Who's worth more ? A murderer or a "normal" person ?

[dohupa]

Originally Posted by brianwp

...... But if you feel that entitles you to come and break into my house, I've got several Labs and a 38 that says you made a bad error in judgement.

Living in a country where packing one is illegal, I have to ask Brian...

Would you gun a trespasser down with an intent to kill or to stop him?

[MrKinkade]

Yep treading a fine line brian you live in your house which is under the law of the land so meeting out your own justice because it's your house well.. but don't get me wrong if some asshole broke in and started abusing, threating you and your family what are you to do ?
A real dilemma !

[1952224]

i was woken by a burglar on boxing dayat 5am he had already took my laptop+phone from the table right next to me while i was asleep.fortunatly for both of us he chose to leg it rather than have a confrontation.but it is the things he didn,t take that worry me more he didn,t take my feeling of being safe in my own house.if they are on your property accept the consequences

[comeon93]

Originally Posted by whiskymick

Killing in the line of duty is easy , the hard part is living with your actions afterwards.

Is it easy to kill in the line of duty? I think it takes a certain type of individual to go in to these type of jobs...

The only kind of killing I can fathom and the only one that can be even remotely condoned (IMO), is in self defense and/or a situational primal urge to protect those that are close to us if said person(s), are truly in harms way.

[scoundrel]

I have reviewed this thread with some interest. So far, this has been an intelligent discussion marred only by one off-topic and misguided side swipe at America. Any second such comment will be deleted as soon as I see it and the member who posts it may well be having an unwelcome PM from me, if he makes himself sufficiently unpleasant. I want to ask all members to continue to be thoughtful and considerate of one anothers' opinions and feelings because I think we all realise this is a classic hot button issue which easily triggers emotive and embittered reactions.

Lets be careful out there.

[VallesMarineris]

with the laws today, i would have to say only in self-defense also.
although i don't see anything wrong with hog-tying someone up, and then calling the police. and it is not that hard, as the criminal is scared to death of being in the wrong place, and meeting the enemy (hello), and has enough anxiety already. so half the battle is won. i have rope at the ready, at all times, and a few other surprises. i am creative that way.

so the crime rate has gone up here. never seen it like this, but well expected with the times we live in. two young douchebags tried to bust down my girlfriends' apartment door a few days ago. fortunatley they were Dumb and Dumber. they could have easily opened the door without force if they had a brain. they must've heard our dog inside and they took off after a few minutes, as they never got the door open, but cracked the wood a bit.

we just replaced the door yesterday. we are still trying to figure out how they got inside of the main outside door. the downstairs neighbors must've left it unlocked.

and apparently it looks like they knew both of our schedules - when she leaves for work, when i arrive each day etc. the neighbors seen them walking through the yard and gave us and the police a description. they will regret every sin they ever made if my school buddies/now in the police department get a hold of them, as the cops here are fed up with this stuff. i almost feel sorry for them as i know what the hand of fate is holding for them, and it sure ain't pretty.
i really regret not showing up at the odd time. it is a shame that i get there the same time everyday. i would have loved to catch one.
uncivil brainless cowards are easy to take care of.

my question is why act so tough when no one is around, and then run and hide? the only answer i can see, is that it could only be the work of once again... cowards. i welcome them, if only they had any balls to show their face. excuse me as i put 'Have Mercy on the Criminal' on.

[Sharu]

For me the interesting point is, that we only worry about questions like that, because we know about our personality and existence. Animals kill animals, no sorrow, no regret. In my eyes, serial killer are interesting from a psychological view, but I don t wanna meet one of them, without any security. Its nessecary that these persons get separated from society, just like childf*****s or rapists. And I think it s a big mistake to kill for political reasons, incl war.
But I believe in my right to kill, when I have to protect my family, life or property.
What I wannt to say is, that I see a big difference between a serial killer and a man that protects his family, or acts in revenge for his raped child. Serial killer and serial rapists are insane, a father/mother is in rage, often feeling, that the state doesn t protect his citicens enough.
My point of view is a reaction on the situation in my homeland. 90% of raped/killed children are victims of, for the police wellknown, childf*****s, who are on probation. Thats why I would kill to protect, cause our law fails.
An actual case is, that they set a pedophiliac rapist free, although there are psychological opinions, that say he would do that again by nearly 100%.
Whats more worth to worry about, the childrens safety, or the human rights of a pathological rapist?

[Alvin Lucifer]

Are human being innately equal or do we have to earn our worth by our actions in life? That's the real question here, and probably not one we are going to solve on this thread. It's one of those universal philosophical questions.

One way to ensure a person will value the lives of others as much as his or her own is to instill a sense of self-worth in that person. It seems to me people kill because they feel "less than" the other or they feel the other is threatening to take what they have. You can see this with crimes of passion. A man kills another man because the other man is having sex with his wife. The other man has taken from the first man. The Nazis spurred murderous resentment against an entire ethnic group, the Jewish people, by telling so-called "Aryan" Germans that the Jews had stolen their birthright as Aryan Germans by hording the nation's wealth. In neither case is homicide a reasonable solution on logical analysis, but logic is the the last thing one considers before one commits homicide whether the matter is marital infidelity or nationalist pride. One need only become convinced he or she is LESS than the other such a degree that murder seems vindicated. That's one way of looking at it.

Of course, killing in self-defense or defense of loved ones under imminant threat of violence is another matter.

[chupachups]

interesting question

we supposedly live in a society

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/society

but a human society is very different to societies in nature, such as ant or bee colonies

natural societies seem to consider individuals as being worth less than the whole, ant and bee soldiers will put themselves in mortal danger to fight off intruders, as will workers put themselves in danger to rescue lavae or rebuild an intruded nest

although we see similar behaviour in human society, it is extremely uncommon, and I guess that is why we consider those individuals as heros, the soldier who goes off to defend his country, or the rescuers in haiti right now. more commonly we live in our own individual nests, and behave very selfishly grabbing as much for ourselves as possible, no matter how much of a strain it puts on society, and how little we voluntarily contribute to society

looking at the natural society analogy further, where an individual falls sick, they are evicted from the nest (death sentence for a individual for which a social structure is essential for survival), or directly killed by its nest mates, to protect the wellbeing of the nest/society as a whole.

in western human society, no-one needs to steal to avoid starvation, so being a criminal is a state of mind rather than a survival issue, ie why steal when society always provides sufficient to survive - only the mentally ill

I think western human society has skewed itself far from the natural order of things to consider the rights of the individual far more important than the rights or safety of society as a whole. I say western, as china doesn't follow this model, they execute those they consider undesirable to society, to protect society

a serial killer is a sick individual (ted bundy, BTK etc), they can never be reformed, they will keep consuming valuable resources unless executed, depriving the more deserving of those scarce resources

a person committing a revenge killing could be considered as one of two types a) the selfless ant or bee soldier, following a natural programming that says kill anything that harms our society b) a temporarily insane individual driven to that point through grief - a state that is almost certainly not going to be repeated if the target of revenge has been eliminated, so has thus cured themselves

in my humble opinion, I think we need to ask ourselves as individuals, are we worthly to live in a safe society, and what have we done as individuals to propogate that safety ?

those that have commited a crime, need to be judged in the context of whether the crime they committed was for self gratification, or whether it was a selfless act - if the former, then they deserve the full consequences of the law, if the latter, then compassion needs to be taken into consideration

how does translate to our modern crimes ?
a)
beverley allit ? murdered children for own gratification - bye bye
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverley_Allitt
cf
assisted euphanasia ? mother kills son to prevent further suffering, guilty but compassionate grounds

b)
drug addict steals to feel addiction - self gratification - bye bye
cf
mother steals to feed hungry children - compassionate reasons

c)
11 year olds torture 9 year old - for self gratification - bye bye
cf
soldier who goes off to iraq and is involved in a friendly fire incident - sad incident but no self gratification and no intent (assuming he wasn't deliberately fragging his officer)

I think in todays society, those that commit crimes for self gratification should be treated as being worth less than the average individual, as they have detracted from society as opposed to added to it. those that have been convicted of crimes according to todays law, but with no intent for personal gain, when they have served their sentence should have the same worth as anyone else in society

note I chose my words carefully in the above paragraph, I personally believe that some of the laws in this country are crazy, ie the homeowner convicted of beating the serial criminal and burglar that threatened the lives of the homeowners family, to me that wasn't a crime

[whiskymick]

Originally Posted by comeon93

Is it easy to kill in the line of duty? I think it takes a certain type of individual to go in to these type of jobs...

The only kind of killing I can fathom and the only one that can be even remotely condoned (IMO), is in self defense and/or a situational primal urge to protect those that are close to us if said person(s), are truly in harms way.

When i was a serving soldier i only ever fired upon those who were trying to shoot me or my comrades, i would never have killed in cold blood and i like to think i never would.