Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Shoot to kill

I don’t know this for a fact, because it’s not the sort of information I’d expect people to volunteer, but I’m guessing that at least some homeowners shoot to kill when a houseburglar breaks into their home. If they did, it’s not the sort of thing they’d be apt to admit, since they’d be prosecuted for murder if they said so.

No doubt many a Christian ethicist would denounce that as immoral. Force should be proportional to the provocation or the threat. To deliberately kill the burglar unless you know he poses a mortal threat to you or your family is immoral. So goes the argument.

But I’m guessing that some homeowners shoot to kill that because they don’t trust the judicial system to protect them. They’re afraid that if they merely disable the perp, and he recovers, he will come back to avenge himself on the homeowner and his family.

If so, that’s a reasonable fear. There are many ways in which the judicial system can, and often does, let us down. The case might well be tossed on a technicality. Suppose the cops fail to Mirandize the perp. Or suppose the chain-of-custody is broken in the collection of evidence. Or suppose the judge refuses to admit “prejudicial” evidence. Because the jury doesn’t know the perp’s priors, they acquit. Or suppose, during the sentencing phase, a bleeding-heart judge gives the perp a slap on the wrist. Or maybe he’s 17, and goes to juvie until he’s 21.

Or the authorities may be less interested in prosecuting the perp than prosecuting the homeowner on a weapons violation. Indeed, that happens with some frequency. Ignore the actual assailant and focus on a technical violation, viz. the homeowner had an unregistered gun, or he flouted the local gun ban. The homeowner, who was defending himself and his family, is jailed while the perp is released.

At taxpayer’s expense, the perp was lovingly nursed back to health. Having recovered from the injuries he sustained in the prosecution of the crime, he now harbors a grudge against the homeowner who shot him. He’s spoiling for a chance to settle the score once he’s released. And it won’t be limited to hurting the man who shot him. Indeed, the best vengeance may be hurting the man’s wife or kids.

I’m using the example of a houseburglar, but I could just as well use the example of a neighborhood mugger.

As I say, there are no doubt some Christian ethicists who would deplore the preemptive actions of the homeowner, but the homeowner is in a genuine bind. Should he gamble on the judicial system doing the right thing, or should he put his family first? He has a right to protect himself as well as a duty to protect his kin. Should he risk the safety of his wife and kids by giving the judicial system the benefit of the doubt? Or should he eliminate the threat once-and-for-all?

11 comments:

  1. Shoot to kill.
    If you merely disable, wait a little before calling an ambulance and say later that you were afraid for your life of the perp and didn't know that you'd seriously wounded him.

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  2. I hope to never be put in this situation but if someone in breaking into my house knowing my family and I are there then I assume that person means us harm. Working from this, I see no ethical dilemma in eliminating the threat to my family.

    While in college (many years ago), my roommate and I caught a guy breaking into the house we rented. He ran away so we did not have to shoot him. When the police came, my roommate asked the cop what would the repercussions have been had he shot the guy. The cop told him "off the record" that if he did shoot someone to make sure they were inside the house and to shoot to kill. He specifically said not to only wound him because he would get a lawyer and sue you for shooting him....and he would probably win even though he was committing a crime when he was shot. I don't suggest everyone follow that advice but it changed my thinking and I have always told my wife and daughters that if they if they face this situation to empty the gun into the intruder.

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  3. Steve, under the "castle doctrine" which reigns in most if not all states, you don't have worry about being prosecuted if you kill an intruder in your house. That's a question that just won't arise. I guess if you are 6 feet tall, 200 pounds and the intruder is an 8 year old you'd run into problems but not if the intruder is an adult. Your home is your castle and you have the right to defend yourself, up to and including deadly force.

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    Replies
    1. My post has more to do with the morality than the legality of the situation.

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  4. Sadly even if you manage to kill an intruder you now have to be aware of revenge from the intruder's family. I read of one man being ambushed in his garage by the victim's brother and uncle.

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  5. Despite what everyone saw Jethro Gibbs do on NCIS when he merely wounded the perp, we were taught as Marines that there is no "shoot to wound". You kill. You don't wield a deadly weapon without expecting to use it to cause death. So you must have sober resolve.

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  6. If you break into my house, as far as I'm concerned, you've already forfeited your right to life. It's just that simple. If you show up to kill, rape, or otherwise endanger my loved ones, your bullet-ridden carcase is your own fault. If you don't want to look like a murdering rapist mugger, then freaking don't break into people's houses!

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  7. Here in my beloved CO I can tell the burglar to go ahead and "make my day." :)

    Of course, according to BW3 (whose work I adore), we Coloradans are to blame for these deaths. What with our knuckle-dragging, freakish tendency to shoot everything and everyone. It is frustrating that people assume that their ignorance of how to handle weapons means everyone is similarly ignorant.

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  8. Exodus 22:2  If a thief be found breaking up, and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him.

    End of story.

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    Replies
    1. Maybe consider Exodus 22.2-3, and then the reality that we're called higher than OT law.

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