We know that the Cayman Islands has seen a marked upsurge in crime, especially violent crime, in recent months but two headlines appearing at the same time in our online daily news updates on Wednesday were so startling that we really have to wonder if the situation is spiraling out of control and what we can expect to hear about next.

To read in one day of an armed home invasion in East End and an armed robbery at a local money transfer office is alarming to say the least.

While armed robberies are not unknown in Cayman, the phenomenon of such a bold-faced armed home invasion is something we cannot recall happening here before.

Home invasion is the term given to an illegal entry into someone’s home, characterised by the fact that the intruder deliberately breaks into the home at a time when he knows that the occupants are within.

This, of course, is what makes home invasion different from when the criminal makes sure that nobody is home because he does not want to confront or disturb a householder, or risk an affray or being caught.

Hitherto, this is someone one reads about taking place in other countries, not here.

There has been a lot of talk recently about tackling the increase in serious and violent crime and the police do in fact seem to be cracking down on certain types of offences. However, it seems to us that the community needs some legislative support if we are to nip the home invasion phenomenon in the bud.

And this is not about giving home occupants a licence to wound or kill people but about reasserting the sanctity of the home.

Our legislators need to reassure peaceful, law-abiding citizens that the government defends their right to regard their home as their castle and to enjoy some kind of security in their homes, so that they may be able to live in safety.

Defending one’s home and property against intruders is something of a legal minefield under our law with the potential of resulting in the unacceptable anomaly that a householder who is the victim of a home invasion can find himself becoming the offender and bearing all the stigma of being charged and having to undergo a court appearance as a direct result of the fact that someone else forcibly and illegally entered his home.

We therefore encourage our legislators to relieve householders of the anxiety that arises from uncertainty about their legal position if they do defend themselves and their families against an intruder who is threatening them.

Apart from anything else, we need to redefine who the real victim of a home invasion is. As it stands, someone who breaks into a home can probably sue the homeowner if the intruder should come to any harm as a result of his illegal and uninvited entry.

The government needs to send a very clear message to would-be perpetrators that the weight of the law will be unequivocally behind a peaceful, law-abiding citizen who is unexpectedly attacked within what ought to be the family sanctuary of his or her home.

Surely, our community should have a right to enjoy absolute safety from attacks within their homes from intruders and our law should explicitly sanction the use of physical force, including, subject to appropriate safeguards, deadly physical force by an occupant against an intruder.

It seems sensible to us to strengthen the homeowner’s understanding and confidence that the law does support and uphold his right to defend himself and his family within their own home.

We are not advising or encouraging occupants to attack, but we are saying that if resistance is perceived to be desirable and advisable, and likely to succeed, then an occupant should have every right to use whatever force is necessary to protect himself and other occupants from attack by the intruder.

To read about an armed home invasion taking place in the Cayman Islands is shocking enough and we can only imagine the deep wounds and losses the deliberate invasion of a peaceful home can inflict on the occupants.

A failure to address this latest development with the utmost vigour would in effect be saying to the criminals who may see home invasion as easy pickings, and who care nothing for the ordeal they will make their victims suffer, that we do not mind what they do.