Honestly I would defend myself first and then sort the legal shit out later. You can’t be thinking about legal or not while defending yourself or you won’t make it.
Yes and as long as you’re not torturing the person or beating the shit out of them after they’re unconscious you won’t be sentenced, that’s exactly how things work now.
We don’t have all of the facts in this case, and if this person ends up facing punishment I’m sure we’ll find out that it was more than simple self defense.
Unless you can point to examples where that hasn’t been the case?
I am not sure how I would react myself. It depends a bit on what’s happening. I might not be able to reign myself in to be honest. But as I said I would deal with the consequences after. Hesitation will kill you.
That’s fine. The law allows for that. If someone tries to beat the shit out of you and you defend yourself, you’re in the clear.
Examples where people get charged are things like the guy who saw someone going through his truck and shot him, or the guy who chased after a fleeing burglar, dragged him back into the house and beat him unconscious. Those are both real examples, and in both cases they clearly went beyond self defense.
We don’t know the facts in this particular case, but it’s very likely going to turn out to be some similar set of circumstances.
Those examples make total sense. That’s way beyond self defense.
IMO if you can’t control yourself and continue to harm the person once they’re no longer a threat then you are a dangerous person and would deserve to face justice.
There is a lot of information and nuance in this that article that we’re not getting that could make this a good or a bad call.
You definitely don’t want a home occupant to be allowed to open fire indiscriminately in the back of someone who set foot on their property and then turned around to run away the moment they realized the occupants were still home like you see in the States. Or even worse, people who use the self-defence law as an excuse to shoot some kid who went in their yard to recover their ball.
But on the other hand, you don’t want to make it too complicated or restrictive either. There are a lot of unknowns in a situation like this. Is the intruder armed? Is the intruder alone? How well can they fight? These are often questions you will only know the answers of in hindsight, long after the time at which a critical decision had to be made. If someone breaks into someone’s house and does not turn around to run away the moment the occupant(s) make their presence known to the intruder, I can’t think of many more hurdles we should put in their way of defending themselves.
IMO if they don’t turn and run, it’s now a life threatening situation.
Had a drunk dude run into my garage a few weeks back. He was covered in blood because he had just been in a fight and was fleeing.
He stumbled into my garage, putting blood on the gate and door (door should have been locked, but my MIL sometimes forgets.
I of course grabbed a mallet from the toolbox after hearing crashing in the garage and seeing a dark figure opening the door swiftly on the camera. Wife was already calling the cops, but as soon as I opened the door I could tell the dude was just drunk and couldn’t stand properly. He was crying and lost. I tried to talk to him (putting down the mallet of course), but he ran back out the door, stumbling through my bush and off into the street somewhere. He apparently tried to get into the neighbors yard too, damaging their gate.
He came back like 2 days later to apologise lol.
In America he probably would have been shot.
Doesn’t work in Canada because the person could be lost or confused (drunk) but if they aren’t approaching the occupants of the house or disturbing property then the resident can not legally use lethal force.
That’s how you catch a charge in Canada. You only have the right to self-defense if you are being actively assaulted (legally speaking, being violently threatened or harmed). Further, the force used must basically be equal to the threat, and while interpreting that can be complex, it’s completely reasonable.
It is more nuanced than that. I does not necessarily have to be equal to the threat, but must be the minimum means required to stop the attack that is available to you at the time.
So if someone runs at you with a knife and all you have is a gun, you’re not expected to drop the gun and start looking for a knife to defend yourself with. But if someone who is half your size comes at your bare handed, you shouldn’t need to do much more than use measured open handed techniques like pushing them away. Someone this much smaller isn’t much of a threat and there is no need to pummel that person into a paste to stop their attract. Your actions shouldb also immediately stop as soon as the threat is no longer active and you absolutely shouldn’t be allowed to use it as an excuse to cause unnecessary harm.
If I was on a jury, I would judge a homeowner using a bullet from a gun against an intruder “reasonable”
It can be very difficult to determine what is reasonable force during a life threatening situation where you may only have a few seconds to make a decision. If its 3 am, someone has broken into your house, and they are armed and threatening what is a reasonable response? This could depend on many factors, if you live alone it could be reasonable to flee if you believe you are fit enough. If the intruder is next your childs door and about the enter their room while armed, you could be seconds away from a hostage situation or worse.
The idea that we have to match the force of the intruder is a little absurd in my opinion. Once a valid threat has been identified, anything that incapacitates them should be reasonable. The issue is that incapaciting is easier said than done. Some people can get shot several times and get lucky where all the important stuff is missed, others die to one shot center mass. IMO its reasonable to aim center mass in a threatening situation because it is most likely to land a hit, especially if the intruder is moving erratically and attempting to close the distance between you or a family member. Most of us aren’t John Wick and cant just reliably hit the intruder in the foot or shoot a knife out of their hand.
“Match the force” is extremely broad. If someone tries to beat the shit out of you with their bare hands, and you defend yourself with a baseball bat, that’s almost certainly going to be kosher. It doesn’t have to be exact.
Failing to use proportional force has to be really egregious to meet the standard. Something like shooting someone who was twenty paces away from you and armed only with a tire iron (even then you might still have a case). That’s a situation where any reasonable person could have defused the situation by just telling the other guy to fuck off, or get down on their knees with their hands behind their head. And even then, you’d probably still be OK to shoot if, say, they lunged at you (check with a lawyer before putting this advice into practice, obviously).
Basically, if you can make the case that what you did was necessary for your own safety, you’re in the clear.
The other stuff that gets people jacked up is continuing to “fight back” after the threat is over. You hit a guy with a baseball bat, he goes down… Yeah, that’s probably kosher. If you were afraid for your life, well, you did what you had to. But if you then proceed to beat the guy until his skull shatters… Well, what part of that was necessary?
No one has to think through the tests described in the law, because those tests simply exist to define what everyone can already intuitively understand as being reasonable behaviours. You defended yourself? OK. You hunted the guy down and tortured him? Not OK. This isn’t complicated, and it’s not difficult. You just have to exercise a modicum of self-restraint. And the cops look very, very favourably on people who were defending themselves, unless there was clear evidence that they either majorly crossed a line, or they were actively looking for trouble (ie, walking around armed for a fight).
If its 3 am, someone has broken into your house, and they are armed and threatening what is a reasonable response?
Stop hitting them after they’re on the floor and not moving would seem to be a reasonable line.
It’s an interesting line to take. Depending on your condition , filled with adrenaline , making sure they stay down could be quite reasonable.
You and everyone with the same knee jerk response are fighting straw men. Read the article.
I have read the article. It doesn’t really clear up what reasonable force is, basically reinforcing it is a case by case situation. The closest thing to clearing up what reasonable force is the following quote,
There are nine factors, which include things like the nature of the threat, whether there were other means to respond to it, whether someone used or threatened to use a weapon, and the size, age and gender of the people involved.
Let me just consider 9 different factors while trying to decide how best to protect myself groggy at 3 am while an intruder is still threatening me.
Do you worry about committing vehicular manslaughter every time you get in your car? Or do you just drive safely?
The article states that judges often side with the person defending themselves, and it’s completely reasonable to have limits on what you can do to someone who is an intruder.
I’m glad we value human life unlike the barbaric laws and culture that allow people to kill children for knocking on the wrong door down south.
You’re panicking over some bullshit misrepresentation of the situation. I bet you’re also one of those who whine about how soft we are on criminals in Canada… Yeah I bet this guy used appropriate force and will go away for a looong time, right?
Why don’t you let the case play out and the facts emerge before having an opinion?
My opinion is on the basis of reasonable force and what that really means in an emergency situation where you have mere seconds to make important decisons. Nothing I’ve mentioned in either of my comments are case specific to this case or implying i want to murder people.
If you’re not talking about this case and can’t point to any examples where someone has been sentenced for self defense while acting in a way that you and I would consider reasonable then your opinion is not relevant.
All you’re doing is spreading the idea that there’s something wrong with our self defense laws, that they’re too strict. If you wanna back down on that and say you were just making a pointless unrelated comment then be my guest
