It is ridiculous to assume that unless there is bodily harm, one cannot protect their property or deter thieves, that we have to wait till there is death or injury. Is there any “right” to protect property from outright theft? Can anyone walk into any business establishment and walk away with anything as long as he can get away with it?
“t is ridiculous to assume that unless there is bodily harm, one cannot protect their property or deter thieves, that we have to wait till there is death or injury.”
Easy. Just learn your state’s laws.
In Maryland, it’s OK.
In Virginia, you go to prison.
In TN, decades ago, I had a police officer tell me that you could perform a citizen’s arrest.
And that you had the right to use whatever force necessary including deadly force if necessary to bring the perp to justice.
But you can’t just go shoot someone. You have to try to arrest them. You have to warn them and the force used has to be necessary.
Don’t know if that’s changed or not.
In Texas the store owner would have been in the right.
Here in the state of Washington you can use “reasonable force” to prevent a felony. So if someone is stealing something out of your store, or vandalizing it - you can use reasonable force.
The question then becomes what is “reasonable”.
There was a case awhile ago where a neighbor saw his next door neighbor’s house getting robbed. He went and got his bow and shot the burglar in the butt with a hunting broadhead as the thief was loading a TV into his trunk. I can’t recall if he yelled at the thief to stop or not.
The cops said the “shooting” was justified. BUT - if the guy had hit the thief in the chest and killed him - it wouldn’t have been!? That doesn’t make sense to me.