Re: (OT) Something From An Ignorant Right Winger

Crap...another "Google et" reply. This is getting irritating.

Sandman <m...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
-hh <recscuba_goo...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Not using lethal force is not equal to "allowing oneself to be
killed". This isn't the black and white issue you want it to be for
guns to be a necessity.

Do we at least agree that a victim has a right to resist his attacker?

Of course.

If the answer is yes (and I find it hard not to be), then how do we
determine much force can be permitted?

As much as needed, as long as he or she doesn't use tools who are
designed to kill, because they are free to resist, but not free to
kill their attacker.

"As much as needed" becomes compromised as soon as there are any
qualifiers. The qualifier her is the "as long as" and what follows.

As such, you limit the victim's right to defend themself.


My position is that the attacker morally forfeited his rights when he
initiated the attack, so the defender's rights trump his. As such,
the defender has the moral right to apply a force (if appropriate - -
the proportionality test) that *could* kill if that's what the
situation merits in order to stop/repel the attack.

Which I don't agree with.

Then we will simply have to agree to disagree.



Which is true for everything. You're using the gun as the ultimate
device here. Nothing but a gun can be used for self defense seems to
be your position.

That's a misunderstanding somewhere. My point is that if we permit
the principle of self-defense, we have to also permit the means of
self-defense.

Agreed. Not just the means for death.

And when the two cannot be separated, then which principle overrides
the other?

Please, don't try dodging this issue by claiming that they can be
separated. Not only is that false, but even if it were true, it
wouldn't reconcile the question that we are trying to exmine.


It may be a bad idea, but its my bad idea.

Which may kill another person, so the bad idea is not something that
should be up to you and only affects you. I don't trust your judgement
to allow you to have firearms at home in the purpose of self defense.

Actually, it appears to me that you want to impose a lot of your
personal values on your fellow citizens...IIRC, you also have
mentioned a strong dislike of alcohol; did you propose banning that
too? (honestly, I can't recall).


So long as you & the rest of society aren't effected, what business
is it to you?

The death of another person very much affects someone else than you.

It is only a *risk* of casualty, and then only a risk that is expected
to be applied to someone who many of us are of the opinion has
forfeited his social right for no harm because he chose to be the
criminal aggressor.

Having the altruistic goal of never killing is a fine and good thing,
but even this has limits. For example, you're willing to apply some
amount of resistance to defend yourself from attack, even though this
does carry a non-zero risk of killing your attacker. As such, you are
willing to risk killing another to defend yourself.

However, this willingness to kill in your own defense seems to then be
irrationally self-limited: you appaer to have the position that you
must restrict your means of self-defense to inefficient and non-
optimized means. If this is correct, what is your rationale for
drawing this sort of distinction, and how does one objectively
quantify it?


Are you trying to advocate a society that has no expectations or
rights of privacy?

No, I'm advocating a society that doesn't need devices meant to kill
to protect themselves.

Does this mean that my halberd is banned too?


When you try to work towards (b), you have to ask yourself what degree
of capability loss is acceptable to you...50% worse, 60% worse, etc.

All my examples have been better than a gun. You think they are worse
since they lack the killing power, which is exactly why I think they
are better.

You still apparently believe that "Stop = Kill" and "Kill = Stop."

We will have to disagree on this point as well. I thought that I had
previously made it very clear that I do not consider "Stop" to be
equal to "Kill", and that my objective is to stop the opponent. If he
happens to die, that is a side effect from the force that was required
to Stop him.

And when we look at technologies that carry a significantly lower risk
of Killing versus a firearm, what we find is that they are
technologically limited. They generally have a lower probability of
stopping (Incapacitation), they uniformely have a lesser effective
engagegment range, uniformly have fewer possible number of possible
engagements per unit time (number of shots before reload), some have
storage compatibility shortcomings, and all have size, weight, and/or
cost disadvantages.



.. and state that the only solution in these made up situations is a gun.

Actually, not quite: I merely stated that the baseball bat lacked
sufficient engagement stand-off to be effective, so I would need
something with more standoff. You're assuming guns can do this too
(which they can), but I had actually mentioned halberds as one
possible solution.

I obviously thought you were joking.

Since you are trying to deny even the opportunity to consider a
firearm, I'm afraid that it can't be a joke.


-hh

.

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