> If you left your front door wide and were robbed the public would have 0 sympathy for you
Not sure where you live for that to be the case, but someone coming in because I left my door open is not normal, even if I left my door open. Even if they claim they were "making sure everything was safe".
> It's like some one notices that your window is open so they pick the lock on you front door and enter your home to close it.
Beautifully put. And they justify doing it because of the danger of someone breaking and entering. But someone might have broken and entered, and they definitely did, so the justification sounds very hollow.
> There are still places where people don’t lock doors because they don’t need to.
Yep. I grew up not ever locking our doors, and I still don't. I even usually leave the keys in my cars in the driveway, especially in the one that the neighbors all know they can borrow if needed. I do have a dog who will bark when anybody unknown approaches the house, though.
When I lived in the city for a few years, I did lock my doors, but I left my car unlocked. I would relatively frequently come out to the car in the morning and it was obvious that somebody had rummaged around in it. But I didn't really care, and it was better than having the windows smashed, which did happen in that neighborhood.
> Yet if some brick-and-mortar business is robbed because the owner left the front door unlocked, people would rightfully put the onus mostly on the store owner.
No, there were days when people did not even lock their cars and their houses (but maybe you are too young to have known that time where you live) because it was not expected that anyone would actually rob anything. Especially in communities where everyone knew everyone else. And if a robbery happened, the blame would still have been put on the thief, not the owner.
> The disconnect isn't that we require people to have state of the art impenetrable locks, we are requiring them merely
to lock the door when they are out.
This is missing the point. My doors are locked and (as far as I can tell) the locks have not been defeated.
My problem is with the constant attempts to defeat the locks on my door and with people like you telling me things like > "you're going to get a whole lot less sympathy if it turns out you left the front door open with a sign that said, "I'm not home right now."" when what I'm complaining about is that robbers are banging on my locked door while I am behind it watching them on the security camera.
> If you randomly try my front door and find that it's unlocked, don't expect me to be thanking you.
Why? If someone tries my front door, doesn't go in but confirms that it is unlocked by opening it by an inch (=verifies the DB credentials but doesn't run any queries) without really peering into my private spaces, then privately reaches out with "hey, hey, your door is not locked - I haven't went in but I know it's unlocked, you may wanna look into this" then I imagine while that could be odd situation (e.g. depending on whenever one has a lawn), I would be grateful and not in the least bit offended.
Surely, I wouldn't be happy if I'd get an alarm that my door is suddenly open (IDS alert) and would react accordingly. But if my door is not locked and I'm not aware and someone responsibly discloses this - I don't see how that'd be an issue.
>I think it's possible to argue that people who leave doors unlocked shouldn't be considered to have done something wrong, but I hear almost nobody making that argument.
I hear this every once in a while. My country used to be a police state and people often say "back then we could leave our windows open without fear" to argue that we should go back to authoritarianism to reduce crime.
> If I leave my door unlocked can I really blame <bad person> for opening my door and robbing me?
Sure you can! Robbing is not something that happens by accident, and neither is hacking. I agree that the US should invest heavily in improving security, but taking the view that "pfff, who cares who did it!" is a terrible idea.
> We would obviously care and do something about people streaming (physically) through neighborhoods to test every door
Not obviously. Burglary/theft clearance rates are very low (in most countries). At least in developed countries violent crimes have highest priority and small property crimes are almost ignored. I doubt police will do anything meaningful if you report a person who is going door to door and checking if they are open.
> I don't deserve any blame if someone broke down my front door to do it.
I mean, you could have gotten a more sturdy door... drawing the boundary between someone opening an unlocked door and breaking down the door is hard; so I'd agree with "even less blame", but if we believe you are ever at blame here, there isn't anything magical about the lock that shifts you from having blame to being blameless.
For many people, there's no need to unlock the front door because it's never locked. Having to lock your door just means you're living in a terrible neighborhood.
> If I leave the door of my house open, and someone enters and steals my tv, it's my fault.
Seeing a public calendar is equivalent to seeing into your neighbours house because they left the front door open. Not stealing your damn tv. Stealing the tv is clearly theft. Only your overlords at the insurance company would ever try to claim it’s your fault for someone stealing your stuff.
> in the UK where I have more experience having my stuff stolen, if you rob a house and the door is locked it is a far more serious crime than if the door is unlocked.
This doesn't make much sense from first principles. I assume everyone agrees that theft is equally unwelcome regardless of whether the door was locked. But the additional damages from breaking into a locked home are pretty minor compared to the damages of the theft. Why would there be a large difference in punishment?
> as already pointed out, most people have an unlocked door from the garage to the house
Not sure where you live, but every house I've lived in (USA, a few different states) during my entire life has had an exterior-quality door with exterior-quality lock, including deadbolt, between the house and garage.
In the one house I lived in that had a security system, that garage-to-interior door was also wired into the system and arming it would treat it like an exterior door.
Having said that, I still wouldn't want random delivery people entering my garage without my knowledge.
Not sure where you live for that to be the case, but someone coming in because I left my door open is not normal, even if I left my door open. Even if they claim they were "making sure everything was safe".
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