Topic: Self defense? (Read 7890 times)

Benn0 · « **on:** September 24, 2007, 11:02:25 pm »

I just watched a part of some half-brain-dead-american-TV show were they showed "brave" actions during robberies (most of the caught on security cameras). Some were armed, some were not, but every clip ended in alomst the same whay, with the robber, chased away, caught or dead!

The most disturbing clip was a clerk shooting a robber who was "unarmed" (he had an unloaded gun, or that's atleast what the commentator claimed) the clerk was praised by the commentator beacuse he noticed that the gun wasn't loaded and shot him. So were's the mentality in this, someone killing an "unarmed" man, getting away with it and being praised for doing it.
You could look at it from another point of view and focus on how the robber threatend the clerk with a firearm. But does being threatend with your life give you the right to take another life? especially in this case were the threat wasn't rational.
Manslaughter is manslaughter even if the person who is killed commits a crime to get into that situation!

Another clip from the same show showed a kid trying to rob a store. The clerk paniced, threw the kid over the desk and sprayed him with pepperspray, whitch resulting in the kid running away with his tail between his legs. He got a concussion + heaps of pepperspray in his face/eyes.
The kid was armed with a handgun.

The last clip I saw showed a robber trying to rob a small family store with a pump-action shotgun. The owner chased him away with a broom or something, and thats really ok.
The thing that annoyed me in the clip was the commentator why mouned on about how dangerous the situation was. It wasn't dangerous for anyone exept the robber who wasn't prepeared for resistance. He didn't come there to kill anybody, neither was he prepeared to kill anybody.
You do not fight back a gunman whos pointing a 12 gauge shotgun at you with a broom! Do it and your dead in the blink of an eye. (Incase the gunman is capable of killing a human being)

These clips were of course shot in theblessed land of guns: The United Aates Of America, were every kid, granny and doctor owns 3 firearms. Not to mention the loose laws concerning manslaughter.
Neither the clerk in the first clip, nor in the second got any punishment for what they did. Here in Finland they would probably have recieved something like:
#1: 9-12 year imprisonment for manslaughter.
#2: 0-6 years imprisonment for serious assult. (carrying a pepperspray is illegal up here, unless you have special permission to do so. They are more or less classified as firearms)

Case #2 is very discussable imo. as the kid didn't get that injured. And it could have ended pretty badly if the kid was desperate enough.
Case #1 is definitely not discussable, killing an unarmed man is definitely manslaughter.
Case #3 is just there to illustrate what kind of consequenses this kind of shows can have when people doesn't understand their situations.

Should one be allowed to actually kill or severly injure someone whos threatening one?
How severly injure. Everything from pusing over someone to punshes/kicks/attacks against the back and the head?
If not, what should you be allowed to do to protect yourself?
Armlocks, are they any good? to which extent?

Ruki · « **Reply #1 on:** September 25, 2007, 12:20:55 am »

Yes he should be. If you are defending yourself because your life is on the line, you won't watch and do some ballet just to disarm a robber without injuries... you will shoot, hit... impulsively to defend yourself, to do damage, to save yourself, you won't watch with caution what you do to some scum who is trying to kill you. Wether the attacker is capable of hurting you or not that's not a question for you to answer. If he is pointing a gun at you, having a knife on your throat, this is a life-taking threat. If you kill him in self-defense... well too bad for the moron who attacked you. Most likely this will haunt you for the rest of your life but noone should ever question wether you did the right thing. Or should you rather die instead of the "bad guy"?

Oxygen · « **Reply #2 on:** September 25, 2007, 12:44:12 am »

Im not to popular around school with some of the teachers or police because of my "Natural selection" beliefs and I think that case #3 is just plain stupid. Someone points a freaking shotgun at my head and im not gonna hit him with a broom. Stupidity like that deserves to be shot. I know that sounds horrible but I believe strongly in natural selection. Some cops came to my school and were going on about these poor dudes who got in a car crash and I got shot daggers for saying it was their own fault going 180kpm while drunk and that they deserved to die.

Case #1 I got no problems with. Some dude stupid enough to point an unloaded gun at a dude who has got a loaded gun is plain suicide and like I said before deserves to be shot. He's a criminal and the less criminals we have the better. Good on the clerk.

Case #2 This situation was handled well, good on that person. You show that smart ass kid!

Case #3 Broom vs Pump action shotgun. That dude was plain stupid. Some guy threatens to blow my brains out with a shot gun I'd do whatever the hell he wanted.

Krayonaise · « **Reply #3 on:** September 25, 2007, 01:01:49 am »

Don't they have official (and by official i mean underground) awards for people who die in the process of being stupid? Right, Darvin Awards!

Ruki · « **Reply #4 on:** September 25, 2007, 12:45:50 pm »

There was this stupid "incident" in my country. There was some techno party and hosts had a rule that those who come before midnight can enter for free (else you have to buy a ticket). It happened so that a lot of teenagers wanted to go into that discoteque and all for free so there was more of them there than could enter. So hosts set the hedge to keep the crowd out. But morons as the people are (some high, some drunk, some just plain stupid) they were pushing against the hedge until they crushed the hedge. When crowd started a stampede to the main door, 3 girls died (they were first at the hedge) because they got stepped over. This was a huge thing in my country. It was on news and all over the place for few weeks. We even had to talk about it in school and when I got asked for my opinion I simply said: "I don't care if they died, they went there, they have seen how it is there, their own fault. Nobody forced them to stay there, they could have stay at home in the first place. Or did someone hold a gun against their heads and ordered to go in that line? And I also don't see any reason to talk about this event, over the world people die in more massive numbers." I don't need to explain what has followed

Gaston · « **Reply #5 on:** September 25, 2007, 03:54:44 pm »

Darwinism doesn't coorperate with the system humans live under, thus IMO there is no base in reality to believe in survival of the fittest in parts of a system in which it is attempted to be controlled to an extent that survival of as many as possible is what is the highest goal in said system. If people believe such they should also believe it in general, and punishments and social controls etc should be abolished in their opinions to correlate with their views. Not saying anyone is believing anything here, but it just seems wrong to think that people deserve to die due to the rule of "survival of the fittest" while in a system that does not carry such a rule (at least not on the same level as in the animal kingdom.)

Anyway, if the first scenario is true, and the guy who robbed the store had no ammo, the storekeeper noticed that, and still shot him in cold blood, the guy should be locked in for life, considering the usual penalty for manslaughter in the U.S. IMO. The robber may have been an idiot, but the storekeeper was at least a big an idiot as he was, and is a threath to our own race IMO. It is not benefitial for the human race to have such triggerhappy people going around in society and one day they'll just flip over. Such people have hurt the human race as long as the human race has existed, and is one of the major reasons why so many of our own species despise us as a species.

Yes it's easy to be judgemental (like I was in the paragraph before), when you're on the outside, but I am sincerely honest in that paragraph. We have a bunch of idiots who die due to their own idiotism, and that's just the way it is, and we can't do anything about that. But idiots that kills people who aren't idiots, really should have no right to live freely in a society where as many as possible are supposed to survive and contribute to the humans race progress, they don't just fail to serve such a purpose, they hurt our species to an extent that is not wishable at all.

Ruki · « **Reply #6 on:** September 25, 2007, 07:48:37 pm »

Quote from: Gaston on September 25, 2007, 03:54:44 pm

Anyway, if the first scenario is true, and the guy who robbed the store had no ammo, the storekeeper noticed that, and still shot him in cold blood, the guy should be locked in for life, considering the usual penalty for manslaughter in the U.S. IMO. The robber may have been an idiot, but the storekeeper was at least a big an idiot as he was, and is a threath to our own race IMO. It is not benefitial for the human race to have such triggerhappy people going around in society and one day they'll just flip over. Such people have hurt the human race as long as the human race has existed, and is one of the major reasons why so many of our own species despise us as a species.

And people like robber should be going around in society? He has been robbing now, you never know what will he do next. So you say a robber with unloaded gun deserves to live and a guy who killed the robber doesn't? If that is the cause, then nobody deserves to live in a society. We all lie, cheat, fake, swear, curse, fight without exceptions. Not all have it on daily basis but we all do it occasionaly. So we should all be locked up for good because we are future criminals.

PS: It wasn't a robber robbing a shopper but a robber robbing a clerk. And notice how Benn0 wrote his gun was unloaded but not without ammo. That are 2 completely different things. It takes you half a second to load a gun so clerk took the advantage of it and shoot the robber. Should he wait for robber to load his gun? I don't understand how you see a robber with unloaded gun (which means he has ammo in his gun) being "unarmed".

Benn0 · « **Reply #7 on:** September 25, 2007, 10:15:45 pm »

"to unload a weapon" = to remove the bullets from the weapon. (thats atleast what I got from my dictionary)
Your gun will be unloaded after unloading it. Aswell as it'll be loaded after loading it.
You can arm(turn off the safety) a gun in half a second.

The Dictionary is printed in 1999, so there is a slight possibility that it may be outdated.

The robber carried a non-revolver handgun, e.g. the Glock - 17.
By saying that the gun was unloaded I meant that the magazine was removed = the robber couldn't possibly load the gun before the clerk could had suprised him by pulling his own gun at the robber.

Purplehaze · « **Reply #8 on:** September 25, 2007, 10:45:28 pm »

On the other hand, the average person put in that pressure situation will in no way realize that the gun is infact, unloaded. That clerk did the right thing.

Gaston · « **Reply #9 on:** September 25, 2007, 11:15:54 pm »

Quote from: Ruki on September 25, 2007, 07:48:37 pm

And people like robber should be going around in society? He has been robbing now, you never know what will he do next. So you say a robber with unloaded gun deserves to live and a guy who killed the robber doesn't? If that is the cause, then nobody deserves to live in a society. We all lie, cheat, fake, swear, curse, fight without exceptions. Not all have it on daily basis but we all do it occasionaly. So we should all be locked up for good because we are future criminals.

There's a huge difference in killing people, and doing non-lethal things to human beings. The shopkeeper, IF he realized the robber was not carrying an actual lethal thread, and yet shot him in cold blood, did not defend himself. He brutally murdered another person. Yes, the person as a robber, and not a smart one at that from the looks of the situation. But the robber was not going to kill anyone if his gun was withouth a magazine. And the only one he was really hurting was himself. The clerk on the other hand, murdered another person in cold blood (IF the premise of him noticing him not having a loaded gun and shooting him after realizing that stands.) Now, if a person can murder a person who carries no lethal threath to himself like that, who's to say that the next guy he kills, isn't really an idiot, and didn't do anything wong to begin with? Personally I sure as hell would prefer for the robber to be alive rather than the trigger-happy clerk that is described in the first post.

Ruki · « **Reply #10 on:** September 25, 2007, 11:54:48 pm »

To make things clear... by unloaded gun you refer to that there is no bullet in the barrel. Normaly you have a clip/mag with ammo in the gun when you say that. If you want to say your gun does not have a clip with ammo in it, you say my gun is empty. It takes some unskilled person around 0,5-1 second to put a bullet in a barrel or put shortly to load it. As well as you can arm your gun in half a second. Note that a lot of guns do not have a safety lock.

Ofcourse speaking about semi-auto pistol and other of self-reloading kind. With revolver when you say your gun is unloaded you refer to the bullet not being in a chamber.

Gaston · « **Reply #11 on:** September 26, 2007, 03:51:25 pm »

I'm not 100% certain on the specific terms, but my presupposition for my statement of case #1 was one where the robber did have a gun that did not have any bullets in the magazine or in the chamber (if he had a magazine in the gun at all.) If the case was one where the robber had a gun with ammo in the chamber, and was about to load the gun, and the clerk shot him for that reason, my view on the subject is a completely different one. Even though I am unfamiliair on the exact terms, I am very knowledgable on how guns work in general due to me having practically being grown up around guns as well as having served a year in the militairy.

dynamo · « **Reply #12 on:** October 20, 2007, 05:48:33 am »

In case #1, why did the clerk kill the robber? Why didn't the clerk shoot the robber in the leg or arm or even just say "don't move or I'll shoot" (or similar phrase).

Loop · « **Reply #13 on:** October 20, 2007, 11:55:37 am »

In usa you risk more if you rob with a firearm rather than with a fake firearm/no firearm/empty firearm so it's quite common for robbers to use something that can scare but isn't real... just to avoid heavy penalties... now... IF the clerk actually saw through the bluff and shot the guy knowing he wasn't a threat he's guilty of killing a person without any whatsoever reason...
If the gun was only secured I agree that's quite a different thing tho I'm not sure it was a real life threat anyway... but even if I considered it that way... I'd avoid shooting in head or any seemingly vital part if i could (harder to shoot an arm rather than body).
I find my life, tho being the most precious thing i have, isn't the only important thing in the universe.. others, even scum, have right to live.. therefore i'd be prepared to take others life only if another persons life is in peril and i can't avoid it in other way..

Also Ruki... you don't jail people for their potential evildoings.. a robber deserves imprisonment cause he attempted a robbery, a murderer same as he murdered... i may be capable of both but still haven't committed any...

lexon · « **Reply #14 on:** October 21, 2007, 07:41:38 am »

Quote from: KiwiNinja on September 25, 2007, 12:44:12 am

Im not to popular around school with some of the teachers or police because of my "Natural selection" beliefs and I think that case #3 is just plain stupid. Someone points a freaking shotgun at my head and im not gonna hit him with a broom. Stupidity like that deserves to be shot. I know that sounds horrible but I believe strongly in natural selection. Some cops came to my school and were going on about these poor dudes who got in a car crash and I got shot daggers for saying it was their own fault going 180kpm while drunk and that they deserved to die.
Case #3 Broom vs Pump action shotgun. That dude was plain stupid. Some guy threatens to blow my brains out with a shot gun I'd do whatever the hell he wanted.

Like if someone had a gun and said "if you give me the code to launch the missiles I will spare you" a perfect person would not comply because the random evil guy could use the missiles to kill hundreds of people but your normal human would save themselves and hand over the code.

Benn0 · « **Reply #15 on:** October 21, 2007, 10:22:48 am »

Quote from: lexon on October 21, 2007, 07:41:38 am

Like if someone had a gun and said "if you give me the code to launch the missiles I will spare you" a perfect person would not comply because the random evil guy could use the missiles to kill hundreds of people but your normal human would save themselves and hand over the code.

A normal human wouldn't know any codes...
The rational human wouldn't comply beacuse he'd still get killd after giving away the codes.

What about the Iraq war, is USA just a random evil nation?

Loop · « **Reply #16 on:** October 21, 2007, 11:35:34 am »

Quote from: Benn0 on October 21, 2007, 10:22:48 am

What about the Iraq war, is USA just a random evil nation?

Yes

PS: i told nation, not people.. you can never generalize to all citizens.. just the general behavior of the usa has been constantly "who's the daddy" since long time...

lexon · « **Reply #17 on:** October 23, 2007, 04:42:17 am »

Quote from: Loop on October 21, 2007, 11:35:34 am

Quote from: Benn0 on October 21, 2007, 10:22:48 am

What about the Iraq war, is USA just a random evil nation?

Yes

PS: i told nation, not people.. you can never generalize to all citizens.. just the general behavior of the usa has been constantly "who's the daddy" since long time...

Yea, you can never trust a nation that mistakes oil for weapons of mass destruction and then invades contries for it, (e.g. The war in Iraq)

Beast · « **Reply #18 on:** October 23, 2007, 06:10:26 am »

Quote from: Loop on October 21, 2007, 11:35:34 am

Quote from: Benn0 on October 21, 2007, 10:22:48 am

What about the Iraq war, is USA just a random evil nation?

Yes

PS: i told nation, not people.. you can never generalize to all citizens.. just the general behavior of the usa has been constantly "who's the daddy" since long time...

Well perhaps because USA for sure is the most powerful country in the world in almost every aspect, so that makes them the daddy indeed.

Loop · « **Reply #19 on:** October 23, 2007, 02:52:00 pm »

Quote from: Beast on October 23, 2007, 06:10:26 am

Quote from: Loop on October 21, 2007, 11:35:34 am
Quote from: Benn0 on October 21, 2007, 10:22:48 am

What about the Iraq war, is USA just a random evil nation?

Yes

PS: i told nation, not people.. you can never generalize to all citizens.. just the general behavior of the usa has been constantly "who's the daddy" since long time...

Well perhaps because USA for sure is the most powerful country in the world in almost every aspect, so that makes them the daddy indeed.

economically loosing pace, it needs to show off to stay like that...

Author Topic: Self defense? (Read 7890 times)