[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by kyp275

Indeed we don't, but it's important to keep in mind that we also don't live in an idealistic version of the world either.

Exactly. We can't use a magical rainbow pony model of the world. Nor can we think of the world as being so grim dark that everything is only ever brown or grey, and there's space marines everywhere.

The truth is somewhere in the middle (except for the ponies and space marines...).

We're arguing around a balance. On the one we have lives saved from guns. On the other Deaths caused by guns. I'm of the opinion that the former is negligible, and the latter is substantial. You may or may not disagree.

But I don't want this to devolve down statistics (for one thing, it's dull). But there is a balance here. Before I continue, I want to re-highlight that I am ignoring hunting and sport, which are entirely separate issues from guns for the purposes of self defence. Guns are used to inflict death, that is their purpose. Correct me if I'm wrong, but shooting to wound is very difficult (and requires much better marksmanship then shooting to kill), and in a combat situation, most people will shoot to kill simply out of panic. With the flowing adrenaline, they're not going to be so careful to shoot for the legs instead.

My point is that we are fallible, and in our fallibility we will use our power where we should not. Better that we disarm our society, so that our mistakes are limited to wounding others, rather then killing them. And killing a criminal is a mistake. Even if his acts are wrong, he is still a human being deserving our empathy and even our compassion.

It's also not a simple clear divide between criminals that are just in it to make some quick cash and sadists that are serial killers in the making. Most of the time it's simply a someone who's high on drugs, or is simply very nervous. Many common criminals, even when armed, often runs away when their would-be victims suddenly turned out to be armed. Other times though the nerves breaks down in the wrong way. As an example, last year a local off-duty police officer was robbed at a gas station, the guy actually started shooting AFTER the officer identified himself as a police officer.

Was the guy a sadist? no, he simply lost his nerve and panicked.

Indeed. Real situations are rarely simple. But in this situation, this was a police officer (and presumably armed), and of course he still got shot. The problem in a gun fight is that it overwhelmingly favours the guy who shoots first(assuming he shoots straight...). The gun is an offensive weapon.

You might favour the idea of having a gun for self defence. But would you favour being the guy who shoots first? Consider if you were the police officer in that scenario. Should you have shot him before he had the chance to respond? Would you be able to pull the trigger so unhesitatingly? And what if you got spooked? You panicked and shoot a guy, but it turns out to be a misunderstanding?

Great power requires the judgement to use that power. I do not think most of us (including myself) have that level of judgement. Instances where guns are not required tend to outnumber those where they are, and I think the average person will over-react, and assume a minor threat is a mortal one.

You're still not getting my point. The value of property is never even part of the consideration I'd make in that scenario. The only thing that would even be in my mind would be the protection of me and my family's life and person (or an innocent victim's), and in that equation, the criminal's life will always lose.

The right answer. But does the saving of your(or others) life necessarily require the destruction of another's?

There may be such situations, but do these situations occur more often then situations where unnecessary misunderstandings lead to unnecessary loss of life? That I do not know.

a very important factor you're leaving out here is the value on the victim's life and personhood.

The victim's life has value. But the criminal's life also has value. We cannot know the entire value of their life from just a single encounter. They might be complete scumbags, or they may have been driven to their crime by poverty and desperation. You cannot know unless you have lived his life alongside him, which is not a possibility for us with our limited perception.

The long and short of it is all 3, depending on the circumstances. One key point you've seem not to notice so far: When you bestow upon the criminal an absolute inviolate protection, where they cannot be killed under any circumstances, you have effectively done the opposite to their victims. You'd grant criminals the guarantees that they will not be killed, yet say to their victims "tough luck"?

I say that the victim should not intentionally kill him. He must act in proportion to the danger presented to him. For instance, if you shoot and kill an unarmed home invader, that would be disproportionate. You could have phoned 911 and locked yourself into a closet, or beaten him with a baseball bat. You did not have to kill him.

Now if you accidentally kill him...

So do I, but if you think your neighbor will pull a gun on you for a simple civil disagreement, I'd say you have bigger problems. If your neighbor is that crazy and is out to get you, you're in deep **** regardless whether he has a gun or not.

Put it this way. Sometimes tempers flare, accidents happen. With guns around, I might get shot (if he's particularly unhinged ), without them around, I'm just going to have a bloody nose. Or I could get an attack of paranoia and convince myself he's about to shoot me, and shoot him instead. Our judgement is imperfect, and so we should not be allowed that kind of power.

Also, let everyone have guns, and some of those people will be crazy! I'm sure there are people you know in your life who you wouldn't trust with a gun. I know there are some in mine. There was one guy I knew for a while who had something of a temper, and often punched people for no good reason(and he did not seem to have a sense of his actions having consequences). What if he had had a gun? I could easily imagine him unflinchingly shooting another person dead.