hile I don't advocate the complete anarchy that out and out vigilantism would bring, I do applaud individual crime victims who manage to turn the tables on their attackers.  This view is surprisingly-controversial, as you'll see by the regular reader feedback that comes in on this subject.

More recent additions are added on top of this page.

February 12, 2004

Granny's not a very good shot, but you have to applaud her enthusiasm.

RANCHO CORDOVA, Calif. - A 53-year-old woman who fired nine shots with two handguns to ward off an intruder said she tried to avoid hitting her furniture.

"Priorities, right?" said Carolyn Lisle of Rancho Cordova. "It was one of those nights. I have a few holes in my glass out front."

She emptied her first handgun as the intruder crashed through another window to escape, then retrieved a second revolver as he broke into her garage.

"I like to be prepared," she said.

She opened fire again as the intruder fled the garage and approached the house, wounding him.

Sacramento County Sheriff's Sgt. Lou Fatur said Lisle, a retired state worker who once worked as a correctional officer, won't be charged for defending herself with properly registered firearms.

You know how you never think of the one great line on time, when the moment is dangling there, like a ripe, swollen fruit?  This time someone did.

As the burglar fled, one of the men yelled, "And that's just our womenfolk!" Lisle said.

Richard Hammock, 48, died Nov. 2 from a shotgun wound. His dog had been shot with a pellet gun and he went to his neighbor’s house to confront him about the incident.

Hammock was carrying a three-foot club when he went to 33-year-old Eric Griffin’s home. The district attorney says Hammock broke out the glass on Griffin’s front door and then Griffin shot him.

Griffin was arrested for the shooting, but district attorney Al Dominguez says he can't prosecute him because of the court's interpretation of the Make My Day Law. He says he believes it was a mistake for the state Legislature to pass the law.

The law recognizes that citizens have the right to expect absolute safety within their homes. The occupant is justified in using any degree of physical force, including deadly force, against another person who makes an uninvited entry into the home and either has or might commit a crime there.

October 14, 2003

Amusing story of the "Why are they imprisoning him when he deserves a medal?" type.

The hairdresser, her assistant and "the doctor", who operated from the same premises, were reportedly overpowered and tied up before the group, all thought to be in their 20s and 30s, ransacked the apartment. Disappointed by their meagre booty, the attackers allegedly threatened to rape the two women unless they told them where the rest of their money was hidden. At this point the doctor managed to free himself, seize a knife from one of the aggressors and deliver a series of lethal stab wounds.

Investigators found the body of one man, who had been stabbed in the heart, sprawled on the staircase and another man bleeding to death in the street from a wound to his leg. A third man is recovering in hospital from a punctured lung. The doctor was found crouching in the entrance to the building with cuts to his shoulder, face and hands.

Investigators are trying to determine whether he inflicted the injuries while defending himself inside the apartment, or hunted down the burglars after they had fled.

There were four burglars, so apparently one of them got away.  I can't imagine why they are worrying about whether the victim is guilty of anything or not; when they should be hunting down the fourth criminal attacker.  In my court, if you are innocent and law-abiding and someone tries to kill you, or enters your home and ties you up and steals your shit and threatens to hurt you or your family, they deserve death. I don't care if it takes you five years to track them down and take your revenge, you are entitled to any measures you feel are necessary to teach them a lesson.

Now in this case, I could see if the "doctor" got untied and pulled a gun and the four attackers were surrendering, or trying to run, and he chased them down and gunned them down.  I mean he might have had to do that out in public, where a bullet could miss the target, or pass through one of their bodies and that would endanger innocent people.  In that case I might penalize him for unsafe handling of a firearm, or noise pollution, or something like that.

But in this case, a knife fight to the death with potentially murderous and raping attackers... he's a hero, in my world.  The four attackers were dangerous criminals, as far as he knew.  They might have killed other people during their past crimes, they might kill in future crimes, and hell, for all you know they might come back and kill you tomorrow if they escape.  A person threatens you with a weapon, you have to assume the worst case scenario, and react accordingly.

And yes, it's very easy for me to say this here, in my safe little condo with Malaya and the two kitties.  But I just hope I'd be man enough to do what had to be done to make the community a safer place, if I were ever put into that sort of situation.

October 16, 2003

Here's an interesting reader email in reply to some news item comments I made in Tuesday's blog.

I've been a reader of your blog for quite some time now (and I've sent you two e-mails, one published =)), but I'm seriously considering to stop reading. and no, it's not your donors paragraphs, they're very understandable. It's your view on people. I can understand that you are formed by the society you've grown up with, but since you've managed to fend off so many of the bad american traits, it's even sadder that you write things as you did today, october 14th. Self defense and cold-blooded murder are two entirely different things. if man A threatens man B, and man B kills man A after he's gotten the upper hand, he is no better than man A. in fact, he is worse, since man A never realised his threats. I realise that you don't share this view, and you are entitled to my opinion, but I can't really read more of your "amusing" stories, because they make me physically sick.

Well, I've never donated anyway (no income), so you'll probably not miss me anyway.

take care,
PAZ 

He's talking about the story I commented on Tuesday, where a guy was taken hostage and threatened by some home-invaders, until he broke free, grabbed one of their knives, and proceeded to chop up three of them, two fatally.  I applaud his actions, personally, and my view of home invasions and attempted murder and other such things is highly prejudical.

I personally feel that if someone threatens you with death, or tries to kill or severely injure you, they deserve anything they get in return.  I don't advocate revenge murders on pick pockets or something like that, but a violent crime that's personal, not just some guy whacking you on the back of the head in a mugging, deserves whatever he gave you, in spades.

I look at it as almost a responsibility.  Do you think the armed gang that broke into your home and raped your wife and beat your brother half to death was a spur of the moment gathering? No, they've done it before, and they'll do it again, and just because they didn't actually kill you doesn't mean they haven't killed before, or that they might move up to murder next time.  If you have the opportunity to take them out, it's not just that you can, it's that you should.  I mean isn't this basically the plot of the origin of Spider-Man, minus the personal threat element?

I don't know if this is an American belief or not; most US entertainment is about justice through the courts and honest police and all that happy shit, and that's nice, but it's far from foolproof.  Someone who breaks into your home and hurts you and robs you and threatens to kill you who ends up in the sight of your gun, (assuming that you have one; I do not since I talk a much bigger game than I walk) needs a bullet in them.  It's your civic responsibility, IMHO.

As PAZ (who I will miss as a reader, I value all of my readers and their input, especially when they disagree with me) says, "he is no better than man A."  I disagree.  Man A came into my home (or business, or whatever) and initiated the events, and threatened/hurt me or my loved ones.  He created the situation, anything bad that happens, to me or him, is his fault.  I didn't drag him into my house and put a knife in his hand. And to be honest, I don't care about being better or worse than him, in anyone's opinion.  I care about protecting people I care about (myself in particular) and secondarily, protecting other innocent people.

To make a weird analogy, it's almost like abortion.  I don't think we should abort babies that can potentially survive outside the womb, and I don't think we should go around killing unwanted children once they are born.  But I damn well support preventing them from being born, if they are unwanted and will likely have a miserable life, whether that prevention comes from not having sex or using condoms or having a legal abortion.

Similarly, I don't support killing every criminal in prison, and I strongly support rehabilitation programs and substance abuse treatment programs, and better schooling and work training for the general population to keep them from becoming criminals in the first place.  I hate the short-sighted idiotic laws that have led to the enormous US prison population and the way prisoners are just warehoused and turned loose after a few years with no improvements to their lives, things that virtually guarantee a high recidivism rate. Especially when incarceration a man costs far more than the average worker earns in a year, while job training and drug programs a fraction of that, with a 40 or 50 year pay back if you make a man honest and lawful and productive, rather than a criminal.  But at the same time that I support job training and drug rehabilitation for that coked-up guy with the knife on my front stairs once he's in prison, I want to kill him before he gets there for daring to threaten me or another innocent person.

So getting back to the analogy, this means that a violent criminal in the act is like a first trimester fetus, and it should be flushed if necessary? Um... damn.  I just knew that abortion metaphor would go down in flames.

October 20, 2003

Here's PAZ again, replying to my reply to his initial mail, which was posted in the blog last Thursday. I posted something saying I gleefully approved of a guy who attacked some home invasion people and killed three of the four invaders, and PAZ wrote in to say that he didn't agree with me and thought I was barbaric.  Here is his reply to my reply.

What I meant was American was the death punishment, which I feel is immoral and wrong and has no place in a democracy. obviously, some few million people on your side of the Atlantic disagrees =)

Talking to people that have formerly been criminals can change your perspective. people who commit evil crimes are not necessarily evil, even if the world would be much an easier place to live in had that been the case. It is of course hard to act rationally when someone has "raped your wife and beat your brother half to death", but i don't think revenge is very fruitful. and what, exactly, is the difference of killing someone before or after they end up in jail?

My impressions of the American law system is that it is more based on emotions and revenge than most other western countries. i don't have empiric evidence to back this up, but your jury system invites to such speculations; when you don't know law properly, you are more probable to rely on primitive emotions.

so, what I'm saying basically is that your law system sucks and that you should rely on it instead of making your own judgment. good, eh?

...

On the more general topic of self-defense and whether or not you should kill a violent criminal who threatens you personally, I am far more decided.  I think you should, if you can, and that he (or she, I suppose) deserves it.  If you feel your life is in danger from an attacker or someone who is menacing you, you have every right to self defense, using any means at your disposal.  This extends to protecting your property and your family and friends, within reason.  You can't shoot someone in the back if they just stole your bike and are riding away, but if someone comes at you with a weapon and demands your bike, you can do whatever the hell you want to them.  It's not a "My bike is worth more than their life." issue, it's an "I'm not letting this fucker get anywhere near me with that knife, since I can't trust him a millimeter and just because he says he wants my bike doesn't mean he's not going to cut my throat if he gets the chance."

If someone points a deadly weapon at you, especially a gun, their life is forfeit, if you can take it. I know this sounds harsh, but I'm very much a worst case scenario type of person. I am never going to assume that "he won't really hurt me" or "he's just desperate and not really violent" or anything like that.  If he has a weapon and is threatening me with it, I have to assume the worst, and that means he's going to kill me to make me do something, and even if I do it he'll probably kill me once he's got his money/car keys/whatever, just so I can't get the cops after him.

The thought of someone being punished by the legal system, in whatever way, for my murder does absolutely nothing to make me feel more merciful towards an attacker.  I don't believe in heaven or reincarnation or any sort of afterlife; this world is all I have and all I ever will have, and I'm not going to risk it by hoping some asshole with a gun pointing at me is fully in control of his trigger finger.

Of course I'm also not advocating you attack anyone who threatens you; that's just endangering yourself.  Nor do I think you should try to hunt them down for revenge, for the same reason.  You have your own life to lead and would be insane to risk it trying to do the police's job for them.  It's just that if you're being threatened and you have the opportunity to end that threat, using whatever means necessary, you should do it.

The community-improvement aspects of ridding society of a dangerous individual who has almost certainly threatened or hurt people before and will almost certainly do so again is just a bonus, a sort of brownie point for you to throw in.  Don't let it influence your judgment at the time, since getting out alive and unspoiled is your only consideration.

For another take on PAZ's first email and my reply to it, here's a mail from Ganitas.

About PAZ's email I have to agree with Flux. If someone comes into yout home and threatens the lives of you and your family you have every right to stop them, and you may kill if you must. Besides, do you really think that these people were kind, honorable individuals before this event. And consider the consequences. What if none of them were killed? THEY could have murdered the entire family. And how can you say 1 vs 3 is the upper hand? They could easily have whipped him in a gang fight. Killing one or even 2 of them would scare the other(s) off and prevent harm to the family.

Another thing about criminal handling. Most of these people (criminals) were brought up knowing no disipline or responsibility. Personally I favour much harsher punishment for criminals. Unfortunately disipline can only really be taught when young but still if people were aware of extreme punishment they might think about their actions *COUGH*.

I don't really agree with his whole Republican "criminals were raised evil and are beyond redemption" since as I said in my first reply to PAZ, I think the real focus of our anti-crime efforts needs to be in better education, job training for minor criminals, substance abuse assistance for society in general, etc.  I'm very liberal on the whole "go after the roots of the problem" issue, and idealistic enough to think that intelligent, concerted legislative effort could greatly improve the plight of the vast numbers of poor and desperate people in American society.  It's the ones who would still choose to be criminals and murderers even if they had other options who I think should be punished most harshly.

I didn't address the whole "capital punishment as a deterrent" issue above, since it's way too complicated. I've seen studies proving that the murder rate goes down or is lower when there is capital punishment in an area, and others showing that there is no effect.  I don't know if there is a definitive answer to that issue.  It is pretty clear that most of the Western world has a far lower crime and murder rate than the US, and that virtually all of the Western world has no death penalty, while the US does, so it's obviously not any sort of panacea for the problems it's meant to address.

My human insight shoots that issue down as well, since does anyone seriously think that a person planning a murder thinks, "I wouldn't do this if there were capital punishment, but since I'll just get life w/o possibility of parole I will."  I mean really; it's an absurd argument.  People who murder do it in a moment of fury or passion, or else cold-bloodedly, when they think they'll get away with it.  No one plans to get arrested and convicted of the crime, or they wouldn't do it at all, or would do it in another way that they thought they could get away with.

August 31, 2002

Okay, so this is a complicated one. Two guys found out that one of their neighbors had been molesting and sodomizing his 7 and 10 year old nephews.  They broke into his house, beat him up, stripped him naked, and then heated a metal spatula and repeatedly branded his ass and genitals with it.

Gibson suffered first, second and third degree burns and was hospitalised for three weeks. In June 2001, he was convicted of sexually assaulting the two boys, and is serving an eight to 40-year prison sentence.

You may well think that they should have finished the job with a rusty pair of scissors. Their defense was that they were provoked by the horrible news, they had to get at the guy, and he deserved it.  That might go over better if they weren't both already serving long sentences for other crimes!

Evans is already serving a two to 40-year sentence after being arrested and convicted for drug delivery several months following his assault on Gibson. Grant's sentence will be added to that. His co-defendant Dewon Williams, 21, is also in prison, serving a life sentence for an unrelated murder he committed several months after his attack on Gibson.

So did their vigilante justice scar their psyches and set them onto the criminal path, or what?  They both got 19 months tacked onto their current sentences.

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