to take the law into your own hands (again, it seems that the police/CPS didn't feel that he did).
If you break into somebody's home and that person defends themselves while still acting within the law then "serves you right" seems perfectly reasonable to me. You should expect to suffer the consequences of your actions as long as the other person is acting within the law
If you went over the top and chopped the head off a guy who peed on your roses, then "served him right" certainly would not apply.
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The burglar was threatening him with an iron bar. The law recognises there are circumstances in which it is ok to use lethal force to defend yourself and this was one of them, unlike the Tony Martin case where the burglar was fleeing when he was shot.
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...ok to use lethal force...
Not quite, killing people is frowned upon.
Better words to use are proportionate, equal, or reasonable.
Thus you are on dodgy ground if you use any weapon on an unarmed intruder.
But this clown had an iron bar, which opens the options available to the householder.
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Good grief I'm agreeing with iffy and Zero all in the space of 24 hours ! Must go away more often !
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...Good grief I'm agreeing with iffy and Zero...
It is nice to be nice.
Me and Zeddo even agreed to disagree earlier.
To be serious for a moment, there will be a lot more common ground between all of us than not.
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I think all the radiation on Ynys Môn has fried his brain cells.
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In law its NEVER ok to use lethal force to defend yourself. Its only ok to use proportional force that may sometimes result in death.
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>> In law its NEVER ok to use lethal force to defend yourself.
To be honest, if somebody has a gun, I'll shoot him to kill him.
Proportionate AND lethal.
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>> In law its NEVER ok to use lethal force to defend yourself. Its only ok
>> to use proportional force that may sometimes result in death.
It is ok if the only proportional force happens to be lethal force. For example, it is ok to intend to kill somebody, if that is the only way to prevent somebody killing you.
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>> It is ok if the only proportional force happens to be lethal force. For example,
>> it is ok to intend to kill somebody, if that is the only way to
>> prevent somebody killing you.
Dont use the phrase "intend" in your defence will you, or you will be spending a long time picking up the soap in the showers for big bubba.
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>> Dont use the phrase "intend" in your defence will you, or you will be spending
>> a long time picking up the soap in the showers for big bubba.
Yeah, I understand what you are getting at, that intention to kill is a key part of a murder charge.
However, you can legally intend to kill, if it is the only way to defend yourself against being killed, as long as it was reasonable to believe that was the case.
Of course, in most cases there is a fairly clear, non-lethal, way to prevent yourself being killed.
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...that intention to kill is a key part of a murder charge...
Oddly enough, it isn't.
All the prosecution has to prove is the killer intended to cause the victim harm, and his actions caused the victim to die.
"I didn't mean to kill him, I only meant to give him a good hiding," is no defence to murder.
Quite the reverse, it's an admission.
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>> All the prosecution has to prove is the killer intended to cause the victim harm,
>> and his actions caused the victim to die.
Yes, you are right, of course, that they don't necessarily need to directly intend to kill, but I think it is more than just doing them some harm.
I believe it is more that they need to engage in conduct that has a high degree of forseeability that death could occur, GBH for example or being part of an armed robbery.
Which, I think, is why all the "single punch" cases you see tend to end up as manslaughter, rather than murder.
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...is why all the "single punch" cases you see tend to end up as manslaughter, rather than murder...
Single punch cases tend to be manslaughter because it's difficult to prove a single punch carries intent to do grievous bodily harm.
This is particularly so if one lad swings a drunken punch at another, as so often happens in single punch cases.
A single punch could be said to carry intent if, say, a grown man aimed a fierce blow at the head of baby.
From the CPS website:
51. Involuntary manslaughter, by contrast to voluntary manslaughter, where a person kills but without the intent to kill or cause GBH. Apart from the absence of the requisite intent, all other elements of the offence are the same as for murder.
52. There are two types of involuntary manslaughter, namely:
that caused by the defendant's gross negligence; and
that caused by his unlawful or dangerous act.
www.cps.gov.uk/legal/h_to_k/homicide_murder_and_manslaughter/#a08
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>> Single punch cases tend to be manslaughter because it's difficult to prove a single punch
>> carries intent to do grievous bodily harm.
Yes, that's it, you need to show that there was an intent to do serious harm, not just some harm.
Of course, you don't even need to show that, in a case where you take part in a crime and it is obvious that very serious harm could occur (such as the example I gave earlier, of an armed robbery).
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>> If you went over the top and chopped the head off a guy who peed
>> on your roses, then "served him right" certainly would not apply.
>>
That's OTT, is it?
'Throwaway' knife FTW!
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I think it is the case that you only have to honestly believe the person threatening you is armed, and the defence is still valid even if it is subsequently shown that the weapon was imitation.
Contrast these cases however with the other report in today's DT where police advised someone to put up signs warning that there were dangerous (and expensive) tools on the premises in case burglars injured themselves stealing them.
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Expand please with a link to the 'story'.
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What is the world coming to? - Alanovich
