Ok, seriously, people need to stop talking like a DSLR and a compact one is essentially the same. You have clearly not tried to shoot photos at extreme distances in low light. The difference between a quality DSLR in the hands of an expert versus a compact ones can be very extreme depending on environmental factors. Here in the states, the place I've seen it come up on the most is at concerts, where a DSLR with a good lens will make the pictures appear like you've got front row seats when you're really up in the balcony, and the auto-focusing compact cameras simply cannot keep up with that, as their smaller lenses have to compensate via slower shutter speeds making the images blurry. We need to at least admit that there is a theoretical point to banning DSLR's if you're trying to prevent espionage.

Don't get me wrong. Realistically speaking, the Kuwait ban is worthless, since anyone willing to risk their lives for espionage probably is willing to chance it with a DSLR and a fake media badge, but I'm sure to them it looked good on paper.

My main issue is, you're making these judgments about what is the smartest move based on perfect knowledge. If you set up the scenario, you already know the answer to what the wisest play in terms of personal safety is.

Sure, in a situation where the entire family sleeps in 1 room where you know for sure there is an intruder in the house, locking the door and calling the police is by far the smartest move for your own safety. I even said as much in one of my original responses.

What happens when your wife wakes you up at 2 AM because she heard a noise downstairs? Up until this point, your experience is that this has always been the shutters fluttering against the wind, or some other benign source. Do you lock the doors and call the police? Most people are likely to go check what the noise was because they are not omniscient. The may run into danger through no fault of their own. Yes, if my significant other asks me to check on a noise in another part of our home, it's always been benign, and yes, I've always been armed when doing so for as long as I can remember, because I was a Boy Scout and am always prepared. If I also heard the noise and was reasonably sure it was a burglar, there's no way I would have put myself at risk (and her at risk) by leaving the room. But if I ever do have a burglar break in, there's no way to know for sure whether I will know in advance whether it's a burglar or not.

What if you have a daughter in another bedroom? Do you lock the door and call the police? Or do you go get her and bring her back to the bedroom first?

We can both present an infinite number of hypothetical situations. In some, going around the house is reckless and likely will get one hurt or killed. In others, it is the necessary thing to do. The problem is, with the infinite variations, there are clear cut situations, and there are gray area situations. There are many situations where a reasonable person believes they are in far more danger than they actually are. Many of these situations occur when the person at home is sleeping, and has been startled. Do you have any idea what the massive adrenaline boost associated with fearing for one's life does to your motor reflex skills and you ability to think about complex problems? Do you have any experience with what happens when that is mixed with being awoken halfway through your sleep cycle?

We can sit here and armchair quarterback all we like, but the reality is we are second guessing the decision of a person who is defending his life and his family's life in a moment of great stress. Doing so while we sip a latte at Starbucks is hardly fair. This is why I'm glad these laws are in place, so I don't get judged by a jury of people who have no clue what being in a situation like that is like, and believe that everyone should have done what a person who has perfect knowledge and was not under duress would have done.

I don't disagree with your statistics, I disagree about some of the conclusions you draw from them however.

I do not believe it is because the homicide to burglary rate is the reason for this difference in thinking. Sure, I recognize that even in the U.S., a burglar breaking into my house is probably more interested in my things than me. I'm just not willing to bet my life that a case I may run into falls into the majority, and I don't think that anyone should be asked to bet their life on it.

The reason that these laws are necessary is because without these laws, self-defense shootings, or even cases where a gun is used in self defense but no one was killed (the offender was scared off by the sight of the gun, or perhaps the shot missed but the burglar got away), enter a very legal gray area. A situation can very easily arise where a person in 1 county who shoots someone in self defense won't even be arrested, but someone who lives 10 miles away in a different county who reacts the same way to the exact same situation will be arrested, charged, and subjected to a lengthy trial where the caliber of his lawyer and the whim of the jury may cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars and his job, which is not required to wait on him as he goes to trial.

The outcome that person faces depends largely on local forces, which officer happened to respond, which local DA happened to look at the case. The politics and attitudes of these individuals makes a big difference in what an individual has to go through.

By having these laws, these people have an immunity to such prosecutions. A person shouldn't have to think "Well, he's got a gun pointed at me and he looks like he's about to shoot, but I hope he doesn't flinch when I pull the trigger, because if he turns his back to me while I'm shooting him, it'll hit him in the back and I could be accused of murdering a fleeing intruder." Yes, this has happened prior to these laws. CSI is just a TV show, in the real world a lot of conclusions like these are drawn from limited evidence.

Even in cases where no one was shot, brandishing charges and attempted manslaughter charges could occur.

So I guess you can say that, because of flaws in our criminal justice system, these laws are there to protect the innocent homeowner, and yes, it's quite possible non-violent burglars are at greater risk of getting shot. But, I would argue that 1) no system is perfect, and 2) when a person is in real fear for their life, the presence or absence of a castle doctrine law is not going to be the deciding factor in whether they shoot back. Other experiences and personality traits in their life influence whether they are able to take a life in self defense far more than whether or not they are aware of a castle doctrine law.

I find your comment to be lacist.

Sure, not all burglars are would-be murderers. So, let me ask you this. What is the acceptable loss rate of innocents? Your argument seems to be that, in order to protect the lives of burglars who are not would-be murderers, people in their own home must have more evidence that their life is in danger. Now, maybe you've had experience in attempting to gather this evidence in the first couple of minutes after being startled awake in the middle of the night. Most people I would wager are not such experts.

So, let's assume for a moment that this person defending this home has taken your advice, and decides to shoot only when there is a "sufficient" threat to his life. He opens the bedroom to check on his daughter who is asleep in the bedroom down the hall. He opens the door and there stands an intruder in his hallway. Now, at that moment in time, what are the odds that the person presents a deadly threat to him, and, if given the opportunity, would attack him with a crowbar/knife/gun or other potentially lethal weapon in order to succeed in the robbery for drug money or other purpose, or at the very least to ensure his successful escape? 50%? 30%? 10%? At what % is it OK for the guy to shoot, and at what point do you doom him to play Russian roulette on the hope that the odds leave his daughter with a father?

Given he just woke up 2 minutes ago and was only up and about because the wife told him to check on the noise, and he is still half asleep when he sees the intruder, to what degree of accuracy do you propose he can judge the threat with? Even if he has his firearm at the ready, and the intruder's weapon is still tucked into his pants, what are the odds he gets an accurate shot off before the fully awake and alert intruder even if he makes the decision to fire first? Now, what if in his half-awake state the weapon the guy had in his hand that he thought was a gun turned out to be a crowbar? Do we use hindsight and say he was not justified, that the level of threat against him dropped to the point that he's no longer justified in shooting him, but must play Russian roulette instead? What if the crowbar he thought the guy had turned out to be a gun? Is this an acceptable loss that society endures to make sure that the guys with crowbars don't get shot?

Placing the life of the criminal on even footing with the homeowner necessarily puts the life of the homeowner at greater risk. Minimizing casualties is great, but minimizing innocent casualties must come as a greater priority. Otherwise, any restriction put upon him only puts him at greater risk in order reduce the risk to the criminal, in which case your priorities are seriously messed up.

Anyone who has responded to me talking about valuing property more than the life of the burglar is frankly arguing a straw man. In every scenario where there is an intruder in the house, the homeowner must assume the threat on his life in non-zero, because it is.

There is no way to know with any degree of accuracy if the criminal you're staring at with your TV is willing to do harm to you to ensure his success and/or escape or not. You're asking the homeowner to put his life at risk for that of the criminal's.

As I said before, the point at which lethal force is acceptable must be at a point where the person defending himself can be reasonably sure he will succeed. Sorry, I'm not going to wait until someone draws his gun and points it at me. Why would I put myself in a situation where I am in a "fair fight" with a criminal? There's a saying that goes something like "If it's a fair fight, your tactics suck." If a criminal enters my house, my goal is to live. If I best accomplish my goal by holing up in my bedroom, that's what I'm going to do. If I best accomplish my goal by shooting him before he sees me and has a chance to draw his gun and shoot me, that's what I'm going to do. There's nothing noble about letting the criminal get the first shot off.

I honestly do not care if there is only a negligible reduction in crime. I do not care if criminals are dumb and will ignore the existence of stand your ground laws. Those provisions are not there for the benefit of deterrence. Those provisions are there to protect the livelihoods of law abiding citizens in their own home. If a person is in fear of his life in his own home, he should not have to second guess himself nor should he need be omniscient of the details of his situation in order to properly assess whether lethal force is necessary. Such provisions prevent people who fired a weapon in self-defense from having to face a costly trial (in both money and reputation).

Many people, especially people from other countries, seem shocked that we value the life of the innocent homeowner over that of the criminal. Frankly, I'm glad I don't live in those countries.

States with Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground laws:
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming

Keep in mind this includes very liberal states such as California and Illinois, so this does in fact show a general consensus among most of America. Even in states without such laws, convictions for people defending themselves in their own home are very rare, assuming who they shot was a stranger and not someone they knew.

We don't have time to interview the criminal to find out what his true intentions are. If there is one place where a man should have the right to feel absolutely secure, it should in their own home. No, "life is sacred" does not work both ways. The lives of law abiding people is sacred. The lives of people who agreed to abide by the rules of a civilized society is sacred. The life of those who have broken that trust by breaking into someone's home violating that person's right to remain secure in that home (not merely trespassing on their property) is not sacred.

The castle doctrine that is found in most states in the U.S. guarantees that right to its citizens. The law is there because we are more concerned about the right to life of the law abiding person in their own home, and will not second guess the exact circumstances of a person who defends themselves at home. It is utterly ridiculous for a person to have to prove that there was not a viable escape route, that, in a moment of duress within their own home, they had to have 20/20 hindsight about the circumstance that they were in. How is the person supposed to know that jumping out the window would be safe, that there wasn't some accomplice who went to the backdoor? A person who is awoken at 3AM from a person breaking a window and entering his home has no idea what kind of danger he is in. Regardless of how much he trusts the police, he can't change the fact that the average response time of an officer to a Code 3 situation is around 8 minutes. The fact is that there is never a sure way to know whether retreat is the better option. And given that a person isn't omniscient, we have decided in most of the U.S. that the law is going to remove this ridiculous need for proof from the person trying to defend his life in his own home.

Does this mean that it's a smart idea for a person to run through the house guns blazing if someone breaks into his home? No, of course not. Most experts will tell you that the best course of action is to gather your family, hole up in the bedroom, call the police, and be ready to shoot only if the person breaking into the house attempts to break into that sanctuary. But, because there are an infinite number of circumstances that may arise that takes that option off the table, it is not the government's place to second guess the judgment of the law abiding citizen over that of a criminal.

If it is permissible to kill someone in self defense if they have a gun pointed at you an are ready and willing to shoot, the practical line at which lethal force becomes permissible MUST be at a point before it is too late for the person defending themselves to succeed at doing so. If your line for when it's ok to shoot a person is after they've shot at you, then that line is worthless.

There is still no excuse. Making sure you have one should be part of your routine when preparing for a date with a new potential partner, much like getting a haircut, or picking out what you're going to wear, etc. Between that and always having a backup in your wallet, there is really no reason for the situation you describe to ever come up.

There are two reasons why in the real world it does come up. The first is education. Abstinence only education is a terrible relic and should have been abolished wholesale ever since the invention of condoms. People getting pregnant didn't start with the AIDS era, and so we should've been ahead of the problem but weren't. The second, pure and simple, is laziness. If one were to cause an unplanned pregnancy or get an STD due to laziness, I have very little sympathy for your situation.

If you consciously know this is something that one should worry about, then any lack of preparation is simply laziness that has been rationalized as "well we were in the moment" or "well I wasn't raised that way."

Having a condom omnipresent represents a trivial effort.

When I was single, and on some occasions ended up someone new at her place or mine, yes, I did always have a condom on me, in my wallet so I always knew where it was. I also always had a morning after pill in my car, in case something unexpected happened or the condom failed and she was not on birth control. Precautions like these took little to no effort. There really is no excuse in a civilized society.

I'm convinced that the fact that this level of preparation is somehow unusual as opposed to the standard is due to the prevalence of abstinence only sex education in the U.S.

Ahem, if it's hard enough, neither putting on a condom nor peeing on a chip should get in the way.

But seriously, if there's enough reluctance on either side such that pausing to put on a condom is "difficult", perhaps the proper question is to consider whether the "let's hurry up and put this thing in there before she changes her mind" strategy is really a good idea. In a situation where both sides actually want to have sex for more than "the moment", you can take the time to get back into the mood after taking responsible precautions.