Home invasions and self defense.

While researching another story I did a search for home invasions on The Tennessean web site. This is what came up since late May.

Home invasion suspect fatally wounded
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090625/NEWS03/906250342/1001/NEWS

Home invasion reported in Williamson County
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090622/COUNTY09/90622046/Home+invasion+reported+in+Williamson+County

Five suspects sought in Lascassas home invasion
http://www.tennessean.com/article/D4/20090613/NEWS01/906130302/Five+suspects+sought+in+Lascassas+home+invasion

CRIME: Police seek 3 in Hendersonville home invasion
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090609/MICRO060301/90609034/1516/CRIME++Police+seek+3+in+Hendersonville+home+invasion

Charges against Portland home invasion suspects bound over to grand jury
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090528/MICRO060101/90528089/-1/ARCHIVE01/Charges+against+Portland+home+invasion+suspects+bound+over+to+grand+jury

Murder witness charged with attempted murder in Lilly Lane case
http://www.tennessean.com/article/D4/20090602/NEWS01/90602017/Murder+witness+charged+with+attempted+murder+in+Lilly+Lane+case


All snarkiness aside, the claim has been made here that gun ownership is based in irrational fear and racism. What is the response to someone who feels they need a firearm to defend themselves and their family if home invasions are common in their community?


David

Note: these links provide plenty of data to back up the statements made in the excerpts.

1. http://www.guncite.com/journals/gun_control_wtr8512.html

Copyright © 1985 Reason Foundation. Originally published as 17 Reason 22 (Dec. 1985). Reprinted, with permission, from the December 1985 issue of Reason Magazine

author: William R. Tonso

And not his only contribution to the lovely liberal Reason Mag. Interesting to note (wiki) that he shares a Business Admin academic background with old Gary Mauser. ;)

Anyhow, basically, not a real leading light about anything in particular, far as I can tell.



2. http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/cramer.racism.html

(firearmsandliberty.com, with links to, oh, the suave Mr. Oleg Volk and his galleries of naked ladies having odd things done to their body bits with wrenches and the like ... he was banned from here, y'know?)

Copyright 1993 Clayton E. Cramer

(first we had 1995, now 1993 ...)

Seems his only claim to fame is writing things that bolster the gun militant agenda, too. Just not too sure why this kind of agenda-driven crap would be of interest to anybody who wasn't already worshipping at that church.



3. http://www.lizmichael.com/racistgc.htm

Hmm, the "Liz Michael for United States Senate" link seems to be broke ... here we go:

http://www.lizmichael.com/biograph.htm

I am a veteran of the political arena, having run for office 5 times including twice for the U.S. House of Representatives, and was the Republican nominee for State Assembly (California) in 1990 - I have also consulted many diverse campaigns. I am a registered Democrat and a philosophical Libertarian conservative.

Well! She's everybody's darling, isn't she just?!

Unless you're actually, uh, a rational person:

Religiously, I do not subscribe to organized religion and believe that 99% of them are frauds: I believe in Yaheveh the El of Israel, and believe Yeshua Nozri to be his human incarnation. Although I study what is commonly accepted to be today's Holy Bible, I acknowledge that it is not the complete word of the Elohim, that parts of it are fraudulent or in error, and that other parts of it are written by enemies of the true faith, and that its order of canon was dictated by the Beast Church. I do believe that the peoples of the United States of America constitute the modern day "Israel" of prophecy as the only nation on earth today comprising all twelve tribes of historical Israel.

Does it not get depressing, citing these revolting and really dumb sources to support your views, year after year after year?? No new stuff at all?



typo fixed

Just like those who call sexual assault misogynistic forget the misogynistic roots of sexual assault legislation in the US and everywhere else in the world.

(You do realize there is a rest of the world, and that gun control exists there, and that it has nothing to do with your own tawdry history of racism. Right?)

but could you explain mine to me?

Read www.georgiacarry.org and do a local search for the Heller brief submitted to the Supremes by Georgiacarry. An excellent summary of gun law racism. Some of our cities have decided (without a trace or irony) they can adopt Jim Crow and let him squawk around in their nests. In the words of that gun-oriented musical, "anything you can do I can do better."

Read www.georgiacarry.org

Funny in two ways!

1. That I would look to that source for anything

2. That I haven't already read all the crap to which you refer

Good one! Hahaha!

She is a black woman and she is REALLY well read on the history of using gun control as a tool for racism.
I was pretty impressed. She is a member of the NRA too( I was shocked). She has a lot of knowledge of how gun control has been sold as something it is not.
I'm going to get her some good training.

He was a "pro-gun" Democrat!

http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Spiro_Agnew.htm

In 1961, when a new county executive dropped him from the zoning board, Agnew protested vigorously and in so doing built his name recognition in the county. The following year he ran for county executive. A bitter split in the Democratic party helped make him the first Republican elected Baltimore County executive in the twentieth century. In office he established a relatively progressive record, and in 1966, when nominated as the Republican candidate for governor of Maryland, Agnew positioned himself to the left of his Democratic challenger, George Mahoney. An arch segregationist, Mahoney adopted the campaign slogan, "Your Home Is Your Castle—Protect It," which only drove liberal Democrats into Agnew's camp. Charging Mahoney with racial bigotry, Agnew captured the liberal suburbs around Washington and was elected governor.

(Bigotry was the basis of "your home is your castle", a rallying cry against housing integration.)

http://thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=1127

Mr. Agnew's victory in the general election was really decided in the bitterly disastrous 1966 Democratic primary. Baltimore contractor George Mahoney, a perennial candidate who had lost six previous governor and Senate campaigns, ran on an unmistakably pro-gun, anti-open-housing platform with the slogan, "Your home is your castle - protect it:" transparent code words against fair-housing laws. Riding a white backlash, Mr. Mahoney eked out a narrow win against seven more liberal hopefuls.

I have often wished I had saved this fine article, which has now disappeared from the net (the link is dead; I have taken these excerpts from previous posts of mine at DU):

http://www.johnjemerson.com/zizka.guns.htm

Two readers sent in more background on the relationship between Second Amendment absolutism and fear of black Americans. Reader P.M. reports on the 1966 Maryland gubenatorial race: that year, the Democratic primary was won by a Dixiecrat, George P. Mahoney, when the liberal vote was split between two different candidates. Mahoney ran on an unmistakably racist, pro-gun, anti-open-housing (pro-racial-discrimination) platform: "your home is your castle, protect it!" Sen. Tydings of Maryland was at that time an important gun-control advocate, and this was one of the first important signs of the future power (and racist roots) of the pro-gun movement, which before this time had not been a major factor in politics.

... In the South, compared to the North, vigilante killing is still considered to be a legitimate way of dealing with certain kinds of problems. A friend of mine who moved to Texas around 1985 was startled to find that almost no Texan would say anything about a murder case without first deciding whether the victim "needed killin'". ...

For most of us, the South's tolerance of vigilante murder and crimes of honor is one of the reasons why we suspect that the South is still not quite civilized. The white Southern population, insistent as it is on its right to armed self-defense, is also the most likely to use violence as a way of settling personal disputes, and it is also the most enthusiastic for the death penalty. Altogether, the South sounds like a fairly murderous sort of place.

I don't like all this very much. I know that this is a big country we live in, and that we all have to learn to get along, and so on and so forth. But it still rankles many of us low-crime Yankees*** to be forced to listen to high-crime Southerners lecturing us about guns, crime, and capital punishment. Especially nowadays, when the South has taken over all three branches of government.

The racist roots are there all right. It's just that what actually grew out of them is the "pro-gun movement".

And it's quite fascinating how none of these dissembling "racist roots of gun control" dweebs ever wants to acknowledge that history didn't actually end in the 1950s.

The gun militants organized after the events the dissemblers want everybody to think were the end of history. Let's shed a little light on that history occasionally, shall we?

But I can still use a utilitarian justification for home defense. And it in no way justifies racism.

Instead of "Your home is your castle-protect it", we can use "One has the right to be free from unjust physical attacks"...

And that one is original.

Instead of "Your home is your castle-protect it", we can use "One has the right to be free from unjust physical attacks"...

Lives there a point you can't or won't avoid?

"Your home is your castle - protect it" was the slogan of the RACIST WHITE RIGHT-WINGERS who were fighting HOUSING integration in Maryland.

They were ALSO the big-time gun militants of their day.

Get it at all?

Nothing whatsoever to do with whatever gibberish you might come up with about something else altogether.

Yeesh.

Seriously, I suggest you cool your jets before you die of overexertion.

I was merely saying that if you don't like the phrase "Your home is your castle-protect it", I completely understand due to it's racist history.

However, there is still proper justification for home defense with firearms. And you don't have to be racist to support it.

My post, and anything I said, had nothing whatsoever to do with the words in the phrase "your home is your castle". I don't know how much clearer I could make that.

"Your home is your castle" was merely a SLOGAN used by a RACIST RIGHT-WING GUN MILITANT to attract the votes of other racist right-wing gun militants.

You know -- that CODE?

NOBODY was talking about "defending" their home against invaders or attackers or Martians.

He was talking about "defending" homes against RACIAL INTEGRATION.


However, there is still proper justification for home defense with firearms.

Against INTEGRATION??


I couldn't care less about the "phrase", and nothing I have said in this regard has anything to do with "home defence", with firearms or otherwise.

It's the RACIST RIGHT-WING GUN MILITANCY I was, and still am, talking about.

The RACIST ROOTS OF THE "GUN RIGHTS" MOVEMENT.



and another typo bites the dust

How in the world does that have anything to do with a legitimate argument for gun rights?

I mean really. You come in here and run your mouth off about racist gun rights movements and you expect us to believe that you somehow don't automatically equate gun rights with racism?

Talk about being a weasel. You use word-play like a fucking champ. Good job.

Now, back up and start over, if you would.

You'll see that my post 31, to which you replied, evidently without having a clue what it was about, was a reply to post 1.

Post 1 went like this:

Those who call gun ownership racist forget
the racist roots of gun control in the US

And then my post 31 demonstrated the racist roots of the modern "gun rights" movement.

Something a little more relevant than the tacky and yellowing parchments constantly drug up around here about racists in bygone centuries. For an example, see post 3, and my reply thereto in post 30.

How are we doing?

The discussion is ABOUT the racist roots of the "gun rights" movement. You initially replied to a post of mine that ILLUSTRATED the racist roots of the "gun rights" movement.

When you get your bearings, do join the conversation in progress.

Everybody else is studiously ignoring the facts, and has every time they were pointed out, so if you keep doing it, you won't be alone.

If you choose to employ a weapon in defense of your home and loved ones, be as proficient with that
weapon as you can be. Develop the most keenly honed sense of situational awareness that you can. If
it is to be "them or you", make sure it's "them". There will never be a shortage of home invaders
or other types of criminals, but you can certainly thin the herd down from time to time. And pay no
attention to those who piss and moan about your course of action on discussion boards such as this
one. Such people would never put themselves in harms way to defend you or yours. Your survival is
up to YOU. Arm yourself. Defend yourself.

My response that person would be...
If you choose to employ a weapon in defense of your home and loved ones, be as proficient with that weapon as you can be. Develop the most keenly honed sense of situational awareness that you can. If it is to be "them or you", make sure it's "them".

Does your response actually have any EFFECT on anything?

Do people who have never heard of you commonly do what you tell them?


There will never be a shortage of home invaders or other types of criminals, but you can certainly thin the herd down from time to time.

If I think of some people the herd could use thinning of, will you jump on my bandwagon?

How about people who voted for George W Bush? They're complicit in thousands and thousands of murders. They might be a good first target. Whaddayathink?

"How about people who voted for George W Bush? They're complicit in thousands and thousands of murders."

The people in Texas who were responsible for concealed carry legislation being "shot down", which enabled junior to be in a position to become president...

They be complicit too, right?

That was one of the issues that got Ann Richards replaced by The Shrub. If he hadn't been elected
governor, he wouldn't have become president. Funny how some decisions can come back to haunt you.

The people who voted for Bush for Governor on the basis of their own pig-ignorant, pig-selfish, pig-stupid whims?

Yeah, they have a lot to answer for. You want to include them in the group wanting lining up?

"The people who voted for Bush for Governor on the basis of their own pig-ignorant, pig-selfish, pig-stupid whims?

(You may want to take a seat, until the dizziness from all that spin wears off.)



No no no. The people that empowered and enabled him to be governor, on the basis of voting against concealed carry based on their own pig-ignorant, pig-selfish, pig-stupid whims? You know...those pig-ignorant, pig-selfish, pig-stupid whims against concealed carry that were in contradiction to the fact that concealed carriers are more law abiding as a group than police are according to all available statistics?


I trust you are no longer confused, or dizzy.

Like, what ... they sat in a circle and chanted and invoked the magical mystical powers of the universe to stuff the ballot boxes for him?

Okay.

Just sashay your little old self down here to Texas and make those bad little piggys answer for their
crimes. Perhaps you could slay them all with the mighty weight of your brilliant preeminent legal
opinions. Or maybe bore them to death with a session of your patented endless, pointless yammering.
Even screech them into the hereafter with a deadly dose of shrill name calling. I await your arrival
so things can all be set right again!

Just sashay your little old self down here to Texas and make those bad little piggys answer for their crimes.

Now, was **I** suggesting that any herds needed thinning??

.... Hmm ... No. That would have been you.

Me, I just wanted to know whether you applied your principle evenly. I thought you would. I certainly thought that you'd be just as much in favour of thinning the herd of people who facilitated the commission of enormous war crimes and crimes against humanity as you are of thinning it of petty criminals.

Guess I was wrong, eh?

I've been to Texas. Enough for a lifetime. Thanks.


Perhaps you could slay them all with the mighty weight of your brilliant preeminent legal opinions. Or maybe bore them to death with a session of your patented endless, pointless yammering. Even screech them into the hereafter with a deadly dose of shrill name calling. I await your arrival so things can all be set right again!

Envious little fella, ain't ya?

Calm down now. Have a dozen beers and go shoot something. I think that's what they do in Texas.

I think that's what they do in Canada. :sarcasm:

And keep doing your thing. I really enjoy your threads (and the fact that they irritate the usual
suspects).

Did the bad old nuns beat you up again?

with lines available for copying and pasting in reply to people whom one wishes to insult, and you got the wrong one. How embarassing, eh?

Obviously if you chose to own a firearm or another form of weapon for home self defense, it's obviously a good idea to develop proficiency with it. Merely owning a weapon doesn't necessarily make one safe from a home invasion. You can read a book on a martial art or watch a video, but that doesn't guarantee that you be able to use the info you read or watched to any real effect in a real life encounter.

An intruder in to your home will quickly realize that you lack familiarity with your weapon and may decide to disarm you or perhaps kill you. In that case, you would be better off to NOT have a weapon.

But practice builds proficiency and confidence in your skills with your weapon. Facing an armed homeowner who doesn't fumble with his/her weapon but handles it in a skillful manner with confidence, may deter a home invader. The fight or flee instinct may kick in, and the intruder may decide that the best course is to flee or possibly even submit. This does happen often as posts by Fire_Medic_Dave often illustrate. (Note: many real life home invasion encounters never make the news for Fire_Medic_Dave to report on. If it bleeds it leads, otherwise it gets ignored by the media.)

Of course, the intruder may also be armed with a firearm or another weapon. The practice and the proficiency of the homeowner may make the difference if the intruder decides to fight. The skills you learn with a firearm deteriorate quickly in a real life encounter. If the homeowner has no or little skills, the chances are that he may fire his weapon multiple times and totally miss his target (even at close range).

But practice and training enhances the possibility that the homeowner may be able to use his weapon in an effective manner. He may not hit his target in the dead center of the "kill zone", but he may hit his target and stop the attack.

Of course, situational awareness is extremely important. A homeowner needs to hone this skill to determine the threat level of a person who attempts to enter his/her house. Is he merely a drunken neighbor who is confused and thinks the home owners house is his own? Is he a teenager without the smarts to figure out that someone is in the house and merely wants to steal some valuables? Every situation may be different and require different responses. Situational awareness and the ability to understand body language may prove to defuse a potential tragedy into a mere criminal incident. It's not necessary to kill every home intruder. Many are not a serious threat and can be handled in a non lethal manner. The development of situational awareness is critical to avoid unnecessary tragedy.

The advise that Fire_Medic_Dave posted is solid and important if you chose to own a weapon for self defense.

Your statement:

How about people who voted for George W Bush? They're complicit in thousands and thousands of murders. They might be a good first target. Whaddayathink?

disturbs me.

I hope your are merely using humor and sarcasm in your typical style. We, in the United States, live in a representative democracy although it may be better described as a constitutional republic. At any rate we voted Bush and his cronies out of office. Now if we try and are extremely lucky, we may be able to hold Bush and his friends accountable for their crimes.

Suggesting that people target those who voted for George Bush and his administration might be great fun to watch from Canada. However, the overwhelming majority of firearms owners in the United States prefer to work within the system to affect change, rather than murder. (There are those who all too often use religious beliefs or racism to excuse murder. Unfortunately this is a characteristic of religious extremism all over the world.)

Your statement:
How about people who voted for George W Bush? They're complicit in thousands and thousands of murders. They might be a good first target. Whaddayathink?
disturbs me. I hope your are merely using humor and sarcasm in your typical style.

Never! D'ya think?!?

It's a dry cold up here in Canada.

Well, not where I'm at, and it's a cruddy wet heat, too. But you'll get my drift.

I have of course since explained, for the truly hard of discerning, that I was inquiring whether the principle being espoused by the person whom I was addressing -- that thinning the herd of undesirables is a goooood thing -- was to be evenly applied to people he didn't like. Or maybe he likes people who are complicit in the horrific crimes committed by George W Bush. I dunno.


Suggesting that people target those who voted for George Bush and his administration might be great fun to watch from Canada.

Yeah, if only someone had suggested it.

On the other hand, it's huge fun to watch as someone suggests, constantly, that petty criminals be killed. Hence my question, and yet strangely, no answers.

This definition works for me.

Petty crime - A small crime such as minor theft, trespassing etc

The OP was discussing home invasions. In Florida a home invasion is considered a "forcible felony".

From the the 2008 Florida Statutes:



It doesn't sound like home invasion falls under the category of a petty crime in Florida.

Many other states also take a very serious view of home invasion.

For a table showing the prison terms and the fines that may be imposed for a home invasion in other states visit:
http://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0088.htm

How does the Canadian legal system deal with home invasions?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=231622

I said PETTY CRIMINAL. I said NOTHING about "home invasions".

Too bad you wasted your time there.

The original post in this thread is titled Home invasions and self defense.

You replied to a post that said,

If you choose to employ a weapon in defense of your home and loved ones, be as proficient with that weapon as you can be. Develop the most keenly honed sense of situational awareness that you can...

As part of your reply you commented about a portion of the post that read:

There will never be a shortage of home invaders or other types of criminals, but you can certainly thin the herd down from time to time.

By saying in return,

If I think of some people the herd could use thinning of, will you jump on my bandwagon?

How about people who voted for George W Bush? They're complicit in thousands and thousands of murders. They might be a good first target. Whaddayathink?

Which perked my interest as to rather you were just being humorous or sarcastic when you mentioned targeting those who voted for Bush.

Obviously, the subject under discussion was about home invasions.

The term petty criminal came up in your reply to me,

On the other hand, it's huge fun to watch as someone suggests, constantly, that petty criminals be killed. Hence my question, and yet strangely, no answers.

True, you never did say anything about home invasions. But the inference appeared to be the home invaders were petty criminals.

Sometimes you are so wily that I feel you must have a background in politics. If not, you should consider running for office. I admire your talent.

When I read your posts, I often think of the Governor in the movie, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas who loved to dance a little sidestep.

I even called up a YouTube video to watch him in action again.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Best-Little-Whorehouse-in-Texas-Dance-a-little-Sidestep

The video gave me a good laugh.

Note: no offense meant by my comments about you having been or becoming a politician. To me, politicians are fascinating to watch in action.

YOU: Suggesting that people target those who voted for George Bush and his administration might be great fun to watch from Canada.

ME: Yeah, if only someone had suggested it.
On the other hand, it's huge fun to watch as someone suggests, constantly, that petty criminals be killed. Hence my question, and yet strangely, no answers.


I had initially responded to a post that said this:

"There will never be a shortage of home invaders or other types of criminals, but you can certainly thin the herd down from time to time."

I was addressing what was actually said there. I know, I know, it's a strange concept.

What was said there was approval for "thinning the herd" of "home invaders or other types of criminals".

That is an expression and concept regularly applied around here to killing people.


I DID NOT SAY that home invaders were petty criminals. See that? If you don't, maybe you can tell you where you see that I DID say that.


Obviously, the subject under discussion was about home invasions.

Obviously, no.

The subject under discussion in MY POSTS was the comment by a particular poster that I quoted and directly addressed.

But the inference appeared to be the home invaders were petty criminals.

You can pretend that you think it was something else if you like. There's just nothing I can do about what other people pretend to think. Or infer.


When I read your posts, I often think of the Governor in the movie, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas who loved to dance a little sidestep.

When I read just about anybody's posts around here, I'm reminded of posts that one might read at numerous other places on the internet, and of course one in particular.


I guess you don't recall, but I have indeed run for office, more than once, and several thousand people have voted for me. Running where I ran for the party I ran for is pretty much a guarantee of not winning, so it was a principled action only. I did get a higher proportion of the vote than any candidate for my party before or since, anyhow. Heck, I know some RC priests who voted for me.

And one of the most important things to keep always at the front of one's mind, when one runs for office, is never to let one's message be framed by someone whose main goal is to bring about one's defeat.

unusual.

It's a shame you didn't win.

The issue in a provincial election I ran in had to do with funding RC schools. I'm opposed. But my party was for. Out of pure pandering, nothing else. I managed to avoid the issue, I think. Easy enough, since all three parties had the same position.

The problem is that we have a constitutional incoherency, and it's actually quite fascinating.

The original 1867 constitution guarantees the rights of "dissentient" school systems -- Prot in Quebec, RC in Ontario. (And never mind the 11 different religious-based school systems Newfoundland had when it joined Confederation in 1949.)

That of course made sense when the majority schools actually were religious-based -- Prot in Ontario and RC in Quebec. Obviously, for some years now, that has not been the case. The majority schools, now the public schools, are secular. The minority schools are religious. In Ontario, minority funding had always gone to grade 8. The issue was whether this should be updated to reflect modern education and go to the end of high school.

Meanwhile, we have all sorts of religious minorities now -- 1 in 10 Canadians born outside the country, remember. Fund RC schools? Well then fund Muslim and Jewish and Seventh-Day Adventist schools, too. To do otherwise is a violation of the guarantee of equality under the new 1982 constitution. (The 1867 constitution still applies; the 1982 constitution supplements it.)

Ontario has been taken to a UN human rights body and found to be in violation of international human rights instruments because we won't fund all the other minorities' schools, but still fund RC schools. Meanwhile, Quebec and Newfoundland have eliminated all religion-based schooling and have single secular systems, divided by language (English and French) rather than religion.

So we have a clash of collective and individual rights.

The right to maintain a separate school system is a collective right, recognized in 1867 to protect the religious minority from oppression and assimilation. The right to equality on the basis of religion is an individual right, which a child whose religious school is not funded when an RC school is funded is being denied.

Too obviously, the RC minority in Ontario is now in no danger whatsoever of oppression or assimilation. It's powerful and loud. The entire legal profession and judicial system where I went to law school was controlled by Irish and French Catholics. That's why the law school class ahead of me was about 6% women. The year I started, they had ousted the old dean, a misogynist creep from the Irish Catholic camp, and the class was about 30% women. Not bad for over 30 years ago.

I wonder what I'm on about. Oh yeah, electioneering. But I wanted to mention that this kind of incoherency is what you would have if there were ever a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage enacted. On the one hand a guarantee of equal protection (and constitutional doctrines that go somewhat further), on the other an express denial of equal treatment. Believe me, that is not a route to take. I hope California figures that out soon.


Anyhow, I did once get very tricky. At a community all-candidates' meeting, a "friend" of mine (my law partner actually tried to fix us up at a political breakfast one weekend; by the end of it we were spitting in each other's eyes) got up and asked whether ... I forget the specifics, I think it was whether I thought the Cdn government should send money to the Sandinistas, or some such Trotskyist noise. Yeah, great question, thanks a lot.

So I immediately launched into a paean of praise for the income tax and charitable funding systems in Canada. Me, I saved up my used postage stamps and gave them to Oxfam. Oxfam sold them, and for every dollar raised for development projects abroad, including in Nicaragua, the government matched it with $3. Same deal for the money I donated to Oxfam, matching funds. So all of us Canadians could influence foreign aid policy by doing our own thing in our own little corner.

C'mon. Tell me that wasn't good politicking. ;)



typos begone

and was indeed good "politicking".

I'm still smiling as I type this.

How does the Canadian legal system deal with home invasions?

We haven't succumbed to the gun militant agenda up here.

We don't feel the need to dress up crimes in emotion-laden terms in order to scare people into

(a) demanding that they have access to whatever firearms, whenever and wherever and however, they want

(b) voting for right-wing governments that promise to get tough on crime

We're working on that last bit, but I see it as a temporary blip.


... Oh, dog help me, I err.

http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-46.html

Aggravating circumstance — home invasion

348.1 If a person is convicted of an offence under section 98 or 98.1, subsection 279(2) or section 343, 346 or 348 in relation to a dwelling-house, the court imposing the sentence on the person shall consider as an aggravating circumstance the fact that the dwelling-house was occupied at the time of the commission of the offence and that the person, in committing the offence,

(a) knew that or was reckless as to whether the dwelling-house was occupied; and

(b) used violence or threats of violence to a person or property.

2002, c. 13, s. 15; 2008, c. 6, s. 34.

That border is just too bloody porous.

The actual offence is:

Breaking and Entering

Breaking and entering with intent, committing offence or breaking out

348. (1) Every one who

(a) breaks and enters a place with intent to commit an indictable offence therein,

(b) breaks and enters a place and commits an indictable offence therein, or

(c) breaks out of a place after
(i) committing an indictable offence therein, or
(ii) entering the place with intent to commit an indictable offence therein,

is guilty

(d) if the offence is committed in relation to a dwelling-house, of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life, and

(e) if the offence is committed in relation to a place other than a dwelling-house, of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years or of an offence punishable on summary conviction.

Nobody committing a break and enter of unoccupied premises would ever get a sentence remotely resembling "life", of course.



Edited because I had a twitch and clicked "post" when I meant to scroll ...

Canadian law doesn't view home invasion as petty crime.

That's reassuring.

That's even more fucked than I thought it would be.

In fact, it probably would be in most cases. I assure you that it likely isn't the outcome in many cases.

if the individual that committed the crime is incapable of being rehabilitated. Essentially indefinite incarceration should be reserved for those that suffer from mental illness.

That includes any crime.

Incarcerating someone for the rest of their life simply because they broke into an occupied residence is ridiculous.

I wasn't quite sure whether you thought life imprisonment was too soft.

No, there are very very few life sentences handed down in Canada. They are reserved almost, and I think I could safely say completely, exclusively for first degree (premeditated) and second degree murder.

Those two offences carry mandatory minimum periods of incarceration before parole eligibility -- I believe it's at least 15 years for first and 10 years for second.

That comes with the "faint hope" clause -- it allows an inmate to apply to a judge to be granted a jury hearing to determine whether s/he can apply to the National Parole Board for early parole. (Seriously, I didn't make that up. People here think that any old murderer can apply for early parole, though.)

The Conservative government was busy trying to revoke the faint hope clause when Parliament rose for the summer.

In fact it is already too rigid and unfair. The Latimer case is an example: he suffocated his 10-yr-old daughter who was disabled from birth, in constant serious pain, unaware of her surroundings to any noticeable extent, and was about to be subjected to yet more painful surgery that was not going to do diddly to improve her quality of life. Yes, he did "wrong", and yes, he broke the law. (His plea of necessity was rejected.) And yes, the jury had to convict on second-degree murder. But 10 years? Not exactly modern justice.

On the other hand, the vile Colin Thatcher, who committed murder for hire and had his estranged wife offed (after a failed first attempt, and years of brutality and harassment and real, serious "alienation" of their children), and has never ever acknowledged his responsibility for her death, was recently granted early day parole, I believe it was. You want politicians? He was a rich and powerful one in Alberta. A Conservative, of course. Some people get all the breaks.

Just a little local colour for the day!



typos fixed

Assuming the child was not self-aware, and I do hope that she wasn't, the killing is completely justified. At least as far as I'm concerned. But I'm a dirty utilitarian.

Sometimes breaking the law is the right thing to do. I know a lot of people argue that simply breaking a law is wrong. But they fail to realize that an unjust law is no law at all.

And that's why things like mandatory minimum sentences / mandatory parole eligibility periods are wrong.

I don't hold with no sanction at all, necessarily. There has to be recognition that a law was broken / a wrong was done. Killing is a wrong. Unless and until a society formalizes rules for "mercy killing", and applies those rules transparently and publicly, we can't accept that it is a decision that can be made and acted on privately without oversight.

But 10 years, no. That was cruel and unusual, but the Supreme Court rejected that argument. (Technically Latimer wanted a "constitutional exemption" - a determination that the provision in question was cruel and unusual and thus unconstitutional as it applied to him - but it was denied.)

If I'd shot Hitler, I would have expected to stand trial for it, and be convicted, and sentenced to some sort of punishment. I would also have expected a ticker-tape parade. ;)

The society that enabled Hitler, or that failed to give Latimer a way to legally end his daughter's misery, is what should often be on trial. But until society bites the bullet accepts its responsibility in those regards, the law is the law and it can't be overridden by private decisions. It just has to be applied humanely. And a mandatory 10 years for Latimer was far from that.

It's not fair when people on the internet turn out to be multi-faceted. You're supposed to be completely one sided, so people can decide that they can simply not have to think about the things you say.

:sarcasm:


:toast:

Beg for mercy from the felons?