First, here in reality, a good friend is moving and asked me to store his firearms until he gets a safe set up in his new home. That seems to me to be a good hook to use to remind everyone who owns guns that you are responsible for your firearms. Leaving them lying around the house unsecured means that your child, a visitors child, or the local teenage burglar could wind up with it – with consequences you really don’t want to think about. Years ago, I had a handgun stolen from my car by parking valets, and while I called the police on the spot, it was never recovered. To this day, I worry about what happened to it, and what it was used for. And I no longer have weapons that are not under my direct personal control or behind a meaningful lock.
There are rapid-access safes for handguns and long guns that make your firearm as easy to get to as pulling it from a drawer. There’s really no excuse not to secure firearms
I take this tack because I believe that owning firearms here in the U.S. is a right – but like all rights, it comes inextricably bound with responsibilities. You can’t have one – a right – without the other – a responsibility, and yet for some reason I keep running into people who believe that you can.
One responsibility those who own weapons have is to use them responsibly. The recent case cited by Instapundit and Kim du Toit, among others, in which a British citizen was jailed for killing a home-invader with a sword is a good one to start with. It turns out that the stabber was a drug dealer and stabbed the stabee in the back. Kim thinks this is righteous.
Let me make my position on this perfectly clear. I know what the law says about self-defense on one’s property, and as far as I’m concerned, the law is an ass.
If a goblin invades your property, he should be fair game, whether he’s coming or going. End of story. I don’t care if he “no longer poses a threat” or similar bleeding-heart bullshit.
Sorry, Kim, that’s equally bullshit. This is an endless topic of discussion within the gun community, with a substantial group taking Kim’s position – Shoot, Shovel, Shut Up – and a larger group, I believe taking mine.
I come to my position very simply; I’ve talked and trained with a number of people who have Seen The Elephant; who have shot others as a LEO or soldier. These range from situations in which they were SWAT snipers, who shot hostage-takers in a bank robbery to sudden, brutal street shootouts.
Not one of them – not a single one – would take Kim’s position. None of them are twitching psych basket cases, paralyzed by post-traumatic stress. None of them would hesitate to do it again, if called on. But every one of them wishes it had worked out another way. It’s simple, not one of them would shoot a burglar holding his VCR simply for being in his home.
So in a question of moral, rather than practical, judgment, I’ll go with the people who have experience.
Note that there’s an interesting distinction to draw between what I think is OK for states to do and what I don’t think it’s OK for individuals within a state to do. A later post…
Now, remember that I’m the guy who thinks that owning weapons isn’t only a right, but a bit of a moral imperative.
2) It is moral. I came to the conclusion a long time ago that people who eat meat and have never killed anything are morally suspect. Some creature gave its life for the chicken Andouille sausages in the pasta sauce I made tonight. Pork chops and salmon don’t start out wrapped in plastic on the grocery shelf. I have hunted deer, wild pigs, and birds, and I can say with certainty (and I imagine anyone else who hunts can say) that it fundamentally changed the way I look both at my food and at animals in the world. I respect the death that made my dinner possible in a way I never would have had an animal not died at my own hand.
When I have a gun in my possession, I am suddenly both more aware of my environment, and more careful and responsible for my actions in it. People who I know who carry guns daily talk about how well-behaved they are how polite they suddenly become. Heinlein wrote that “an armed society is a polite society”, and while in truth I cannot make a causal connection, when you look at societies where the codes of manners were complex and strong, from medieval Europe or Japan to Edwardian England, there was a wide distribution of weapons.
I know several people who are either highly skilled martial artists or highly skilled firearms trainers, and in both groups there is an interesting correlation between competence (hence dangerousness) and a kind of calm civility … the opposite of the “armed brute” image that some would attempt to use to portray a dangerous man or woman.
And in light of that, I’ll echo Kim’s endorsement of Aaron The Liberal Slayer‘s (not this liberal, buddy…) suggestion that April 15 be termed ‘Buy A Gun Day’. Note that unlike Kim, I’m not asking for donations to buy a different gun – I’m all handgunned up (I shoot Glocks these days), and am a firm believer in Jeff Cooper’s adage ‘Beware the man who owns only one gun…he can probably use it.‘
And if you can’t buy a gun, let me suggest ‘Take An Unarmed Liberal Shooting Day‘ as a fallback. Either one ought to sufficiently get Michael Moore’s baggy drawers in a knot.
A.L.
This may be a little bit of an aside, but if a person pulls a gun on you, shouldn’t he/she be fair game? In other words, is it morally correct to assume that if someone pulls a gun on you, he/she intends to use it?
Of course; someone who presents an imminent threat (yeah, I know…that word…) to you or yours is a target, not a person. Until they no longer pose a threat, at which point, they go back to being a person again.
And for those who suggest that defending yourself against a drawn weapon is impossible, you’re wrong. It’s a long discussion, but force-on-force training (people using Simunitions) demonstrates that it’s certainly possible (although not certain).
A.L.
Ditto, and ditto.
I’m hesitant to declare the stabbing in this case totally illegitmate; I can see shooting someone in the back if he was, for instance, running toward the bedroom where some member of my family was asleep.
On the other hand, I can’t help but disagree with Kim. Simply rule: don’t pull the trigger (or swing the katana) unless you have no other choice. I’d never want to deal gratuitous death even to a thug, and I can’t imagine why anyone who wasn’t in the grip of desperate rage or fear would. And I’d expect the guy who snapped under pressure to regret it afterward.
Oh, and safe storage: my safe cost $1500, and holds upwards of $5000 worth of guns, plus cameras, cash, credit cards, laptops, etc. Really, how could anyone not see the obvious implications of that cost-benefit calculation?
When confronted by a goblin in my living room, I don’t care, nor would I take the time to determine, whether he only broke in to lift my VCR, was going to surprise me with nifty throw pillows or intended to rape and kill my womenfolk. That goblin is indeed an imminent threat, and it is only prudent to assume the worst possible threat until facts appear one way or the other to make the actual determination of what the threat is. Until then, I draw and aim. If said goblin drops to the floor, crying for mercy, I keep him covered until the cops show up.
If he advances, I pull the trigger. If he runs, there are two possibilities:
1- he’s scared and won’t be back.
2- he’s going for his driver and weapon(s), and will be coming back soon- and maybe not right away.
At that time, I still view the threat as extreme, and pull the trigger. Could I be wrong?? Probably, because chances are the goblin is running for his life, not a weapon, but who wants to take that chance with self and family?? I’m sure there are some that would, and I would not argue with their decision (personal responsibility and all that)
As a minor aside, there is the deterrence factor. Let’s say that all of a sudden, every burglar was caught by the homeowner and killed. At what point would criminals stop burgling, knowing that they would die in the act? That said, what percentage of burglars would need to be killed while commiting a crime to deter future crimes?
Re: competence=dangerous
I worked as a bouncer for about 15 years. During that time, I was involved in many confrontations and several major fights, and innumerable minor actions. In all cases, the participants were loud and blustery; once the battle was joined, it turned out that they were not quite as tough as they thought.(of course, I’m sure that my sobriety and their inebriation helped.)
Of course, the troublemakers were rare. I saw many people come through the doors that I recognized as “dangerous” or knew through reputation were not to be messed with. Needless to say, there was never a spot of trouble from them. In fact, it was more likely that I would be dealing with a problem customer(s) alone and would find the quiet one (stranger or regular) watching my back. In short, its the quiet ones that don’t look dangerous, not the loudmouths, that you should respect/fear.
So in a question of moral, rather than practical, judgment, I’ll go with the people who have experience.
I know I am just a semi-anon poster, but I would like to say that I have been in this situation as well and I would do it again. I would like to have never been in the situation, and never face it again, but I still feel right about it.
An earlier poster (Phil Winsor) posted:
At that time, I still view the threat as extreme, and pull the trigger.
I would associate myself with this feeling.
Not to say I am in complete agreement with Kim’s statements, but there is at least one body out here that disagrees with your examples.
Questions, A.L.:
Say, someone breaks into my house, shoots at me (and misses), then turns around and starts walking away. I take your opinion to be that I am not entitled to shoot him (in the back), for lack of imminent threat. Am I understanding you correctly? (I am not asking what the law is. I am asking your *moral* judgment.)
I am also taking you to say that it is categorically illegitimate to use deadly force to defend your property (if your life is not also in imminent danger). Correct?
Thanks
— perry
Perry –
We’re getting into pretty fine points of tactics and judgement, but here goes:
Someone shoots at me and misses and withdraws. I’m going to make an instant judgement about whether they are really withdrawing or moving to cover to improve their tactical position. Having shotat me, I’m going to use a somewhat higher threshold in deciding that they aren’t a threat than I would have had they not shot at me or displayed a weapon.
So there’s no ‘canned’ answer. It a matter of how one sets up the ‘go button,’ and that’s almost entirely situational.
madmark –
If you shot someone who posed no immediate threat to you or yours, I think you did wrong. Sorry. It’s interesting that you don’t regret it, but from the sketchy data in the comment, it seems that you viewed yourself as under threat, even without any overt act on the other person’s part.
No knowing any facts (and this isn’t ‘The Armed Citizen’ – the column on righteous use of firearms) I’d suggest that you might want to think hard about how you do threat discrimination. The difference between me as a citizen and a LEO is simple – I’m not here to eliminate bad people. If a bad person threatens me, then they’ve made the decision, and that’s their problem. But there’s a Chinese Wall between vigilantism and self-defense, and I intend to help keep it strong.
A.L.
As someone who is competent with both katana and handgun, I have this to say.
Assuming the role of the sword wielding defender vs a fleeing gunman, my biggest fear would be that the gunman would withdraw from just outside range, (perhaps 8 or 10 feet; length of blade reach + 1 step) turn and fire. Therefore, I’m obliged to keep chasing a retreating gunman until he either drops his weapon, or I can lock a functioning door between us, and seek cover.
The one thing I CAN’T do is let him out of range, because he could then maneuver at will for as many shots as he cares to take.
Normally, sword vs gun doesn’t work out for the swordsman, but there are obviously exceptions.
geekWithA.45 (and a katana)
Considering that guns cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars and I’m just barely making ends meet, that’s kind of a morally suspect moral obligation you’ve got there, A.L. Can I get a dispensation somehow?
A.L., your stance originally persuaded me, but Mr. Katana has a very good point. A corollary of the one about not bringing a knife to a gunfight is that if the one with the gun is idiot enough to let the knife be effective, use it. Something about not bemoaning the mistakes of one’s enemies. At odds of gun vs. knife, and 3 to 1, that at least convinces me that this could have been a righteous shoot within the bounds of your ‘tactical situation’ rules, given the weapons reach issue as pointed out. (Doubt I’d vote to convict, unless there are facts I don’t know.)
A.L.,
There may be a Chinese Wall between law enforcement and vigilantism, but a guy stabbing intruders on his own property is WAY outside any definition of vigilantism I know of. This particular guy may be a black hat in general, but the available evidence puts my jury vote against conviction.
The British take on self-defense is psychotic and profoundly immoral, and while this case may be something of a gray area, I think an 8-year manslaughter conviction in this context is horrifying.
geek, Tim, Sam –
The reality is that none of us (including me or Kim) can judge with the information we have whether our guy was right in stabbing or not.
I can easily construct a scenario in which he was; and just as easily construct one in which he wasn’t.
My issue is with Kim’s stated position: “Break into my house and die.” My position is pretty different: “Act in a threatening way against me or mine and you’re likely to die.”
Kim’s position is a superset of mine; there are a lot of cases we can imagine in which someone breaks into your house and isn’t a threat to you. Someone with a modicum of competence can control the situation and make that determinaton pretty quickly. They won’t always be right, and in that case, I’d give the marginal cases to the homeowner. But there will be a number of clear cases where you’d be morally (and, obviously, legally) wrong to use deadly force.
Combustible Boy – no, it’s not. If you can’t afford to secure a gun somehow (build a lockable cabinet from 3/4″ exterior-grade plywood with internal corner brackets), you can’t afford the gun.
A.L.
OK, I’m with you there. B&E is not a capital crime.
A.L.,
I agree with your formulation over Kim’s, but I don’t think I’d draw the lines between shoot/maybe/don’t in the same place. As Tim says above, B&E isn’t a capital crime, but if a stranger breaks into my house and is visibly armed, then that moves directly into the “threatens me and mine” category (with, I’ll admit, some exceptions, but I consider those exceptions to be rare–I think you may disagree as to how rare the exceptions are).
There’s one other dimension to this, and I think it an important one. It is: what do we want, and how do we get there?
What we want is no home intrusions. If there are no home intrusions, the situations where judgement is necessary will not apply.
It seems to me that if potential goblins were uncomfortably aware that there was a very large chance of severe injury or death accompanying home intrusion, they would be more reluctant to commit the act. On the other hand, if the potential intruder is aware that armed reaction is unlikely, he or she can B&E with confidence.
The du Toit proposal, if such it may be termed, has the advantage that the more people there are who are perceived as reacting as he does, the fewer net home intrusions there are likely to be.
Emphasizing that you will react with restraint, and urging it on others as a moral obligation, has (or could have) the net effect of increasing the number of people who have to deal with the situation. Some percentage of those will be badly damaged, so your moral stance ends up being that others must be hurt in order to make you feel better about yourself.
Kim du Toit’s stance at least avoids that ambiguity, and from reading his blog I take it that he’s not a nuanced kind of guy anyway.
Regards,
Ric Locke
[who has never been in that situation, but is more likely to react du Toit-style than AL style]
Legally I would have to agree with your position, and when I practice at the gun range I try to simulate real world encounters. Including shouting at my imaginary bad guy instructions, like ‘drop it’, ‘get the hell out of here’, ‘I’ll call the police’, ‘DON’T’. I also practice walking backwards in the ‘aimed, but finger not on trigger position’ and even contemplate scenarios that might arise in my home. (What do you do when you are in the bathroom and someone breaks into the kitchen?)
And though I haven’t pulled the trigger….aka don’t have the experience you prefer to go with.
I have had to draw my firearm in my own home. I have, with teeth clenched, yelled at another human being (beating on the other side of my backdoor) that he was mistaken and in the wrong place and he and his buddy beating on my frontdoor needed to clear out. That where-ever they thought they were-they were in the wrong place-right now.
And I’ve thought where the fuck is the cordless phone. (because maybe I should be calling the police) But do I turn my back on the door he is pounding on to look for it? It’s 2am and the wife’s awake now too, do I leave her by the battered door while I go look for the phone? Do I send her up front to look for the phone (where the other guy is beating on the front door?)
Keep in mind, like I had to keep in mind, what sent me to get the sidearm in the first place (which was locked away, though I dare say I barely had time to get it)… Keep in mind, while unwinding after a long day at work, I found out about these guys because they jiggled my front doorknob, and then one said, ‘I’ll go around back.’
That’s it, Armed Liberal, late night I’m reading emails and that is where it started. The doorknob being tried. First a light giggle, then a hard one. Followed by the hushed words, “I’ll go around back.’
With that I was off to the races, past living room, dining room, past the kitchen, past the bathroom (and backdoor) into the bedroom. Light ON, wife blinking and bitching while I’m hunting the keys.
By the time I’d got the keys, the guy going around back was over the wooden privacy fence. (fucking 2am gymnast ninja warrior) By the time I had the cabinet unlocked, popped out the cylinder to be sure I was loaded, yes, snap shut, turn till click….and take a big breath, a big deep this isn’t happening breath, I made sure to take my finger off of the trigger.
By that time, he’s trying the backdoor. And though the paragraph is long, the time was short. Heart beats, I can count the white cotton covered steps, shivering my ass over with fear in my pajamas.
Everything worked perfectly. The keychain was laying with the cabinet key out by itself, easy to grab, the stashed away taurus .38 was loaded. I didn’t have time to say thanks, praise be or any of that, just enough time to snap the cylinder shut and click it. Ninja man was banging at the backdoor. Yelling for me to let him the fuck in.
And so now its clenched teeth time, yelling back thinking whatever you do…don’t open the fucking door….he wants in, let him come through the door…fuck him, I’ll stop him then. And yell up toward the other guy, to the front door, fuck you too!
Time was fast before, Armed Liberal, its slow now, crawling, crawling, the door vibrating in front of you. This is a friggin interior backdoor, he’s made it past the exterior one, someone must have left that one unlocked. And he’s pounding on the door which you have your left hand pressed against, gun in your right at your side pointing down, while you’re yelling at the guy that is yelling at you to let him in. ‘You are in the wrong place. I’m not John! John isn’t here! Take your friend and go! GO NOW!’
And you think. I should call the cops, and the half awake panicked wife is screaming for you to call the cops. So now your at the where the fuck is the phone question.
And the guy beating the paint off your backdoor doesn’t seem like he’s going to wait for you to look for the phone. Do you guard the door? Look for the phone, send the wife up front where the other guy is beating on the front door? He seems to be encouraged by the backdoor guy’s yelling. He wants the fuck in too.
What do you do? Yell you’re going to call the cops? Yell you’re going to shoot them if they come through the door? Seems pretty stupid to yell that, thats something that is best done and not threatened.
What do you do?
I choose the guard position. Wife behind me, enemies in front. If they come through I shoot them.
Didn’t work out that way, thankfully. We yelled at each other, and yelled and yelled. Wife found the cordless in the bedroom. I didn’t call the cops though, because by then it was obvious they were not evil, just drunk and confused. They were guests of the new guy (John, that I hadn’t met) next door, and were coming back from last call for alcohol…they just didn’t walk far enough.
But even knowing that….looking back now. My wife and I don’t live in that neighborhood anymore. We moved out October of last year. Looking back, the neighborhood had a history of drug trade and at the time a spat of home invasions, that usually didn’t end in just robbery.
I face the question….”what you going to do if…..when he comes through that door?”
And I’ve got to tell you, it ain’t fun. No, not at all. But it was better with a loaded .38, because the answer was “I’ll put one in his chest and retreat into the bedroom”…..and if he comes in, or if then ANYONE comes in the bedroom, where I am, where my wife is, I will kill them and I will go out the door they came through and kill everyone I can that should not be in my home.
And it doesn’t matter if they are drunk or confused, angry or whatever. They absolutely shouldn’t be in my home.
Ever.
So, legally I can agree with you. But morally, I’m with Kim Du Toit. And I still wake up, months later, almost a damn year later, thinking, what if they weren’t just drunk and confused? If it wasn’t loaded, if I hadn’t laid the keys out, if I hadn’t been awake, if I hadn’t been in the same room when they tried the doorknob. If….If…if…
I think about that a lot in my new home. If the decisions I made in the past are the best decisions to be made now.
And I don’t think you can understand unless you’ve been there. But at least I can try to explain.
MMM
At the very instant that a perp enters my domain unbidden, all his bets are off. He’s a dead perp as soon as I can manage it, period. Full stop.
He knew the job was dangerous when he took it, and I’ll prove it to him if I get the angle.
Billy, MMM –
And when you’re standing over the bleeding body of your neighbor, who got drunk and walked in the wrong door, your response will be…??
Or the body of the 12 year old from down the street, who broke in on a dare?
Or, if your trigger is set to such a feather touch, your own child, who startled you awake??
MMM, it sounds like you did the right thing; retreat to a position of relative safety (one where you can cover the approaches), communicate (“If you come through that door, I’ll shoot! I’m calling the police right now!!”), and try and get the police on the phone. It’s scary as hell (having been through similar). But it’s not that hard to manage, given tools and training – and I’d encourage people to see that both are what’s required for real security.
A.L.
My role model *Clint Smith* puts it pretty well:
and
A.L.
A.L. — did you see that word, “perp”? Do you know what that means?
What makes you think I don’t know my neighbors?
Go run your attitude on someone else, son. You can have your own incompetencies, but I know where I live and how. You don’t count.
As a small woman who has lived alone before, my calculations are a bit different. If someone breaks into my house, my first concern is not robbery – the neighborhoods I’ve lived in aren’t rich enough to suggest anything worth stealing – it is torture, rape and murder. As such, my first instinct is to go for my gun, get into a defensive spot I can hide in, shout for whoever is there to leave, and then shoot anything that comes through the door. I’m not worried about my DVD player, I’m worried about my virtue and my life, and while breaking and entering may not be a capital offence, I believe rape should be.
The calculations will change when I have children to protect, but I have a feeling it will only lean further towards shooting first.
Sorry, Billy –
I wasn’t aware that you had the power to determine – in the middle of the night, having been awaked from a sound sleep, under duress – the innocence or guilt of those put before you.
In the spirit of your collegial comments, can I suggest that you offer your services to law enforcement? I know a bunch of cops, and they certainly act differently – in light of their mere decades of on-the-job experience – have grown to have a healthy respect for uncertainty and act accordingly.
I’m personally alive today because of it.
Celeste –
Did we get the same training? ‘Cause it sure sounds like we’re thinking alike.
A.L.
A.L.:
OK, I’m getting something lockable. Didn’t concern me up to this point because I only had one gun, and it was always with me. And I rarely have guests and never children. But now that I have two, and need something lockable.
From a practical standpoint, however, deception may actually be better than having a “safe.” Most safes that I could probably afford could be picked up and carted off, to be dealt with at the criminal’s leisure. Also, if you see a safe you just know there’s something valuable in it, so in a sense it’s an advertisement. It may actually be better to have a fake book or something, with a cutout for the firearm to fit neatly into, and the stuck in the bookshelf. It would need to be something extremely tedious to read, like an old IBM manual (although that would look out of place nowadays, I guess). Ah, I have it: a freshman economics text!
What to do, that’s a problem. Part of me sympathizes with the “invade my castle and you’re fair game” sentiment. Again, from a practical standpoint I really don’t want to accidentally shoot a neighbor or a relative (most of them anyway). The problem, of course, comes if there’s some ambiguity and you’re in a vulnerable situation. Suppose the bell rings, I answer the door, and Charles Manson just walks into the living room with this generally friendly air. Clearly inappropriate, but rather ambiguous, because it’s not clear whether he’s nuts or a threat. I could draw my weapon, but then he’d know I have one and an accomplice might find that information useful. It’s the sorta thing that can give you nightmares. Usually, however, the circumstances aren’t that ambiguous.
As a matter of law, however, I think I’m on the other side of the issue from you. If we discuss personal ethics I’m on your side. But the fact that there are all kinds of legal definitions that vary from state to state, and even municipality to municipality suggests to me that this is one of those areas where the state probably should not interfere. From a legal standpoint, if an assailant enters your home you have the benefit of the doubt should there be a violent confrontation. No jury can convict you, no matter what the circumstances. That’s the only sort of jurisdictional consistency that makes sense to me. Otherwise you’re saying that the state is on high enough moral ground that they can make largely capricious decisions about what constitutes or doesn’t constitute a threat to you. And they can also compel you to acceded to outrageous expenses simply for defending yourself.
And in the strictly Whiggish/Classically Liberal sense, property is sovereignty. If someone takes your property they are, in a sense, taking your life. They are certainly interfering with your pursuit of happiness, which is an inalienable right. Nope, I just can’t see that the state has any justification to impose the resolution of this moral dilemma on anyone.
A.L. –
We most probably did. I always want to give someone the chance to run away; it’ll be easier on my conscience, and there’s less mess. On the other hand, while I may not take the same stance as Kim, there’s a small part of me that’s grateful that there are people who do think that way – they make breaking and entering that much scarier for criminals – and it lends weight to my own threat.