Finnish Man Hit with Four Years in Prison for the Crime of ���Excessive Self-Defense���
Recently, an American think tank, the Social Progress Initiative, declared Finland to be the most socially progressive country in the world. Knowing that common sense exists in inverse proportion to social progression, Finland must be the most socially progressive nation, based on this one news item.
A 35-year-old resident of Hyvinkaa, a town that sits just a relative handful of miles north of Helsinki, is going to prison for four years and will pay a $23,000 fine because the court determined that when he was attacked in his residence by three home invaders, he was too aggressive in the manner in which he defended himself.
You read that right.
As the story goes, when the victim heard a knock at his front door and went to answer it, three people���two men a woman���rushed in, armed with baseball bats and a gun. The victim was able to retrieve a weapon of his own, a knife, from the kitchen, and with it, got the best of his attackers.
However, in progressive countries, when things like this happen, victim and criminal are one and the same. In this case, the homeowner did such a good job defending himself that he was arrested, along with the intruders.
When the court was finished sorting it all out, the victim in this case was handed the aforementioned punishment of four years in the slammer and a $23,000 fine, while the attackers each received a little over a year of strict probation; they also have to pay a fine of $3,300.
It���s worth noting the crimes of which the homeowner was convicted were ���excessive self-defense and attempted manslaughter.���
���Excessive self-defense?��� When you���re attacked in your home by three armed people?
An aspect to this case that is particularly troubling is the very fact that the man was assaulted in his home. While even many in the U.S. choose to make a distinction between the defense of oneself at home and self-defense away from home, few even on the left side of the political dividing line in America believe that a homeowner is in the wrong if he seriously injures or kills an attacker who assaults him in the confines of his own residence.
It remains tempting to look at this from afar and say, ���That could never happen here,��� but don���t be too sure; anyone who is paying attention can see how successive generations of Americans seem perfectly fine with the subordination of rights and freedoms���including the inalienable right to self-preservation���to the ���greater good��� of the collectivist agenda. As the numbers of these people continue to grow, so, too, will grow the numbers of our lawmakers and judges who reflect the kind of idiotic outlook that sent this Finnish man to prison. Beware.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
