Tony Martin -
right or wrong?
right or wrong?
The British media is buzzing with the Tony Martin case. Farmer Tony Martin shot dead an intruder on his farm and was convicted of murder in the UK recently. As his appeal pends, feelings are running very high about whether people have the right to defend themselves, particularly in their own home. The law states that one is allowed to use reasonable force in self defence. But of course, it's difficult to define reasonable force. The other problem is that the self-defence bit only comes into play if you are under threat of violence - otherwise it appears to be illegal to initiate the violence.
I think that it would be very difficult to ask a burglar, "Excuse me please, are you armed and do you intend to hurt me?" to ascertain whether my life was in danger before clubbing him on the head. I also feel that if someone breaks into my house they forfeit certain rights. But I've been told that this is an emotional view and the intruder should retain all his rights whether or not he has violated mine.
It also seems perverse to me that historically, in many cases our legal system has been geared more towards protecting property than defending the person against violence. Apparently up until 1967 killing in defence of property was justifiable homicide - allowing the killer to advance towards the criminal - whereas self-defence was merely excusable and required the killer to retreat as far as possible from the assailant. Right, so if an intruder's brandishing a knife I've got to run away from him, but if he's lifting my telly I can run at him and smack him over the head?
The Martin case is complex and there are suggestions that he may well have acted unreasonably. On the other hand there's another recent case where an 80-year-old woman worried about being charged with assault as she smashed a lamp over the head of a masked intruder.
Right or wrong, Tony Martin has become a cause célèbre. People, sick of crime, are protesting that we should have the right to defend ourselves. Is this reasonable?
Please write in with your views.
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