So, if burglars, rapists, and murderers are a cancer to society, you are advocating letting the cancer have its way?
No I'm not. But if the cure to cancer hurts the same than cancer itself and don't guarantee to extend my life, I would choose whatever gives me more chances to stay alive with less pain.
What? This sounds worse! This sounds like you don't care what happens to society as long as it doesn't effect you, personally. I guess it's a "me" generation thing.
When did you become the deity that decides who loses their shelter from harm. Are you willing or capable of aiding your neighbor when society's cancer comes to prey? Or, is that simply someone else's problem that you can moralize after the fact?
The last thing I want is somebody breaking into my house, much less when me and/or my family are inside. If that happens, it is clear who is the attacker and who is the victim. If the legal system, suppoused to protect the "good" citizens, won't back me up if I defend myself, seems that you may be forced to choose the lesser of two evils. In general, most people will choose what the proverb says "you can always get out of jail but you can't get out of the grave". What I wanted to point out is that there must be something wrong when the legal system prosecutes the victim.
Yes, I can certainly agree with that. But, that is, in fact what is happening in some parts of the country. Usually when a "demonized" home gun owner is involved.
Say I'm invited over somebody's house, we have dinner, drink a little way too much, start a fist fight...
You readily lose control of your actions with alcohol and yet you continue to use the drug? You agreed to mutual aggression?
...and he kills me with his gun.
Would you wrest the gun from his hands and kill him with it? What kind of severe error in judgement to you possess that would make it desirable to place yourself at such risk?
What if he says that I broke into his home and he killed me to save his life?
If you are in a drunken aggressive rage, he probably has a justifiable reason, don't you think? Modern forensics most likely will be able to determine if you indeed broke in, anyway. Lesson; don't lie at the scene of a crime. It severely damages your credibility. and the interviewers take notes that are admissible in court.
Or I'm just drunk and get into the wrong appartment where somebody left the door unbolted. Does somebody deserve to life for being dipsomaniac?
Entering an unlocked door is not "breaking and entering". However, if you are drunk to the point of losing control of yourself, you assign you're personal wellbeing to whoever is around you. If you have not controlled who those contacts are beforehand, your fate is the same as one who dances on the rims of precipices. I lost a cousin because he got drunk and thought he could jump out of a car at 50 MPH. People routinely die of doing stupid things. Why is it you should be saved?
There was a time a few years ago when burglars used to break into our garage and break into cars to steal stereos or anything valuable. We had a meeting and discussed about installing security cameras or hiring private vigilance. At the end, it was more expensive than buying a new stereo every two or three years, so if the law doesn't put burglars into jail and they are free to roam, "good" people doesn't have many options.
Yes, they do. At least the ones who take some responsibility for societal behavior. Or, don't do something because it is not "convenient" for them. But, wait, I see you're not done creating imaginary contrivances to justify your lack of desire to make a better society...
Now say that you lobby your congressmen to enact a law such that if somebody is caught in somebody's home without the owner's consent he is imprisoned for life. Will people still kill intruders? I don't think so, they would detent them at gunpoint until police arrives, because killing them is a way to free society from them, and if people know that they will go to jail for life it would be another way to free society from them. In such a situation, laws would protect the "good" people.
Well, that's a healthy serving of pie-in-the-sky. You just come up with that spur of the moment? Or, did you think any of that through?
1. Are you saying that if you are drunk enough to stubble into a person's home without their consent, you should be imprisoned for life instead of shot?
2. Your assumption is that the perp caught in this scenario, committed the crime for the first time. Burglars or other break-in artists are caught maybe 1% of the time. the first few times they get their wrists slapped, and they learn better how not to get caught next time. Robbery is a lucrative career. They've done it so many times successfully, that getting caught occasionally is a minor disturbance to their livelihood.
3. Over here, it is supposed to be "the punishment fits the crime". (This has also been compromised over the years.) Are you advocating imprisonment for life raiding your refrigerator?
4. If the intruder is there to rape, kill, and rob you, or die trying, which of you will it be. Remember, under your rules, if he gets caught, he's put away for life (his life is over).
5. Holding the intruder at gunpoint only works with the intruder cooperation. How well trained are you at miscreant detaining? And, if he has a flak vest on and veins full of meth, he's going to sit quietly, for the police to come fill out forms?
6. Police enter the room and see you with a gun trained on a subdued individual. They treat you as "buds", or another suspect?
This is, the difference between life and death is not in the fact that somebody breaks into your house, but what the laws do about it. So what you do with the trigger when you are pointing at the intruder depends on what you feel will happen afterwards.
It takes someone 2-3 seconds to close a 15 Ft distance toward you. Are you saying you are thinking about possible repercussions, rather than will I live through this? If you have any smarts at all, you will have made an action plan on what to do before the event occurs. In situations like these, your best instinct will be to follow training procedures practiced beforehand.
In the latter example, you are very unlikely to pull the trigger, because that seems to be the win-win situation -the burglar keeps his lifeif he cooperates, even in prison, and you don't lose anything-higher taxes for larger prisons, or release from a plea bargain. In the actual situation, chances are you will pull the trigger -a lose-lose situation, the burglar assuming he is just a burglarloses his life win for societyand you undergo a long and costly trial-but are still alive to do so How could you turn the situation into a win-win situation? make it widely evident that crime doesn't payWhat if you tell the burglar you will kill him next time you see him and let him go? Chances are you won't see him again Unless he spotted something in your house that was worth the risk, or came back later when he knows you left the house, or comes back later with the goal of first eliminating you, before raiding the booty -he won't have any payback feelings and you won't have to suffer through the legal system- Oh, and if everyone could just live together in peace and harmony!
In addition to the individuals in the altercation, is the third win or lose to the greater society. If the altercation results in less scum contaminating the culture, does not society improve? If other scum wannabes know its either succeed or die, isn't that a deterrent?
Now you will tell me that if you don't kill him he will break into somebody's house, and if I support that you will tell me I don't help others or I think that is somebody else's problem. You're right!Even when chances are that he will break into somebody elses house sooner or later, you can't be sure. What if he #$%* his pants and decide to make a living with something less risky, even in the crime department? Furthermore, if he decides to break into somebody's house it is HIS decision, not yoursno! no! you helped!, so you can't ever be responsible for whatever decisions he take. If we have the right to stop dangerous people, what should we do when we find a drunk driver? Force him out of the road?
If we did that (horror) there might be less drunks on the road. From previous disscussion, possibly even you on your way to stumble into someones house and get shot. You'll thank me for it later.
Or warn the other drivers and call police to stop him before he causes any damage? Say he finally runs over somebody and kills him. Who would be the responsible, he for driving drunk, or you for not stopping him?
Easy, primarily him for driving drunk. And secondarily, you for allowing it and possibly encouraging it. Was that a trick question?
Would you feel guilty for not putting him out of the road before?
Not if he killed another drunk driver, burgular, rapist, murderer etc.
I don't think so, because your judgement would have been better. If you put him out of the road chances are you will kill him -or maybe some pedestrian on the outcome-, but there is no certainty he will kill anybody if you don't stop him, he may just crash himself into a pole.
I can't advocate causing an accident, unless there was imminent danger.
Say he is going to cross a school zone and there are many chances he will put kids in danger. Would you stop him or wait for the police? Probably you will stop him. Would you take him out of the road? Chances are he will get killed. Is there another safer option? How about overtaking him and make him stop? There are always many ways to turn a situation you didn't want into something where everybody loses the less.
If he's heading for a schoolyard full of children, then prepare to ram!
Bottom line: when you are pointing at the burglar in front of you you are facing a crucial decision in your life and the life of others. You didn't want that happen nor did you expect it, but you are facing it and you MUST choose the option with wich you end up winning the most, or losing the less, irrespective of what the others win or lose. The heart will tell you to punish the burglar, but that may not be the best outcome of the situation. The consensus is "the #$%*er should have think it twice before breaking into my home", but that won't change the fact that he is already in and you have to make up for his little thinking.
Dang, Raul. That's pretty close to realism. Is there someone there helping you type?
As you can see, I have just dealt into what to do when you are facing a given situation, I haven't even talked about whether it is positive or negative to own guns, so I hope that if any you want to discuss any of my points further don't drag me into a gun debate I don't want to participate in.
Well then, just substitute all referrences to guns with "lethal force implement" OK?
