Using a RIF in the event of a break in

[GingerBreadMan]

This hasn't happened to me and I'm sure that it is fairly unlikely to happen to anyone but where would you stand if you threatened an intruder with a RIF? For example, an intruder breaks into your house and due to the fact that some RIFs looking very realistic, what would happen to you with the law if you told the burgular that it was a real weapon and waited for the police?

[sp00n]

at a guess it would be confiscated ...

 

that said i do remember a few years a guy who was making love to his wife earlier, managed to "subdue" the burglar with his gentleman sausage ... the burglar though the thing poking him in the back was a "loaded weapon"

[n1ckh]

With today's standards in the law, chances are you'd be the one in trouble and not the intruder

 

One thing I was told when I did my training for a security licence was this

 

'You can harm (self defence) an intruder within reason if you can prove they posed a genuine threat to you and/or your family, the intruder was being intimadating, harassing you and few other things

 

We're not america where you can legaly shoot an intruder (I believe not in all states though) so I assume you may be charged for brandishing a weapon and all consequences that come with "a deadly weapon" situation

 

Problem is people sue each other these days and you'd be the one getting shafted by the justice (cough cough and pmsl) system

[Mr Monkey Nuts]

Nothing.

 

The law is (in simple terms) the same amount of force exerted directly to you plus a reasonable escalation where an imminent threat is present, only at the time of an attack against you as a person.

 

The bottom line is a BB gun is a pathetic weapon and even a piece of glass will be considered more dangerous. That is assuming the intruder is armed with something, or gets something to be used as a weapon. It may make him think twice for half a second, but is totally useless, consider a serrated kitchen knife and have a good defence lawyer because if you attack an intruder you are going to court regardless of how legally justified you think you are at the time.

 

I think your living a little in fantasy land of youtube and paranoid 'Murican justifications for firearms. If someone has broken into your house they are hardly going to go crying to the police " he pulled a gun on me" and if you actually had to fire it he will jus laught before cutting your stomach out.

[Chock]

In my experience, most coppers would probably pat you on the back and say nothing as they hauled the intruder off. It may not be the law, but I'm very much of the opinion that if someone comes on your property with ill intent, then they deserve anything and everything they get, and in these circumstances, what they'd get is not very much, since it is still a toy gun which you were able to restrain them with, meaning they have come to no harm.

[GingerBreadMan]

Thanks for the replies everyone some good points

I think your living a little in fantasy land of youtube and paranoid 'Murican justifications for firearms. If someone has broken into your house they are hardly going to go crying to the police " he pulled a gun on me" and if you actually had to fire it he will jus laught before cutting your stomach out.

I actually got thinking of that after watching some of those American home intruder videos and while you would get laughed at if you were to shoot the thing, I was thinking more as use as a threat. That said, if the person decides to call your bluff and goes for you then you're kinda screwed as you would then be defenceless

[jcheeseright]

That said, if the person decides to call your bluff and goes for you then you're kinda screwed as you would then be defenceless

 

That is exactly why it's a shit idea. Legally if someone comes into your house and you threaten them with what they believe to be a lethal weapon (the fact they shouldn't be in your house at all is irrelevant) they can use lethal force to defend themselves and potentially get away with murder. If you're going to threaten someone with a weapon you have to meet 2 criteria realistically:

1. It to be real,

2. Be willing and able to use it.

 

If you can't meet both of those, you're just making life worse for yourself.

[b1n0gHo5t]

save yourself the hassle get a shotgun license..problem solved

[Chock]

Save yourself even less hassle and get a 200lb pull crossbow; cheaper, silent and requires no license at all

[BrightCandle]

A pistol crossbow would be far more useful. Air rifles/air pistols are a bit underpowered for genuinely stopping a dangerous intruder and I would far rather be using a self defence knife than an underpowered airgun, a BB gun would be effectively useless. Not worth risking the bluff, when defending oneself use a real weapon you know how to use and are willing to use.

[Ian_Gere]

If you did shoot someone with a shotgun or a crossbow, unless that person was carrying something with which they could reasonably be expected to succeed in killing you were they to attack, you would quite rightly be going to jail for murder. The fact that they are in your house is neither here nor there, as it should be. Being afraid because you have watched too much TV is no excuse for ending somebody's life.

 

Just imagine what the consequences would be if 'Castle Doctrine', the idea that your home is inviolate and you can kill anyone whom you claim was an intruder with impunity, was the law. You could invite someone into your home, after secretly breaking a window from the outside, and kill them - there are psychopaths who would consider that a legitimate way to advance their career, bankers and their ilk. I mean yeah, bankers so fuck 'em, but you get the idea...

[Deek]

It could be classed as an offence under Sec 16A of the Firearms Act 1968;

 

16A Possession of firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.

(a)by means thereof to cause, or

(b)to enable another person by means thereof to cause,

any person to believe that unlawful violence will be used against him or another person.

 

So, even though a person has entered you premises illegally you would still be committing an offence if the person thought that the firearm was real and believed unlawful violence would be used against them.

There are defences to using lethal force, but I personally think you would be on thin ice if you used an airsoft RIF as a "deterrent" in this sort of scenario.

 

 

[Undieing_Lust]

Everybody in this thread is missing the extremely obvious and logical option. Get a pet tiger.

 

 

No body is gonna argue with that.

[b1n0gHo5t]

Everybody in this thread is missing the extremely obvious and logical option. Get a pet tiger.

 

 

No body is gonna argue with that.

waste of a perfectly good tiger

Krak head burglar ain't a good diet for such a majestic animal

[Deek]

waste of a perfectly good tiger

Krak head burglar ain't a good diet for such a majestic animal

 

And if you did feed said Krak-head burglar to said tiger you would certainly need reporting to the RSPCA...

[Ian_Gere]

Siegfried and Rraaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

[TheGrover]

I have a pet elephant and he finds krak heads delicious. He also thought that the RSPCA man was tasty too.

 

Maybe i could bring monty to my next skirmish and go all far cry 4 on the enemy team... Does an adult elephant need to take his hits?

[Ian_Gere]

Trunk hits don't count, but you will have to paint him half a bright colour unless you get a UKERA licence.

[TheGrover]

Trunk hits don't count, but you will have to paint him half a bright colour unless you get a UKERA licence.

I was planning on war paint anyway, ill make sure he doesnt look realistic. just remembered i should check that my local site's insurance covers elephant rampages... Im sure its mentioned in the waiver

[Chock]

Psychologically, a burglar will tend to have a very different mentality to that of a knife-weilding mugger or someone who holds up an off licence or whatever, probably more cunning/sneaky and almost certainly less prone to be violent.

 

The reality is that the vast majority of criminals who indulge in burglaries want to commit a crime which avoids confrontation with the victim, preferring the act to remain undetected whilst they are committing it, hence they will try and sneak in somewhere they think is empty in order to take stuff. Aside from the obvious desire not to be caught, this is also because they want to avoid the possibility of a fight, and because it is easier to justify committing an act they know to be wrong when they don't have to think about any victims, who remain out of sight and thus out of mind when they sneak into what they hope is an empty property.

 

So the likelihood is that even if you picked up something as non lethal as a cushion, and started waving it around and yelling at them to feck off out of your house, I think they probably would indeed feck off, and be only too glad to be gone from the confrontation.

[Shizbazki]

Psychologically, a burglar will tend to have a very different mentality to that of a knife-weilding mugger or someone who holds up an off licence or whatever, probably more cunning/sneaky and almost certainly less prone to be violent.

 

The reality is that the vast majority of criminals who indulge in burglaries want to commit a crime which avoids confrontation with the victim, preferring the act to remain undetected whilst they are committing it, hence they will try and sneak in somewhere they think is empty in order to take stuff. Aside from the obvious desire not to be caught, this is also because they want to avoid the possibility of a fight, and because it is easier to justify committing an act they know to be wrong when they don't have to think about any victims, who remain out of sight and thus out of mind when they sneak into what they hope is an empty property.

 

So the likelihood is that even if you picked up something as non lethal as a cushion, and started waving it around and yelling at them to feck off out of your house, I think they probably would indeed feck off, and be only too glad to be gone from the confrontation.

 

I work in law and can tell you this is the case, 9/10 burglars want to break in undetected, take the stuff and leave without being caught. If they suspect anyone is coming in or has woken up they will always run rather than face a confrontation as 1) they can be identified (by picture or ID parade) , 2) a home owner is likly to be the living S**T out of them, 3) any tussle between them and the home-owner is likely to leave forensic (DNA or hair etc) traces on the home-owner which can be retrieved and analysed and finally 4) a lot of them are cowards and drug addled weaklings trying to fund a habit so would rather avoid the bother of confrontation.

 

The 1/10 burglars are the ones entering the property with the explicit intent of harming you especially if you get up to nefarious activities and have rubbed someone up the wrong way, you don't necessarily have to steal in order to burgle, being a trespasser and causing GBH or Criminal Damage still counts as a burglary.

 

Either way a burglar entering a home and stealing stuff is just a burglary but actually harming the home owner is aggravated which could add an additional 10 years to the sentence (if the courts were harsh (not that they ever are)).

[Colonel Kurtz]

we're not quite at the US state of some crack head sueing you for emotional trauma after you threaten him with a RIF, but not too far away. but yeah i doubt an airsoft gun will improve the scenario. i second chocks suggestion of a crossbow if you're actually worried about home defence. for all the legal shite we have to go through to buy a RIF or air-rifle, or shotgun, to buy a crossbow I only had to sign my name on a receipt, and that name could have been anything. If they thought i was under 18 they could have i.d. me, but not taken a record of it. A crossbow will nail someone to a wall and a RIF will f*ck them off.

 

one thing an ex-copper told me is that if you do defend yourself, it's best to be with something that only requires one hit to do the job as it hugely increases the chance of it being considered a defensive act, and more than one hit hugely increases the odds of it getting you in trouble.

 

e.g. burglar breaks in and attacks you, you hit him with a wooden bat and it knocks him back, you then hit him several more times until he is unconscious/subdued. those several more hits to knock him out are very likely to get you in trouble as only the first one is considered a necessary act of defence, the rest was offensive despite your end goal only being defending your home/family. apparently you're less likely to get in trouble if in the same scenario, you smacked him in the head with a hammer and knocked him unconscious instantly. he went as far to say that you'd be less likely to get in trouble if that one hit killed the person as it's a single frenzied act of you trying to defend your own life.

 

but this ex-copper was a pint-of-best wielding piss-head and possibly talking out his ass.

[Lt Earholes]

So basically if someone breaks in, take them on a tour of your house and hand them all your valuables.

Otherwise you will get shafted by our great government.

[jcheeseright]

no, you can defend yourself with reasonable force, you cannot defend property with reasonable force.

[Lt Earholes]

no, you can defend yourself with reasonable force, you cannot defend property with reasonable force.

 

So if someone comes into your house and is very polite towards you, but starts taking your stuff, you can't do anything?