Joe Horn?

[AlexM]

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Where do you draw this arbitrary line? If I leave a banana peel lying somewhere in my home in the hopes that an intruders slips on it, busts their skull opens and dies, is that murder? If I get a guard dog and it mauls an intruder to death, is that murder?

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Just because the line is arbitrary, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Is [censored] an 18-year-old OK? Ya, sure. 16? Eh. 12? 9? It's an arbitrary cut off but I'm sure you agree that eventually you're molesting a child.

I generally agree that when you're intruding on someone else's property you sort of surrender the benefit of the doubt, but I don't think it's so simple as to say, basically, anything goes. The trap, as I see it, is sort of like a proactive defense. You're putting it there for a purpose, and not just cause you like the way it looks from the living room.

When someone flicks my ear they're violating my property, but I don't think I necessarily have the right to then punch them in the nose. Certainly not to stab them. So I don't see why you necessarily have the right to proactively set a trap that will kill someone who might be stumbling through your property. I mean, sometimes people cut through my lawn. It's sort of accepted that while it's my property, it's safe to assume I won't mind very much, and if I do I'll ask them to stop. So it's almost like implied consent. Would it be OK to set a deadly booby trap, and if someone sets it off that's just their fault for walking through my lawn?

I'm an ACist and I don't think my perspective here is contradictory to AC or the regard for property rights.

I think there are a lot of fine lines in justice, which is why I (and you, I'm sure) feel strongly that courts need an efficient means of incentive, so that we can have the right people (rather than people reacting to the mechanism of knee jerk public approval) making these important decisions distinctions.

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Lawn != in the house. Although I would say that it's fine so long as you have a fence. Everything else in your post completely ignored the points and questions made in my post. The fact that it was arbitrary had nothing to do with my point, yet you latched on to that.

[ALawPoker]

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Lawn != in the house. Although I would say that it's fine so long as you have a fence. Everything else in your post completely ignored the points and questions made in my post. The fact that it was arbitrary had nothing to do with my point, yet you latched on to that.

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The lawn was my example not yours. I know you didn't say that. I was just offering that as an example of my thought process.

I wasn't trying to attack your post or anything. I originally responded with only my first paragraph, with the point being that just because a cutoff is arbitrary I think it can still exist. The rest was just because I started thinking about it more, so I added on. Sorry if it came off as I was attacking your post.