to ask your thoughts on this? Fatal shooting during burglary

[itsjustataste]

Happened near me very recently and our community seems very torn with lots of people slinging insults at both sides. Lots of people shouting about playing stupid games, win stupid prizes etc... whilst others calling the shooter a murderer.

I find it very sad that someone so young has ultimately lost their life and has got mixed up in this sort of thing.

BUT that being said, I don't have any ill feeling toward the farmer either and cannot say that I wouldn't do the same if faced with 3 people breaking into my home, especially if I had my children in the house.

The other 2 suspects arrested for aggravated burglary meaning a weapon was involved and there had been a break in at the same home the night previously too.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-68942085.amp

I am with the farmer.

There was a hideous case in Wales recently where a man broke into a house and raped the young daugher (teenager) while her mother helplessly held her hand.
Imagine having to witness your child being raped.
You can't know that a home invader's sole intent is burglary. If they break in, especially armed, while you and your family are home that is a home invasion, it goes far beyond burglary to include rape, torture and murder in the worst cases.

That's horrific @LordPercyPercy you'd still get sympathisers for the rapists on here no doubt with some stupid story about how they are the real victims...

@DoreenonTill8 yep. He had only just got out of prison, apparently that rehabilitation didn't work so well:
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/man-pushes-way-house-rapes-24818550

47 previous charges but he was free to go on to do this, and destroy more lives.

Surely more likely that he retrieved his unloaded shotgun from the locked gun cabinet, re-locked the cabinet, went to the separate, secure storage for his cartridges, loaded the gun for defensive reasons - in fear of his life due to the escalation from 10 hours earlier - and reluctantly protected himself from what he considered to be imminent mortal danger?

Under the best of circumstances this wouldn't be easy. They're steel cabinets now, really noisy both unlocking with both keys which must be hidden elsewhere one top, one bottom lock, and removing a gun which is clanking against the sides. Then make it to a third location to retrieve the cartridges.

So you've the key location, gun location, cartridge location. Try doing all this without alerting three intruders.

Not a bit of sympathy sadly for the young man who lost his life, if he had not been up to badness then he would still be alive. This is the issue with the world today, do wrong then scream loudly when you are caught. Even his family and friends think they now have a right to blacken this poor farmers name, should he have just let them in to beat him half to death. It wasnt that long ago in Ireland a poor farmer was beaten badly and died months later from his injuries, police should be able to say tough shit, he brough it on himself the low life robbing scum

So you can only defend yourself if they don't know you are? All the defenders/apologists for the burglars why?

I have little difficulty imagining it, a lined cabinet to avoid scratching my favourite Purdey over-and-under, secure cable - stronger than a chain and quieter, well-maintained locks and hinges.
A man with some degree of dexterity from hitching trailers and other fittings to a tractor might do it very quickly and quietly.
We'll have to wait until the case progresses to find out what took place.

Imagine you are the farmer and you have some of these burglar defender apologist MN posters on the Jury ?

They walk amongst us, they really do and its really really fucking scary

Not as scary as the ones who’d support an innocent verdict without even hearing the facts. They terrify me.

That was awful. Those poor people. I mean this is the stuff of nightmares but 47 offences and out on licence? Really ffs at which point do you say they shouldn’t be out on the streets? Three strikes and you’re in prison for a v. lengthy spell starts to look much more reasonable.

I disagree with this.

The farmer isn’t necessarily getting his gun out, fearful of just when they might start coming up the stairs, while they’re searching the ground floor. The photos show the farm is a reasonably sized place, if he noticed them coming up the driveway into the yard he’d probably have plenty of time. They’d have to get out of the car, maybe scope out the buildings, decide which one to enter and how, and then get in. One of the burglars was shot in a building, so he might have had time to come out of the farm house and confront them, only firing when they turned around and aimed their weapons at him. If it happened like that, that wouldn’t be murder even though he’d taken the time to get and load his gun.

I hate burglars, they are a waste of air. The family of the burglars should be ashamed of themselves and their useless nasty piece of work runt. Then again maybe they are all at it themselves. These ppl flock together.

My sympathy is with the farmer.

They probably wouldn't need to do much scoping if they'd already been there 10 hours earlier. Allegedly.

What was the farmer meant to do have a conversation in which the burglars assured him that they wouldn't rape and murder? Just take some things? Oh fuck that. Shoot them all.

I’d be nominating the farmer for a knighthood in the next new years honours list, he’s done more for society in this one instance than many ever will in their lives. If he gets into any trouble at all here it’s a green light to any moron to burgle any property without fear

All sympathy with the farmer.

We had a former 'friend' of ours kick our front door in and barge in and start beating my DP with a weapon.

I can tell you I did not stop and wait and see what that weapon was before deciding on my course of action.

No. I grabbed the skinny bastards hand behind his back and smashed his head through the living room wall. (This is for the eagle-eyed among you, pre my wheelchair days!). As I outweighed him by about 50% ... his head went through the plasterboard wall and I imagine hurt quite a lot.

He later tried to claim that he 'only' had a plastic side table leg and that my use of force was unnecessary, and it wasn't self defense as he wasn't attacking me. It didn't wash, fortunately and he was out on licence in the first place so back he went.

But yep, in that moment if I'd had a gun at hand or in my hand, I might well have used that (but for the fact he was on top of my DP who was incapacitated in a beanbag chair on the floor!)

I fully believe when you enter someone elses property with a weapon and the intent to use it, wether that is to intimidate or actually physically use it, you lose certain rights the moment you enter the property.

I fervently hope the farmer has a good reason for having the weapon to hand, so that pre-meditated action is not a possibility. However sadly I doubt it, as a PP poster said, there are rules for firearms which make simply grabbing a loaded one an impossibility. Unless he happened to be cleaning his weapon in the same room the ammunition is kept at the time the burglars entered the property... which is unlikely!

Sympathies with the farmer. I was broken into when I was alone asleep in bed. It was incredibly traumatising. Farmers carry guns, you are taking your life in your hands breaking into a farm but idiots still do it.

What's your thoughts on the repeat violent criminals then @Blossomtoes? or are they poor victims still and that's someone else's fault?

why do some in the community think crime is acceptable ?

Heroic farmer dispatched waste of oxygen.

but in this case they were the criminals ? obviously any loss of life is tragic.

There may be more to this than meets the eye. Lots of people, from the locality, on social media claiming the farmer was growing drugs and that was why they were there.

Team farmer.

Burglars - Play silly games, win silly prizes.