I believe that there is a waiver that eliminates this liability for those retreaters in NY, but it's not often signed as you might imagine.

Finding a notary this quickly is also quite a problem.

Just make sure the "intruder" isn't really an unarmed 16 year old Japanese exchange student showing up at the wrong house for a Halloween party.

You can Google "Yoshihiro Hattori" if you have forgotten, and want to see why these restrictions exist today.

This isnt the official account of the incident but provides more details.

Yoshihiro Hattori - answers.com

I would guess that having all these circumstances happen all at the same time would be extremely rare.

Tragic? Of course. Common? I would think not.

What might you think?

"As ringing the doorbell[2] did not provide an answer, Hattori and Haymaker started moving towards the carport door on the side of the house to find the party entrance. Inside the house, however, Mrs. Bonnie Peairs had answered the door, only by this time meeting nothing but an empty yard. Alerted, she also looked through the carport door. Realizing two strangers were moving on her property and approaching in a hasty manner, Mrs. Peairs, startled, backed up inside the house, locking the door, and then ran to tell her husband to "get the gun". Hattori and Haymaker were still pondering the situation, when the carport door was opened again, this time by Mr. Peairs who was armed with a stainless steel revolver. Noticing someone appear in the doorway, Hattori ran towards him saying "We're here for the party" in broken English, unaware of the imminent danger. Haymaker, seeing the weapon, shouted after Hattori, but his warning was either not heard, or was misunderstood during the short time the event unfolded. (Kernodle 2002; Fujio 2004; Harper n.d.) - this paragraph to be updated -"

It is these rare circumstances that create the legislation of retreat.

They are hardly that recent; the legal principles are much older than the Hattori case.

That said, many justification statutes include a "reasonable belief" provision; if if it turns out that you were not in danger, your use of deadly force is viewed as justified if you reasonably beleived you were.

This is where the "judged by twelve vs. carried by six" decision comes into play. (c.f. the "naked drunk" case I cited in another Cellar thread back in 2001)

The Hattori incident was one of the straws that broke the camel's back and caused the government to pass the Brady Bill.

If an industry appears to have problems and doesn't police itself, the government steps in to police it. The perception in the early 90's was that gun owners were a bunch of irresponsible nuts who needed to be told how to handle their guns safely. Doesn't matter if it was true or not, that was the perception of many (possibly most) americans back then. As a result, you had restrictions placed on gun ownership. Same principle applies to many industries. Right now it's the FCC against TV nudity.

Of course glatt.

Of course, the connection between "gun safety" and anything in Brady is tenuous at best.. "Gun safety" is the latest code word for gun prohibition...because the euphemism "gun control" has been used up.

http://www.clintongunban.com/

Kind of like how "liberal" has been replaced with "progressive".

Hm. The reason I advocate for the second amendment? I don't want the King of England coming over here and shoving me around. Plus, without guns there would be no Forensic Files or CourtTeeVee.

Sure there would...but the ballistic evidence might be replaced with stab wound patterns, tox screens, and trace evidence on Blunt Instruments (tm) . There's a fair amount of that already anyway.

In any event, "without guns" isn't one of the options. There's only "without legally-owned guns".

It's happened again. Not in our part of town, but still:

<a href="http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3747765.html">Hoist upon his own petard</a>

Heck, in some places the robbery suspects are police officers.

WOW! What a bizarre story! I wonder if they would have killed the restaurant employees if they had just handed over the money? That woman doesn't sound like the smartest cookie in the box. She could have used her police force position to pull off more clever stuff than that and with much less chance of getting caught. Probably tanked up on drugs. I liked the part where they found her father's skull buried on her premises. That was a nice touch. Sometimes, I think I should become a true crime writer - Ann Rule's gotta retire sometime! The stuff that happens in real life is better than anything Stephen King dreams up. :eek:

Recently in the St. Louis area (E. St. Louis, IL), an elderly woman blew away an intruder who was trying to break into her house. She was not charged with any crime. I'm not sure if IL allows you to use deadly force against an intruder. MO does not...it's been the subject of recent debate in the legislature.

Incidents like the Hattori one are few and far between. If some motherfucker tries to break into my house or come at me, I should be able to whoop his ass without repercussions.

A friend of mine used to live in Florida, kinda out in the boondocks. There was a swamp near his property, I know that much. At one point some rapist got loose in the area, and the police told his mother that if she sees him, shoot him and drag him into the house.