A Bill to defend your home

Every person has heard of people who have had to defend themselves when someone entered their home or attacked them on the street. Most people believe that we have a right to defend ourselves (to a certain extent) and that, if someone enters our home we should be allowed to do whatever it takes to protect our belongings and ourselves.

State Rep. Mike Burris has pre-filed a new House Bill 1027. The bill is called "Stand Your Ground Law." This Bill, if accepted, would enable people to use any kind of deadly force against people entering a home without permission from the owner or occupant of the dwelling.

This new bill would even permit using deadly force against a person who is removing a person from a house against his or her will. This is not the case is the person being removed is a child or a grandchild (or even a person in custody). The bill does not permit using deadly force against anyone engaged in any type of unlawful activity or against police officers. Of course the law officer would have to identify himself as such. There are already similar laws in states like Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida.

Many people criticize this new proposed bill as a 'shoot first' policy. Of course there is a risk when people take matters into their own hands and there is a more than realistic risk that people will get hurt without warning. Occupants of certain areas in the country just do not feel safe and unless there are better ways to protect homes and individuals people will want to be able too protect themselves and their belongings better.