Attempts

A man buys a gun, loads it and sits at home planning to shoot his neighbour. Has he committed a crime of attempted murder? Not yet. Now he walks over, points the gun and pulls the trigger, but it misfires. Now he has. What changed? Not his intention, which was the same all along. The difference is how far he went. The law of attempts is about exactly this line, between thinking, preparing and trying, and it decides which failed crimes are punished.

In two minutes

An attempt is an act done towards the commission of an offence, with intent to commit it, which goes beyond mere preparation; the general punishment is in BNS s.62, and specific attempts have their own sections, such as attempt to murder in s.109.

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