My cousins were the victims of a home invasion. One of the guys took my young cousin into the back bedroom, raped her and killed her while his partner held everyone at gunpoint. Everyone of the victims were "cooperating and hoping not to be injured"....
Anyone I catch in my house or attempts to force their way in to my house when I am home forfeits the assumption that they mean ME or anyone in my house, no harm... period. What I do after there's a breach in my security is my judgement call.
The idea that you don't want to take another human being's life to protect property is a slippery slope. You don't know an intruder's intentions, and if you always assume that if you cooperate, no one will be hurt then you risk your life on that assumption. The whole idea of the right to bear arms is that human beings have the right to be their own first line of protection of their life.
Inside my home, I am the police, in that I must decide the level of threat I am under and decide the appropriate response
Given your experience, no one can be surprised, or blame you for your perspective, mate. (there's no emojii on this forum that stands for 'sad, but understanding agreement', so imagine there is one and it's here)
Obviously you're big, old and ugly enough to accept the responsibility for, and the consequences of your actions.
Were you to, in the heat of the moment, understandably, if not legally defensibly (although many of your states have laws that are pretty forgiving of actions ostensibly taken in self-defence, so you'd probably be fine) take the life of someone who was actually no threat to you, I suspect you'd hold your hands up and say "Fair does" and take the legal consequences with good grace.
The idea that you don't want to take another human being's life to protect property is a slippery slope.
That's a fair point and you're right that working out someone else's intentions is very hard in a totally unpressurised scenario, and all but impossible for those that haven't been well trained in critical conflict scenarios like home invasions or interrupted burglaries. Even for those who have been trained but lack the 'training' that comes from solid relevant experience working with others who do have solid experience themselves, it's a hard, hard, hard thing to get right and often a bit of a coin-toss.
That's why very few in the UK who take a life, where self-defence can be reasonably argued, are prosecuted.
There are those few cases, like Tony Martin, who are prosecuted and convicted (and his sentencing was way too harsh in my opinion and incorrectly rested on the fact that the lad who was killed had partially turned away; something that can happen in a split second so may well not indicate Tony Martin
intentionally shot the lad 'in the back') but those are a very small percentage.
The assumption in UK law, is that if an average (so, untrained) person might
reasonably believe their life, or the life of other innocents is in danger,
reasonable force can always be legally used to protect those lives. No one is expected to make fine judgements about risk or intention in the heat of such moments.
What is a
reasonable belief of threat, and is
reasonable force, ideally will depend entirely on the circumstance and the people involved. Certainly, reasonable force can
absolutely include lethal force, and involve the use of legally held firearms*.
If Joe Blogs, who happens to shoots clays for recreation, and is say, a plumber with no experience of such situations, is the person who pulled the trigger on a someone who broke into their home carrying a hammer, then the Crown Prosecution service may well choose not to even pursue a conviction. Even if they do, the prosecuting barrister is going to have a very hard time of it.
If however, Jane Doe, a serving armed response unit copper takes her recreational 'muzzle loading' black powder revolver and shoots someone lying face down on the ground or fleeing their property, then their legal innocence will probably be tested in court and their defence will have to work pretty hard.
Okay, those are both scenarios that are more clearly cut and things aren't always so obvious, but UK law, despite what rags like the Daily Mail would have people believe, are pretty sensible (sentencing guidelines on the other hand, are probably less sensible and probably need some reform to the advantage of the person claiming self-defence) and generally do an okay job. Where the law in our modern complex world is concerned, that level of success is a pretty big win!
*
In fact illegally possesed firearms wouldn't disbar a person from rightfully claiming self-defence, the lack of legality of the firearm posession would be irrelevant to the self-defence claim. Obviously, they'd be prosecuted for the illegal firearms possession and would probably be convicted for that.
