How to catch a thief

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Tired of getting gasoline stolen from his farm this farmer decided to do something about it. He spiked a drum full of gas with sugar and then chased the idiots down who had been stealing his gas.

The idiots who had been stealing his gas not only got jail time, they get to rebuild the engine in the car. More people ought to do what this farmer did. Set spiked gas out so it's easy to steal and let the theives pay the penalty for their behavior. Stealing gasoline would soon become a risky behavior that not a lot of people would engage in. They would never know for sure if they would have an engine left in their car after a night's thievery or not.

 

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I got fed up with kids stealing apples from my orchard. So one night I went out and put a razor blade in each one.
And guess who got into trouble?
That's right. And the thieving scratters got off scott free once they were out of hospital.

Sounds like you've got a very different justice system. Over here the farmer would have had to pay for a new car engine for the thieves and do community service for causing them the inconvenience of having to wait for breakdown recovery.
Then he would have been banned from keeping fuel on his property, the Police would caution him for causing reckless endangerment on the roads by tampering with a motor vehicle and loads of people would read the story in the tabloid press and make tutting noises.
Then kids in hoodies would throw bricks through his windows for the next few years.

Oh, I haven't really got an orchard.







Not any more, anyway...

 

How true! Its unfortunate that we live in a society where it is the victims who so often get punished, whilst the criminals get off lightly.

 

When my father was a boy back in the 1940s, he and his friends would steal onto a farmer's land and try to steal watermelons. The farmer always kept a shotgun filled with rock salt handy for such occasions. I've heard that a load of rock salt in the hind quarters can be quite painful.

 

Hmmm... Did you read the article? On this side of the pond we call petrol gas. Where ever that story happened it wasn't in the US. Over here the farmer would have shot them. He'd do at least what the watermelon farmer did to trips dad, and most likely worse. He'd take his shotgun out and have it filled with either rock salt or bird shot, and the guys that stole his gas would know better than to mess with him again. They'd know he was "armed and dangerous".

As to the rest of your post, kinda mixing apples and petrol ain't ya?

It sounds like the hooligans run your country rather than the respectable citizens. Glad I don't live there. The thugs don't run it here, yet. That's at least partially due to the fact that there are a lot of people here who fight back. The thugs aren't quite sure it's safe to mess with or not so it keeps them at least partially in check. Enough of them get shot when trying to steal stuff that the law of consequences for their actions makes them do some thinking about what they're doing. If/when the vast majority of the population here become sheep this country will become just like yours. The thugs and miscreants will rule. It will be a sad day.

I've never understood why any society would allow thugs and thieves to rule, but a lot of them do. It's completely senseless, and only breeds more violence and crime. It's swinging the other way here, finally. People just got so fed up with not being able to protect their own property and lives that they started revising the judicial system through jury nullification. Juries just refused to convict anyone for defending their lives and property, and that's exactly how it should be. The laws are now starting to be re-written again so it's in the favor of the law abiding citizens once more.

Hooraw for the US constitution and the right to keep and bear arms!!!!

 

They don't rule here, Freddy, but they do generally make a mockery of our legal system at times, as JonnyMX's brilliant analogy points out. We're certainly not sheep here - most people here want tougher legal penalties, but our democracy rules that toughness must be meted out to all - the good guy as much as the bad guy. Vigilante-ism is practically illegal here (although effective in the correct dosage and when used with a bit of sense).

No society is perfect - we must all remember that. Be it Colombine or Dunblane, a society has to decide about whether a system is right or wrong, and it happens that here, guns were outlawed with very little argument. Thats not as clear cut in the States (it keeps Charlton Heston occupied at his age, after all).

My point ? No society's justice system will ever be perfect. But there are right ways and wrong ways to "give them a touch of their own medicine"

 

Gav,

Sorry, I wasn't trying to say that Brits are sheep, but I can certainly see why you thought I did.

Vigilanteism is when people who don't know for sure if someone has committed a crime or not go out and dish out punishment. Defending your property and your person during the act of someone violating them is called self-defense. There is a huge difference between the two.

What I see happening in Britian by what has been described here is that the hooligans and roughnecks consider themselves basically inviolable. If someone would dare defend themselves, fight back IOW's, then the hooligans will attack many times for revenge, and because they understand that if people start defending themselves on a regular basis the life of a hooligan isn't going to be nearly as much fun. They understand that if society at large doesn't fear them they are going to have to face consequences every time they misbehave. So, yes, they do run society in very real way. Anytime people say, Well, if we defended ourselves like that the hooligans would come back and make things worse for us, and the police would probably punish us too, then the hooligans have a lot of power over law abiding citizens.

The law abiding citizen should never have to live in fear of retaliation for defending himself or his property. He should never have to fear the police for defending himself either. The police can't be everywhere at once, and for many centuries this was understood.

The right to defend property and person actually had many of it's origins in Britian. It's ironic that now the right to defend yourself is now basically being taken away by the police there. It's as if British society has forgotten its roots.

That anyone would, or could, be prosecuted and made to pay damages to a thief for spiking gasoline that only ruined an engine because it was gotten by illegal means is, imo, ridiculous. Nothing would have happened to the engine if the law hadn't been broken. It's sort of like saying a robber can sue a store owner because he slipped on a banana peel running out of the store after he just robbed it. If the fool hadn't robbed the store the accident wouldn't have happened, so why reward someone for breaking the law and harming society? It's senseless and completely counter productive. It does nothing to promote the health and well-being of society at large.

Prosecuting the victim of the real crime is, once again imo, intended to make a society of sheep. It's saying, you can take no steps to defend yourself, to think for yourself, to act for yourself when attacked. You must let the government do all that for you, or you will be punished. Basically it says, you can be beaten up by anyone who comes along and you must just stand there take it. That's what sheep do. They don't fight back. They wouldn't think of it. Any law that punishes the victim of a crime for defending their property and person encourages that same mindset.

Now, all of this is my view on concepts and principles, not individuals, so please, I don't want anyone to take personal offense just because I have a different point of view. It isn't meant as a personal attack on anyone.

 

I remember a guy in the papers, many years ago, who got so fed up with being burgled that he boobytrapped his own house. The thief (with a broken leg or so after falling down the stairs) sued the houseowner who then got done for GBH or something like that.
The argument was that the booby traps that he set up were specifically designed to deliberately injure another person. The fact that the other person had no right to be there seemed to carry very little weight.

 

No, no, no.....get the facts straight.

Here in the US, this story whould never have made the news.


You see, over here the farmer would have just shot the thiefs, then burries their bodies somewhere on his farm......in different locations.

 

actually in the US
the thiefs would of drove past the farmhouse with 10 of thier mates packed into a car designed for 4, windows rolled down pouring 500 bucks worth of ammo into the building (not once hitting the famer ofcourse) before getting out and 'jacking' his tractor

 

No offence taken by me, Freddy

 

But then, blinded by the desire for revenge, possilby due to the fact that his younger brother had been killed in a similar tractor-jacking incident, the farmer would make his way out to the shed. There he would wipe the cobwebs off his trusty classic pick-up truck (the one he hadn't driven since accidentally running over a prom queen whilst drunk).
There would follow the sounds of sawing, drilling and welding for about five minutes and then an armour plated trusty classic pickup truck would erupt from the shed and speed off down the dusty track.
Against all probability he would catch up with the perps about half a mile down the road and fire mortar rounds out of a home-made launcher.
The thieves car would zoom up a ramp, badly concealed as a bush, flip over and plough into the mud. All the baddies would crawl out totally unharmed and willingly surrender to a passing Sheriff.
Then the farmer would live happily ever after knowing that his tractor, his brother and the prom queen would now all be able to rest in peace.

I know all about America, me.

 

I think it would help if the farmer was Beligian with a strong French accent who had moved to America to escape his past after leaving the Foreign Legion.

That's the most likely thing.

 

After reading all the mocking replies on this thread I can see why the hooligans have the upper hand in many places. Thieves and robbers are held in higher esteem and given more respect than those who would rather work for what they have and defend it against those who would take it illegally. Decency takes a back seat to dishonesty and those who would harm their fellow man. It's no wonder the hooligans feel invulnerable.

'd say it's a rather upside down set of values, but that's just my opinion.

 

I really hope you don't mean that seriously ff.
This thread has become part social commentary, part humerous 'what if'. A great British tradition is being able to laugh when things are going terribly wrong.
Is that why we're in the state we are? Who knows?
I didn't mean any disrespect by anyhing I said, and I really hope you haven't taken offence.

 

And we're not allowed to shoot people for tresspassing over here, so we have to find other ways of dealing with it.
Unfortunately they don't work.

 

Well, yeah I did take offense, but that's OK. My sense of humor has been misunderstood at times and people have taken offense from what I've said in jest too, so no problem. I appreciate your attitude.

 

That's one of the cornerstones of CertForums - and I take my hat off to all who adhere to that sentiment.

 

Actually Freddy, the problem is that unlike the US most places that work within a democratic system of law, the criminal is usually innocent until proved guilty by a jury of his peers. This is one of the basic tenets of a democracy. As the US is one of the (thankfully) few country's in the world to give it's citizens the 'right to bear arms' consequently you find the US to have one of the highest armed robbery and murder rates in the world too. I'd rather live in a country where the laws provide you with a fair chance no matter what, and not in a trigger happy land where people shoot first and then if you're still alive you are put on trial as guilty and it's up to you to prove otherwise.

 

Sorry, nugget, but your post has a few fallacies in it.

First, several towns in the US have adopted laws in which they require every household to own a gun. According to your line of logic the crime rate in those towns ought to have skyrocketed. In fact, the opposite happened. The crime rate dropped, and dropped by double digit percentages.

Here's why. If you are a criminal and you know that when you break into a home that the homeowner is guaranteed to armed, are you going to think twice before you enter that home? I thought so. Arming the citizenry decreases crime because it increases the odds that the criminal will be apprehended or wounded in the process.

If you are someone that isn't going to steal from your neighbor in the first place are you going to steal from him just because both of you have a gun? Not even. However, if you are someone who has a gun, you know your neighbor doesn't, and you are someone who will steal in the first place, it increases the odds that you will steal from your neighbor. And, since criminals, by their very nature and description, are people who will break the law they will always have guns. Taking guns away from law abiding people doesn't remove firearms from criminals. Anyone who thinks it does is buying into some very flawed logic that denies reality.

Tell me how many people you think would have died at Columbine if the cowards who went and shot unarmed people would have known beyond a shadow of a doubt that there would be someone who knew how to use a firearm shooting back at them as soon as they opened fire. How many lives do you think would have been saved by just the simple fact that they would have known they were outgunned and outmanned right from the start? Does a coward like to face bad odds?

How many people do know who would incessantly bully someone physically smaller than they are if they know that person is armed? Not many. A bully is someone who bullies because they think there are going to be no negative consequences to them for their actions. If they know without a doubt that there may very well be consequences bullies leave people alone, and criminals are the ultimate bullies. They go for the greatest return for the least amount of risk. You increase the risk in committing a crime, but not the reward, and the incentive to commit the crime decreases, as a consequence the crime rate itself decreases.

I've owned a gun for the greatest portion of my life. There has almost always been a gun in my home. I've never yet walked over to my neighbors house and shot him or stolen from him. I've never been associated with any type of violent crime. However, if I had a thief for a neighbor would the knowledge that I have a gun and know how to use it deter him from stealing from me? I'd like a yes or no answer to this.

I have two more questions for you. If I walked up to you, in front of witnesses, and took a big stick and beat you up, would you consider me innocent of assault and battery until it was actually proven beyond a shadow of a doubt in a court of law that I had beaten you up? Would you just stand there and take it because I'm not guilty of the crime until a court of law sentences me? I'll be very interested in reading your answers.