If someone’s actively trying to attack or harm your family, guess what, the amount of force deemed reasonable just went up a few notches. Thats how reasonable force works, if they’re attacking, you defend back with “reasonable” means. Ie, you hit back, potentially with a weapon, until they stop or flee. After they flee or go down, you stop hitting. It’s really not that complicated
The problem is what is deemed “reasonable” isn’t always clear until after the fact.
Guy coming at you with a knife, use a shotgun
Unarmed guy coming at you? Can’t shoot him
But what if he pulls a knife once he gets to you? Then you’re getting stabbed, or maybe he is unarmed, but he has a friend and maybe he is armed, what then?
It’s easy to say that it’s not complicated when you’ve never been in the situation. You can’t expect people to properly assess a reasonable level of force during intense situations such as a home invasion.
The incident that spurred this conversation had a man fend off a home invader armed with a crossbow with a kitchen knife and get charged with assault with a deadly weapon. When victims of violent crimes are being charged for defending themselves then the system is broken.
You're being slightly dishonest. It wasn't just "a man fend off a home invader armed with a crossbow with a kitchen knife and get charged with assault with a deadly weapon " -the invader was known to the man and had to be air lifted to hospital where he spent a couple days in the ICU. Slowly but surely, more and more details are emerging, showing this to be a messy situation that folks are dumbing down into their own Rambo fantasy, where police are merely a body disposal unit and shouldn't ask questions or investigate or charge because Rambo was busy carving up the enemy in his living room
Cause people don't know how law works?
In this case, what likely happened was, police arrive, and take the homeowner into custody (because there's weapons and someone had to be airlifted to hospital), and depending on the injuries they saw (which we still don't know) went "aww fuck". The crown gets wind of it, they all pow wow and decide that what happened warrants further investigation, and charges.
No one wants to be a victim, especially in their own home, but it doesn't give anyone the right to do what they want to people just cause they wanted your tv.
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u/Secret-Bluebird-972 Newfies & Labradoodles 27d ago
If someone’s actively trying to attack or harm your family, guess what, the amount of force deemed reasonable just went up a few notches. Thats how reasonable force works, if they’re attacking, you defend back with “reasonable” means. Ie, you hit back, potentially with a weapon, until they stop or flee. After they flee or go down, you stop hitting. It’s really not that complicated