I’ll try to dig up the story when I have time. If I recall correctly, the guy got in a tussle with the armed intruder, and ended up choking him out (seems pretty reasonable), but the burglar ended up dead…I think he had health issues of some sort.
When it’s in the middle of the night and somebody breaks in, how long do you want to wait to find out if he’s just stealing your tv or if he was planning to slit your throat whilst you sleep?
You shoot that unarmed kid, bet he’ll think twice about breaking into somebody else’s home and stealing their stuff.
Of course you’ll want to make sure it’s an actual break-in/burgler and not shoot your girlfriend who was in the bathroom.
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I think most people who want to defend their homes would agree with that.
Of course, it depends on the circumstances. If you genuinely felt like your life was in danger, it might very well be that its warranted you use deadly force(e.g. your situation where its dark, you wake up to some odd sound in the kitchen, you do not really know whats going on, etc.)
But, obviously the situation is very different if its in the middle of the day, your front door is locked, and you see from your balcony which is on the second floor that some fat kid with pimples is on your driveway and trying to steal your scooter.
I’d shoot him in both legs and put a large piece of chocolate cake just out of his reach to keep him busy while we waited for the cops.
What I’d like to know is if there are some guidelines to follow or if at the end of the day it’s all in the hands of a judge to decide if the use of force was justified or not, excessive or not etc etc.
Thinking about our Scrabble-name bro, if I see a guy sexually harassing or being violent with a girl and I intervene:
a) I push him away: is it ok?
b) I punch him and break his nose: is it ok?
c) I punch him, break his nose, he stumbles because he forgets how to fall, hits the pavement with the head and dies/goes into coma: dafuq?
Between option a) and actually decapitating the guy (since it was mentioned earlier) there are many other possibilities, and I’m wondering if they’re somehow clarified by the legal system in Taiwan or if these situations have to be interpreted and judged case by case.
You forgot option d):
Feed him milk and cookies and give him a lecture about the dangers of toxic masculinity.
I was expecting that to be closer to option m) !
That’s actually a good question and something I’ve wondered about myself.
I intervened outside a night club when I saw two guys beating up on a third who was unable to defend himself. I just grabbed the two and held them against the wall while explaining to them that if it was one on one I’d let it slide.
Nothing came of it, they calmed down and let the guy go. The two guys ended up buying me and my friends beers from the 7-11 next door.
But, it could have gone a different direction very easily and I know it was pretty stupid on my part, but I’ve always had a soft spot for the underdog or somebody getting bullied.
Wow, that’s seriously risky behavior. I definitely wouldn’t try that one again. People end up dead or worse for stuff like this. Taking on two or three may be no problem, but that can quickly turn into ten with baseball bats.
It was ok, I had a full set of beer muscles on!
I definitely wouldn’t do it outside a club in Taipei or Taichung, but this was Search in Zhongli. Mostly just college kids there.
And you’re right, I don’t see myself ever trying that again.
Zhongli is like gangster central. Stay safe man.
You can do the minimum necessary to stop his behaviour, so basically in your scenario start by telling him to piss off, and if thats whats required then your job is done. If he starts getting violent with you, you can defend yourself to the extent that is required. It all depends on the circumstances, and its not up to the judge just based on what he had for breakfast but what is reasonable. These issues quite seldom are controversial, i.e. its seldom that a judgment differs a lot from what most people(in developed countries ex. usa) find reasonable, except for when scenario c) happens.
Scenario c) is the eggshell skull, basically you cannot use as your defence that the that the guy you punched was super fragile. You take your victims as they come, if your “victim” happened to be far more fragile than the average person, tough luck.
While that sounds reasonable to me, unfortunately it doesn’t always apply because I can recall many examples, especially in the EU, of people entering someone’s house for stealing stuff, getting caught, suffering minor injuries and ending up receiving compensations from the home owner.
I’m not particularly worried about house-related issues because, as already mentioned above, plenty of rivers and creeks in my area (all allegedly / in theory / hypothetically etc etc).
I read the whole eggshell skull link and found it quite amusing.
Although I am not sure what specific cases you are referring to with perps getting minor injuries, and then being rewarded compensation, there is a case in Northern Europe currently in which the owner of the property is on trial for manslaughter of someone trespassing getting killed.
The issue in question concerns a ski jump which was on private property, and the owner was generally aware that the kids in the neighbourhood go there in the evenings to snowboard etc. He put up signs telling its private property etc., but it didn’t help. So, what the guy did was pull a thin metal wire(metal so it can’t be cut) over the ski jump, and place signs at the top of the hill that say dont jump, dangerous or something to that effect.
Anyway, the kids ignored the signs as they didn’t know there was this metal wire, and one kid lost his head.
So my point is, if you got some crazy shit on your property and someone enters, you might be in trouble if someone who is not supposed to be there gets hurt.