Talk:Self-defense (Sweden)

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Self Defense in Steig Larsson Books Ok, so I am not sure if his has been addressed here before, but I'm in the middle of the book The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, which takes place in Sweden, and this scene confused me. There's a character who is afraid of being attacked in her home, so she places golf clubs around the house so that she will have a weapon wherever she happens to be in the house. A security consultant tells the character that she could be charged with murder if she killed someone who broke into her house because planting the golf clubs around showed premeditation. Is this accurate? Because it seems insane. If someone breaks into your house, it seems like reasonable law would allow for a victim to fight them back, especially since she called police about the break in, they wouldn't come to the house. Thanks in advance. nut-meg (talk) 03:50, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Re: Self Defense in Steig Larsson Books Yes, you are right. Im a swede too, and you are never allowed to "prepare" to self-defense. A self-defense action should be: Least violence possible (This means that if a robber ask you to hand over your 500 SEK bill, you will have to hand over it and have the police solve the case, you cannot use that much to defend a 500 SEK bill according to the justifiable section) Be unprepared (This means you may never arm yourself for the purpose of self-defense. If you do, you can even be charged before the actual self-defense action has taken place, One exception: Self defense spray, because these are engiinered to be harmless, and are justifiable in most SD situations.) Be completely justifiable. (Like, as they wrote: You can't use deadly violence against someone that refuses to leave your home. If he is stronger than you and simply are cumbersome to get away with, you have to call police and let they do the job)

Yes in Sweden you can call police. However, theres a clear differentiation to different cases. If theres a immediate danger of crime or a blatant ongoing crime, and crime here is anything from destroying someone's property (like tagging with spraypaint on wall) to the worst assault, you can call emergency (112, same as 911 in USA), they will come immediately. However, if the crime is over and have already happened, then you should NOT call emergency, instead you should call the police switchboard (114 14). They will help you solve the case.

For self-defense to be justifiable, its important that you are in most cases unarmed. Any arming would put you in a position above the burgular, which would be unjustable. Remember that most burgulars are out of property, not lives, and avoid to kill or harm people. You have duty to retreat in this case, and have to report the stolen property to police, that can recover it for you. If you escalate a situation unnecessary, your right to self-defense vanishes too, eg if you attempt to expel a burgular and he engages you, you cannot increase your self-defense amount. You have to give up and flee the scene if the burgular escalates the situation. Theres a reason we have cops! The reason the law is written in a way that can look very counteracting (first the law says you have the right to defend property, but then the law says it must be justifiable, so you can in practice not defend property anyways), is because even small things, like pulling your property out of the hand of the burgular with force, can be considered "mild assault and battery" if there was no protection of recovery of stolen property. To allow for mild violence when expelling someone or recovering stolen property, the law must be written in this way. Sebastiannielsen (talk) 00:44, 14 February 2014 (UTC)