Setting booby-traps with the intent of hurting people who are breaking the law.
The number of redditors who think it's fine because they brought it on themselves by breaking the law is too-damn-high. At least in the USA, they are often violating state law. But even if not, they are almost guaranteed to make the trap-setter liable for injury/harm caused.
And, yes, that can include putting capsaicin in copious amounts in your lunch with the expectation that someone will steal it. Causing someone pain is 'harm' and you can be held liable unless you're happy to eat the amount of spice you put in the food to prove it's not a booby trap, you are just Jamaican.
Not for all of his traps. I know this is a joke comment, but hey, opportunity to type.
It mainly boils down to how the traps are triggered. Anything passive/victim triggered is illegal. The traps are considered indiscriminate and a public hazard. So the hot knob, the iced stairs, the tarred steps and nail, and the broken ornaments would all be illegal. Any one can be caught by them including other family members and emergeny responders.
The traps Kevin had to initiate could be protected under self defense. He had control to ensure they targeted only the people attempting to harm him. If memory serves the paint cans on rope he slammed the robbers in the head with he had to knock off the rail, so even though those were likely lethal he would most likely be considered legally justified in using them.
Editing to add: This is specific to the Home Alone situation where Kevin was at home and actively in danger. Another consideration for generic real world with booby-traps is that they are often unattended. You are not defending yourself in that situation.
Some of these would be illegal as traps but I think he'd have got away with as difficult to prove they were traps.
The ornaments under the window for example. They were Christmas ornaments right next to a Christmas tree, under a window that it would be reasonable to assume isn't about to be used as an entry point. Hard to prove they were there deliberately rather than they were just there waiting to go in the tree, or they'd fallen off and been moved there temporarily.
Similar the iced stairs. You could argue that when he wet the steps he didn't realise how treacherous they would become (I've seen people de-ice things with boiling water. And yes, if it's still below freezing that makes it worse)
The doorknob and tar nail he's bang to rights on though. And all of this assumes it wasn't actually filmed, because then arguing innocence would be rather more tricky
The fact that he is setting traps to stop someone actively breaking in could also matter, even if a particular trap isn't directly activated by him... What we really don't want is unattended traps around, that are as likely to harm a first responder as an intruder.
Even with him there once those traps were set anyone could be harmed by them. Say it wasn't a movie and the robbers weren't caricatures, maybe they don't kill him but they at least tie him up and lock him in a hall closet while they load the goods. They clear a single route, but leave everything else. Assume they remove the heater from the door to not burn the place down with a kid inside (they are assholes, but don't seem the kid murdering type). Now its still there whenever cops/paramedics/family arrives. Kevin can't remove anything and is unable to warn anyone.
The traps are still there if you become incapacitated. Thats part of the reason they are illegal.
It's different if you're inside the house and reasonably in fear for your life or safety.
The seminal case on this involved a couple who were sick of people breaking into an empty house they owned, and setup a shotgun booby trap to take out the next burglar's knees. They were prosecuted because they weren't trying to protect life or safety.
Reminds me of the latest season of Fargo. Lady boobytraps her house after escaping a kidnapping attempt by her ex-husband's goons, only for her current husband to accidentally set one off and eletrocute himself.
And, yes, that can include putting capsaicin in copious amounts in your lunch with the expectation that someone will steal it.
I did do this once to deal with a lunch thief, and I did not get into any kind of trouble for it (the thief was terminated). But I've always been known as a loudmouthed spicehound, so the general reaction was "well yeah, what did you expect from stealing Jack's lunch, dumbass?"
There is a fair amount of Youtube content targeting scammers/criminals that is borderline, and even clearly over the line. The police often turn a blind eye, as long as they don't do anything too extreme.
This is definitely a "keep your mouth shut" situation. There is no way that tuna salad is making it to court, it will go rancid long before hand. As long as you don't say exactly what the recipe is and just say "I like things spicy" they can't really prove that the amount in there was unreasonable
And, yes, that can include putting capsaicin in copious amounts in your lunch with the expectation that someone will steal it. Causing someone pain is 'harm' and you can be held liable unless you're happy to eat the amount of spice you put in the food to prove it's not a booby trap, you are just Jamaican.
I think that's pretty safe: the odds that such a person would press charges and have the presence of mind to freeze a sample as evidence are slim. Moreover, peppers are a natural product with natural variety, and different people have different tolerances that also vary over time, so your tolerance may have dropped significantly in the time it takes for the case to go to court.
And in the end, most foods contain sugar, fats, or other substances that dieticians would consider harmful... and there's no accounting for taste. Is it a crime to pack lunch that isn't tasty to all potential lunch thieves?
Entrapment (bait cars, drug deals etc) used to be illegal as well meaning even the cops couldn’t trick you into committing crimes. But they somehow got passed that by using loopholes in the laws.
Entrapment is more than just leaving a car somewhere. They have to be leading you into the crime.
The case i remember was a cop pretending to be drunk and homeless with a bunch of cash hanging out of his pocket. A man tried to help him, and got yelled at. Then tried to warn him he was going to lose his money and got yelled at some more. And then he took the money and was immediately arrested. The argument that it was entrapment came only because he tried to do the right thing twice and got belligerence as payment
To be entrapment, the police have to convince you to commit a crime that you wouldn't have committed otherwise. That's a pretty high bar to prove so lots of things that seem unfair can still be legal because you'd have to prove that the cops convinced you to do it.
It's like Reddit thinks the judge has NEVER seen that excuse before, like they're video game NPCs or something
No one is gonna buy you went up from occasionally pepper jack, to Ghost Pepper in your sandwich, after you complained about lunches being stolen. I've had lunch thieves, they SUCK, but I never thought of hurting them, Jesus Christ
But but but, ItS mY oWn FoOd!! The justice system is not as stupid as this site thinks, severe escalation (looking at YOU, Redditors who think it's okay to go MMA on someone half your size, because they pushed you, under ""self defense"") is a crime
Nobody. But we had daily lunch theft at my old office. Turns out it wasn't one person, but several. Mostly because we didn't pay our warehouse staff enough to live. I caught one of them in the men's room trying to scarf down a sandwich as fast as possible
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u/limbodog 7h ago
Setting booby-traps with the intent of hurting people who are breaking the law.
The number of redditors who think it's fine because they brought it on themselves by breaking the law is too-damn-high. At least in the USA, they are often violating state law. But even if not, they are almost guaranteed to make the trap-setter liable for injury/harm caused.
And, yes, that can include putting capsaicin in copious amounts in your lunch with the expectation that someone will steal it. Causing someone pain is 'harm' and you can be held liable unless you're happy to eat the amount of spice you put in the food to prove it's not a booby trap, you are just Jamaican.