Crying Over Spilled Onions

I think the Amish elders would handle it better than the law would. I hate to say that, but I'm speaking from our experience with the office theft we had. The perp got off with a slap on the wrist from the court. I think the Amish elders would be more strict. After all, these are people who are supposed to strictly adhere to the Commandments of the Bible. At least I hope they would be stricter.

As for dogs, when we are home from work, they are outside. While gone, inside. One, the Border Collie, is protective and snappy with strangers. The other two are wimps. We have good locks on the place but frankly, I think we need to be worried about a break in.

One thing I did was talk to our neighbor. He said that he has heard a lot of 4 wheeler traffic between our place and his and heard voices like they were stopped on the road. He promised to keep an eye on them if they came back around. I did find out that he had 'borrowed' our fence post driver from the barn, which I kinda suspected he had and that was okay with us, but discovered that a hose we thought he had has actually been added to the theft list.

I took pictures of everything and I'm going to compare them from time to time to see if there are any subtle changes while we are at work. The funny thing is that the things that are missing are things that you wouldn't notice gone until you went to get them and discover that they aren't where you left them.

At least we found out post driver.

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I'm in my own little world, but it's ok. They know me here!

Hope you catch something on your camera so you can know exactly what's going on!

What a bummer.

I think it's time to start protecting the place with a .45 caliber dog named Smith and Wesson ......if you get my drift.

Actually, we have a cat named Ruger but she's just a pistol....LOL...no, really! her name is Ruger! And that is why she got that name. She's just an ornery little cat!

You know, guys, when we started homesteading, we expected hardships. We expected to have tough winters hauling in wood to burn and hot summers without regular electricity to run air conditioning. We knew we would be remodeling forever especially since we are paying as we go. We expected to work hard and for the work to take up most of our day.We expected to be tired and have sore muscles. We knew there would be dead fall to clear and dead trees to take down along with trails to cut and tend. We knew there would be bad roads when it rained and snowed. We expected a lot that way. We just didn't expect THIS!

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I'm in my own little world, but it's ok. They know me here!

I'll trade cats with you! I tried to bring in our old barn cat thinking he was on his last legs. He wasn't happy and the house cat really wasn't happy. She let it be known by peeing on my pillow--twice. She had never done it before, hasn't done it since.

Does Castle Doctrine apply to personal property as to stop a thief? How about if it's plain old theft as opposed to an armed robbery?

HMMMMM....Good question! I'm looking around the net. Found this:

http://www.kcwebguides.com/kcwebguid...ets-over.shtml

"563.011. As used in this chapter the following terms shall mean:

(1) "Deadly force" [means], physical force which the actor uses with the purpose of causing or which he or she knows to create a substantial risk of causing death or serious physical injury[.];

(2) "Dwelling" [means], any building [or], inhabitable structure, [though movable or temporary, or a portion thereof, which is for the time being the actor's home or place of lodging.] or conveyance of any kind, whether the building, inhabitable structure, or conveyance is temporary or permanent, mobile or immobile, which has a roof over it, including a tent, and is designed to be occupied by people lodging therein at night;

(3) "Forcible felony", any felony involving the use or threat of physical force or violence against any individual, including but not limited to murder, robbery, burglary, arson, kidnapping, assault, and any forcible sexual offense;

[ (3)] (4) "Premises", includes any building, inhabitable structure and any real property[.];

[ (4)] (5) "Private person" [means], any person other than a law enforcement officer;

(6) "Remain after unlawfully entering", to remain in or upon premises after unlawfully entering as defined in this section;

(7) "Residence", a dwelling in which a person resides either temporarily or permanently or is visiting as an invited guest;

(8) "Unlawfully enter", a person unlawfully enters in or upon premises when he or she enters such premises and is not licensed or privileged to do so. A person who, regardless of his or her purpose, enters in or upon premises that are at the time open to the public does so with license unless he or she defies a lawful order not to enter, personally communicated to him or her by the owner of such premises or by another authorized person. A license to enter in a building that is only partly open to the public is not a license to enter in that part of the building that is not open to the public.

563.031. 1. A person may, subject to the provisions of subsection 2 of this section, use physical force upon another person when and to the extent he or she reasonably believes such force to be necessary to defend himself or herself or a third person from what he or she reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful force by such other person, unless:

(1) The actor was the initial aggressor; except that in such case his or her use of force is nevertheless justifiable provided:

(a) He or she has withdrawn from the encounter and effectively communicated such withdrawal to such other person but the latter persists in continuing the incident by the use or threatened use of unlawful force; or

(b) He or she is a law enforcement officer and as such is an aggressor pursuant to section 563.046; or

(c) The aggressor is justified under some other provision of this chapter or other provision of law;

(2) Under the circumstances as the actor reasonably believes them to be, the person whom he or she seeks to protect would not be justified in using such protective force;

(3) The actor was attempting to commit, committing, or escaping after the commission of a forcible felony.

2. A person may not use deadly force upon another person under the circumstances specified in subsection 1 of this section unless:

(1) He or she reasonably believes that such deadly force is necessary to protect himself or herself or another against death, serious physical injury, [ rape, sodomy or kidnapping or serious physical injury through robbery, burglary or arson] or any forcible felony; or

(2) Such force is used against a person who unlawfully enters, remains after unlawfully entering, or attempts to unlawfully enter a dwelling, residence, or vehicle lawfully occupied by such person.

3. A person does not have a duty to retreat from a dwelling, residence, or vehicle where the person is not unlawfully entering or unlawfully remaining.

[ 3.] 4. The justification afforded by this section extends to the use of physical restraint as protective force provided that the actor takes all reasonable measures to terminate the restraint as soon as it is reasonable to do so.

[ 4.] 5. The defendant shall have the burden of injecting the issue of justification under this section.

563.041. 1. A person may, subject to the limitations of subsection 2, use physical force upon another person when and to the extent that he or she reasonably believes it necessary to prevent what he or she reasonably believes to be the commission or attempted commission by such person of stealing, property damage or tampering in any degree.

2. A person may use deadly force under circumstances described in subsection 1 only when such use of deadly force is authorized under other sections of this chapter.

3. The justification afforded by this section extends to the use of physical restraint as protective force provided that the actor takes all reasonable measures to terminate the restraint as soon as it is reasonable to do so.

4. The defendant shall have the burden of injecting the issue of justification under this section.

563.074. 1. Notwithstanding the provisions of section 563.016, a person who uses force as described in sections 563.031, 563.041, 563.046, 563.051, 563.056, and 563.061 is justified in using such force and such fact shall be an absolute defense to criminal prosecution or civil liability.

2. The court shall award attorney's fees, court costs, and all reasonable expenses incurred by the defendant in defense of any civil action brought by a plaintiff if the court finds that the defendant has an absolute defense as provided in subsection 1 of this section."

Source: The Joplin Globe, July 3, 2007 and the Missouri Senate Bill 62

Posted at 10:17 AM in Self Defense | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Okay, that's about as clear as mud.

Does this mean I can just give em a load of salt shot in the rump with my .410?

No, wait, that would mean shooting them with their backs turned. That's bad..Can you just wound them? Hmmm

Notice 563.041 in particular. It talks about protecting your property from theft. This is the Missouri Castle Doctrine.

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I'm in my own little world, but it's ok. They know me here!

PS: In all seriousness, I think the way it works is if you catch somebody stealing your property and they are armed, say with a knife, gun, machete, club, etc, and you feel your life is in danger, if they follow you into your home, enter your home brandishing a weapon or act in a threatening manner to you, you can defend yourself.

Nope, don't think I can shoot anyone just for stealing onions, but if they have a gun or knife and are stealing my onions, and are telling me they are going to kill me if I don't leave them alone and get in the house, I then have a right to protect myself and my property. I hope...like I said, it's a little cloudy in places.

There is a saying that they told us in our concealed carry class.

Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.

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I'm in my own little world, but it's ok. They know me here!

Interestingly enough, two ladies stopped at our gate a few minutes ago-- gate was closed but we have a driveway alert--to invite us to a meeting to get to know your neighbors. The paper says it's to also inform us as to disaster preparedness and is sponsored and taught by a Red Cross coordinator. It lists names and addresses of people involved so looks legitimate. DH and I have taken CERT training and he was an unpaid professional fire fighter/EMT years ago.

Just pray you don't have someone on your jury who will plead for the miscreant because he had such a deprived, unhappy childhood.

I'm with your concealed carry instructor.

UPDATE ON SPILLED ONIONS:

We still don't have a clear suspect. We do have our suspicions but at this point can't prove it.

We also still have a missing hose.

We also know for a fact that our property is not being treated with respect by certain neighbors who ride horses for transportation, if you get my meaning. I had laid out a frame for a screen tent in our barn where I thought it would be safe only to find it badly bent with definite horse shoe prints in the metal. We do know who did it but no mention has been made for restitution. An Amish neighbor mowed our fields for us in exchange for the hay and he left his work box in our barn.

We do have a locked gait in the planning. Unfortunately this will not guarantee no trespassers onto our property as there are several gates along the parameter of the property that we are going to have to do something about.

Now we are suspecting that somebody is siphoning the gas out of our generator while we are at work. Our generator is in an 'engine room' off my husbands work shop. He religiously fills the tank before we head off to work on Mondays. We came home this week on Thursday to find the level down several inches in the tank. It's not being drained dry, just enough for a person to question their sanity, as in, "Didn't I just fill this thing up?" kinda questioning.

So our game camera is up and operating. I told my DH that in a way I hope we catch somebody nosing around and in a way I don't. We want so much to be good neighbors to everyone around us, Amish and non Amish alike but this is getting to be ridiculous. I asked DH what he was going to do if he caught somebody helping themselves to our gas and he said, confront them if they are a neighbor and show them the evidence on tape. They are dealing with us now but if they step foot on our property again, they will be dealing with the law.

I don't know what else we can do. At least my garden was untouched. But at this point, we are having to basically lock up anything and everything loose in order to have peace of mind. The only thing we left out was some scrap lumber that we had left over from building a deck. If anyone takes that, they are really hard up.

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I'm in my own little world, but it's ok. They know me here!

Yeah...those collars do NOT work for my coonhound if she sees something exciting, but that's par for the corse with coonhounds.

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It's not that I don't like mankind, I just like nature a whole lot more.

We had a problem like that with gas siphoning. I really thought I was going crazy because I would fill up my gas tank and then have to turn around and fill it up again. Then my husband started complaining about the same thing. I looked up how much we were spending on gas in our Money program and we had tripled our normal amount! We figured out that somebody was siphoning off a cuple of gallons at a time about twice a week really early in the morning. We started sitting up by the front window and I sent the dogs after them once, found my gas cap hanging open. We parked the car and the truck so that the gas tanks were right up against each other and that solved the problem. We figured they were probably going all up and down our road just taking a couple of gallons out of every tank.

Sorry your neighbors are a pain I would definitely go with locked gates and I would post a few No trespassing signs too.

Generators are gas guzzlers anyway.

It's just weird that there appears to be just a 'little' gas missing, just like part of my onion crop was gone.

We have the ability to lock up our engine room. That is next on the to do list, install hasps and buy locks.

We had a friend tell us to sit out on our porch every now and then in full view and clean our rifles so all the neighbors see us. He said he does that and never has a problem with people snooping around.

I said, why, because they know you have weapons on board? and he said, no, because they think I'm a crazy person with weapons on board.

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I'm in my own little world, but it's ok. They know me here!