The bill’s sponsor, Rick Chavez Zbur, claims, “The bill’s goal is to prevent wannabe vigilantes… from provoking violence and then claiming self-defense after the fact.” Which suggests that finding intruders in your home, or breaking into your home, intent on thievery and God knows what else, is somehow not in itself an obvious provocation. Or a basis for vigorous self-defence.

Instead, the bill would oblige homeowners to “retreat” wherever possible, thereby reducing the risk of “force likely to cause death or great bodily injury” to the burglar or burglars, whose wellbeing is apparently a matter of great importance, if only to progressive lawmakers. This restriction is framed as a “safety” measure, albeit one that prioritises the safety of the criminal, who will presumably be enabled to continue his trajectory of repeated home invasion, but with reduced resistance and ever greater boldness.

But remember, wokeness is just about being compassionate.

To assume that a home invader is anything less than an existential threat is, as seen in the links below, foolish in the extreme – and morally perverse. It may be unkind – but it would not, I think, be unfair – to wish upon Mr Zbur and his fellow progressives some first-hand experience of the home-invasion scenarios that they would happily see others endure, passively and impotently, and sometimes not survive, supposedly in the name of “progress.” And fairness to burglars.

Readers may recall our previous visits to the world of glamorised fare-dodging – for instance, in Washington DC, where progressive commuters, including lecturers, lawyers and screenwriters, aired their “exhausted rage,” not at the rapidly growing number of freeloaders eroding social trust and bankrupting the transport network, but at those careless enough to notice such things.

Because noticing routine and shameless thievery is apparently much worse than indulging in it. And certainly more likely to result in opprobrium.