Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Mark Steyn's insightful take on the latest round of British homeowner murders

Telegraph | Opinion | An Englishman's home is his dungeon: "Various reassuring types, from police spokesmen to the Economist, described the stabbing of the Moncktons as a 'burglary gone wrong'. If only more burglaries could go right, they imply, this sort of thing wouldn't happen. But the trouble is that this kind of burglary - the kind most likely to go 'wrong' - is now the norm in Britain. In America, it's called a 'hot' burglary - a burglary that takes place when the homeowners are present - or a 'home invasion', which is a much more accurate term. Just over 10 per cent of US burglaries are 'hot' burglaries, and in my part of the world it's statistically insignificant: there is virtually zero chance of a New Hampshire home being broken into while the family are present. But in England and Wales it's more than 50 per cent and climbing. Which is hardly surprising given the police's petty, well-publicised pursuit of those citizens who have the impertinence to resist criminals." It's definitely worth reading Mark Steyn's whole column on the subject.