07 Aug 2006
15 States Expand Right to Shoot in Self-Defense

This is reported as though it were a Bad Thing™. To me, on the other hand, it's one of the few things government at any level has done right in the past few years.

Of course, the paper breaks out some rather extreme anecdotes - the one with the taxi driver is particularly lurid.

But if somebody breaks into my house at 3am, I'm not going to make a reasonable effort to ascertain if they're armed or not, or if they're threatening my family, or "merely" my property. We might be nice and give them a warning shot before going into combat mode, but if I were a burglar I wouldn't count on it.

New laws allow crime victims to use deadly force in situations that might formerly have subjected them to murder charges.

(link) [New York Times]

08:39 /Politics | 3 comments | permanent link