Killing is pretty serious and it falls down to did he go for the kill? I mean if he was just defending himself/family/home and happened to hit something vital then meh, it was an accident and completely understandable.

The problem boils down to that people should be able to defend themselves and their home from would be attackers, at the moment it seems to be the case of all burglars are laughing becuase if they get hit or injured during a robbery they might not get the swag but they can sue after.

Sometimes justice is completely fair but we often never hear about it, it's a very small minority of cases where the criminals get away scott free whilst the person defending themselves or their property gets charged etc.

A few years ago someone I went to school with was stabbed to death. The stupid little chav bastard tried to hold someone up at knife point. The person resisted and stabbed him to death. There were no charges brought against the chap who killed him in defence. This kind of thing is actually fairly common but you never hear about it because it's much for fun to get enraged and complain about "political correctness gone mad."

Of course you'll be arrested initially, that goes without saying, you've just killed someone. What remains to be seen is whether they charge the homeowner with anything in this case, or as in my example above decide that he acted fairly and release him without charge.

Problem is, then the thieves decide that with that being the risk, they'll go in armed and prepared to not risk the home owner fighting back, and strike first.

Basically, once they cross your threshold.....they're fair game.

I think this is great, it makes me feel alot safer when I go to sleep that if I ever need to use the baseball bat that is under my bed I am fully allowed to.

Thats the issue, there was the farmer not long ago that got done for murder after shooting someone trying to rob his house... he got done becuase the person was shot in the back so was obivously running away and wasn't in defense.

Having said that it isn't reasonable to kill any intruder - 4 masked men breaking in is probably enough of a threat for you to lash out with a knife if you were feeling particularly brave but if it later turns out that the stabs were to the back, or you'd repeatedly stabbed someone then it doesn't always look reasonable and your act of defence might well have turned into retaliation.

Try saying that under the effects of adrenaline with 3 other guys wanting to kick your skull in.