...Despite what bedwetting opinionators may think. Nope; Indiana's legislature has fixed (rather, is in the process of fixing) a very grave wrong done by our state's Supreme Court back in 2011, when they decided you have no right to resist even an illegal police entry to your home. Led by the soon-to-be-ablegated* Steven H. David, they spat in the face of long-standing case and common law.
And the Legislature took steps to rectify the matter with SB 001. Yep, first on the list.
There may, indeed be times to fight back. In Indiana, if it was one of those times, the householder will have some possibility of redress. That's really all the law does; Officer Friendly can still go all Harless on you, or much worse (officer safety-wise, $BADGUY was prolly gonna shoot at first knock anyway). As ever, in the end we can only look to the good sense and goodwill of our fellowcritters. Doesn't always work -- as SB 001 recognizes and the Indiana Supreme Court did not.
(Mucho appreciato to Clare Wolfe, who caught this.)
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* Yes, it's a real word. I don't always make them up.
The articles on self defense always leave out that one key word: reasonably.
ReplyDeleteYou must reasonably believe that your life is in danger. That excludes people who want to shoot because they believe the cop is a martian.
When I first heard about that 2011 Indiana SC decision (probably here) I was completely floored. It's nice to see that they are attempting to change it.
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This law really should never have been necessary. The morons on the Indiana Supreme Court are the ones who made this necessary, for all those who are so concerned about officer safety issues raised by this bill. In September I will hit my 27th year in law enforcement, and I can tell you that if the ISC decision were not addressed, there ARE those in this profession who would have taken advantage of it.
ReplyDeleteI do however share some trepidation over how this will be interpreted by some. Such as: its ok to shoot the cops who are entering your house on a legal search warrant, etc. because the law says so.
Ablegated.
ReplyDeleteI am, according to all my schoolmates, a "big vocabulary guy."
Tell the truth. You have Roget's Thesaurus AND the Oxford English Dictionary on disk, don't you?
I do not have either on disc; I do, however, own a nice hardback Roget's, but I lost track of it after I found myself adding synonyms to it. ;)
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