Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Do We Open the Door for Most any Fight to be Ended with a Murder?

   If murder were legal, more people would do it. Having laws against it, does influence how often it happens. So, how wise are we to have laws saying, "If you must, kill the other person. You will not be held liable. You will not be prosecuted. Have at it."
   Florida law -- Florida's Stand Your Ground law -- gave George Zimmerman permission to kill.
   You will argue that Zimmerman's life was in jeopardy, that there were bruises on back of his head and a broken nose to prove it. I will reply that if we kill the other person every time a nose is broken, we are going to have a lot more killings.
   If you give someone license to kill, they are going to be much more likely to do it. If you say, "If you feel your life is in jeopardy, kill the other person," it is not going to take too much for them to proclaim their life in hazard. All they have to do is assert there was a danger, and suddenly they have license to kill.
   I wonder if most times a fight breaks out, if the person being beaten up could, if they want, suppose their life in jeopardy. I'm talking most fights -- at least most in which fists are being thrown, for a fist has the power to kill -- and, so I wonder, do we we give license to kill? Do we open the door for most any fight to be ended with murder?
   With the intention to hurt, enters the possibility of death. If the other person is clearly trying to hurt you, how can you be certain he won't accidentally kill you? Anything can happen, as the saying goes, and so it becomes easy to argue that you feared for your life. So, you simply took your gun out and ended the matter.
   Death on the wild frontier.
   As a society, we discuss the legalization of a lot of things -- from marijuana to prostitution to gambling -- but I am a little surprised that we should find ourselves discussing whether to legalize murder.

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