'Grossly Disproportionate': Home Owners' Legal Licence to Kill

摘要

Oscar Pistorius's plea of self-defence after shooting his girlfriend through the bathroom door at his home in South Africa has dominated the world news since its occurrence on 14 February 2013. According to Pistorius's own account he 'had not planned to kill the 29-year-old model but had "planned" to shoot a supposed intruder inside his Pretoria home'.1 While Pistorius is awaiting trial at the time of writing, it is worth considering what the legal implications could have been if, rather than his girlfriend, Pistorius had shot an intruder through that closed bathroom door four times.