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Originally posted by showtime
Michigan recently relaxed the 'retreat rule' that said a citizen had to try and flee before using deadly force. Michigan citizens can still shoot fleeing felons even if their own life is not in danger. Cops can't.
Michigan recently relaxed the 'retreat rule' that said a citizen had to try and flee before using deadly force. Michigan citizens can still shoot fleeing felons even if their own life is not in danger. Cops can't.
Oklahoma did this a few years ago. It is "The Make My Day Law." It essentially allows Oklahoma citizens more freedom to use deadly force when their property has been invaded.
There needs be no "proof" of threat to life or limb in this state. If a maggot invades my home I have the right to kill him on the spot no questions asked.
This is the case that lead to the law to begin with. I'll post it here. More states should follow suite. If some piece of human debris has the unmitigated gall to intrude into my home I should have the unfettered right to kill him on the spot. I should not have to wait for him to threaten. I should not have to have an inquiry as to his reason for breaking into my home...before I blow a hole in him big enough to drive an XS11 through.
Here's the case that set the stage for the passing of this law in the state of Oklahoma:
How the 'Make My Day' law cut epidemic of violent burglary
By Charles Laurence
Sunday London Telegraph
At 3.30am on January 6, 1987, Dr Frank Sommer, a dentist in Tulsa, Oklahoma, woke to the sound of his garage door opening. He looked at the clock, mentally scolded his son, then 18, or his daughter 20, for getting home so late, and waited for the sound of their footsteps downstairs.
"After a few minutes, I thought that it was odd that I had heard nothing more. I took the gun from my nightstand, left my wife fast asleep and went downstairs to make sure everything was OK," he recalled yesterday.
What happened next was an experience of pure terror. As he looked through the peep-hole from the kitchen into the garage, he saw two strange men. One was pilfering from his wife's car: the other was standing at the opened door, by the tool racks.
Just as he stepped through the door to challenge the intruders, the lights went out. "It was total darkness and suddenly I was very, very scared. I fired one shot and yelled a warning. I saw one figure run off and as I went towards the driveway I saw a body in the doorway. 'Oh no!' I thought. 'He's dead.' "
In those few seconds Dr Sommer, 66, had been plunged into a case that changed the law in Oklahoma and may yet influence a change in the law in Britain. Within weeks of the incident, the Oklahoma state government passed legislation that became known as the Make My Day Law, named for the celebrated scene in the Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry film.
The law was pushed through by Sen Charles Ford, a Republican, the opposition party in the state.
"The purpose of the law is to protect the victim of crime who defends his home and his family against unlawful intrusion from any criminal prosecution or civil action," Sen Ford said last week.
"We considered it outrageous that someone who protects his home and family should suffer. Our law says you can use any force, including deadly force, to defend your home."
It has been an unqualified success. Since the Make My Day Law came into force, burglary has declined by almost half in Oklahoma. In 1987, there were 58,333 cases; in 2000, just 31,661.
While crime rates throughout America fell in the 1990s, Make My Day supporters point to a second statistic in Oklahoma they say proves the impact of the new law: while burglary rates plunged, other forms of theft stayed constant. In 1988, there were 96,418 cases, in 2000, 96,111.
Similar anti-burglar laws have now been adopted in Colorado and Arizona. The reason, said Sen Ford, was simple: "The law works. We were in the grip of a violent burglary epidemic when Dr Sommer's home was invaded.
"Over that Christmas, we had six people in their 70s and 80s killed, bludgeoned to death by burglars in their bedrooms. How were they meant to defend themselves if they could not legally resort to lethal force?" he said.
Giving householders immunity from criminal and civil action was also inspired by Dr Sommer's experience. Although he was taken to the police station and interrogated, the District Attorney read the public mood over the series of deadly burglaries and decided against charging him with the killing of the burglar, Russell Bryant, 19.
An "ambulance chaser" lawyer contacted Bryant's family and sought damages for a lifetime of lost earnings on the grounds that the killing was unlawful.
"This was outrageous and focused attention on the vague state of the law which left the victim of burglary vulnerable," said Sen Ford, 73.
Prior to the Make My Day legislation, the law, as it remains in most American states, sanctioned force in self-defence and the defence of property, but only on the basis of "reasonable" response to the violence offered by the criminal. This allows a baseball bat against a baseball bat, a knife against a knife, and a gun against a gun - although in theory the householder should allow the burglar to shoot first.
There have now been at least 11 cases where intruders have been shot dead in Oklahoma and the householders who pulled the trigger have escaped any sanction under the Make My Day law.
While Dr Sommer is a fervent supporter of the law protecting householders, he said that killing Bryant had left him into overwhelming feelings of guilt and that for years he was tormented by the thought that he had committed the "ultimate sin".
"Every time I go into that garage I think about it," he explained. "But I do not regret it. My wife and children were in our home. I am sorry that young man was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that was of his choosing."
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