A spring-gun, booby trap gun etc. is a gun, often a shotgun, rigged to fire when a string or other triggering device is tripped by contact of sufficient force to "spring" the trigger so that anyone stumbling over or treading on it would discharge the gun. Setting or maintaining a spring-gun is illegal in many places.
Spring-guns were formerly used as booby traps against poachers and trespassers. Since 1827, spring-guns and all man-traps have been illegal in England. Spring-guns are sometimes used to trap animals. [1] Although there have been few reported cases of use, there have been several unconfirmed cases over the 20th century.
In the 18th century, spring-guns were often used to protect graveyards, offering an alarm system of sorts to protect newly buried bodies, which were often stolen by grave-robbers who supplied anatomists with cadavers.
Spring-guns were often set to protect property. For this purpose, spring-guns are often placed in busy corridors such as near doors. A trespasser opening the door completely would then be shot. Residents who are aware of the trap use a different door or open the door halfway and disconnect the tripwire. To reduce fatalities by using this trap, non-lethal calibers are often used, or the spring-gun is fitted to fire less lethal ammunition.
For example, in the United States, most spring-guns are loaded with non-lethal caliber or shot to avoid liability arising from the use of deadly force in the protection of a property interest. Posting clear and unmistakable warning signs as well as making entry to spring-gun guarded premises difficult for innocent persons, such as high walls, fences and natural obstacles, are significant ways to reduce potential tort liability arising from the spring gun's wounding of a careless or criminal intruder. Important US lawsuits regarding trespassers wounded by spring-guns include Katko v. Briney . Bird v. Holbrook is an 1825 English case also of great relevance, where a spring-gun set to protect a tulip garden injured a trespasser who was recovering a stray bird. [2] The man who set the spring-gun was liable for the damage caused.
Another example was the Zf.Ger.38 used for training, originally intended to fire blank rounds, however it was later used for static defence. [3]
An historic use of a spring-gun occurred during the night of June 3 or early morning of June 4, 1775, when a spring-gun set by the British to protect the military stores in the Magazine in Williamsburg, Virginia, [4] wounded two young men who had broken in. The subsequent outrage by the local population proved to be the final act of the Gunpowder Incident, leading Governor Dunmore to flee the city to a British warship and declare the Commonwealth of Virginia in a state of rebellion.
In 1981, Rene Seiptius and two friends attempted to flee from East Germany to West Germany. While they managed to avoid land mines, they did trip a spring-gun, killing one of Rene's friends. [5]
In 1990, one man in a group of four burglars was killed during a burglary by a spring-gun that was set up by a business owner in Colorado. [6] [7] The business had been burglarized eight times during the previous two years, including at least one previous burglary by the man who died. [7] The man who set the trap pled guilty to manslaughter. [8] To deter thefts, other businesses in the area put up signs claiming their premises were also booby trapped, with the unintended result that firefighters and other emergency personnel would refuse to enter these buildings during emergencies until they could be assured of their safety. [6]
Alternative traps are mines such as gas mines or the directional mine, such as the SM-70, which was used on the inner German border to prevent refugees from escaping East Germany. Crowd-control munitions and gas mines can be less lethal, while concussion mines are meant to kill. The latter are thus only used in military perimeter defenses.
A land mine, or landmine, is an explosive weapon concealed under or camouflaged on the ground, and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it.
Burglary, also called breaking and entering (B&E) and housebreaking, is the act of illegally entering a building or other areas without permission, typically with the intention of committing a further criminal offence. Usually that offence is theft, larceny, robbery, or murder, but most jurisdictions include others within the ambit of burglary. To commit burglary is to burgle, a term back-formed from the word burglar, or to burglarize.
The defence of property is a common method of justification used by defendants who argue that they should not be held liable for any loss and injury that they have caused because they were acting to protect their property.
A booby trap is a device or setup that is intended to kill, harm or surprise a human or another animal. It is triggered by the presence or actions of the victim and sometimes has some form of bait designed to lure the victim towards it. The trap may be set to act upon trespassers that enter restricted areas, and it can be triggered when the victim performs an action. It can also be triggered by vehicles driving along a road, as in the case of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Urban warfare is warfare in urban areas such as towns and cities. Urban combat differs from combat in the open at both operational and the tactical levels. Complicating factors in urban warfare include the presence of civilians and the complexity of the urban terrain. Urban combat operations may be conducted to capitalize on strategic or tactical advantages associated with the possession or the control of a particular urban area or to deny these advantages to the enemy. It is considered to be arguably the most difficult form of warfare.
The pin tumbler lock, also known as the Yale lock after the inventor of the modern version, is a lock mechanism that uses pins of varying lengths to prevent the lock from opening without the correct key.
Anthony Edward Martin is a farmer from Norfolk, England, who shot a burglar dead in his home in August 1999. There was some sympathy for Martin from people who enthusiastically supported the right to defend one's own home. However, prosecutors cast doubt on his evidence and pointed out that he did not have a valid firearms certificate. Martin was convicted of murder, later reduced to manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility and served three years in prison, having been denied parole.
A castle doctrine, also known as a castle law or a defense of habitation law, is a legal doctrine that designates a person's abode or any legally occupied place as a place in which that person has protections and immunities permitting one, in certain circumstances, to use force to defend oneself against an intruder, free from legal prosecution for the consequences of the force used. The term is most commonly used in the United States, though many other countries invoke comparable principles in their laws.
Katko v. Briney, 183 N.W.2d 657, is a court case decided by the Iowa Supreme Court, in which homeowners Edward and Bertha Briney were held liable for battery for injuries caused to trespasser Marvin Katko, who set off a spring gun set as a mantrap in an uninhabited house on their property. The case thereafter received wide attention in legal circles, becoming a staple of tort law casebooks and law school courses.
It Takes a Thief is an American reality television series that originally aired on the Discovery Channel from February 2, 2005, to April 13, 2007. The program stars and is hosted by Matt Johnston and Jon Douglas Rainey, two former thieves who use their unique expertise to teach people in an unusual way to protect their properties.
A stand-your-ground law, sometimes called a "line in the sand" or "no duty to retreat" law, provides that people may use deadly force when they reasonably believe it to be necessary to defend against certain violent crimes. Under such a law, people have no duty to retreat before using deadly force in self-defense, so long as they are in a place where they are lawfully present. The exact details vary by jurisdiction.
The United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, concluded at Geneva on October 10, 1980, and entered into force in December 1983, seeks to prohibit or restrict the use of certain conventional weapons which are considered excessively injurious or whose effects are indiscriminate. The full title is Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects. The convention covers land mines, booby traps, incendiary devices, blinding laser weapons and clearance of explosive remnants of war.
A mantrap is a mechanical physical security device for catching poachers, art thieves and other trespassers. They have taken many forms, the most usual being similar to a large foothold trap, the steel springs being armed with teeth which meet in the victim's leg. In 1827, they were made illegal in England, except in houses between sunset and sunrise as a defence against burglars.
An anti-personnel mine or anti-personnel landmine (APL) is a form of mine designed for use against humans, as opposed to an anti-tank mine, which target vehicles. APLs are classified into: blast mines and fragmentation mines; the latter may or may not be a bounding mine.
The Joe Horn shooting controversy occurred on November 14, 2007, in Pasadena, Texas, United States, when local resident Joe Horn shot and killed two burglars outside his neighbor's home. Recordings of Horn's exchange with emergency dispatch indicated that he was asked 14 times not to interfere with the burglary, because police would soon be on scene. The shootings resulted in debates regarding self-defense, castle doctrine laws, and Texas laws relating to use of deadly force to prevent or stop property crimes. The undocumented status of both burglars was highlighted because of the U.S. border controversy. On June 30, 2008, Horn was cleared by a grand jury in the Pasadena shootings.
In military munitions, a fuze is the part of the device that initiates its function. In some applications, such as torpedoes, a fuze may be identified by function as the exploder. The relative complexity of even the earliest fuze designs can be seen in cutaway diagrams.
Burglary is a statutory offence in England and Wales.
Since the outbreak of the First Indochina War in 1946 and later the bloodier Second Indochina War of the 1960s and 1970s, countless numbers of land mines have been planted in what is now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Many of these devices that did not detonate at some point or another remain a very dangerous menace that continues plaguing the country and surrounding areas.
Blane David Nordahl is an American cat burglar, who was given the nickname "Burglar to the Stars" after his exploits at the homes of individuals such as Ivana Trump, Steven Spielberg, Curt Gowdy and Bruce Springsteen. A highly skilled burglar, at five feet-four inches and 150 pounds, Nordahl targeted the homes of wealthy individuals across the East Coast and showed an exclusive interest in stealing hallmarked antique Sterling silver. Despite his skill, he was arrested at least eight times and spent many years in prison. The exact sum of his thefts is uncertain, but a November 2000 U.S. News & World Report article attributed to him 150 burglaries across 10 states, to a value of $3 million. A 2004 profile The New Yorker quoted an estimate that he had stolen over $10 million worth of silver in fifteen states.
The Bleary Darts Club shooting was a mass shooting that took place on 27 April 1975 in the village of Bleary, Northern Ireland. Members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) burst into a darts club frequented by Catholics and opened fire on the crowd, killing three civilians and wounding a fourth. The attack is one of many that has been linked to the Glenanne gang.
