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Stand Your Ground (licence to kill)?

RandFan said:
Exactly, what good is two thousand years of social and moral progress? Kill the, kill them all. Let god sort it out.

Don't want to die? Don't drive recklessly. Every year thousands die due to aggressive drivers. Why shouldn't we have the right to shoot them? Your logic does have a certain base appeal.

Win win.
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Your silly straw man is noted. As is your lack of willingness to consider the issue from a reality perspective.
 
Cylinder said:
I'm not trying to be a prick toward you or anything, I (usually) disagree with your opinions and (usually) admire how you present them.

If I were to hop a flight to SoCal, drive out to your casa and try to help myself to the nice electronics suite that I know you keep in you vehicle, would you feel compelled by law to stand idly by and wait for police?

For the record, I'd be more likely to show up with a nice single malt and hours of innane stories of past exploits. Deadly force would certainly be justified at some point there as well.
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Re: para 2, yes you would - Calif. is a state where they get you if you get attacking criminals and statistically, for some completely unrelated reason ( :D ) lots of criminality going on there.
 
The Dark Lord said:
Violent crime is way down since the castle doctrine laws have been passed.
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No doubt. Nations like Iran and Saudi have much less crime than we do. Prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment come with a cost.
 
RandFan said:
So property is more important than life?

I'm sorry but laws that let people go around killing people is BS.
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I see it from a completely different perspective. Its not about property being more important than life, its about standing up for what is right.

True communities are communities where each person is invested in the rest of the people of the community.

When someone from outside your community, or a person who is not invested from within your community decides to use force to take what is not theirs, destroy that which stands in their way (forcible entry) and decides to do so while armed, they have setup the situation, they have made all the choices about using force, they are the ones who are placing everyone's lives in danger. (You cannot know if they are armed, and you should not try to protect them at the cost of your own safety either)

Decision such as these come with responsibility for the outcomes. The law in some states recognize this fact and support the honest people who choose NOT to setup such situations and choose NOT to use force to get what they want. Hard work is worthy of respect, crime is not.

Taking all of these elements out of the equation, and reducing it to a simple assessment of life vs property robs it of its violation of human rights, and the commitment of shared respect the community has for its own.

Strong communities are built by hard work and mutual respect, and when someone comes in with no respect for the law, no respect for the lives of the community and uses force to get what they want, it is those actions and decisions which are creating a dangerous situation, and defending what you have built, and defending the integrity of your community should not be seen as favoring property over life.

If the burglars had laid on the ground the second they where challenged and he still shot them, id have a problem with it, otherwise they got what was coming to them.

A lot of what is wrong with the united states today is the lack of respect, and moral reductionism which ignores these strong AND productive values. This nation was built on these values, and ignoring their relevance is helping to tear it down.
 
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GeeMack said:
As long as you continue to frame these arguments in a way that makes victims out of the burglars, home invaders, and thieves, and makes those defending their property or their neighbors' property into some kind of bad guys, you're not likely to make much headway. You are clearly wrong in the roles you're attributing to the players.
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Straw man.

But really, framing your argument in a way that makes the crooks into some kind of victims for getting killed in the line of duty, in a high risk job they chose, is just silly.
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You are the one doing all of the framing. I'm against cruel and unusual punishment. I don't see the world in black and white. I accept that criminals should be punished. I just accept the notion that modern liberal democracies avoid summary executions. That's all.
 
GeeMack said:
Your silly straw man is noted. As is your lack of willingness to consider the issue from a reality perspective.
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Your logic has consequences. Do you stand by it or not? I'm sorry if you don't like that you are hung on your own petard but you don't get to make arguments in a vacuum of special pleading. And BTW, you are the one playing fast and loose accusing me of treating criminals simply as victims. You are engaging in black and white thinking where criminals can only be thought of as evil and worthy of death.

I'm sorry but that's just not compelling to me. The world is a bit more complex than that. It's the reason we don't treat all murderers the same.
 
Xulld said:
I see it from a completely different perspective. Its not about property being more important than life, its about standing up for what is right.
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And you are the judge, jury and executioner.

True communities are communities where each person is invested in the rest of the people of the community.

When someone from outside your community, or a person who is not invested from within your community decides to use force to take what is not theirs, destroy that which stands in there way (forcible entry) and decides to do so while armed, they have setup the situation, they have made all the choices about using force, they are the ones who are placing everyone's lives in danger. (You cannot know if they are armed, and you should not try to protect them at the cost of your own safety either)

Taking all of these elements out of the equation, and reducing it to a simple assessment of life vs property robs it of its violation of human rights, and the commitment of shared respect the community has for its own.
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So, it's capital punishment for anyone caught from outside of a community who is committing a crime. Interesting. That was the human modus long before civilization. You would have to forgo prohibitions of cruel and unusual punishment. Are you okay with that?
 
RandFan said:
And you are the judge, jury and executioner.

So, it's capital punishment for anyone caught from outside of a community who is committing a crime. Interesting. That was the human modus long before civilization. You would have to forgo prohibitions of cruel and unusual punishment. Are you okay with that?
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Rhetoric.

No, you are ignoring what I said, that makes you unworthy of a response, but I will just this once.

If a criminal is challenged (vocally) by someone who belongs there and is there legally, they should immediately lay down. If that occurs then we just wait till the authorities arrive.

If the Criminal does ANYTHING threatening, blast them. They are the ones using force and creating a potentially deadly situation for there own greed.

This is no different than the force continuum that the police use, if its good for the gander . . . .

Equal protection under the law . . . and all that.

I find these arguments only occur when the person favoring just rolling over sees any usage of a firearm as evil, and worthy of disrespect. I can tell you are just such a person. I believe there is probably no situation where you would think it wise to shoot someone.

You are engaging in black and white thinking where criminals can only be thought of as evil and worthy of death.
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They are not necessarily evil and worthy of death. They have created a dangerous situation and need to be responsible for that, which means either immediately giving up the second they are challenged or risk being shot by a person who is frightened for there life and rightfully so.


BTW the comparison to dangerous driving is silly. The intent in speeding is to get somewhere faster, not harm and steal and damage.
 
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The stand your ground law means you don't have to run from an assailent to protect yourself. In my situation I can no longer run. My legs are weak and arthritic. If I had a gun or whatever and I was being assaulted I could protect myself with said weapon and have no fear of prosecution. I feel this is right.

In the Florida situation the man with the gun was the aggressor. Zimmermann broke the law by going after him. I mean its hard to threaten some gun toting man with a bag of skittles. The stand your ground law isn't applicable in this case. That was a police error to even invoke the term.
 
RandFan said:
GeeMack said:
As long as you continue to frame these arguments in a way that makes victims out of the burglars, home invaders, and thieves, and makes those defending their property or their neighbors' property into some kind of bad guys, you're not likely to make much headway. You are clearly wrong in the roles you're attributing to the players.
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Straw man.
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You've been on these forums for over a decade and have over 41,000 posts. Nobody should have to explain to you what a straw man argument is. But clearly you don't understand. I'm not going to explain it to you. Go look it up.

You are the one doing all of the framing. I'm against cruel and unusual punishment. I don't see the world in black and white. I accept that criminals should be punished. I just accept the notion that modern liberal democracies avoid summary executions. That's all.
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Interestingly I'm not an advocate of punishment. I believe if someone demonstrates that they are a risk to the lives, safety, and property of others, they should be monitored and/or isolated from society so they don't present those risks. You seem to see people defending themselves as punishing the perpetrators. That's a bogus equivalence. Me defending myself is not punishing someone else. This issue is not about punishment. It's about preventing people from taking other peoples' stuff, robbing them, raping them, or otherwise victimizing them. The criminals are not the victims no matter how desperately you complain that they are.

But here's a thought, one which for some odd reason you continue to ignore: If a guy is robbing someone's house he's taking a chance. The guy robbing the house is not the victim, even if he gets himself killed. You're complaining about how these criminals are running the risk of dying in the performance of their jobs, and you're suggesting people just let the criminals take their stuff. Do you have any suggestions to reduce the amount of people committing crimes, robbing people, raping people, or otherwise victimizing innocent people? Because your let-them-do-it argument is failing.
 
RandFan said:
Let me stop you there. I'd be over to my neighbor's house in a heart beat. This is about killing people for property.
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No it isn't.

It has already been made perfectly clear to you that killing people just over property is illegal in every state.
Killing people on your property because of the presumption that they will act in the manner Resume described, is about life, not property.
The case you cite in the OP was not killing over mere property, it was an old man with two assailants, as sustained by the grand jury.

Since you are continuing to conflate lives with property, make up revisionist history, and toss around insulting hyperbole that people in trouble are either cowards or bullies, that creates a powerful impression that your argument is predicated on an assumption that the lives of *some* people are of no more value than property.

This doesn't look like it is about guns or 'bad laws' at all, this looks like fearmongering
 
RandFan said:
Thanks. I don't think anything I have is worth your life.
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I would not use deadly force to recover property per se. I would, using good judgement as a guide remembering that I have a child, confront a burgular to protect property. If that confrontation led to use of deadly force, I really wouldn't have a philisophical objection.

I've armed myself twice in my adult life to take care of business. Once when I felt my neighbor was being burgularized - we look after each others properties. It turned out to be legit and a simple phone call took care of the matter.

The other was a young man trying to sneak into the house to visit my step-daughter. The dumbassed kid almost got shot for climbing into my preteens daughter's bedroom by mistake. Luckily the teenaged stepdaughter heard the commotion and intervened. That kid spent a long hour waiting for the police at gunpoint.

I'm not of the John Wayne mentality. I take training, safety and responsibility very seriously.

The only thing the US Constitution asks its citizens to do is to obtain a firearm and learn how to use it. I really do take that seriously.

[OT gun porn]I'm really growing fond of my SA 45ACP XD. Fits my hand like a freaking glove.[/OT]
 
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crimresearch said:
That's OK, I'm sure there is someone else here to contribute to the dialectic.
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Really after reading your posts, and a few others, I think this topic has been addressed.

Randfan cannot think about this topic rationally. It is actually quite common even very intelligent people can be quite irrational when discussing topics which cause an emotional response.
 
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RandFan said:
So after all the fear of life stuff we get to the crux of the matter. Okay. For you, your property is more important than the life of those who would take it. Thank you for your honesty.
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So what's the alternative? Open the door, and let these lowlifes in and ransack the house while I sit there at the kitchen table reading the paper and sipping hot chocolate?
 
Cylinder said:
I would not use deadly force to recover property per se. I would, using good judgement as a guide remembering that I have a child, confront a burgular to protect property. If that confrontation led to use of deadly force, I really wouldn't have a philisophical objection.

I've armed myself twice in my adult life to take care of business. Once when I felt my neighbor was being burgularized - we look after each others properties. It turned out to be legit and a simple phone call took care of the matter.

The other was a young man trying to sneak into the house to visit my step-daughter. The dumbassed kid almost got shot for climbing into my preteens daughter's bedroom by mistake. Luckily the teenaged stepdaughter heard the commotion and intervened. That kid spent a long hour waiting for the police at gunpoint.

I'm not of the John Wayne mentality. I take training, safety and responsibility very seriously.

The only thing the US Constitution asks its citizens to do is to obtain a firearm and learn how to use it. I really do take that seriously.
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Thanks for the post. I really do get the point. I accept that protecting property can lead to confrontation and deadly force. I could envision myself being in those circumstances. My concern is the mentality of dividing the world between good guys and bad guys and the bad guys deserve to die. Now, I honestly don't think that most people feel that way. Most people honestly just want to be secure in their homes and not have to fear for losing property. I get that. It's this law and the implementation of it that troubles me.

[OT gun porn]I'm really growing fond of my SA 45ACP XD. Fits my hand like a freaking glove.[/OT]
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I would seriously like a BMG 50cal and a mini gun. Hey, don't tell me I don't have fantasies. :)
 
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