Using a RIF in the event of a break in

[Mike636]

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

No, you could legally arrest them if you honestly belived they were committing Burglary. You couldn't how ever beat them up with a big stick if they offered no violence towards you.

 

Stop being an obtuse nob.

[Lt Earholes]

No, you could legally arrest them if you honestly belived they were committing Burglary. You couldn't how ever beat them up with a big stick if they offered no violence towards you.

Stop being an obtuse nob.

Just a genuine question that's all.

There are people in this country who defend there homes and are penalised for it, with the intruder made out to be the victim.

I for one think that if you break into someone's home, the home owner should be able to do what they see fit towards you (apart from mutilate or kill)

[Chock]

You can do whatever you like to an intruder, you just have to make sure the body is never found

[BigAl]

Under UK Law you would be committing Assault with a Deadly Weapon. It doesn't matter if a gun is real or replica. loaded or unloaded in the eyes of the law its Assault with a Deadly Weapon. It's very unlikely that you would be charged with such under the circumstances, but it is a possibility.

 

Best bet is to never pull a weapon unless you are wiling to use it, if you use an airsoft weapon you are liable to get stabbed or the shit kicked out of you. Best bet is to turn the lights on make noise so they know your home and stay in the bedroom. Call the Police on your mobile and let them know you have done so. These days you need know what they may be carrying and willing to use.

 

If these scumbags will stab pensioners to get there pensions what do you think they'll do to someone who shoots them with a toy gun?

[Ian_Gere]

I often wonder just how far people who claim to support Castle Doctrine have thought the consequences through. Do they really want to live in a place where those who decide to burgle consider a deadly weapon as essential kit for the job? If history has taught us anything about crime, it is that, no matter the harshest deterrent, people who are desperate or nuts will still do it.

 

Apparently escalating the arms race between homeowners and criminals does not prevent crime, but it does increase the expense of feeling secure. How many people can afford private security? Who wants to live in a gated community, even if they can afford it? Who would rather pay the premium for such houses and obey the lawn-height, et al, neighbourhood bylaws, than spend that money on a bigger back yard, or better holidays, or more RIFs/gear? For the sake of what exactly? Be honest...

 

All this hardcore talk is not about protecting anyone, it's about pride. The outrage of it! How dare somebody mess with you!

[Chock]

At the kind of ranges we're talking about when a burglar is in your house, you don't need a RIF anyway, you could simply tap them on the shoulder and say 'knife kill'

[two_zero]

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?

If he thinks its a real firearm either you'd be filled with lead or he'll freeze.

 

 

if not he'd likely attack you, make an escape or both.

[BigAl]

I often wonder just how far people who claim to support Castle Doctrine have thought the consequences through. Do they really want to live in a place where those who decide to burgle consider a deadly weapon as essential kit for the job? If history has taught us anything about crime, it is that, no matter the harshest deterrent, people who are desperate or nuts will still do it.

 

Apparently escalating the arms race between homeowners and criminals does not prevent crime, but it does increase the expense of feeling secure. How many people can afford private security? Who wants to live in a gated community, even if they can afford it? Who would rather pay the premium for such houses and obey the lawn-height, et al, neighbourhood bylaws, than spend that money on a bigger back yard, or better holidays, or more RIFs/gear? For the sake of what exactly? Be honest...

 

All this hardc

ore talk is not about protecting anyone, it's about pride. The outrage of it! How dare somebody mess with you!

 

Actually your wrong, just look at Austria, every male over the age of 18 has to do National Service, they then return home with there service rifle or SMG. Burglary is very low in Austria.

[jcheeseright]

is that because every house has a rifle in it or because every man in Austria has had to do national service and has had some values drilled into them?

[Albiscuit]

Couldnt imagine waking up and telling said burglar to wait a moment while I dug my rifle bag out of the cupboard, unzipped it, found my backpack, took out all the crap to get to the mags which would be rattling in the bottom, put one in, and tucked the battery wired back into the stock and clicked the cover on to say "AHA you f*cker, I have a gun"...

 

When I could clump him in the head and punch myself in the eye to then claim self defence whilst the mrs called the fuzz....

 

 

 

Oh and found some eye Pro for me and the mrs incase I had to fire to protect us from ricochets...

[Chock]

Yup, I will be needing four hours notice for any burglaries, so that I can charge the batteries on my AEGs and PMR446 radios, assuming they occur in winter. In summer, I can rely on my gas blowbacks, so will only need, say, half an hour and can use hand signals instead of my radio, that should be enough time get into my SWAT gear loadout and gas my mags up. I knew there was a reason why I bought an AEG MP5K and a gas blowback one.

 

Impromptu burglaries will have to be met with my cheap ass springer Kahr TP45 and Glock and rubber knife. Either that or I'll just have to smack em over the head with a Fender Telecaster and claim I was having a Pete Townsend moment whilst sleepwalking, and hope that when the police arrive, they do get fooled again.

[TheGrover]

is that because every house has a rifle in it or because every man in Austria has had to do national service and has had some values drilled into them?

Probably the latter, although likely a bit of both as well

[Josh95]

Its perfectly legal to own swords in the UK, im sure thats enough to make an intruder shit them self

[Chock]

True, but there are many exceptions to that, such as ones with curved blades over 50 centimeters in length, i.e. Talwars, Cavalry Swords and quite a few Japanese 'samurai' swords (all that was brought in as law in 2008 to stop dickheads buying cheap knock off Samurai swords for gang fights and the like). There are some exemptions, such as re-enacting, or if you are a Sikh, or if the sword is traditionally forged, if it is made before 1954 etc, but the actual ins and outs of all that would take too long to list in full. Genuine Japanese samurai swords are bloody expensive, I know because I have a mate who is an ex RAF armourer who collects and refurbishes them, and he pays craploads of money for even very battered WW2 ones that he repolishes with freaky (and expensive) specialised polishing stone sets.

 

Perhaps more to the point (geddit?), swords are not that easy to use and most people would not know how to do so properly. Yeah alright, just brandishing it would be pretty scary, and you can certainly do some damage with one without being D'Artagnan (who was a musketeer anyway) but in fact it would be kind of hard to swing a sword in many homes (most of mine are way longer than an M16, try swinging something that long around on your stairs in the dark and you'll hit the wall and look like an incompetent tw*t), so you'd need a thrusting sword like a toledo or rapier or some such, and would have to learn how to thrust and lunge it properly to have any hope of doing damage to someone, and of course how to parry in quarters, in case someone else was armed with a big stick or whatever. When you learn to use a sword, you learn how to defend yourself with it first!

 

I've fenced against members of the British Olympic Team (got my arse kicked and rarely even scored a hit, cos I'm fairly sh*t at fencing), so I can promise you that it's a crapload harder than it looks to look even reasonably competent with a sword! I also do a bit of Tai Chi (as a contact martial art, not that poncing about in the park malarkey), which means I do in fact have quite a few swords on the wall in my bedroom, mostly Leon Paul fencing foils, plus some Chinese daos and jians in alloy, low grade steel, or wood for the Tai Chi, but there is no way I'd pick one of them off the wall if I thought there was an intruder in my house, for a start none of them have a proper edge and would probably fall to bits if you really tried to tw*t someone with one of them - the Chinese ones are for Tai Chi, not for going all Akira Kurosawa on someone's ass, and the fencing foils have either a safety tip on them or an electric sensor for competition hit detection - I'd just make some noise and put the light on, then call the fuzz. You can pretty much guarantee most burglars would feck off the moment that started occurring, they are burglars, hoping not to disturb you, not a SWAT team coming to grab you and take you prisoner.

 

To be honest though, the fact that I have six big dogs, including a big daft German Shepherd with a scary sounding bark, is more of a deterrent than I'd ever be with some toy gun or a plastic Excalibur.

 

In addition to which, if you attacked someone with a sword in your house, I can pretty much guarantee you would be going to jail, I know that too, because a guy I knew a few years ago (used to be a doorman on a pub I go to, nice guy too) was upset about not seeing his kids, and being affected by the body building drugs he took, mixed with alcohol, and obviously against his better normal judgement, went round to her house with a samurai sword and threatened her, when the police showed up, he attacked them, badly injuring one of the officers when he stabbed the sword through the windscreen of their patrol car. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison and lost his appeal against the sentence too, which means he'll probably be sixty when he gets out of jail, and it's a real shame too, because anyone who knows him will tell you what a top bloke he is, someone who actually cares deeply about the well being of others, and how out of character that act was, but that's what love can do to you, and more to the point, what one reckless moment can do to your life.

 

Use of swords belongs in movies and sport, and that's it.

[buckyr]

In basic you will get found not guilty of any offences. You may still have to be interviewd at a station under caution to give your account.

Ultimately with UK law it is all about reasonable force.

It is all about circumstances around the incident itself and there will be a lot of "what if" questions regarding it but il give you a coupl of examples to answer your question.

 

If you are at home in bed at 3am And are awoken by noises downstairs which you think my be a burglar. You get up and go to check what is going on but before you do you get your RIF handgun from the storage cabinet in the next room just incase for self defence. You then go downstairs and see a burglar in your living room stealing yourstuff, you don't know what he is going to do or what weapons he has on him so you point your RIF at him telling him to stop what he is doing. You or your other half then phones the police who are making there way to you make sure you tell them you have a RIF pointing at the offender. The police arrive and take the burglar away they may also sieze your RIF as evidence and question you at a later date.

 

The other example is that you again are woken up at 3am by an intruder but rather then going to the cabinet/storage you keep your RIF next to you in bed and tell the police that you have it there incase a burglar is going to come into your house. This is seen as excessive as you have already pre-empted someone coming in meaning you already intend to us it and are keeping the RIF next to your bed for this reason.

Keeping any form of weapon next to you wether it be a gold club, bat or RIF for the reason of just incase someone comes in is classed as excessive.

 

So in recap yes you can use it as long as you keep it in your cabinet/storage and are using it for self defence only.

 

I know this is quite confusing but I hope it makes sense.

[Templar Mike]

New to the forum, but I work in the security industry so thought I'd give my 2 pence. I haven't seen it mentioned in my skimming of this thread but one thing people seem to be missing is intent. If you show any prior intent to cause harm to someone the chances of you falling foul of the law are greatly increased, regardless of what you use. If we're talking about grabbing a RIF because your crapping your pants while someone breaks in, then you'll likely be fine. It's the difference between specifically having an item available to mess someone up who breaks into your house, or just grabbing something to hand because it was there and you thought it would scare them off. Having said that, given the limited amount of damage an airsoft gun can do, I'd say you're unlikely to face criminal charges, but as someone else has said, and more importantly, you could be putting your own life in danger!

[Sacarathe]

As was highlighted earlier, the real problem is if the intruder fears for their life, nevermind the offensive projectile properties of airsoft guns.

[Richie Boyle]

you dont have to actually use it though. I keep a pistol loaded with a CO2 capsule only but only as a deterrent or if needs be, a distraction. If they run, problem solved. If they hesitate, a swift kick in the sacks is probably sufficient

[proffrink]

I think the point being made above is exactly that: Something that looks like a real pistol will only serve to agitate the situation further.

[Sacarathe]

I think the point being made above is exactly that: Something that looks like a real pistol will only serve to agitate the situation further.

 

And give legitimacy to any "I feared for my life" self defence argument by the intruder in court after they killed you.

[b1n0gHo5t]

Just undo your dressing gown and run at him...that'll have him running to the hills for sure