DEAD RIGHT, AMERICA!
IT’S not often that I praise the laws of God Bless America, but the fattest nation on earth have got at least one thing right.
If a lowlife breaks into your home, you are free to play The Terminator and save the cost of keeping him behind bars for a few years. (We’re talking heavy-handed Yanks here, not namby-pamby British wimps who’d send the villain on a luxury cruise on the QE2).
I’ve always been against free public ownership of firearms and America is testimony why. The evidence is overwhelming - countless massacres by nutters who can walk into a shop and buy a lethal weapon over the counter. That’s as mad as the archaic UK law that allows a homeowner only to use ‘‘reasonable force’’ to deter an intruder.
The fact the scumbag is trying to bludgeon you to death is merely coincidental. Just take your punishment like a good victim and the government will see you get a nice funeral.
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Alan Duncan: Support for victims
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I am told that Spain, surprisingly, has similar laws to the UK when it comes to burglars. Guardia officers from Guardamar advised members of my local Neighbourhood Watch this week NOT to take on robbers because the law favours them rather than their victims.
Just as it seems to have done with the Leicestershire couple arrested this week for firing a gun at four men who broke into their home in the middle of the night.
One of the villains called an ambulance, another went to hospital (nothing trivial, I hope) – and the husband and wife were arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm.
Although the intruders face prosecution for aggravated burglary, local MP Alan Duncan, a government minister, said: "The householder is the victim here and justice should support them and prosecute the burglars."
Problem is that Duncan and his cronies – the people who make the laws of the land – have yet to change the archaic legislation that burglars can treat their victims as if they were BBC TV’s Mrs Brown doing a head-hitter’s job on Grandad with her frying pan. Talk about a pain in the feck!
When TKO Radio disc jockey Rachel Angus confronted an intruder wearing a balaclava in her living room here on the Costa Blanca recently, the villain was probably more frightened than she was.
But had he moved menacingly towards her, what was she supposed to do? Leaf swiftly through the law books for an explanation of ‘reasonable force’ before he landed the first blow?
No, she should have whacked him over the head with any available ‘weapon’ – and if it killed him, tough.
Fortunately, I suspect the joke they call political correctness (and which chokes anti-crime activity in the UK) is not always respected in Spanish Guardia circles – particularly when they catch these scumbags in the act.
A friend once asked an officer what she should do if she and her husband ever cornered an intruder.
“Just put him face down in the nearest river - we won’t be rushing to find him,’’ was the Guardia man’s reported answer.