By the time he made his choice of weapon and further action, he merely suspected that someone was trespassing. The list of events you presented is not valid and is in wrong order. Assuming you were replying to me (as I seem to be the only one who brought up a baseball bat in the thread), I simply made a point that buying a katana for defensive purposes is a bad idea.

if you read the article, it was said that he kept it around on the top of his closet

If the student felt he was in danger of severe bodily harm, then he was within his right to protect himself, Gray said: "It doesn't matter if he used a gun, a sword or a frying pan."

The police spokesman said the student who wielded the weapon had no advanced sword training. "He wasn't a ninja," Guglielmi said. "He may have been moderately trained or on the intermediate level."

bare fists can be just as deadly as any sword, and if you defended yourself from someone who lunged at you with said karate.

its almost exactly the same.
he took some sword training. heck, i'd go for it even if just for a while.

Why is buying a katana for defensive purposes a bad idea? The point of a defensive weapon is naturally to inflict some sort of crippling or disabling damage on the attacker so that he can not harm you further, and as is apparent from this case, a katana accomplished that purpose well. Why would buying a katana for defense be any worse than buying for example, a gun, a tazer, a bow and arrow, ect, for defense?

When it comes down to a situation between my safety and the safety of my attacker, of course I want to have the bigger stick. I don't think its at all reasonable to force limitations on the defending party (the guy being robbed) of non-lethality, when it is very likely that the offending party could be packing lethal weapons. It's like saying "Okay, you're the good guy so you have to lay down and die for the bad guy." Especially in the circumstances of the home; a party defending his home is a party defending his livlihood, his life in essence, which is an enumerated right held to be inalienable.

It is not reasonable to force limitations when you're already dragged into the situation and need to act quickly, but it is reasonable to force limitations when you're buying and choosing weapons. If two weapons have the same stopping capability, you must always pick the less-lethal one. Hence, buying a katana for defense is a bad idea if you can buy, say, a taser for the same money (which may also be a factor).

Actually, now that I think of it... a taser is an even better defensive weapon because its stopping action is very quick in all cases, while a katana stroke may have varying stopping speeds.

Jaff, you are neglecting to consider the user's capability with each item.

the student had moderate training, and besides, who knows if maybe you have to bring your own sword to class.
if you took violin lessons, you would generally have your own violin.

That can vary on a case-by-case basis. You cannot argue with my statement that a taser gives much more predictable stopping time; while I can argue that there may be people that are better with tasers than katanas. Your statement, if you would want to turn it into an argument for the katana, would be doubtful and not based on any common known medical facts.

This is the section of your post that I am conflicting with. Show me what is supporting this rule you have stated.

well if you dont, the law will come after you and jail you for defending your property.
and its not the kids fault the guy died with 1 slash.
if like, the kid slashed him once, then the guy fell down. and then the kid took his time gouging his innards out, that would be considered unnescessary force.
you cant call 1 strike overdoing it

It is merely my opinion that the less-lethal weapon must be chosen. I feel that there is no need to kill a person when you can only injure and get the same result - fully stop the attack.

EDIT: I see your point. If you cannot find a less-lethal weapon that you can wield on the level of the more-lethal one, I say go for the more-lethal one, because your safety comes first. A reasonable compromise must always be found if the lethality and ease of use factors conflict with each other.

From an immediate humanitarian standpoint of preserving lives, I can see what you mean. However:

I completely disagree. Stopping capability is directly correlated to lethality, I'm sure you find this reasonable? Not only is a more lethal weapon more capable of stopping the offender, its more likely to preserve the life of the defender, and more likely to result in the chances of a non-lethal confrontation by nature of scaring off the offender. If the offender finds himself at gunpoint, I think it reasonable to say he will fear for his life and be more likely to attempt escape without violent confrontation, whereas a person defending himself with anything from a tazer to a baseball bat is a target much more susceptible to being killed by the offender.

On the flipside, a confrontation between two less-lethal weapons may result in more outcomes of violent confrontation without lethality, but also less outcomes of non-violent confrontation.

In both cases, there is simply too much left to chance: a swing of a baseball bat to a temple can be just as lethal as a gunshot or knife slash or a katana/severed hand. The defending party must be allowed to defend himself with whatever means is most readily available, and whatever is most likely to affect his safety, even if that should mean using a weapon with a larger degree of lethality. If he is restricted in his means to defend himself, that allows the offender greater capability to victimize the defender, and it should be the rights of the defender we're worried about, as he is the one in good standing with the law at this point.

I agree there are cases where the rights of the offender can be taken to far; he should not be allowed to empty clips and clips of bullets into an offender or ruthlessly slaughter him, but the use of lethal force as a defense must be allowed.

The use of lethal force would also act as a deterrent to crime, if not by scaring people out of committing crime, at least by removing or crippling criminals. I don't know how well it would 'scare' people out of committing crimes, as that's already as risk, but I think if every person in America owned a weapon there might be a noticable deterrent effect. Possibly it could be accompanied by an increase in murders/deaths for a while, but in the long run I think it would help deter household crimes at least.

Wikipedia says the latest Taser model can fire up to 3 times without the need to reload/recharge.
I disagree. I will give you several examples out of the things I've read and heard. I cannot (atleast as of now) back this up with wiki articles, so if you're ready to trust me on this one, read on:

There have been many cases when a lethal gunshot would not stop a person quite as fast as you think it would. The US knows this very well from the experience of the two massive campaigns it leads now. The assault rifle 5.56 and the handgun 9mm (non-expanding) are both good examples of rounds that don't always stop a person even after inflicting a lethal wound.

The taser, for example, will stop a person if you get a clean hit. Of course, it has its disadvantages which you must consider, such as the three shot capacity.

The second most important point of your post is the scare factor of lethal weapons. I completely agree that they have full advantage there. No matter how painful a taser or a gas pistol may be, you cannot scare someone who is risking going to jail with it.

Well quite. Say I was to shoot a trespasser with a dart gun, and hit him with a cyanide-tipped dart. The chances of the wound being lethal are close to 100% but it's definitely not going to stop him for 5, maybe 10 seconds. The same applies for shooting someone with a handgun - standard FMJ ammunition may cause a fatal wound but is unlikely to knock down and incapacitate someone who is aware they are in a life or death situation (adrenaline rushing and mentally focused), or high on crack or a similar drug.

If you want stopping power then you'd use something like JHP ammunition but I question the ethics of using something which is designed to kill and make a mess. Glaser ammunition is a less-lethal possibility but it's had a lot of problems and is expensive.

A taser is probably the most effective weapon in terms of stopping power and avoiding injury to the firer. It temporarily disables the nervous system, which negates the effect of any drug or adrenaline high. I think a less-lethal choice of weapon is more ethical, though I accept that in the heat of the moment you'll choose whatever makes you feel safest.

However, I don't believe that the use (or threat) of a more lethal weapon will necessarily cause someone to give up. On the contrary I believe it charges the situation and can cause a kind of brinkmanship if both parties are armed, which could easily end in serious injury or death for both. When someone fears that their death may be imminent they may not act reasonably.

A guy, who previously pointed a gun at an officer, was in the home of a student. He had every right to decapitate him if given the choice.
/thread

you also have to consider what was available at the time. The student may not have bought the sword for self defense, and just for the training, and may not have bought anything for self defense... so when a burglar breaks into his home, he chooses the most self-defense-like weapon in his home and goes to confront the burglar... I find absolutely no wrong in this.

Objectively speaking, with hindsight, that is correct. But, during the encounter, how does the student know that the guy had a criminal record and did such things? "Excuse me, you're breaking and entering here. Stay right there, I need to investigate your criminal history before making the decision to use a sword on you." ?

According to Wikipedia's article on Self-defense in Maryland, (where John Hopkins is located) the student was acting in self-defense if the following conditions were met:
If these conditions were met, then the use of the sword for self-defense was justified.


As a side note to everyone saying they would hurt/kill anyone breaking into their home, you might want to check if your state has a Castle Doctrine. (absense of it places a duty-to-retreat from intruders on the occupants.)

Any man that breaks into somebody's home deserves to be killed by the home owner. I believe the guy's killing was justified, but the kid has now made himself a target. The city of Baltimore isn't very forgiving.

Also, the guy he killed was a career criminal. I'm not too sad over his loss.

Often during sports, and even times during SC melee, you have to think without words in order to react to a certain situation. This happened very often to me in basketball particularly. What I mean is, at times during these sports I would have to quickly make a decision based on my surroundings, and hope that it was indeed the best decision I could have made.

Here's what would go through my head if I were in this situation, waking up and grabbing my sword: If I were walking out of my room with a samurai sword, knowing that there was an intruder, I would be hoping to have the intruder either run away or freeze and remain frozen until the police came. I would also try to get as close to the intruder as possible, since he may easily be armed with a ranged weapon. If I get close to him, I will come into control.

Now when I come around the corner and the guy is a few feet in front of me, I move towards him and he lunges at me.. I would not expect a man to lunge at me unless the man feels he can overpower or defeat me, as in, why else would the man risk his life if he didn't think he could disarm or kill me? I would immediately slash both out of surprise and fear of what the man might do, and I would slash hard. At such a small instant of time as when a person lunges at you while you have a lethal weapon, you would be thinking he was both aware of the lethality of the weapon and has some sort of reason to lunge at you in the first place, e.g. has a knife, or is attempting to disarm you, etc.

But of course, dead men tell no tales. The college student could have easily been angry beyond all reason, ran up to the guy and slashed as the man raised his arms to his face.

That's what I was thinking. We don't know the facts so for all we know the intruder could have been killed 'while trying to escape'.

That's actually fairly close to what you want from a katana strike: The sword comes from a blade-up position in its sheath on your left hip, so you either bring it straight across from your left to right or from their right shoulder down to their left hip.
Keep in mind that this same person had robbed their house before, and he had been robbing the houses of many university students. The student would DEFINITELY have reason to believe that there could be someone dangerous in their garage.
No, you would probably be learning kendo, and you would use a shinai (a blunt bamboo sword).