The Telegraph Keeps Up the Pressure

Today's op-ed in the Sunday Telegraph keeps the pressure on Parliament to "to grant home owners an unqualified legal right to fight back against burglars who invade their property". Check it out:

The people have spoken
(Filed: 07/11/2004)

Our campaign to grant home owners an unqualified legal right to fight back against burglars who invade their property has struck a chord with politicians. The Home Secretary has accepted the need for a "rebalancing of the law" in favour of home owners, as has the leader of the Opposition.

Err, no. I imagine they've both made noises to that effect, but neither has introduced any legislation to accomplish it. I'm sure "more study is needed" or "such legislation is under consideration."

Both, however, have equivocated on whether a wholly fresh law is needed. Yet the response of the public has been markedly less ambivalent than that of the politicians. When tackling an intruder under the existing law, an individual, if he wants to escape prosecution or a civil suit from the burglar, can only use what the police and the Crown Prosecution Service deem to be "reasonable force". The people of Britain do not want a "rebalancing" of that law. As our poll today shows, an overwhelming majority of people believe that the current law is completely inadequate. They believe that householders should have the unqualified right to use force against an intruder in their homes.

This is not a party political issue, or one that appeals only to so-called "Right-wingers". Support for a change in favour of home owners cuts across the political spectrum. People between 18 and 24 years old are as enthusiastic about restoring rights to home owners as are people aged over 65. Poorer citizens show as much, if not more, commitment to the right to fight back than their richer neighbours.

Yet the politicians, normally so sensitive to issues with great popular support, seem curiously reluctant to do anything about this one. The promises of reports and of commissions of inquiry are a familiar indication of a determination to talk endlessly about the matter while doing absolutely nothing. Although that pattern has become only too familiar from Labour on law and order issues, it would be worrying if the Conservatives adopted the same approach.

Color me surprised. (Not.) As I said, the State has taken control of the legitimate use of force, and it's not going to give that power up willingly.

It is also not easy to understand the reasons for the reluctance to change the law. In defence of the status quo, it is claimed that it is the job of the police, not the individual citizen, to maintain public order. That would be fine as a justification if there were any evidence that the police could actually perform that role - but of course, they cannot do so, and they never have been able to. It is not just that their response times are often pitifully slow, or that they are frequently so concerned about ensuring that they protect their own officers that they fail to intervene even when they arrive at the scene of a violent crime; it is also that it is impossible for any police force, even one in a police state, to control the lives of the citizens sufficiently to prevent the commission of all violent crimes.

As I pointed out in Is the Government Responsible for Your Protection? quite a while back. But it seems to have taken quite a while for the Brits to fully grasp this fact. Not surprisingly, though, because a lot of Americans don't get it either.

And the State likes it that way.

As long as individuals are left with any degree of freedom at all, some will choose to commit burglary and other violent crimes. It is the politics of fantasy to suppose that it is possible for the police to prevent that from happening - but it is the politics of folly to base the criminal law on that fantastic supposition.

Which pretty much describes British criminal law legislation since, oh, about 1950.

The police jealously guard what they conceive to be their monopoly of the legitimate use of force. It produces the absurd situation we saw last week, when officers entitled to carry guns in London handed in their weapons because two of their number were suspended for shooting dead an unarmed man going about his lawful business. If an ordinary citizen did such a thing, the police would be the first to insist that he should be tried for murder. We do not suggest the two police officers should be prosecuted: we only call for parity between the police and the people. If the police are entitled, when they believe their lives are threatened, to take lethally offensive action, then so should home owners.

Halleluja! They're even using the words I've been using for the last ten freaking years!

Politicians and lawyers also say that any change to the law that explicitly entitles home owners to tackle intruders will lead to more innocent people being accidentally killed or hurt. That is a genuine risk. But that risk has to be weighed against the certainty that there will be fewer burglaries if burglars know that home owners are free to take action against them.

YES! And they will be shocked, shocked to learn that "more innocent people" won't be accidentally killed or hurt, just as concealed-carry opponents are shocked to find out that "wild-West shootouts" don't occur and blood doesn't "run in the streets" after shall-issue CCW passes. But crime goes down.

As we reported last week, when the American state of Oklahoma introduced a law permitting home-owners to take whatever action they believed to be necessary to defend themselves against intruders, the number of burglaries fell by almost half. That fall meant that many thousands of people were not intimidated, terrified and hurt by intruders. It also meant that many escaped being seriously injured or even killed by them. If the protection of innocent life is the central issue - as we believe it is - then a change in the law to allow home-owners to tackle burglars is the most effective, reasonable step to take.

YES, YES, YES!

The people of Britain wish to live in a less violent society, and one in which the weak have some protection against the violence of the strong. Changing the law on self-defence is an essential step in producing that result. It is a matter of urgency: the present lack of clarity in the notion of "reasonable force" leads not only to unjust prosecutions, but to more people being victims of violent crime. That is why we advocate changing the law. We hope our elected leaders will have the courage to implement a change that is both morally and politically necessary.

Keep hammering at them. In any kind of representative government, the only thing that gets their attention is the blinding spotlight of public scrutiny.

Hell might just be getting a touch cooler.