Hmmm. The article indicates a broken window, and further ‘medical and forensic evidence’. If the broken window was the point of access, it might indicate that a lot of the cuts sustained by the alleged intruder could be traced to the broken glass. That fact would change the entire scenario. It then becomes ‘much ado about nothing’.
There is a very big difference between ‘defending yourself’ and ‘deciding to take the law into your own hand and dishing out your own brand of justice and punishment’.
Doing the first is your right, doing the second is vigilante justice and almost always turns the country into ‘rule by organized crime’. Mexico is a good example of what happens when the ‘right to defend’ leads to ‘the right to impose your will regardless of the law’.
Can you elaborate on how that is the case in Mexico?
The Mexican cartel that thought they had a right to defend themselves by using a rocket against a police helicopter.
Unhinged to compare self-defence causing bodily harm to a literal terrorist organization.
My point was to demonstrate the end result of the unrestricted right to defend by any means possible. What exactly does ‘intruder’ mean? It goes both ways. If it applies to a law-abiding citizen, it applies to everyone, criminals included.
Intruder as in someone who breaks into a residence. Trespassing is not enough according to Canadian law. And Canadian law already punishes excessive force (there was a conviction regarding a case in recent years where the victim had chased the intruder and thus became a criminal themselves). So you’re literally just fear mongering
My point exactly. We do NOT have the unrestricted right to defend by any means possible, specifically to AVOID the situation I described.
Are you saying that if someone breaks into your home with apparent intent to cause harm that you can’t defend your person with whatever means necessary? I think that if someone breaks in brandishing a weapon that it should be open season.
This isn’t a case of a homeowner beating up a drunk that accidentally broke into a house thinking it was their own and fell asleep on the couch.
Is it then “open season” to capture and torture an intruder for months on end? How about a kid who loses their ball in your back yard then jumps the fence, bat in hand, to retrieve it? Still “open season”? How do we otherwise draw the lines between these examples and one where a knife is used in am act of desperation leading to the death of a violent intruder?
Try arguing in good faith.
You think my argument is not good fai to h because you’re incapable of drawing a line between excessive and reasonable force. If the law were to simply state that self defense is permissible in instances of home intrusion, how are the courts meant to differentiate? There was a case recently where someone literally woke up with a knife in their head, who managed to fight off their attacker, and send them fleeing from their property. The resident chased the intruder back to their car and proceeded to stab them to death. The courts ruled they went from being assaulted to bring the assailant and ended up guilty of murder. Do you disagree with this ruling? Do you think that any level of force is justified following an initial attack, even if that force does not end when an assailant backs off?
No. I think it’s not good faith because your argument was not in any way trying to determine what is reasonable and was instead resorting immediately to extreme edge cases.
No I do not think “any” level of force is justified.
Do I disagree with that ruling? With only the information you’ve provided, no I don’t.
I’m also not interested in adversarial debate, I’m interested in discussion. I’m not trying to win anything here, I’m trying to expand my point of view and better understand how others view the society in which we all live.
Would you then like to retract your statement that a b&e with a brandished weapon is “open season”? I definitely don’t take that as a nuanced take that is driving towards broader understanding.
Nope. If someone is inside my home and is an armed & immediate threat, I think I should be able to use whatever force necessary to protect myself and my family from that threat. If that person leaves my home, they’re no longer an immediate threat to me, are they? In the example you gave, the person that died was no longer an immediate threat.
In any case, it’s pretty clear that you aren’t interested in discussing nuance for the topic at hand, but rather “winning.” I’m done here.
Do you really want laws to be formed primarily around individual feelings of threat?
If that’s the basis of the law, if a child enters your home without permission and you feel threatened you are allowed to take any force necessary to no longer feel threatened. Using that definition you could stab an 8 year old to death and be in your legal rights.
"Open season’ has a tendency to develop into open warfare against anyone you do not like. Unrestricted ‘self defense’ is wide open to abuse, like it is in America.
Alright, so if someone breaks in to your home with a crossbow, what is the limit on your self defense?
This case makes it clear. Once the authorities determine through an investigation all of the facts, and what actually happened, and collect all the facts, they will determine if the level of self-defense was appropriate.
I’m not sure I can agree. Why did they not simply wait to get the facts before filing charges?
This guy has had to deal with the fallout of being charged/arraigned/etc. and probably had to retain a barrister. The news said that they dropped the charges due to a conviction being practically impossible. Reading the details, it sounds like there was a strong defense for the resident to claim that most of the cuts were from the home invader cutting himself up on the window he broke in through…
So the charges were not dropped because it’s ok to defend yourself, the charges were dropped because they can’t prove that this guy sliced up the home invader.
This case doesn’t do anything to show where the line is.
And yet the public gets in an outrage when known criminals get put back on the street and then re-offend, some in heinous crimes. Given his background and the number of convictions, I am sure he has his solicitor on speed dial. He was previously charged with attacking people with a baseball bat, and you want the police to believe him? Just ignore the blood, and let him go? Exactly how were the police to believe that the ‘victim’ was legitimately an intruder, and not someone the knife-wielder actually invited into his home, they got into an argument, and this guy took a knife to him? Police are not mind readers, and they are used to people lying to them. No way are they going to believe either side. Charge them, get them off the street, and let the system run its course.
Where. Is. The. Line?
That is entirely up to the courts, and the judge, to decide. This is Canada, where the Rule of Law and the decisions of the court still mean something.
But really, why be concerned about it? The chances of any Canadian ever coming close to the lie are in the vicinity of winning the lottery - one in tens of millions odds.