Angry tourists break mugger's neck

[Chaossaber314]

No my chances of doing much besides being killed are low. Of course, with a guy pointing a gun at my face, I doubt I'm gonna consider the odds, I'll probably go on instinct.

Instinctively you should pick the option that gives you the highest chance of living.

[Epistemologist]

Well, let's just say the people who'd let the mugger run free have lower survival chances. Survival of the fittest.

Of course, I was joking. There's a difference between talking about this in theory and actually experiencing it in practice.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Instinctively you should pick the option that gives you the highest chance of living.

Unfortunately your impulses don't consider the pros and cons of a choice, they act, for better or for worse.

[Praxius]

See... having a right to own a firearm, doesn't always work in your best favor.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Well, if each tourist was carrying a firearm, that would have been decided pretty quick:)

[Chaossaber314]

Unfortunately your impulses don't consider the pros and cons of a choice, they act, for better or for worse.

Instincts work with the basic premise of staying alive. Charging a man with a gun pointed at you (or at those nearby you), isn't an instinct. It's a dumb decision.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Instinct tells you to do silly things, it can't consider the presence of a gun or some other technological advantage.

[Keith Hamburger]

Does someone who robs someone else at gunpoint deserve death?

Absolutely. If someone uses a gun to rob someone they are clearly threatening their life. It is absolutely justified to use deadly force to defend your (or another's) life.

Even the argument that "you just have to give him your money" doesn't hold up. If someone threatens you with a gun, they are willing to kill you. To assume otherwise could clearly be fatal. It is appropriate to use deadly force to stop such a threat.

Even if they are only trying to injure, maim or unlawfully restrain you, it is appropriate to use deadly force to defend against such a threat.

Any threat of bodily violence should be met with a great enough response to ensure that person will not do such to you again. If you use half measures and fail, you will only encourage such unlawfulness. It is far better to "overrespond" to threats of violence, than to run the risk of encouraging further violence against others by failing to respond strongly enough.

And don't give me the bullshit of the tourists should have filed a report with the police and let them deal with it. We all know how that turns out, even in our incarceration happy US. The police take the report, promise to do something and go back to their donuts. Filing a report with the police is the odd hope that, if they happen to stumble across your stuff at a later date, you might get it back. Unless, of course, they need it for evidence, in which case even the cops won't help you get your stuff back.

There is NO deterrence nor justice there.

Keith

[Keith Hamburger]

If that is the case, then let the trial by jury bear that out, if the system it takes place under has that much respect for peoples rights.

I would have to point out that, according to other reports, there will be no trial for anyone involved.

The people who killed the criminal, took the body, put it in their touring van and went to the nearest police officer they could find. A brief investigation found no culpability on their part and they were released to continue their vacation.

Keith

[Keith Hamburger]

If it was, then at this point he used excessive force given the circumstances. You can only use lethal force as long as its being threatened/applied toward you. Not a week later. Not a day later. Not moments later. I'm not saying these people/this marine are guilty of murder. It just has a lot of the same markings as a voluntary manslaughter to me.

In Colorado, at least, you are allowed to pursue and use deadly force against someone who has assaulted another. Even if you are a third party witness to the incident. Even if you have a firearm and the "suspect" is unarmed.

The legal definition of assault involves the threat of injury and the ability to carry it out. Pointing a gun at someone is clearly assault. In such a case, where I live, if I see someone doing that, even if they throw down the gun and flee, I can pursue them and use deadly force to stop them.

If such use of deadly force results in the death of the perpetrator, I might be arrainged but it is nearly certain I wouldn't be convicted of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

Keith

[Chaossaber314]

In Colorado, at least, you are allowed to pursue and use deadly force against someone who has assaulted another. Even if you are a third party witness to the incident. Even if you have a firearm and the "suspect" is unarmed.

The legal definition of assault involves the threat of injury and the ability to carry it out. Pointing a gun at someone is clearly assault. In such a case, where I live, if I see someone doing that, even if they throw down the gun and flee, I can pursue them and use deadly force to stop them.

If such use of deadly force results in the death of the perpetrator, I might be arrainged but it is nearly certain I wouldn't be convicted of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

Keith

You are completely mistaken. You can only defend yourself with proportional force based upon an assault. As far as the legal defintion of an assault goes, it's the threat of a battery. Seeing as an assault can include anything as mundane as someone threatening to hit you or throwing a "fake punch" in your direction, you are 100% wrong that you can use deadly force as a response to all assaults. Plus the use of a weapon makes it an "aggravated assault" so your claims about a response to a typical "assault" is just insane.

As far as third parties go, you can only use deadly force to stop an immediate threat of deadly force to someone else. You cannot pursue someone them after they have attempted to flee as this changes the entire mens rea of the situation and you have become the agressor. People have been prosecuted for doing this.

Admittedly, criminal law differs in terms of for instance someone who breaks into your home. Even then the generally accepted principle is that you can only pursue someone to the edge of your home/property. That said, if you go after someone who has committed an assault who is unarmed and gun them down you are indeed going to be prosecuted for it.

If such use of deadly force results in the death of the perpetrator, I might be arrainged but it is nearly certain I wouldn't be convicted of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

Why would you be arraigned if it wasn't against the law?

Go back and do some reading because you are way off. Fleeing Felon Doctrine was ultimately abolished a long time ago.

Instinct tells you to do silly things, it can't consider the presence of a gun or some other technological advantage.

And yet, robbery victims are more likely to remember the weapon than the face of their attacker.

[Nono]

How is it a strawman, when it clearly exposed your reasoning behind your STATED position?

Why is my statement in retort to yours a "less appropriate" caricature of socialism, then you saying capitalism, the american dream are "just about stuff" or saying that our interpretation of rights is somehow "jungle justice" ?

I smell a big hypocritical realization sneaking up on you.

Uh yeah, true. IF all your assumptions were correct. But they aren't.

You misunderstand that "strawman" applied to me, not you. Caricature always has an element of strawman in it, whether "funny" or not. Hell, caricature is a device, not a true portrayal of reality.

And speaking of words bearing quotation marks, what's all this "less appropriate" malarky?
I didn't say that.

I do think that your prescriptions (as I understand them) are jungle justice. As far as I can see, they amount to the following: I beat you over the head with my club harder than you beat me over the head with your club, thereby defending my material advantage over you.

If there's anything more than that to libertarianism, I wish somebody would tell me what it is.