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Originally Posted by DOOMMONKEY777
Dude am serious, if ur papers are legit you can have a gun in your house to be used only on ur property, if some one is trespassing and you warn them that you have a gun and ull use it and they still dont get off ur property u have full right to use it. Even if its a cop(unless they have probable cause or warrant), a cop told me that.
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"Dude am serious", the cop who told you that is an idiot. What you posted is absolutely NOT true in California:
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The legal defense of self-defense in California law means that you can't be found guilty of a violent crime that you committed in order to protect yourself, as long as your conduct was reasonable under the circumstances.
For purposes of the self-defense legal defense, “reasonable under the circumstances” means that you need to have:
1.Reasonably believed that you were in imminent danger of being killed, injured, or touched unlawfully,
2.Reasonably believed that you needed to use force to prevent that from happening, and
3.Used no more force than was necessary to prevent that from happening.
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Specifically regarding defense of property and trespassing:
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...California self-defense law also encompasses the right to use force to defend your property from harm. This right covers both real property (like a house or land) and personal property (money, cars, jewelry, etc.).
In order to use the “defense of property” version of self-defense as a legal defense, you must be able to show that:
1.The threat of harm to your property was imminent (that is, immediate), and
2.You used only reasonable force to defend your property.
Example: Toby spots his angry ex-girlfriend Carrie approaching his car with a sledgehammer. It is clear that Carrie is about to commit California vandalism on Toby's car. So Toby uses physical force to restrain Carrie. She fights back, and he is forced to punch and kick her a few times.
Toby is probably not guilty of assault for punching and kicking Carrie, because of the extension of self-defense to the defense of property.
California self-defense law also provides that you have the right to use reasonable force to make someone who is trespassing on your property leave.
But for this version of self-defense to apply, you need to:
1.first request that the trespasser leave the property, and
2.reasonably believe that s/he poses a threat either to the property or to the people occupying it.
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Source:
California Self-Defense Laws
So in California you can only use "reasonable force" (i.e., force that is reasonable and justified under the circumstances), which means you can't shoot someone just because they are trespassing on your property. And the laws in most states in this regard are similar to California's.
California does have a "presumption of imminent danger and serious bodily harm" if a person engaged in a criminal act is inside your home (i.e., it is presumed that use of lethal force against a person engaged in a criminal act inside your home is justified unless the prosecutor can prove otherwise). In all other situations, the burden of proof is on you to show that your use of force (regardless of the type of force used) was reasonable under the circumstances.