The A to Z English Podcast Culture Corner: Is it true that you can shoot and kill and intruder in the United States?
In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack discuss whether or not it is legal to shoot and kill an intruder in the United States.
Transcript:
00:00:01
Jack
Welcome to the A to Z English podcast. My name is Jack and I'm here with my co-host social. And today we are in the culture corner. And so so we've got a really weird question today from students. But I mean, it makes sense. Like, if you watch the news in America, I kind of understand why they would.
00:00:21
Jack
Be interested in this topic and so I think you and I can do our best. We're not law enforcement experts or anything like that. We're just going based on our understanding of our own.
00:00:32
Jack
Culture. But the question is, is it true that in the United States, if an intruder comes into your home, you are allowed to kill the person and you won't have to face any charges, so you won't go to jail for killing that person?
00:00:54
Xochitl
I think in general it's true, but I do want to like, say, a caveat that it really depends like state by state states have stronger like standard ground laws and like gun laws and stuff like ones that you in the right more so, but other ones are like a little more strict because the US doesn't have a central government.
00:01:15
Xochitl
Like, it's not like the federal government dictates.
00:01:18
Xochitl
Things for every state across the board, the states kind of make their own legislation and a lot of the federal laws are just like guidelines. So.
00:01:28
Jack
And it's a federation of states since and, which means that each state can experiment with with laws that are a little bit different than other states, but they're still federal law, which is the the which is is the law for everybody. So it's kind of weird. Some laws apply to every every state and some laws.
00:01:44
Xochitl
Right, that's.
00:01:48
Jack
Are just in one state or another state.
00:01:52
Xochitl
Right, right. And so there are certain things that are like federal crimes, obviously doesn't matter what state you're in, but there are other ones that it does vary by state and gun laws and standard ground laws and things like that and self-defense laws do vary by state. So that makes it a little complicated. But on the whole, I would say.
00:02:16
Xochitl
You're probably more likely to get away with claiming self-defense by shooting an intruder that entered your home. Then you would be in many other countries.
00:02:28
Jack
Yeah. Now I agree with everything you just said. I think it's great then and there's a couple of other things that I want to add to this too. Statistically, if you have a gun in your house, you are much more likely to instead of killing an intruder, you are much more likely to kill a member of your family or yourself.
00:02:48
Jack
Like statistically, uh, you know.
00:02:52
Jack
You hear some sound in your in your kitchen. You grab your gun.
00:02:57
Jack
You walk in there, you see a shadowy figure. You shoot that person. Ohh, no, that's not your that's not your an intruder. It's your your husband or wife making a midnight snack. You know. I mean, how many times has that happened? I think this is like a real problem.
00:03:17
Jack
With, with with the guns in America, the, the, the way we think about guns.
00:03:24
Jack
As a good guy, shooting a bad guy. Yeah, it's it's easy in the movies, it's very clean and simple. But in real life, it's very dangerous and and often it doesn't work out the way we think it will.
00:03:39
Xochitl
Yeah, there are tons of super sad stories. Like there's some that I've read. For example, there was one where a girl was hiding in a closet to prank. I think her friend who was like in the house, who was cleaning his gun and they were. I want to say like they were.
00:03:58
Xochitl
Teenagers, I think.
00:04:00
Xochitl
And he was cleaning a gun in the household and she jumped out of the closet and scared him, and he shot her and killed her.
00:04:09
Jack
Yeah, this happens all the time in America. Little little children will find a gun and and and shoots. You know their brother or sister or themselves accidentally playing with a gun that they found. It's it happens all the time in America.
00:04:11
Xochitl
And yeah, it happened.
00:04:28
Jack
I mean it is.
00:04:30
Jack
Really a travesty and a tragedy. There's something called the in America. We have something called the castle doctrine. Every person's house is considered their castle and you have the right to reasonably defend yourself.
00:04:50
Jack
Now there's another case in Minnesota, which is really interesting. I don't know, maybe, you know, this social. I listen to a lot of true crime, so I know a lot of stories.
00:05:01
Jack
Like this and this man's house. He had been uh. People, had young teenagers, teenagers in the city had broken into his house several times, so maybe three or four times. And he called the police and they never caught the the kids. So what he did was he parked his car behind his house.
00:05:23
Jack
To make it look like his house was empty for Thanksgiving.
00:05:27
Jack
And then he got his gun and he went into the basement and he just was reading a book for a couple of hours, waiting for someone to break into his house. He knew they were going to come into his.
00:05:38
Jack
House once they came into it, then the two kids broke into his house.
00:05:44
Jack
One kid walked down stairs. He shot and killed that kid. The other one came down. She screamed unarmed. She didn't have a gun.
00:05:54
Jack
And he shot her anyway. And then while she was injured, he executed her.
00:06:01
Jack
And recorded the whole thing on audio and it. And in Minnesota, that was considered murder. He murdered those kids. He did not. It was not reasonable for him to kill them. They they did not need to die. He could have just stopped them with his gun.
00:06:22
Jack
You know, called the police, had them arrested, but instead he decided that he was going to execute them and kill them. And in that case, which is an extreme case, I I feel sorry for him that his house had been broken into, but his actions were considered murder. So in that.
00:06:39
Jack
Case breaking an invader came into his house. He was not allowed to kill them. So it, like you said in the beginning, state by state it's different. It's different in Texas. I think he might have been acquitted and not and found not guilty but it.
00:06:56
Xochitl
Yeah, I think maybe in Texas or Florida, some of those states that have pretty lenient laws and you probably would.
00:07:04
Jack
Yes, yes.
00:07:05
Xochitl
Which I personally I don't know how you feel, Jack. I personally think I do think it sucks that people.
00:07:09
Xochitl
Were breaking into.
00:07:10
Xochitl
His home. But I I don't think you should execute teenagers.
00:07:15
Jack
No, I don't think you have the. You don't get to be judge, jury and executioner in America. You know, you get to regionally, you reasonably defend yourself, scare them away, get them out of there, call the police and let the police take care of it. It's not your job to to be a a judge and A and an execution.
00:07:21
Xochitl
Shouldn't get to but a.
00:07:22
Xochitl
Lot of people have.
00:07:34
Jack
So I, you know, and I'm also.
00:07:36
Jack
Very, very anti gun. I don't think we need guns. I I think we have this.
00:07:45
Jack
Well, let's not get into the whole gun.
00:07:46
Jack
Debate right now.
00:07:47
Jack
That's another conversation.
00:07:48
Xochitl
No, but no. I agree. Jack and I are on the same side of this gun debate, though. It's just as Jack says. I think just in a reductionist way. It you're just much more likely to kill some yourself or someone in your family than you are. Or make a grave mistake that you will.
00:07:53
Jack
I see.
00:08:06
Xochitl
Great. Then you are to really.
00:08:10
Xochitl
Save or protect yourself in any way, and as I say, a having a gun or owning a gun is an invitation to get shot as well. So you.
00:08:19
Jack
Absolutely. And also like you said, that's you're much more likely to die by your own gun than you are by the gun of some intruder. So, I mean, I know it happens. People break into your house and stuff, but this idea that we're going to be, you know, getting gunfights like the Wild West like Cowboys, you know, back in the 1800s is.
00:08:37
Xochitl
Right.
00:08:39
Jack
It's ridiculous.
00:08:41
Jack
And it needs to change, you know.
00:08:41
Xochitl
Right.
00:08:44
Xochitl
I do. I do want to make the last point on this for sure because some of our students, I imagine, may come to America someday or may come as exchange students or as international students. If you do so, you have to be extremely careful because there have been cases there was a case in Florida, for example, of a Japanese student.
00:09:04
Xochitl
Who? Umm, walked up to the wrong house for Halloween party and just they told him like Ohh just walk in when you get here. I think he he.
00:09:08
발표자
Right.
00:09:15
Xochitl
Opened the door or something and was shot and killed. And obviously you don't want to be alarmist. You know, this isn't going to happen to any person, but I'll tell you myself when I actually realize that I've actually knocked on the wrong door. Whatever I do, book it out of there because you just never know what kind of nut case is going to be living.
00:09:35
Jack
Yeah, and book it means means run away quickly. Like get out of there, you know.
00:09:36
Xochitl
In the house.
00:09:40
Xochitl
Right. And in that case, means someone who's a little crazy. So you do want to get out of there because you just don't know.
00:09:48
Xochitl
Who could be living there and what their situation might be and what they think about intruders and stuff? So yeah, it is a case by case basis and there are some states where people own a lot more guns and the gun culture is a lot more insane, like in intense like Texas.
00:10:05
Xochitl
Yeah, just.
00:10:05
Jack
And and unlike.
00:10:06
Jack
Unlike the the, you know what the what, the.
00:10:09
Jack
Common like myths. You know that if you go to America, everyone's just, you know, shooting, you know, guns everywhere, you know, you're it's not like that. But but there is there are moments of of extreme gun violence that occur in America because there are so many guns and because the the.
00:10:14
발표자
Pew Pew.
00:10:19
Xochitl
No, no.
00:10:29
Jack
Laws surrounding guns are, quite frankly, crazy. If you ask me, I think we have crazy gun laws. So.
00:10:35
Xochitl
Very last.
00:10:40
Jack
Just be be be smart, keep you know, be be, uh, understand the situation, but you don't need to be in a full panic all the time.
00:10:50
Xochitl
Right.
00:10:50
Jack
You know, while you're.
00:10:51
Jack
Visiting, you know?
00:10:52
Xochitl
Right. You, you you just need to be aware of your surroundings and just kind of aware of the situation. One last one that I think goes with this as well is that Jack, we're I'm curious, were you taught?
00:11:07
Xochitl
In school, like how were you trained for school shootings as a kid? Because.
00:11:12
Jack
No, this was not a thing. I'm I was born my graduated before Colon.
00:11:16
Jack
Combine so we we before the the first school shooting the not sorry not the first school shooting, the first kind of major school shooting that was really alarmed people was the Columbine shooting in 97. And and I was in college at that time.
00:11:18
Xochitl
Ohh right.
00:11:36
Jack
And that was a a wake up call. You would think it was a wake up call for the America, but now we just have gotten used to these happening every week. You know, which again is in is is crazy that we live like this.
00:11:54
Jack
UM, so I never received that kind of training. We had tornado drills. That was it. And when I was young, but no school shooting drills, you must have experienced them all the time, right?
00:12:06
Xochitl
Yeah. I grew up with.
00:12:09
Xochitl
Shooting girls like we knew it would be like you would. They would announce over the intercom like there's a shooter or whatever and they wouldn't. So apparently they don't tell teachers whether it's fake or real, so you have to just pretend that it's real because you don't know and what you would have to do is.
00:12:30
Xochitl
UM, they would like lock the door and then everyone would like hide in the corner in the classroom where, like, you couldn't see. And so, like, The thing is also that classroom doors have one very tiny spin window in Kentucky because.
00:12:48
Xochitl
Uh, that prevents like a shooter from being able to like shoot through the glass and open the door. And yeah, we would all have to hide and stuff and then they would like train you on like, if in your in the bathroom, put your feet up on the toilet and like, sit there and like have this like, lock the stall door.
00:13:09
Xochitl
And yeah, we were. We were trained and then the a police officer would knock on our door and then they would, like, open it with their own.
00:13:19
Xochitl
Key I think.
00:13:19
Xochitl
Or something like that and they would come in and and tell us one by one that the that it was over and.
00:13:29
Jack
This is petrifying.
00:13:29
Xochitl
That was it. That was.
00:13:31
Jack
Every, every, every kid in your generation has post traumatic stress disorder. PTSD from this.
00:13:37
Xochitl
Yeah, people wonder why we're such an anxious generations as the old Gen. Z and millennials. And it's because we were raised like this. This was something that was just par for the course, and we'd have these, like, probably once a month. So yeah.
00:13:55
Jack
So listeners out there think about, just think about the insanity of that, that we have instead of making laws against taking people's guns away, we're just going to come up with.
00:14:08
Jack
Hiding in a corner and locking the door of the school classroom, I mean. And now they're thinking about giving teachers guns so that they can fight back again. I mean, it's it's insane. It's insane.
00:14:21
Xochitl
Which we know is just gonna end up with a teacher being way more likely to accidentally shoot a student or students shooting each other because also like I can only imagine that some students could just take the firearm off the teacher.
00:14:36
Xochitl
It just would just.
00:14:36
Jack
There's so many in in just dumb.
00:14:40
Jack
Policies. Uh, policies that are that are.
00:14:44
Jack
Put forward.
00:14:45
Xochitl
It's like just take the guns away in South Korea, the gun policy is so strict that even officers have to check out their own guns, even if you have a gun license, you have to check out your own gun and only have a certain number of bullets. And the first bullet chamber in South Korea on the guns for police officers is empty.
00:14:45
Jack
Around this issue.
00:15:05
Xochitl
It's a blank chamber.
00:15:07
Jack
So they can't accidentally just shoot you. Yeah, alright. Welcome to America, my friends.
00:15:10
Xochitl
Yeah, exactly.
00:15:14
Xochitl
Yeah, alright, listeners. Well, don't be too scared by our learned this conversation, but let us know what you think in the comments below and tell us what are the gun laws like in your country? I'm really curious to know how the gun laws are and how they operate in your country. If you have had anything like school shooter drills or anything at school.
00:15:35
Xochitl
Or any kind of other drills for natural or man made disasters. Let us know in the comments down below at A-Z englishpodcast.com shoot us an e-mail at AZ englishpodcast@gmail.com or join the WeChat or WhatsApp groups to join the conversation and we'll see you guys next.
00:15:49
Xochitl
Time bye bye bye.
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