Usually I say this in regards to property theft, but I’ll say it now in regards to property destruction.

Lethal force should be legal in the defense of property.

When someone shows up and starts breaking windows with a hammer, as soon as that person catches a bullet, all the other hooligans will stop.

I guarantee it.

 

 

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By J. Kb

8 thoughts on “Defense of property”
  1. Well, yeah, until the second time. Be prepared for a fight. Have cover, and lots of ammo. Maybe some friends with lots of ammo.

  2. That’s what happened to Ashli Babbitt. The fact that it was done in one case and not the other is a serious concern.

  3. The problem with killing in defense of property (beyond the basic issue that lives are worth more than property) is that it’s almost impossible to legislate the level of property threat that warrants killing. The most recent example is the guy who shot someone who mistakenly went on his driveway : https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/01/us/new-york-wrong-driveway-shooting-sentencing/index.html . A similar scenario happened to me. My wife and I were driving in the rural Tennessee mountains and got lost. We finally figured out where we were and decided to turn around. We drove into a driveway to make a three point turn, and before I could back out, a guy was coming out the door with a shotgun, pointing at the car.
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    There are a number of other examples. I have a friend who has a pond on his property. People occasionally sneak down there to fish. When he notices, he shoos them off. Should he really kill them? Should you really kill someone for shoplifting a pound of hamburger? It doesn’t pass the decency test.
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    There was a time when killing to protect property made a lot of sense in some situations. A couple hundred years ago, when many people were subsistence farmers, stealing a horse or cow or equipment or whatever didn’t just mean loss of livestock. It meant the risk of starving that winter. Back when I lived on a ranch in Oklahoma, we had a problem with “tree rustlers” who would come in at night and cut down walnut trees that my great-great-great-grandfather planted/grafted when he settled in the Choctaw Nation in the 1860s. It was infuriating, and cost us considerably, but was not life-threatening. In contrast, during the Dust Bowl years, harvesting those walnuts was one of just a couple of things the family could do that kept us from losing the ranch (the other was picking up and selling “polymetalllic nodules” that were unearthed when the soil blew away). If someone was found cutting those trees then, I have little doubt they would have simply disappeared with nothing said.
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    How do you draw the line?

    1. Actually the basic reasoning to ‘draw the line’ remains the same today as it was back in the day. A “Threat to Persons” must be present and established by the evidence in order to use force or deadly force. Today the reasoning is slightly different in that the property must be ‘inhabited’ which elevates that property from merely personal property to highly defensible property.

    2. That’s easy. Driving on a driveway and not getting out of the car, making a three point turn, doesn’t do damage and poses no threat. Getting out of the car and smashing windows does.

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