For all its faults, the US Justice System sometimes gets it right!

[Steely Glint]

I don't value my property more than my life.

[Aimless]

Just... don't

[RandBlade]

*Shrug*

You choose to break into somebodies home why should your life be worth more than the home you've broken into? It was your choice to do that. Take some responsibility for your own actions.

Anyone in their own home should have the right to protect themselves, their loved ones and their property. Anyone who chose to break into a home did so of their own free will. I won't celebrate a death of a burglar, but nor would I celebrate a robbery.

[Aimless]

*Shrug*

You choose to break into somebodies home why should your life be worth more than the home you've broken into? It was your choice to do that.

This is just fucking asinine, as much so as it is abhorrent. You present it as if it were a logical proposition, but it's just a couple of dumb statements strung together with no logical connection.

Breaking into someone's home does not logically reduce the value of a human life to something less than the value of a home. In addition, anyone who says they believe otherwise, as you are doing here, has no credibility when they claim to be against capital punishment (although, to be fair, I've never believed your opposition to that was anything more than a fig leaf, entirely contingent on what you believed you could get away with saying).

You can buy and sell your home; do you believe you should be allowed to buy and sell a burglar? Or just trade a home for a human being who tried to burgle someone? You can destroy your home; do you believe you should be allowed to destroy a burglar? For what reason? What philosophical reasoning underpins your determination that burglary reduces the value of a human life to something less than the value of the decrepit hole of wretchedness and moral turpitude that you call a home? None. Your position is arbitrary, morally suspect, and, hilariously, you've formulated it in much the same way as a puffed-up hateful kipper might have. How utterly fucking sad.

[RandBlade]

I'm against capital punishment because the arrested is secure and could be kept safely behind bars for the rest of their life instead and if a mistake is made we can release someone behind bars but we can't bring someone back from the dead.

A potentially deadly burglar who has broken into your home is neither secure nor safely behind bars. If they were the burglary wouldn't be happening.

My philosophical reasoning is that someone's home should be their castle, the ultimate safe space. If you break into that then the home owner has every right to defend themselves and that includes their possessions they have worked for and sacrificed for and not just their own lives. My philosophical reasoning is that my sympathies are with the victim and not the offender. My philosophical reasoning is that in the heat of a burglary you have no clue or time to think about what your ATTACKER may be doing and you get a split second potentially to react and could die if you react wrong.

I would rather criminals didn't die while conducting their crimes, but then I'd also rather crime didn't occur.

PS have you ever been subject to a burglary with an armed intruder? I have.

I oppose capital punishment for the same reason I'd oppose a home owner chasing down and shooting a burglar after they have left the home.

[Aimless]

That has no bearing on the relative value of a human life compared to the value of your property. What you're trying to argue is that a burglar has forfeited the right to have his life protected, and your position has to do with the question of who may do what to whom under various circumstances—not the value of life. For some dumbass reason, you've also chosen to conflate defense of life and defense of property, which makes your position vulnerable to arbitrariness.

In addition, in this case, you are essentially expressing support for capital punishment—so long as it is of the extralegal variety, carried out by yourself and others like you rather than by representatives of a justice system. I am, of course, not surprised; this is always the wettest dream of the authoritarian coward, so you're definitely on track and on schedule. The next step in this evolutionary process is to start cheering for those who promise to brutalize your enemies on your behalf.

[Lewkowski]

A robber breaks into your home, what percentage chance is there they will harm your loved ones? Because I'd rather have 10,000 robbers die than a single innocent person die. Their lives are literally worth less than good law abiding citizens lives.

The simple reality is the community is much better off with at dead robber. The simple reality is the community is much better off with the accomplices in prison for as long as the law possibly allows. Parasites who destroy the sanctity of someone's property deserve no sympathy. This was likely not their first rodeo and had they not been shot/arrested they would have done it again in the future.

[Timbuk2]

My philosophical reasoning is that someone's home should be their castle, the ultimate safe space. If you break into that then the home owner has every right to defend themselves and that includes their possessions they have worked for and sacrificed for and not just their own lives. My philosophical reasoning is that my sympathies are with the victim and not the offender. My philosophical reasoning is that in the heat of a burglary you have no clue or time to think about what your ATTACKER may be doing and you get a split second potentially to react and could die if you react wrong.

Under UK law you are legally permitted to defend your home from intrusion with reasonable force.

If you are attacked by a burglar and in the resulting fight the attacker dies, that would be deemed reasonable force.
If a burglar runs out the door with your tv and you stab him in the back with a hastily-grabbed kitchen knife, killing him, that would not be deemed reasonable force.

The 'reasonable' clause has a purpose.

[Lewkowski]

Under UK law you are legally permitted to defend your home from intrusion with reasonable force.

If you are attacked by a burglar and in the resulting fight the attacker dies, that would be deemed reasonable force.
If a burglar runs out the door with your tv and you stab him in the back with a hastily-grabbed kitchen knife, killing him, that would not be deemed reasonable force.

The 'reasonable' clause has a purpose.

Isn't UK the place where you can get fined for liking a "problematic" posts? Reasonable is one of those weaselly subjective words that can be used by a biased judge or jury. The law being frequently abused by the state should eliminate as much subjectivity in rulings as possible. A hard and fast rule of hey you break in the homeowner can't be found liable for anything is preferable.

[EyeKhan]

I don't value my property more than my life.

It doesn't have greater value than someone else's life either, even if that life is a poor, idiot, minority teenager.

*Shrug*

You choose to break into somebodies home why should your life be worth more than the home you've broken into? It was your choice to do that. Take some responsibility for your own actions.

Anyone in their own home should have the right to protect themselves, their loved ones and their property. Anyone who chose to break into a home did so of their own free will. I won't celebrate a death of a burglar, but nor would I celebrate a robbery.

The straw man again. These kids were taking an automobile from outside some old dude's house. They were not in his home - it was a car theft, not a burglary. Lewk says they threatened the old man before he opened fire on them, and maybe they did. But if they did not, and the US Justice system tacitly approves of his killing the teen, then the System got it wrong.

[RandBlade]

Where did poor, idiot, minority teenagers come into it?

I said I opposed this shooting. I was talking about burglaries not theft, thieve shad been burglars inside the man's home or trying to break in I would say it was tragic but justified.

[EyeKhan]

Where did poor, idiot, minority teenagers come into it?

I was talking about the scenario the thread is based on. They were poor inner city kids doing idiot things, like stealing cars...

I said I opposed this shooting. I was talking about burglaries not theft, thieve shad been burglars inside the man's home or trying to break in I would say it was tragic but justified.

Okay, fair enough. I agree, you break into someone's house in the US, then expect to get shot.

[Lewkowski]

Okay, fair enough. I agree, you break into someone's house in the US, then expect to get shot.

MURICA!!

[Lewkowski]

The straw man again. These kids were taking an automobile from outside some old dude's house. They were not in his home - it was a car theft, not a burglary. Lewk says they threatened the old man before he opened fire on them, and maybe they did. But if they did not, and the US Justice system tacitly approves of his killing the teen, then the System got it wrong.

Just remember murder charges are actually being filed.

[EyeKhan]

Just remember murder charges are actually being filed.

And?

[GGT]

Oh, FFS. Lewk isn't applauding the US Justice System -- he's trolling about the "virtues" of citizens killing thieves, whether they're stealing a car or toothpaste. It's not really about protecting personal property but vigilantism.

Lewk works in the insurance industry, so he knows the man should have reported the auto theft to the police, and filed an insurance claim after-the- fact, leaving law enforcement to the police. No shots fired, no life lost.

Edit: My car was stolen while it was parked in front of my home. (My ex-husband had left the keys in the glove box, but that doesn't really matter, in context.) No one witnessed the theft....but even if it had been, my first instinct would NOT have been to get a gun and confront/threaten the thieves. That's just stupid, impulsive behavior. (Typical for a teenager but not for an adult.)

Cars can be replaced. Damage can be repaired. Human life matters more than a damn car, as EyeKhan said.