Interview with an Extremist #...3, I think

[quarrel]

This past week I encountered not one but two unrelated news articles in which a pair of assailants assaulted someone, the victim killed one of the perps, and the surviving one is now on the hook for felony murder as well as his initial crime. (As anyone who’s watched Law & Order knows, any deaths during some categories of crime are blamed on the criminal.) In light of this, I present another oddball point of view on the matter.

“If you use a weapon to kill someone, you are guilty of murder.”

“Always?”

“Yes. Pretty much.”

“Even if it’s self-defense?”

“Yep. I mean, either the weapon is yours or it’s the attacker’s. If it’s the attacker’s, that means you disarmed him. The instant that happened, you lost your self-defense claim. If it’s your weapon, you premeditated.”

“How so? Many random assailants are complete strangers. How can you have planned to kill someone you didn’t even know existed before he tried mugging you?”

“You didn’t plan to kill that particular person, no, but you did make the conscious, voluntary, deliberate decision ahead of time to give yourself lethal capability. That’s enough.”

“So you’re supposed to just let the other guy hurt and probably kill you?”

“Look. Two points. First: I, personally, can incapacitate an armed assailant, probably without even injuring him and certainly without killing him. And there is absolutely nothing special about me. It’s basic martial arts. It does not require extensive training, unusual strength, or anything else like that. Pretty much anyone who can walk up a flight of stairs can do it. Furthermore, it’s cheaper than a gun, no less likely to save me, no riskier to attempt using, and safer with bystanders, plus I can’t accidentally leave it at home or have it stolen and used to commit crimes. The claim that lethal force can be stopped only in kind is demonstrably false.”

“It’s legal to carry concealed weapons with the proper permit, though.”

“So what? Your lethal capacity is still premeditated and still provably unnecessary. You haven’t addressed my argument. Now for my second point. If someone’s mugging you or robbing the store you’re in or something, don’t be a hero. Give ’em what they want, then call the authorities afterward. That’s what they’re for. They’re trained to handle those cases, which you aren’t, and they’re authorized to act, which you also aren’t.”

“Huh? I’m not authorized to defend myself?”

“Not without being a vigilante. Legitimatizing the idea that you, not an agency of trained, experienced professionals, are your own first line of defense has lousy long-term effects on society. The logical end result of that line of thought is every single person walking around believing it’s completely reasonable to pre-emptively kill anyone they walk past because “he looked at me funny” or “she made me nervous”. You know how it’s frustrating to have some guy rob your house, get arrested, but then go free because there’s not enough evidence to convict him? And yet, you also understand that having a justice system like that may nonetheless be better for you in the long run, and even if it isn’t, it’s better for civilization as a whole? It’s the same thing here.”