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PeonForHer -> RE: Senseless Gun Violence -- Fearful Homeowner Kills Unarmed German Exchange Student (5/13/2014 7:50:09 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Kirata
quote:
ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
Um, folks, have we somewhat lost touch with what's meant to be the important moral issue of this thread?
No, I think we disagree on what it is. Disrespect for other people's property is what led to this.
A homeowner has no crystal ball with which to scry the character and intentions of intruders discovered in his home, or to know with certainty the degree of risk they present to himself and his family. If you go sneaking into people's houses at night, you are risking getting shot. And yes, you deserve it. Our guest may not have deserved to die from his wound, but he did, and that was the chance he took. If he didn't know, then someone failed him. When tragic endings follow upon violations of this kind, it is evidence that society's moral values aren't being taken seriously enough by enough people.
That is the moral problem here. That an intruder died who didn't deserve to is a consequence.
K.
For me, and I suspect most non-Americans writing here (plus a fair few Americans themselves, it seems) the moral question appears to be about the right to defend oneself versus the right to life.
I don't think that, underneath it all, there's much difference from country to country in the western world on that. Something like Jefferson's 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' or Locke's 'life, liberty, health, and indolency of body; and the possession of outward things'.
The point is that 'life' is first of the list in all versions for good reason. For me, the right to life trumps everything else by a lot more than it does those other rights, including that of self defence. I'm happy with the principle that you don't get to take someone's life unless that's the only option and if your own life, or that of others, is in clear and present danger.
In this case, it doesn't seem that anyone's life was in clear and present danger in the eyes of the shooter. He didn't know what he was shooting at because he couldn't see it. He shot wildly. The whole question of 'clarity' has become an even sharper question now that, as it seems, the shooter might well have been stoned at the time and in general paranoid about burglary from his garage (and theft of his dope stash in particular).
In short, K, I do think the question of morality goes further than that of just people respecting property, understanding what rights are entailed in the need to defend oneself, and in general playing silly buggers when one, at 17 should know better (and is in a foreign country and should instinctively be on one's best behaviour). It's goes to the question of 'how much is life worth?'
All that is somewhat aside from my reaction to comments involving the phrase 'I have no sympathy for X' in the context of 'I have no sympathy for the kid here because he was doing something illegal'. You don't do this, K - I can see that: you have sympathy for the deceased and his loved ones. But it's been done by others here. My sense of reason kind of gives up at that point. How could I answer that? I saw that some others said, 'This could be your kid who was killed' and my first thought was 'Bloody hell, do we actually need to say such things in order to elicit sympathy?' Feelings - like sympathy - aren't the same as morality, but of course there's an overlap. If we don't have any feeling about a kid being killed, whatever the legal rights and wrongs, I think we've lost touch with something major conveyed by lines like 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'.
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