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Kilkrazy wrote:There's also cases where children shoot themselves, each other or their parents with guns.

Looking at it from the epidemiological angle, the first question is which type of event causes more woundings/deaths per 100,000 per year. The second question would be, if it turned out there are more accidental shootings by family members than by breakers-in, would suppression of guns -- such as requiring them to be locked in safes -- lead to a greater amount of harm to chlldren from targetted break-ins than the reduction from not leaving the guns lying around.

https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2012/12/health-risk-having-gun-home

“There are real and imaginary situations when it might be beneficial to have a gun in the home,” Hemenway concludes. “For example, in the Australian film Mad Max, where survivors of the apocalypse seem to have been predominantly psychopathic male bikers, having a loaded gun would seem to be very helpful for survival, and public health experts would probably advise people in that world to obtain guns.”

“However, for most contemporary Americans, the scientific studies suggest that the health risk of a gun in the home is greater than the benefit,” he adds. “There are no credible studies that indicate otherwise.”

https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/160/10/929/140858/Guns-in-the-Home-and-Risk-of-a-Violent-Death-in#ref-30

Results show that regardless of storage practice, type of gun, or number of firearms in the home, having a gun in the home was associated with an increased risk of firearm homicide and firearm suicide in the home.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/105/4/888.full

In fact, guns kept in the home are 43 times more likely to be used to kill someone known to the family than to be used to kill in self-defense.

My point isn't that burglars should not be shot at. My point is that if the statistical chance of you or your children getting shot by accident by your own or your neighbour's gun is greater than the chance of getting shot by a burglar, then obviously you would be safer not to have a gun. That is science not gut feelings, though.

In the putative case mentioned above, of shooting a fleeing burglar in the back, it has already occurred and been tried in the UK. The homeowner and shooter got convicted of murder, because he deliberately killed someone and it was not in self defence since they clearly were running away.

However, to be fair to the policeman in the Florida case, he may well have felt that since he was armed with a gun, the person he shot might well have been too, and since the argument was rapidly escalatiing it was a matter of pre-emptive self-defence.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
My point isn't that burglars should not be shot at. My point is that if the statistical chance of you or your children getting shot by accident by your own or your neighbour's gun is greater than the chance of getting shot by a burglar, then obviously you would be safer not to have a gun. That is science not gut feelings, though.

If the gist of this was you want someone to concede that having a firearm in your home makes you statistically less safe, then I would agree with that.

I don't know if the statistics support one side or the other of the concept, and I don't think a lot of people do think about these things statistically anyway. You probably are an exception, and we don't know if you are right.

Yeah, I forgot where I was posting when I asked why a burglar would risk taking a child hostage and causing a manhunt/Amber alert instead of just fleeing. The chances of getting away are so much better!

I forgot this is America where we all live in a movie and we are secretly Liam Neeson.....

Lots of burglars are meth heads. Meth heads tend to be poor of judgement and quick to violence. They are not going to think things through. It is ridiculous to believe that the common household burglar is some rational, planning-ahead Ocean's 11 type rather than someone who has already failed several important risk assessments and character tests I leading up to this moment.

You got a source on lots of burglars being meth heads? Even meth heads understand that messing with children will land you in a whole heap of trouble, outside of prison and inside. I'm not saying it hasn't or it couldn't, I am saying happens a lot less than you are letting on.

I gotta say I think some of you are really overthinking this.

Mario wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:There's also cases where children shoot themselves, each other or their parents with guns.

Looking at it from the epidemiological angle, the first question is which type of event causes more woundings/deaths per 100,000 per year. The second question would be, if it turned out there are more accidental shootings by family members than by breakers-in, would suppression of guns -- such as requiring them to be locked in safes -- lead to a greater amount of harm to chlldren from targetted break-ins than the reduction from not leaving the guns lying around.

https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2012/12/health-risk-having-gun-home

“There are real and imaginary situations when it might be beneficial to have a gun in the home,” Hemenway concludes. “For example, in the Australian film Mad Max, where survivors of the apocalypse seem to have been predominantly psychopathic male bikers, having a loaded gun would seem to be very helpful for survival, and public health experts would probably advise people in that world to obtain guns.”

“However, for most contemporary Americans, the scientific studies suggest that the health risk of a gun in the home is greater than the benefit,” he adds. “There are no credible studies that indicate otherwise.”

https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/160/10/929/140858/Guns-in-the-Home-and-Risk-of-a-Violent-Death-in#ref-30

Results show that regardless of storage practice, type of gun, or number of firearms in the home, having a gun in the home was associated with an increased risk of firearm homicide and firearm suicide in the home.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/105/4/888.full

In fact, guns kept in the home are 43 times more likely to be used to kill someone known to the family than to be used to kill in self-defense.

These articles do fail to point out a number of things. For starters, they didn't talk about the correlation of location, suicide, and mental health services. Rural areas have more guns, and fewer options for mental health (also more people that shun doctors and less that can afford them). These people are more likely to kill themselves by any means, but they also have guns. Kind-of throws that statistic for a little curve once that variable is accounted for. Also, the point of a home defense weapon is not to kill the intruder. It's to protect the home owner. Mild wounding, hitting nothing but air (anyone else seen Boys In the Hood?), and simply pointing and making them run are all "successes" that aren't counted.

Another thing to remember is that many of the deaths of residents are clustered into specific demographics, not evenly spread out. There are a few simple rules you can follow to make having guns the better option. The big rules: Don't have a history of mental illness. Don't be involved in organized crime. Don't have a chemical dependency. Own your guns legally. Those four things make the safety issue a wash.

Of course there are other things you can do. Marital status, if you have children, geographical location, local crime rates, income, education level, gender, and even race (somehow), and the types of weapons owned effect these statistics.

So, if you are a well educated single white woman with no kids living by yourself while having good mental health, no criminal record, and don't do drugs while having an AR-15 in the closet, the chances of that hurting anyone is pretty nonexistent. Now, if you are an unemployed high school dropout that hears voices in their head and does a little meth dealing on the side to support your 3 kids, your Glock 19 might just kill someone.

KTG17 wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:
Near me, and I'll try to find a link, a homeowner caught a guy in his house, and the burglar ran from him down the hallway, towards his kids room. Homeowner dropped him in the hallway with 2 to the back, and it was considered self defense by the police. On one hand, I completely agree with this decision, because the bad guy could have taken the kid hostage, or worse if he got desperate. Someone got too close to my kid's rooms while breaking in, I'd slot the guy and sleep like a kitten about it. Logically though, the guy's back was turned, and he was trying to flee. He didn't know it was a kids bedroom at the end of the hall. Food for thought.

Well, I put the blame on the guy breaking into the house.

Honestly, its 2017. We know breaking into houses is wrong. We also know it can be dangerous with the number of weapons in homes. If you make the decision to break into someone's home, you are risking death, pure and simple.

And I will agree, any movement to a kids bedroom would get a clip emptied on him. I just can't see how anyone can consider the burgler's actions, and feel justified in defending him.

Don't break into houses, and you wont get shot. If everyone followed this, there would be far less break-ins.

2 thoughts; 1. Why not shoot him in the legs (i.e. to eliminate the threat without thd killing) and 2. Is it a good idea to fire in the direction of your kids bedroom if you know they are in there? Presumably you're more likely to injure your child with a stray shot than the man running away is?

Well, we've had that argument before.

If you're going to shoot someone you shoot them in the torso because it is the easiest target to hit and more likely to incapacitate them quickly. There is a good logic in that.

The counter-argument is that European police are pretty successful at shooting people in the legs and not killing them, compared to US police.

The counter to that is that US police are trained to shoot you dead if they shoot at you, because they have to assume you have got a gun and will shoot back. You will note that the small number of British police who carry guns, the specially trained armed response units, also have a high rate of shooting people dead in shooting incidents, because they are trained for gun combat situations that very rarely occur in the UK and need to be dealt with smartly when they arise. (Sadly, this has led to various incidents of innocent, unarmed people being shot dead by the armed response by mistake.)

The other counter is that lots of Americans with guns don't have good training at conflict situations and shooting at people, because there is no nationwide requirement to have this kind of training before you get a licence for a gun, so they are not trained to and probably aren't going to be accurate at shooting at someone's legs.

As for shooting in the direction of the people you are trying to defend from being shot at, it does seem a bit strange, but probably Americans who have had training in conflicts and shooting feel they are going to be accurate enough to hit the target they are aiming at, because they will aim at the torso. The ones who haven't had the training may panic and shoot anyway.

Herzlos wrote:
Why not shoot him in the legs (i.e. to eliminate the threat without thd killing)

This line is often used by people who haven't had firearm training. There's a number of reasons this is unrealistic, but to fully explain would be dragging the conversation further off topic. Please accept that this is not a viable suggestion.

There's already links on this thread to the FBI statistics that show that over 1 million homes get broken into while occupied and over a quarter of a million of those people are victimized by the burglar each year while in contrast only 500-600 people die of accidental shootings each year. Yes, having a gun in the home increases the danger of getting shot just like having a pool increases the danger of drowning. However, the FBI stats also show that over 2/3rds of annual gun deaths are suicides, if you get shot by the gun in your home the person most likely to be pulling the trigger is yourself. In either case if we're going to go by the statistics it's extremely unlikely that anybody will get shot in your home at all whether or not that very slim chance is enough to discourage somebody from owning a gun is of course a matter of personal preference.

Well, there's 18 pages of filth on this subject, and I saw on the news that the judge denied his "stand your ground" bull. I hope all of his remaining money and assets are provided to the family he destroyed, and he spends the rest of his pathetic life in prison, in the dankest cell they have.

Wow, so could I infer that because theres filth on these pages, then the people writing them are filthy? No, that makes no sense. Kind of a filthy thing to say IMO.
(see what I did there?)

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Well, there's 18 pages of filth on this subject, and I saw on the news that the judge denied his "stand your ground" bull. I hope all of his remaining money and assets are provided to the family he destroyed, and he spends the rest of his pathetic life in prison, in the dankest cell they have.

You do know that now he gets a trial, right? Or do you think folks you don't like are not entitled those old antiquated processes? Better to just strip them of all property, rights, and their freedom without wasting resources on stupid stuff like trials.

Herzlos wrote:

2 thoughts; 1. Why not shoot him in the legs (i.e. to eliminate the threat without thd killing) and 2. Is it a good idea to fire in the direction of your kids bedroom if you know they are in there? Presumably you're more likely to injure your child with a stray shot than the man running away is?

Shoot for the legs? Why? Who says he couldn't shoot back? Besides, this falls back on the arguement concerning the well being for the burglar, for which I wouldn't care.

And I don't see many US cops shooting for the legs either. There is a reason for that.

KTG17 wrote:
And I don't see many US cops shooting for the legs either. There is a reason for that.

Yes, the aforementioned chance that the burglar could also be armed (not an unreasonable assumption in the US) and might shoot back. And he's moving toward's a kid's bedroom, whether because he knows it and wants a hostage or just tries to flee - I can see how that would be the kind of reason to shoot a jury would agree on as reasonable. It's easy (for me too) to think it unreasonable when I live somewhere these sorts of things just don't happen.

Still, there are some sorts of things that do strike me as a bit unfair even if one is a criminal. Like states where so-called "felony death" in connection with a crime is counted as the responsibility of the criminal. House owner shoots one burglar and the others, captured alive, are slapped with murder charges because their crime companion is dead. HUH? They didn't kill him, and even the house owner might not have tried that hard to actually hit, just scare them away...

 CptJake wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Well, there's 18 pages of filth on this subject, and I saw on the news that the judge denied his "stand your ground" bull. I hope all of his remaining money and assets are provided to the family he destroyed, and he spends the rest of his pathetic life in prison, in the dankest cell they have.

You do know that now he gets a trial, right? Or do you think folks you don't like are not entitled those old antiquated processes? Better to just strip them of all property, rights, and their freedom without wasting resources on stupid stuff like trials.

If he goes before a judge, I'm pretty sure that's at least some form of trial. I wasn't aware he needed another one after stealing a life with tons of witnesses to the event and a judge declaring his "reasoning" to be crap. Oh well, you'll always get some people saying he needs more of a chance.

And as for the "filth" thing to the previous user...not every single post is filth, just that there are 18 pages and that the first few contained absolute crap arguing for his actions, and I didn't wanna wade through the junk for the treasure posts. That doesn't make every poster filthy either. But...ya know...good interpretation. Yeah...not really.

Spetulhu wrote:

KTG17 wrote:
And I don't see many US cops shooting for the legs either. There is a reason for that.

Yes, the aforementioned chance that the burglar could also be armed (not an unreasonable assumption in the US) and might shoot back. And he's moving toward's a kid's bedroom, whether because he knows it and wants a hostage or just tries to flee - I can see how that would be the kind of reason to shoot a jury would agree on as reasonable. It's easy (for me too) to think it unreasonable when I live somewhere these sorts of things just don't happen.

Still, there are some sorts of things that do strike me as a bit unfair even if one is a criminal. Like states where so-called "felony death" in connection with a crime is counted as the responsibility of the criminal. House owner shoots one burglar and the others, captured alive, are slapped with murder charges because their crime companion is dead. HUH? They didn't kill him, and even the house owner might not have tried that hard to actually hit, just scare them away...

I would agree with this mostly, and have seen it used in several instances that largely appeared to just be deflections from police mistakes (one in San Diego comes to mind where a chasing deputy hit a pedestrian and they charged the suspect for the cop hitting the woman).

 Ouze wrote:
I gotta say I think some of you are really overthinking this.

I think a lot of people are bending over backwards to justify shooting a burglar. "Hes going for the kids!" must be the new "Hes reaching for a gun!"

 timetowaste85 wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Well, there's 18 pages of filth on this subject, and I saw on the news that the judge denied his "stand your ground" bull. I hope all of his remaining money and assets are provided to the family he destroyed, and he spends the rest of his pathetic life in prison, in the dankest cell they have.

You do know that now he gets a trial, right? Or do you think folks you don't like are not entitled those old antiquated processes? Better to just strip them of all property, rights, and their freedom without wasting resources on stupid stuff like trials.

If he goes before a judge, I'm pretty sure that's at least some form of trial. I wasn't aware he needed another one after stealing a life with tons of witnesses to the event and a judge declaring his "reasoning" to be crap. Oh well, you'll always get some people saying he needs more of a chance.

And as for the "filth" thing to the previous user...not every single post is filth, just that there are 18 pages and that the first few contained absolute crap arguing for his actions, and I didn't wanna wade through the junk for the treasure posts. That doesn't make every poster filthy either. But...ya know...good interpretation. Yeah...not really.

You may want to do even a rudimentary google search if the links in this topic are not enough for you to understand this case and the resulting legal process. Or, just continue being rude and ignorant,no skin off my back.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
I gotta say I think some of you are really overthinking this.

I think a lot of people are bending over backwards to justify shooting a burglar. "Hes going for the kids!" must be the new "Hes reaching for a gun!"

Perfect example of what Ouze pointed out...

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
I gotta say I think some of you are really overthinking this.

I think a lot of people are bending over backwards to justify shooting a burglar. "Hes going for the kids!" must be the new "Hes reaching for a gun!"

Hrm, there's certainly no evidence for that. There's no insane rash of shootings citing such rationale.

 CptJake wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Well, there's 18 pages of filth on this subject, and I saw on the news that the judge denied his "stand your ground" bull. I hope all of his remaining money and assets are provided to the family he destroyed, and he spends the rest of his pathetic life in prison, in the dankest cell they have.

You do know that now he gets a trial, right? Or do you think folks you don't like are not entitled those old antiquated processes? Better to just strip them of all property, rights, and their freedom without wasting resources on stupid stuff like trials.

If he goes before a judge, I'm pretty sure that's at least some form of trial. I wasn't aware he needed another one after stealing a life with tons of witnesses to the event and a judge declaring his "reasoning" to be crap. Oh well, you'll always get some people saying he needs more of a chance.

And as for the "filth" thing to the previous user...not every single post is filth, just that there are 18 pages and that the first few contained absolute crap arguing for his actions, and I didn't wanna wade through the junk for the treasure posts. That doesn't make every poster filthy either. But...ya know...good interpretation. Yeah...not really.

You may want to do even a rudimentary google search if the links in this topic are not enough for you to understand this case and the resulting legal process. Or, just continue being rude and ignorant,no skin off my back.

Nope. I understand it perfectly fine and I'm entitled to my opinion. If you've seen my posts in other gun threads, I generally support cops and their need for self defense. This wasn't that. This was a guy who got fed up, took drastic action, then tried to backpedal and claim it was self defense. The news station I was watching before work did a pretty good sum up of events. And discussed the judge throwing out his actions as "stand your ground". So yes...I happily say to let this foul human excrement suffer for destroying a family.

 whembly wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
I gotta say I think some of you are really overthinking this.

I think a lot of people are bending over backwards to justify shooting a burglar. "Hes going for the kids!" must be the new "Hes reaching for a gun!"

Perfect example of what Ouze pointed out...

Don't think just shoot?

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
I gotta say I think some of you are really overthinking this.

I think a lot of people are bending over backwards to justify shooting a burglar. "Hes going for the kids!" must be the new "Hes reaching for a gun!"

Perfect example of what Ouze pointed out...

Don't think just shoot?

Heading towards my kid's room? Yup.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
I gotta say I think some of you are really overthinking this.

I think a lot of people are bending over backwards to justify shooting a burglar. "Hes going for the kids!" must be the new "Hes reaching for a gun!"

Perfect example of what Ouze pointed out...

Don't think just shoot?

If an intruder is in your home, heading towards a kids room with unknown intent, yeah.

Nobody is saying that's a wonderful thing, but it's neither irrational nor indefensible, and no jury anywhere is gonna convict someone for that.

Because they know exactly where your kids room is at. I think you guys are assuming too much.

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Because they know exactly where your kids room is at. I think you guys are assuming too much.

They don't have to. The threat is there, you don't know what they're there to do or what their knowledge of the layout of the home is or anything else, you are ending that threat. At that point, it's the intruder's fault for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and presenting that threat. No jury is going to convict anyone on that count, and most people around the world would both pull that trigger and expect others to pull it. This is pretty "nature 101", present a threat to offspring, get yourself near offspring and between them and a parent, and you can expect violence be it human, bear, lion, bird, etc. regardless of the intent.

Now, this doesn't mean "shoot willy nilly", confirm your target and what's before and beyond, and all that and other such things.

But yeah, there are absolutely instances where this does happen. A woman shot and killed a man in my town last summer after she found him in the home and he went into the daughter's room.