65 y/o man kills teen mugger, wounds another

[Dr Mordrid]

Just remember that Oaklahoma is also a Castle Doctrine / Stand Your Ground / Shall-Issue state, and I hear they're looking at expanding them.

[KRSESQ]

Brian is not trolling: he genuinely feels that the civilian (or anyone else, including the state, for that matter) has no right to murder criminals.

Brian, I've been giving this some careful thought over the last few days. I think you are mistaken in one important respect.

There's no such thing as a "civilian" anymore. There hasn't been a true "civilian" since the beginning of WWII, at least. The Cold War and the Age of Terrorism made every human alive a possible combatant in a greater conflict.

Any person, regardless of training or background, may be called upon to defend himself or his loved ones or his country at any moment. Whether that person is or ever was a soldier or police officer is irrelevent. An attacker doesn't care who or what you are. They only see victims.

There were no "civilians" aboard United Flight 93. Once that plane was hijacked and the passengers realized what was in store for them, they all became combatants with a duty to stop their captors' mission at any cost.

In the same way, the victim in this instance became a combatant the moment he was assaulted. His assailants had killed no one that day. But the day was young.

This is a conflict as old as human civilization. It is a conflict between civilization and anarchy. Sometimes civilization wins a round. Sometimes anarchy wins. We can all regret that it came to violence, but it wasn't the unnamed victim who initiated the violence. He just ended it. Temporarily.

[Dr Mordrid]

Well said Sir!! Bravo!!!!

[Brian Ellis]

There's no such thing as a "civilian" anymore. There hasn't been a true "civilian" since the beginning of WWII, at least. The Cold War and the Age of Terrorism made every human alive a possible combatant in a greater conflict.

You are using semantics to distort the argument. You know darn well I was using the word as defined in the dictionary:

4. A person whose regular profession is non-military; one who is not in or of the army, navy, air force, or police. E19

Amongst the 4 definitions, none suit your notion.

I fail to see why I became non-civilian on 3 September 1939. I was not sworn in to any service; I did not miraculously have any training on that date; little changed in my daily life then, except regarding school being displaced for a couple of months while air raid shelters were built. I remained civilian until 18 June 1951 when I was conscripted into His Majesty's army. I remained non-civilian until 14 January 1954 when I was officially demobilised and handed in all my equipment, including all weaponry, down to my army knife, back to Her Majesty. And why 3 September 1939? Why not the 100-Years War? Why not the separation of Abraham's sons, a conflict that continues today? Am I a combatant, therefore non civilian, because I live in a country that is divided as a result of an illegal invasion (incidentally backed by the USA poking its big neb where it was neither needed nor wanted)? No way! How do I know that? Because I am subject to Civil Law, not military law.

[Dr Mordrid]

>
And why 3 September 1939? Why not the 100-Years War? Why not the separation of Abraham's sons, a conflict that continues today?
>

Because that war started with Blitzkrieg tactics, progressed to fire bombing cities, saw the development of long range strateigic bombers, jets, radar and ballistic missiles, ended with the first true weapons of mass destruction that could take out a city with one bomb, and was followed by the long period of asymmetric warfare & terrorism we are in now.

[Brian Ellis]

Because that war started with the carpet bombing of cities, progressed to fire bombings, ended with the first true weapons of mass destruction that could take out a ity with one bomb, and was followed by the long period of asymmetric warfare we are in now.

Sorry, I do not buy it. There were more combatants killed in WWI than WW2 which also witnessed bombing of civilians. From the moment that some man threw a stone at another man or stuck a broken-off stick into him, there has been an arms race and WMDs are only just another stupid step in the progress of human folly or man's inhumanity to man.

In any case, you are going wildly off-topic which was the rights and wrongs of civilians administering summary "justice" by murdering unarmed wrong-doers.

Let's take a hypothetical situation. Imagine you have a teen-age son, say 15, who goes into a shop and pockets a pack of cigarettes, then starts to scarper. The shop-owner runs after him shouting, "Stop! Thief!". A bystander witnesses this, takes out his artillery and shoots the kid in the back, killing him. According to your philosophy, this is fully justified and lawful. But how would YOU feel, knowing the loved son whom you sired from your own loins was killed for a pack of gaspers?

How would the parents of the kid, who was shot dead (murdered) because one of his mates knocked a guy off a bicycle with his fist, feel?

And don't say anything about upbringing because I'll wager every single one of us did something(s) reprehensible by law when we were teenagers. I know I did.

[Dr Mordrid]

Sorry, I do not buy it. There were more combatants killed in WWI than WW2 which also witnessed bombing of civilians. From the moment that some man threw a stone at another man or stuck a broken-off stick into him, there has been an arms race and WMDs are only just another stupid step in the progress of human folly or man's inhumanity to man.

it's not the relative body count but the increasing efficiency in creating it.

In any case, you are going wildly off-topic which was the rights and wrongs of civilians administering summary "justice" by murdering unarmed wrong-doers.

There you go misusing legal terms again. Murder is a legally unjustified homicide. Self defense is a legally justified homicide. We have the right to use aggressive self defense to protect ourselves, our families and even neighbors if they're under threat.

"Unarmed" is irrelevant because humans, especially in packs, are quite capable of killing without a weapon. A couple years ago there was a notorious case where 3-4 Chicago middle-school students bludgeoned another kid to death. Happens all the time, and this incident differed only in that it was recorded and posted to YouTube.

Sorry people on your side of the pond have turned into such sheeple because that never fight back mentality will some day bite you in the ass.

Let's take a hypothetical situation. Imagine you have a teen-age son, say 15, who goes into a shop and pockets a pack of cigarettes, then starts to scarper. The shop-owner runs after him shouting, "Stop! Thief!". A bystander witnesses this, takes out his artillery and shoots the kid in the back, killing him. According to your philosophy, this is fully justified and lawful.

Wrong. The fleeing felon rule is not activated by a petty theft - it requires a much larger theft, robbery or some other felony. IF he had done an armed robbery etc. and suffered the consequences we would mourn him, but we would not blame anyone else for his mistake. Would probably reach out to the storekeep once the authorities had cleared him (and the legal presumption is with the defender.)

[Brian Ellis]

Wrong. The fleeing felon rule is not activated by a petty theft - it requires a much larger theft, robbery or some other felony. IF he had done an armed robbery etc. and suffered the consequences we would mourn him, but we would not blame anyone else for his mistake. Would probably reach out to the storekeep once the authorities had cleared him (and the legal presumption is with the defender.)

OK, in the heat of the moment, can the shooter evaluate the severity of the crime? Or if the kid had a plastic replica gun that he waved at the shopkeeper? Then it would be armed robbery, as he could not know if it were not a real gun? What I was trying to do was to ask you to put yourself in the place of the parents of the unarmed victim who was murdered because his pal threw a fist at the cyclist. For all we know, the kid may have been going to see whether the cyclist needed help. What then?

WS Gilbert wrote:
My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time —
To let the punishment fit the crime —
The punishment fit the crime;

In this case, I cannot see any way that the Mikado's objective was achieved, either for the deceased or for his parents.

[KRSESQ]

Brian, you need to throw the dictionary away. The modern world has become too complex and too dangerous to rely upon bookbound definitions that are in many cases centuries out of date.

None (or, at least, staggeringly few) of those Jews involved in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising were military soldiers. You may call them "insurrectionists" or "militia" or "freedom fighters" or (a few would say) "terrorists." But they ceased being "civilians" and became "combatants" the second they took up arms. Likewise, those who allowed themselves to be carted away in cattle-cars ceased being "civilians" and became simply "victims."

A soldier who dresses as a civilian to conduct a guerrilla campaign does not become a "civilian" just because his cause is lost and he's out of uniform. He's still a "combatant."

A shopkeeper whose shop is used as a base of operations for such fighters falls into one of two categories. He is either a victim of coersion or a sympathizer. If he is a sympathizer then he becomes as much a "combatant" as those he's sheltering and is in no position to complain if "the other side" decides to put a missile into that base of operations. If he's a victim of coersion then he is a victim twice. If he resists those using his property as a base, then he becomes a combatant in his own right.

The word "civilian" has lost its classical meaning. In this modern age there are only victims, potential victims, and combatants. It is up to each of us to decide which we shall be.

[Technoid]

Well, going by Doc's (and others) stories I'm starting to think that the US is not a civilized country anymore.

[KRSESQ]

One would think this country is a shooting gallery. But violent crime in the US is at its lowest rate since the 1970's. The biggest decline began around the same time concealed weapons laws became more liberalized.

I wouldn't claim a direct cause-and-effect, but it does support the thesis that violent criminals are, at heart, cowards interested only in preserving their own hides.

[Dr Mordrid]

One would think this country is a shooting gallery. But violent crime in the US is at its lowest rate since the 1970's. The biggest decline began around the same time concealed weapons laws became more liberalized.

Exactly correct - and when you graph it out it jumps off the page. There are even plateaus during the periods when no states liberalized their laws, followed by another dip when more states passed Castle Doctrine, Stand Your Ground and liberalized concealed carry.

I wouldn't claim a direct cause-and-effect, but it does support the thesis that violent criminals are, at heart, cowards interested only in preserving their own hides.

More telling is that those ciries with the most restrictive gun laws have the highest murder rates; Chicago, NYC etc. Those restrictive laws have a very short half life as the Heller and McDonald SCOTUS decisions put big dawg teeth into the legal challenges against them.

[Brian Ellis]

One would think this country is a shooting gallery. But violent crime in the US is at its lowest rate since the 1970's. The biggest decline began around the same time concealed weapons laws became more liberalized.

I wouldn't claim a direct cause-and-effect, but it does support the thesis that violent criminals are, at heart, cowards interested only in preserving their own hides.

Notwithstanding, it still has, by far, the highest rate of violent crime and gun-related deaths in the civilised world and more than some other countries. In recent years, I might exclude Mexico, if you consider it civilised. Oooops! Perhaps I shouldn't use 'civilised' as, by your definition, the USA is not civilised because everyone is a combatant and not a civilian.

[KRSESQ]

I never said it was an entirely desirable situation. The fact remains: the United States tried lowering crime with more restrictive gun laws and violent crime went up. When we liberalized gun laws, violent crime went down. The US will never have as low a crime rate as other nations with more homogeneous populations. And what we find works for us almost certainly wouldn't work anywhere else.

And no, maybe we aren't entirely civilized. But our music rocks!