HOW SAFE ARE WE IN CA?

New Bill Designed to Increase Home Invasions

The political class, with their state-funded security and gated communities remains tone-deaf to the population they claim to represent. Their latest action, Assembly Bill 1333 by Dem Rick Zbur would limit the justifiable circumstances where you can kill a criminal who has broken into your home. He uses the words “more force than is reasonably necessary,” to determine if you acted legally.

Let’s look at a situation where you are being so threatened. You and your family are quietly sleeping in a locked home. Three thugs break into your home, making noise, clearly aware you are in residence AND that you know they have are here. What is their purpose? Are we now required to be mind-readers to determine if they a. just want our stuff, b. want to rape or harm us, or c. want to kill us? Gangs and those on drugs often get off on doing whatever they want; you can’t predict it. But under Zbur’s law, if you shoot and kill one or more of them, a judge or jury has to decide whether you acted with sufficient prudence.

In addition, although Hollywood almost always gets this wrong, in an active shooter situation, you can’t be sure of where or what your bullet might hit. You may aim for a knee, but hit the heart. The same goes for the crooks. You’re not at a gun range. Does your intent matter? Is it going to be okay that you meant to disable them, not kill them? Not under this law. Killing them can be found to be wrong if a judge or jury believes they only meant to rob you.

In addition, the “duty to retreat” has been increased to say that if outside your house “and you know that using force is likely to cause death or great bodily injury could have been avoided with complete safety by retreating,” you must retreat.

Let’s take that last sentence apart to look at the insanity of it. First, you are coming home and are attacked. You haven’t unlocked your door, and you don’t know how to retreat. Besides, your kids are in there and these creeps could just bust through a window and harm them. But you’re supposed to do nothing because they might just go away. The duty to retreat is a joke anyway. Most interior doors are easy to breach; these are not fancy, deadbolts. And many of us can’t run as fast or easily as a young crook. I’m not supposed to run anymore and, if I did, would risk having to re-replace my knee, an awful prospect. Honestly, if someone is attacking me, they deserve bodily harm, rather than expecting me to be the one who is harmed.

The Castle Doctrine

This common law principle states that you are allowed to “stand your ground,” whether to defend yourself, your loved ones or your property. It’s all included. Zbur claims his law wouldn’t eviscerate the Castle Doctrine, but even LEXIT, a conservative Latino group, is greatly concerned about this law.

Zbur claims he is going after vigilante justice, but that’s an absurd retreat from his criminal-privileging law. Do you want a jury to determine if you had a “safe and easy way to retreat?” I believe that when a criminal wants something from you, your property, your body or your life, they have forfeited their right to live. Maybe you only wound them. But they have departed from common decency by the attack, and you, not being able to read their minds, has to be concerned with the worst case scenario. Just remember, that no matter how good your police force is, they cannot protect us in most circumstances. We must protect ourselves, our families and our hard-won property. No one has a right to our stuff or our lives.

Sheriffs and police in CA largely join with gun and victim groups to oppose this bill. If passed, it is open season on your home. No longer can you relax at home; you’ll be listening for a hint that someone is breaking into your house, or, on answering the door, being forced back by violent thugs. Is this really how we want to live? Why is our state government so opposed to good citizens who pay their salaries and so much on the side of the criminals?

Naturally, Everytown for Gun Safety and other similar groups is in support of this. They claim that violence involving firearms costs taxpayers a bundle, but carefully avoid noting how much of this is due to good guys with guns defending themselves, their families, other people and their property. Probably almost none of the cost is due to us. In fact, done right, the only cost is dumping the bodies in paupers’ graves.

Given that criminals routinely use deadly force, it is ludicrous that we, the victims, good citizens and neighbors would be enjoined from fighting back in a similar fashion. I know these anti-gun groups want to abolish guns, but every policy they forward only takes guns away from good people and turns us into victims. Share on you all! Come out from behind your protected properties and think of those you claim to represent.

Or better yet, let’s vote these insufferable bastards out!