Boobytraps and the American Legal System

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 6:36 PM 7/22/96, Vinnie Moscaritolo wrote:
>>   You pop a claymore in a building with any substance up to the level of
>>concrete re-enforced, and you _will_ be going with them.
>
>booby traping your home is a really stupid idea, I promise that your
>dog/child/spouse will be theone to accidentally set it off. besides for
>this you can get sued..
>
>every hear the one about the case of a guy who constantly had his radar
>detector stolen out his his car, he decides to set a trap and rigs his next
>one with exposive. The perp steals the box, sells it. someclown powers it
>up on his dash board and BANG!.. well you'd figure justice is served, but
>the NYC judges awarded the mass of flesh damages and charged the guy with
>manslaughter.

Agree, very foolish to ever plant boobytraps in one's own home.

Still, I remember vividly in college when the court case was decided
involving a guy in Florida who was tired of being burglarized and the cops
doing nothing about it: he rigged a shotgun to go off when someone broke a
window and entered. A perp did, was shot, survived, and the case went to
trial.

The boobytrapper was found guilty of some serious crime--I don't recall the
details (this was circa 1972).

However, all of my dorm roommates at the time were chortling over the
stupidity of imprisoning someone for the crime of trying to defend his
property against repeated invasions by scum. This was a "touchstone"
example for most of us, raised on Heinlein and Rand as we were. More than
chortling, we were uniformly angry. (The world seems to be divided into two
basic types over issues like this: those who  are outraged that the burglar
could collect damages from his victim, and those who are outraged that the
owner was even able to buy a shotgun in the first place.)

(Later examples were to be even worse. For example, the burglar who climbed
on a roof and stepped through a skylight. He sued, and won. I guess the
owner of the property was obligated to install night lights so burglars
could see their way, and to generally make his property more
"burglar-friendly." Or the woman who sued a hospital, claiming her psychic
abilities were lost after a CAT scan. She won.)

As Vinnie said, "only in Amerika."

--Tim May

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