Get off my property

[Isaac]

We are on a 10 days holidays here.
Me and some friends are sitting in a camping site talking nonsense and someone shows us this news on TikTak.
Now everyone is on fire and fighting, but none of us has a clue what the correct answer is, because none of us has been living in US ever.
So this is the question we are fighting on:

Someone rushes to your yard and start shouting at you and your family, complaining about something.
You warn the intruder to get out of your property (Can we call him an intruder? because he's just standing there and shouting)
But he doesn't follow your order.
You have warned him three times and he doesn't follow. According to law, are you allowed to shoot him or not?

We are not talking about having gun is good or bad. or the legality of gun or comparing other countries to US.
We just need to know what the actual law is.

Thank you.

Of course not. You can only use deadly force if you think you need it to protect your life.

If someone forces their way INSIDE your home, in most places in the United States, you are pretty safe to go ahead and shoot them (seems logical, right?) Unless there is some other context present that would further explain the situation.

However, if they are OUTSIDE your home, and just an unwanted pest, then your life isn't in danger (yet), so you can't use deadly force (yet).

I don't know why other parts of the world think this is so strange. Why would we require home residents to watch someone jumping through a window and "require" the resident to just sit there until they are clobbered to death with a baseball bat. But of COURSE you can defend your life, are there really places you cannot?? That is the question ... and why?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

When the person who causes you fear is inside your home and still advancing, they are a fair target. If you shoot but fail to kill, then your choice depends on whether that shot caused them to retreat. In general, perpetrators in retreat are presumed to no longer be a threat. Perpetrators who still advance after the first shot are fair game for round #2.

When the person is outside but on your property and advancing towards you, the same rule still applies but it would be better if they have any kind of object that could be used as a weapon while they advance.

When you are on a public street, the threat needs to be clear and present.

Note that you are allowed to protect yourself but you can also protect a family member and you can protect a friend who was allowed on your property or in your home. The question becomes muddy if the person you are attempting to protect is a total stranger.

 

[Grumm]

As to California and whether they are part of the USA or not...

What is not fully appreciated by a lot of Europeans - but I'll bet the EU will eventually bring them to appreciate it more - is that the USA both is and is not a country. Is the EU a country? The USA is a group of states that have intertwined much - but not all - of their governments and businesses. There is this "thing" called "states' rights" in our constitution that expressly sets aside certain actions for the federal government and defines other rights as belonging to individuals. Federal rights include coining money, managing diplomatic relations, and regulating commerce among the various states. There is a middle ground in which each member state of the USA can set its own local laws and can choose the ways in which it wants to different from other states.

California has chosen to be a very liberal state in the political sense of the word liberal. Other states, Florida and Texas for example, have chosen to be more politically conservative. This means that state-sponsored welfare issues will differ from state to state. Some states have the death penalty on the books as punishment for premeditated murder, others don't have the death penalty. Some states have legalized marijuana at least for medical issues. Others take a harder stance against it.

If our non-USA friends find our politics confusing, welcome to the club. We USA folks have a hard time keeping up with things right now. One of our biggest game-changers is currently playing its way through our courts because of a simple decision by our Supreme Court and having to do with gun ownership laws. At least 20 different cases are pending that would strip away gun ownership restrictions from the state level and re-assert that the laws are governed at the federal level. So in an earlier question about gun ownership, I said the dust hadn't settled yet. A recent case has been accepted for review by the Supreme Court regarding whether a person can be penalized for carrying a gun that was properly licensed in his home state and cross a state line with it. The principle involved here is called "Reciprocity" and derives from a law that says the USA member states will accord full faith and credit to actions by other member states.

A second game-changer ruling that relates indirectly to this one is that some agencies seem to be making up rules (including gun rules) when Congress did not grant them decision-making power, only enforcement power over specific rules. And whether in fact these agencies SHOULD have the power that is normally reserved to Congress. States' Rights come into play ALL OVER this mess.

California is currently very strict about gun ownership but they are embroiled in not less than half-a-dozen major cases that would slap down ALL of their restrictions. So are they part of the USA? Legally, yes. However, one of THEIR local issues is partial Secession - sort of like Brexit - which would create at least two if not three separate states within current California borders. It is not clear whether the areas in question would secede from California but not from the USA.

AND there are those of us who wouldn't cry for a moment if California fully seceded. People are already leaving the state anyway because of their harsh laws that attempt to legislate morality rather than behavior. But... gotta say this for them. They DO take up a lot of headlines in the news!

What you describe about USA an "states' rights" is kind of similar here in the EU.
The EU make some rules about stuff, all countries need to follow that rule. But each country can have their own rules too about other stuff.
So in Belgium, you can drive max 120 km/h on the freeway.
In France, the max is 130 km/h.

Most of the difference is the culture. I see in a lot of videos that almost all houses in USA has an american flag outside.
We don't do that here in Belgium or France. (Sorry if I keep talking about only 2 countries. But those are the ones I spend most if my life in)
Everything seems so different yet still same kind off 'western'-culture (More similar than for example Japon or asian countries)

 

[The_Doc_Man]

@Grumm

I am glad that you see the parallel. Yes, for us there is a culture difference, mostly in regional issues... rural Southern USA vs. urban USA vs. rugged western USA vs. agricultural central USA... and of course differences in immigration. South Louisiana with its French heritage, New York with a strong Italian heritage, the USA southwest with Hispanic heritage, the USA east coast and southeast in general with African heritage... all sorts of different ethnicities compounded by current Islamic and African refugees. Lots of mixing pressure.

I am sure that at some point, if it has not happened already, the EU will assert its power about some of these differences and some member will object, then forcefully object, and then bring it to near-exit levels. And of course there will always be political leaders who think their ideas are better than anyone else's, so they will try to impose those ideas only to find that disagreement. We see that over here with our two-party dichotomy. Don't know enough about the details of EU politics, but it will always happen that everyone wants a bigger piece of the pie, whether it is welfare support, other social programs, pet-project spending as a form of political largess, or large infrastructure construction programs. And of course, there isn't enough government pie to go around, so there is always a clamor to make the pie bigger by increasing tax rates. And if you wait long enough, nobody will remember the collapse of the Greek economy.

Of course, there is a song about it. Sorry that YT has all those lead-in ads.

 

[Pat Hartman]

I fly a flag every day. If you saw pictures of houses and lots of flags, it was likely Flag day or Memorial day or July 4th. Most of the time you don't see that many flags flying. On my street there are 20 houses and three fly flags. I think there are 4 other flag flyers out of a total of 60 units.

 

[NauticalGent]

I fly a flag every day. If you saw pictures of houses and lots of flags, it was likely Flag day or Memorial day or July 4th. Most of the time you don't see that many flags flying.

Exactly. 15 houses in my neighborhood and only one flag.

 

[AccessBlaster]

If you saw pictures of houses and lots of flags, it was likely Flag day or Memorial day or July 4th.

 

[kevlray]

FYI: Apparently thee is a ballot matter on a southern California county (largest county in the state) to become it's own state. Should be interesting to see how the vote goes.

 

[Umpire]

Some of us feel that there should be a border wall around California preventing them from moving out and wrecking other states. They caused the problem, they need to live with it. They've already gone a long way toward wrecking Oregon and Washington along the coasts. Now they're moving to Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Montana and wrecking them. COVID has made that too much easier because lots of people are "working" from home that weren't able to in the past. Now it doesn't matter where they live so they're brining their seriously bad ideas to other states.

You forgot Nevada. Or as some like to call it, East California.

 

[Umpire]

I think in the UK, we don't appreciate the sheer size of what we call the USA. For example, you can fit the whole UK into Texas 3 times and that's just one state.
I live in the south of UK, if a murder occurs in the North UK, then we have it on national news. What I'm trying to say is that in the USA, I imagine people never hear of things in different parts of either the country or state because its so vast.
It must be incredibly difficult to govern such a massive area.
Quick question- it the wall still being built to separate Mexico from the USA? Or did Biden stop it because its a republican wall and not democrat.
Col

There are multiple state in the US that can take you over 8 hours at Freeway speed to travel through depending on your chosen route.

As to the Wall, Biden stopped it initially. However there have been some reports recently that he has quietly re-started construction in some small very limited areas. While I believe it to be true, I can not verify construction has re-started.

 

[Pat Hartman]

There is also an attempt by the smart people of Eastern Oregon to become part of Idaho. They've had a lot of success so far. I'm not sure when the Oregon legislature will have to vote to let them go. They may need a couple more counties to join the move first so they have a solid block of real estate. I read somewhere else, that counties in Eastern Washington were interested also.

Greater Idaho

Join the Greater Idaho movement.

www.greateridaho.org

A section of Atlanta wants to be its own city. We've created new states before, I think we should get behind this movement. Let the Democrats wallow in the sewer they've turned LA and San Francisco into and let other parts of the state that want law and order secede. If you don't prosecute shoplifting, the shops close. That's a no brainer. Pretty soon, there won't be any pharmacies in SF. Either that or we go back to the olden days where a clerk had to get all merchandise for the customer. There was no self-serve. They better make the customer pay first or they'll just walk away with the bag and still not pay.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Given the events of a couple of years ago where there was a no-police zone in downtown Portland for a while, I can see why the conservatives of Oregon would rather be elsewhere.

 

[ColinEssex]

Why does East Oregon want to become part of idaho? Surely that will put more strain on idaho finances to provide services like schools, police etc etc.
Col