My the law prescribes what punishments are correct for property damage. Its not something that will give them a firing squad when convicted, so you shouldn't be acting as a firing squad yourself

Stopping a crime in progress is not a punishment. We have different measures to stop crime happening now and to punish a crime that happened in the past. E.g. a punishment for an assault is not death either but you are still entitled to defend yourself from one with deadly force. This is because we, as society, place higher importance on preventing the crime than on punishing the criminal post factum. You are free to disagree and not exercise deadly force or any force at all and submit to the criminals, it's your choice.

The social contact granting the state it's monopoly on violence is contingent on its execution of its duty, herein being the enforcement of law.

Where do we draw the line, really? Probably not at catalytic converters.

It doesn't worry you that people could misuse the law? For example, shooting someone to death first, then placing them under their car, and that way get away with murder?

In most states, you can claim under almost any circumstances that a person came at you with a weapon (a rock?) and you shot them in self-defense.

It is up to the criminal justice system to investigate and determine if you are lying.

This situation is no different.

> In most states, you can claim under almost any circumstances that a person came at you with a weapon (a rock?) and you shot them in self-defense.

Yeah, I realize I'm with water over my head as I don't understand US laws at all, and how it can legal to kill other people like that.

I'm pretty sure any country would be fine with you killing someone in self-defense...

You are wrong. In most EU countries self defense has to be proportional to attack, and to be used only when necessary. So if you exceeding limits of self-defense and you kill or damage someone using forces disproportionate to the danger you can go to jail.

> > In most states, you can claim under almost any circumstances that a person came at you with a weapon (a rock?) and you shot them in self-defense.

A rock to the head can be quite deadly; every situation will have its own important nuances still.

You'd be surprised.

No, there are many places where you want to think twice about responding to violence with violence, because if your violent response is deemed exaggerated, you end up being the one worse off on day of judgement.

Technically I suppose you could get away with killing if it can be shown that your life was in immediate danger, and not in the "old hobo waves a knife so cop shoots him in the back from thirty feet away" way like in the US. In practice that never happens, because it is very difficult to show that the only thing you could've done was to kill. Even if someone had you at gunpoint. Someone waving a rock or a knife? Lol no, unless you emerged out of a struggle with stab wounds or broken bones.

I would never want to live in a country that would prosecute me for defending my life and safety.

Your example is interesting because 21 feet is enough distance for someone with a knife to stab a someone before they can draw a gun (under 2 seconds)

I think most would agree that waiting to shot until you are suyre you will emerged out of a struggle with stab wounds or broken bones is too late.

Most in America? Shrug, maybe.

In many other parts of the world, someone having a weapon out is not sufficient evidence to show that they were going to murder you in 2 seconds unless you did it first. Even if they seemed angry and threatening. A threat of violence is not violence, a weapon is not violence, and an unstable person is not violence, and even violence doesn't justify killing unless that violence was life threatening.

That's the difference. The question here isn't about what they could in theory do. If you're going to kill someone in self defense, you'd better have very convincing evidence or other means to show that they were in fact about to kill you. Without signs of struggle, that evidence can be quite hard to procure.

So what do you do in this situation? If you can run, you run. If someone chases you with a knife and you can't outrun them, that's already much better for your self defense claim than if you just decided to shoot them the moment you got scared.. If you can fight or shoot back, you don't have to kill them, just respond enough to fend off the immediate threat. If you're not good enough with guns to make a non-lethal disarming shot, then I don't recommend bringing a gun (not that it'd be legal here anyway, guns are for sport and hunting). Your self defense can be regarded as exaggerated even if you didn't intend it that way. So if you accidentally make a lethal shot or accidentally punch someone to death, you're on the hook for it.

> If you're not good enough with guns to make a non-lethal disarming shot

This suggests to me that you don't know much about guns, gun safety, or gun laws. I'm not trying to be insulting, but saying something like that indicates that you really have no idea what you're talking about. No use-of-force experts recommend attempting a "non-lethal" shot with a gun. In fact, you'd almost certainly get in more trouble for doing that than for killing the person, at least in the US.

A gun is a lethal weapon, and there is no way to reliably perform a "non-lethal" shot. If you shoot someone in the leg, they can very easily bleed out. Aiming for the arm or hand makes it extremely likely that you will miss and hit someone/something downrange.

Oh I know what the gun nuts in the US say. I don't believe their view is universally shared.

I agree that there is no way to reliably perform a "non-lethal" shot which gets us back to my previous message: you'd better not bring a gun to a knife fight if you don't want to end up sitting in jail for killing. Use-of-force experts here would not recommend shooting at all if there's any chance a missed shot is going to hit someone downrange, unless again it can be shown that killing is absolutely the only choice left.

However, if you read the news here, you find that the police regularly manage to hit a leg and thus disable the assailant without killing them. Every time this happens, there's going to be an investigation into whether gun use was justified. And if the assailant ended up dying, it'd be much worse for the cop.

I don't know if they're specifically instructed to aim for legs, but maybe it's easier to stop bleeding than to revive someone with a bullet in the heart.

> Use-of-force experts here would not recommend shooting at all if there's any chance a missed shot is going to hit someone downrange, unless again it can be shown that killing is absolutely the only choice left.

Then it seems like we're on the same page? You shouldn't be shooting at all unless you're trying to kill the person. You shouldn't be trying to kill the person unless it's absolutely the only choice left. Given that it's the only choice left, potentially hitting someone downrange is a regrettable but possible outcome. Given that you're trying to kill someone, aiming somewhere other than center mass has an unacceptable risk of missing or not disabling the person.

> A threat of violence is not violence, a weapon is not violence, and an unstable person is not violence, and even violence doesn't justify killing unless that violence was life threatening.

> If you're going to kill someone in self defense, you'd better have very convincing evidence or other means to show that they were in fact about to kill you.

I don't understand this at all. A mentally unstable person shouting threats and approaching me with a deadly weapon is 150% enough evidence that my life is in danger. I can't see any other possible rationalization.

It is a complete failure of the state to make someone scared of defending themselves against legitimate threats.

For example, Soviet Union made self-defense illegal. This was part of a larger strategy to encourage crime against citizens, because the more the citizens are worrying about criminals, the less they think about the regime they are living in. They will even welcome more police oversight, because it is the only protection against crime they have. (Crimes against the state, on the other hand, were punished extremely.)

Congratulations you made me make an account.

Do you have any sources for that story? I would be interested in reading them because what you are describing sounds so idiotic that it seems like a parody of anti-communist talking points.

In the US it is legal to defend your life and safety from those attacking you.

This seems super unlikely as the framer would need to have specialized saws to plant on the victim.

If someone wants to abuse a castle doctrine law there are already easier ways to do that.

I’m also not aware of any stories where the existing laws have been abused to kill people legally (eg, shooting someone, planting them in your house or as a carjacker). Although maybe they are just so successful they aren’t caught.

Is a battery sawsall very specialized?

In the sense that it’s not commonly carried, then yes.

That can happen anyway. Place them in your house and say they broke in

You're not joking, apparently it's legal to shot people to death if they've entered your home. Learned something new today. I don't understand it all, but certainly puts the new law into perspective and apparently what I was thinking about wouldn't be a problem.

Invite them over to your house without anyone knowing about this, then shoot them. Would it work?

People keep coming up with these fanciful scenarios because they don't like the idea of being able to shoot intruders, but think about that for a second. You're positing that a person wants to kill a random person they don't know, but also wants to do it in the loudest, messiest way that absolutely guarantees a police investigation. And the outcome, if their brilliant little scheme fails, is the death penalty.

A jury has found that was not the case with Rittenhouse; reading the Wikipedia page that details the incident will explain why [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenosha_unrest_shooting

There's no point in arguing about the facts of the Rittenhouse case, because everyone has seen all the video and decided where they stand on the issue. Arguing about it will only lead to a flamewar.

So let's posit that you are 100% correct - Rittenhouse went there with the explicit goal of shooting people, killed multiple people, and was not convicted of any crime. Do you think anyone looks at that scenario and thinks "and it was totally worth it, I want to do that too"? He's going to be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life. He's 18 and effectively has no chance of living a normal life unless he moves to another country and disappears. He very easily could have been killed by skateboard guy, or knocked out by jump kick guy and beaten to death, or shot by Grosskreutz.

Texas also has the death penalty for premeditated murder, which would probably be the case if you're prepared enough to frame the victim for catalytic converter theft.

So if you're going to use an affirmative defense ("Yes I did it, but it was justified") then that seems like a pretty big risk, especially if there's no real evidence the victim was a cat thief.

That's what investigations and courts of law are for. Your hypothetical of "what if you killed someone and then framed it as self-defense" is an argument as old as time. It is the basis of every justice system humanity has ever created. This idea goes beyond the Bible.

That's your ethical call to make, at the end of the day - but I think putting property above human life shows a distinct lack of empathy.

Ah yes Europe famously the only place on earth you can’t unload a clip and murder someone for stealing the catalytic converter out of your Ford truck lol. Absolutely embarrassing.

Think of all the failure that went into someone making this statement with a straight face. Federal, state, local, moral. Just wow. “Your anarchy is my justice” is the rallying cry of every criminal out there.

The state losing its monopoly on violence is the definition of a failed state. Other places you’re welcome to murder people for stealing from you are likely Somalia, parts of El Salvador, the Sudan, Western Sahara and uh, I want to say cartel controlled states in Mexico. Not exactly sterling examples of well run areas. Even there it’s due to absence of state control, not outright abdication.

So you come out of Walmart somewhere in Texas, having bought a black sports bag. As you pass by a car, you notice your shoelace is untied, so you get down and tie it. Coming up, you lose your balance a little and put your hand on the car. At that moment, the owner of that car comes, sees you coming up a little clumsily from underneath their car with a big black bag, thinks "damn, he's stealing my catalytic converter" and shoots you dead.

See the problem? You weren't stealing anything. They just thought you did. In most other places on earth, if you were really unlucky, you'd get arrested and put on trial, until it became clear that you really didn't do anything wrong. In Texas, apparently, instant game over is an acceptable outcome. Sure, the shooter would also get in trouble, but that's not going to help your spouse and children, is it?

Edit: typo