I would not kill someone stealing my wallet. At best I would kick his ass beyond recognition, but definitely not kill him.
If he's got a gun, you'd better have some sort of dangerous weapon too. Of course you might be referring to your physical abilities, but you didn't specifically mention that.
So it would seem from your singular standpoint.
My brother is used to come at home without knocking at the door. Lately, we were threatened by phone. Being paranoiac and stuff, if I had a gun I'd probably end up shooting my brother.
You're too paranoid to fire at someone without identifying them as stranger or not.
One last fact, some of my quite daredevil friends, sometimes (on special festive days) come into houses in the evening just for fun, and it usually turns into parties with the regular inhabitants. No doubt they would have been shot in a country without gun-control, for something a bit "wrong" but really harmless in fact.
I have strong doubts that this is the case. Ownership of a gun does not change you. If the people in that area do that often as you say they do, then would they be the type to keep a loaded gun present?
I guess it might aswel come from a difference in the private property notion.
Yes. It takes a completely different type of person to use a gun in the above scenario.
Your lawn? Says who? There is no ownership of land in nature.
The land I normally inhabit and like to call my home and whatnot. My house is built there. I could draw a line with my urine if you'd like. That tends to happen a lot in nature.
So you admit it is a ficticious invention,
As with money, yes.
created for pragmatic purposes by the state, and thus may be interfered with by the state?
But not created by the state. This concept was first created in the human scope by two people who wanted to use the same thing at the same time but could not. They came to an agreement that was understood on both sides so as to settle future disputes over this object.
So what you're saying is that breach of the law which endangers others does not justify the state taking action to stop you?
No. Merely possessing a gun does not endanger the safety of the public, nor does it justify being killed. Upon reflection, I am not sure if the policy you described executed fatal shootings. Rubber bullets are easily justifiable since they are not lethal to the majority of the human surface. However, this same argument can be used to justify ownership of my own non-lethal device of similar nature.
Obeying legitimately crafted laws is part of the social contract.
Whether or not it is legitimate is part of what this debate entails to determine.
Breach that, and the state, according to most political philosophers, most definitely does have the right to intervene. Most other political philosophers would justify it, too, but from different approaches.
As will I. In the ideal of anarchy, everyone has the right to intervene on others actions. Everyone has the right to do anything of course, but phrasing it in this manner emphasizes a particular aspect of complete freedom. This means you can intervene on the invention of others. When given a group of people, a person trying to rob a bank, and firearms in the hands of all present, the majority of people will take intervening action on the robbers actions. As I would expect most people to notice in this scenario, the robber has a high probability to lose his life:
Tyranny of the gun-wielding nutters > tyranny of the majority government...
I wont rephrase this quote to clarify some of the different ideas here, but I will note that anarchic justice is expected to be much harsher than any system of laws. However, possessing anarchic freedom, the majority of the members are likely to agree on certain principles. If everyone in the bank that day agrees on certain principles, the robber might avoid a death sentence. If a single person does not agree, and ends up shooting the robber, the majority may punish him in return. I'd personally discourage both actions in the previous sentence. Neither does the thief need to be deprived of life, nor does the person who felt the robber deserved to be deprived of life need to face negative consequences at the hands of the majority.
Carrying around a concealed weapon in public is illegal and a threat to the public.
No more so for the people than the officers. Less so by the logic that people in power tend to be corrupt. To argue what the ideal state of the law should be, and to use the current state of the law as a reason to justify the current state of the law, is circular logic. Why should it be this way? Because it is this way. What it is, is what we are debating.
That threat needs to be dealt with.
Yes. But it is not a threat until it is used. The human body is a very powerful weapon. (Not to mention just about everything has lethal abilities.) It is a threat, but not everybody is going to threaten the life of another. It's the ones that actually do that we have any reason to act against. Anything short of that is paranoia.
And the less the reason to shoot other people.
For the majority of people, them holding a weapon does not, in itself, give you reason to shoot them. This is paranoia.
A guns culture leads to more guns being available, leads to more firearms accidents,
More accidents leads to greater awareness, leads to more people able to avoid accidents, leads to greater population safety when the time comes that they need to use guns.
more heat-of-the-moment shootings, and more murders in crimes involving guns.
Yes. From a primitive perspective this is true. Humans are not so primitive however. Most humans realize that that very action is greatly looked down upon by the majority. About the only people who do not realize this are people with mental defects. It is looked down upon with such veracity that, doing this action becomes a direct threat to your life. Most everybody tries to avoid dying, and killing another person is one of the biggest things you can do to endanger your life. This threat is amplified enormously when everyone is armed.
Social sciences, dude. Really.
As far as I'm concerned, they are bad sciences, in the sense of science being verifiable. This is why I use logic in the context of this subject. If I forget an aspect, my only hope is that someone notices. I do thank you guys for being my other heads. It is much better than having one.
Ad hominem attacks while asking us not to flame...? Really, wtf...? Lol...
Mine is not an ad hominem argument, because I am not diverting the subject to the person behind the argument. I attack the argument. I also threw in the stuff about people being bad logicians to test its accuracy. Additionally, my only actions that can be conceived as inflammatory are towards you and PurplePoot. I figure you guys can take it.
The countries aren't exactly polar opposites so a few key differences can highlight many of the different results.
Okay. Key difference: Americans don't have free universal health care. Direct threat to life, need money to
live, can't get money by working hard, etc..
It's a pretty damn good correlation.
No, it's a pretty
convenient correlation. See the table. The "Logical Person" justifies the laws that they are immersed in.
Obviously many countries have trouble with this. However, the USA has had fairly stable government for the last while, as has Canada to the north and several western European countries.
You know as well as I do that governments are not created corrupt to start off. They have to please the people to start at all.
Also keep in mind most of the dictatorships in Western Europe this century (Germany and Italy specifically) were voted in, rather than forcing themselves in.
You would have be believe mere voting right leads to complete liberty?
Not at all. As pointed out, if they think you might shoot back, they're likely to shoot you first rather than just point a gun at you and walk off with your stuff.
Ah. That's the logic.
This scenario works in an isolated duel. If both of you are likely to kill each other, it is wise to shoot first. This is not the case in which I have been basing my logic. My logic presumes a majority is present, which is the case most of the time. If you go away from this protective group, you decrease safety. It is not justified to require of society that you are safe when away from it.
It is wise to shoot you in this case, because you are a witness. Nobody is even around to witness or react to the murder. If they shoot you, they have a much greater chance to succeed in their criminal endeavors.
There is little reason to shoot the person if you will be in far more trouble having shot them,
If you're doing something that is against the law, in a situation that a life is being used as a bargaining chip, then I have doubts about your ability to properly weigh you long term consequences.
have no great desire to shoot them, and are not threatened by them.
Except that they are an eyewitness and will likely call the cops the instant they can.
Would you have me put words in your mouth or you choose your own?