Kansas town passes law requiring homes to own guns and ammunition

[Cowboy]

You contradict yourself in one sentence.

There is no contradiction. I have never harmed anyone and would never do so except for self defense.

This rephrasing brings forward the aggressiveness of your statement.

That's just semantics. My point and the reasoning behind it are still the same.

Obviously one would have to act before one is harmed in order to execute a succesful 'self-defense'.

There either needs to be an act of aggression, or something said or done to imply that an act of aggression will soon be occurring.

This suggests that people eager to defend themselves must have infallible situation assessment skills.

I am not eager to defend myself. I am willing to defend myself.

I don't look or hope for trouble, but I refuse to be a victim should trouble come looking for me.

Otherwise they will harm people who have no intention to harm them. Of course you could now come up with an example in which the intentions are clear, but as we all know real life is not so clear cut.

Justification for self defense is similar to the justification for finding someone guilty in a court of law: beyond reasonable doubt. I know it's an imperfect system, but you shouldn't have to wait until the knife is buried in your chest to take action.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

There is no contradiction. I have never harmed anyone and would never do so except for self defense.

I will separate your sentence into 2 parts:

I would NEVER HARM anyone.

I would HARM ANYONE in self defense.

You repeated yourself. And you made me repeat myself too.

And the jury takes sometimes days to establish if something was reasonable doubt. But you apparently can do it in a split second, and haha...you use an obvious example. I remember stating in my previous post that it is easy to give an obvious example in which intentions are clear. Obviously someone coming at you with a knife trying to plant it in you chest signifies obvious intentions.

[sarcasm] excellent post acid cowboy![/sarcasm]

 

[Stokes Pennwalt]

EDIT: This is not the post you're looking for. Nothing to see here, move along.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

And this, my friends, is why I believe in Darwinism.

Strangely enough I am well read on darwinism but I do not see the link between the two.

weird ain't it.

 

[Cowboy]

I will separate your sentence into 2 parts:

I would NEVER HARM anyone.

I would HARM ANYONE in self defense.

You repeated yourself. And you made me repeat myself too.

I didn't repeat or contradict myself. You're just trying to re-word it to make it appear as if I did.

I have no intention of harming anyone who has no intention of harming me. I have no intention of being an easy victim for someone who does intend to harm me.

And the jury takes sometimes days to establish if something was reasonable doubt.

I think the purpose of a jury in this case is not so much to determine if the potential perpetrator was a threat, but rather to determine if the potential victim had just cause to consider him or her a legitimate threat.

But you apparently can do it in a split second, and haha...you use an obvious example.

So give us a few not-so-obvious examples. I'm not saying you should be able to shoot anyone who makes you uncomfortable.

I remember stating in my previous post that it is easy to give an obvious example in which intentions are clear. Obviously someone coming at you with a knife trying to plant it in you chest signifies obvious intentions.

Maybe the guy charging at me with the knife is just playing a joke and has no intention of actually hurting me. How can I know his true intentions unless I stand there passively and let him do whatever he is going to do? Even the most obvious examples still require an assessment of intent. If we aren't allowed to make that assessment, then our only alternative is to wait until the knife is plunged into our chest.

You can't have it both ways.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

gosh...you concluded yourself now that you can't be sure of someones intentions, even when they are trying to go at you with a knife.

Now, doesn't that undermine your own position?

ps. at least you finally managed not to say that you would never hurt anyone. That is a shame, because I thought for a sec that ghandi had reincarnated.

 

[Stokes Pennwalt]

Strangely enough I am well read on darwinism but I do not see the link between the two.

weird ain't it.

Wow, it was late and I completely misread you. My fault. Verbose apologies.