I'm A Law Abiding Citizen. Why Is My Life So Worthless?

[Pedersen]

So, we've got two threads very closely related to this.

• "It's not a slippery slope" my left foot
• Castle Doctrine

Now, as the topic says, I'm a law abiding citizen. And yet, the laws are being written which take away my ability to defend myself and my family.

Guns are actively restricted. There are people working on restricting knives (though, so far, I've only heard of this in the UK).

I'm going to quote myself from the "slippery slope" thread:

A couple weeks ago I got myself a nice little scare (related, I promise). I stay up late, like 2am late. My wife goes to bed by 10pm. My sexist pig side speaking here: I feel I have an obligation to protect her to the best of my ability.

Anyway, 1am (roughly), I hear a very loud bang from downstairs. I have a couple of swords, so I grabbed one and started looking through the house. Turns out it was nothing (a child gate had fallen over). While doing this patrol, though, I was scared out of my mind.

I'm not a physical fighter. If someone had been in the house, and I had been completely unarmed, I would not have been able to protect my wife, and I know it. At least with that sword, I stood something of a chance. Going by the arguments I see here, I could easily see myself being deprived of one of the few means of self-defense I possess on the grounds that somebody else might use it to commit a crime.

Few people who live in suburban and urban settings are physical fighters. Weapons are an equalizer, which allow people who do not normally get into dangerous situations to escape such situations relatively unscathed (especially in comparison to how such situations can go). And yet, there are a great many people who seem to want to completely disarm the populace.

These people ignore the fact that criminals do not care about the law. They will arm themselves as they see fit. They will attack as they see fit. And, chances are that many of the ones who would attack are comfortable being in physical confrontations, in comparison with their victims who generally are not.

So, what is up with this group of people who want to completely disarm the world? Why do they see the lives of criminals and thugs as more valuable than mine? Can anybody please explain this to me?

And please don't tell me the police will protect me. In the absolute best of all possible circumstances, the police will still take a minimum of 30 seconds to reach me, and this is true with them already coming down my street on regular patrol. With the way criminals can arm themselves, I can be dead (or mortally wounded) in 5. The police cannot protect everybody. They can only respond after the fact.

More often than not, by the time they can even find out about the problem, the damage is done.

So, I ask (again) Why are the lives of criminals and thugs seen as more valuable than mine?

[the_std]

I'm not against people protecting themselves, but some of these laws take it too far and make the life of the so-called criminal worth less than the life of the law-abiding citizen (castle doctrine).

People, as a whole, tend to be bad at judging and analyzing difficult and possibly life-threatening situations at a glance and, if given the armaments to make these misjudgements fatal, will do so. Not necessarily willingly, or with evil intent, but because of the human ability to over-react.

Just because criminals do not care about the law doesn't mean there shouldn't be laws.

[Pedersen]

I'm not against people protecting themselves, but some of these laws take it too far and make the life of the so-called criminal worth less than the life of the law-abiding citizen (castle doctrine).

Wait.... "so-called criminal"? Looking back at the castle doctrine, you have someone in your home without your permission. At a minimum, this is trespassing. The fact that the criminal has yet to be convicted of this crime makes him/her no less a criminal.

Make no mistake, I am not speaking of alleged criminals. I am speaking of people who are actively committing a crime. These crimes are direct violations of myself and/or my family and/or my home. They can be non-violent (straight breaking and entering, burglary), or they can be violent (assault, rape, murder). Regardless of status, these people are the common definition of criminal (maybe not the legal definition, but definitely the definition that 90%+ of all people would agree with).

People, as a whole, tend to be bad at judging and analyzing difficult and possibly life-threatening situations at a glance and, if given the armaments to make these misjudgements fatal, will do so. Not necessarily willingly, or with evil intent, but because of the human ability to over-react.

I am unsure of how I would have reacted if I had found someone in my home in that story of mine.

I do know that, without those swords, I would have been terrified to examine my own home. I would have had to try to get the police out. As it turns out, this would have been a wasted police call (if they even came out at all).

Finally, your argument sounds very much like saying "Sorry, but your judgment is too risky, and therefore you can't be allowed to protect yourself. Only someone with much more experience can be allowed to try to protect you."

That doesn't allow for me to do anything except take a beating (if I'm lucky) or get killed (if I'm not). Why is this a desirable situation?

Just because criminals do not care about the law doesn't mean there shouldn't be laws.

That's quite a nice straw man you've got there. Too bad I wasn't trying to abolish all the laws. Seems I was just upset about specific laws that make it difficult (or even illegal) for me to defend myself with the methods I have at hand.

[the_std]

I've never said that you're not allowed to protect yourself. Hell, I know if I found someone in my house that they would wish they'd never bothered. I'm opposed to the automatic legal lethal force offered by the castle doctrine. I'm opposed to the fact that someone who trespasses can be killed, just like that. Yes, they might intend to rape and brutally slaughter your family. But what if they're just going around into the backyard to retrieve a lost frisbee? Sure, the owner of the house doesn't know that, but that doesn't give him the right to just kill them like that.

Edit to add: There are laws in place that allow you to defend yourself and your property/possessions/family. I fully support these. I would never want them to be taken away, because it's impossible to completely rely on the police to protect you. I don't want to put innocent citizens at the mercy of criminals. Please don't jump to that conclusion. You would have known that if you'd read my posts in the Castle Doctrine thread.

[Zyanya]

But what if they're just going around into the backyard to retrieve a lost frisbee? Sure, the owner of the house doesn't know that, but that doesn't give him the right to just kill them like that.

When cases like this start happening, this argument will be valid. Since they are about as common as the women who have 4 abortions a year and the men who routinely place curling irons into their bodily orifices, they can be safely disregarded when discussing the issue.

I don't want to put innocent citizens at the mercy of criminals.

Then you should be entirely 100% in support of castle doctrine and encouraging all citizens of the US to own a gun and be trained in it's use.

[Pedersen]

I will freely admit that I have not read the entire thread about the castle doctrine. I simply linked to it because it is a relevant, but distinct, discussion.

Hell, I know if I found someone in my house that they would wish they'd never bothered. I'm opposed to the automatic legal lethal force offered by the castle doctrine. I'm opposed to the fact that someone who trespasses can be killed, just like that.

I am not opposed to it, for one reason. In this day and age, prosecutors no longer seek to enforce justice, but to enforce the law. As such, if you are in a position where you did have to kill someone who was invading or attacking you in your home, you do not have to worry about the legal aftermath. Without that, though, a prosecutor could make your life hell.

Yes, I'm paranoid of the way my government acts. That's a whole different thread, though.

Edit to add: There are laws in place that allow you to defend yourself and your property/possessions/family. I fully support these. I would never want them to be taken away, because it's impossible to completely rely on the police to protect you.

Unfortunately, there are other laws in place that effectively remove that same ability. In some places, you are unable to use a gun. In others, various bladed weapons will make life difficult for you. And in still others, steel bars or pipes will get you in trouble. Why? Because these are weapons, and we mustn't have an armed populace.

That's the part that staggers me. If a criminal is in my home, I'm already in unpleasant territory. If that same criminal is ready and willing to assault me, my situation is even worse since I (and a good many other people around the world) are physically incapable of winning a street fight without some sort of weapon.

The laws I am hearing seem to be geared to remove all weapons from the populace at some point. This will leave criminals with weapons, the government with weapons, and everybody else completely defenseless.

Considering that we already know that criminals are willing to disregard the law, and that of those, some percentage will at least be carrying a knife (or worse), the people who are fashioning these laws are putting me at an extreme disadvantage when the criminal comes after me. He will be armed. I will have a cell phone and be trying to dial 911.

I am made more vulnerable by these laws, not less. Which makes me think that the people who are pushing for these laws must feel that the lives of the criminals are more important than the lives of the law abiding citizens. Which brings me back to my original question: Why is my life so worthless, and the criminal's life so valuable?

[the_std]

I guess my opinions don't apply here, because I live somewhere where I feel safe the grand majority of the time, and have never heard anyone here decry the need for these kinds of laws.

[BlackIronCrown]

So,
These people ignore the fact that criminals do not care about the law. They will arm themselves as they see fit. They will attack as they see fit.

It is this part that I must take you to task on.
The majority of criminals who are not already hell-bent on murder will NOT arm themselves with a firearm.
Thieves entering your house in the dead of night? Forget it. Only rarely will they be armed - they know that if they have a gun on them, the sentence will be MUCH higher when they are caught.
Most criminals are NOT interested in facing a murder rap. Murder is the galvanizer, the crime that gets manhunts started. No one cares if someone busted in your house and stole your TV, but shoot dead a family of 4? Watch forensics be all over the place.

The thing is, your assumption about criminals assumes that the majority of crimes are commited by bloodthirsty psychos raging for a MURDERDEATHKILL. This is not the case; those are merely the ones publicized by the media. The majority of all crime is not committed with weapons and involves little or no risk of harm to the victim.

[Pedersen]

Actually, your opinions do apply here. Elsewise, you'd be banned. Therefore, your opinions apply and are welcomed.

BTW, where I live, I feel safe 99% of the time. And I know I am.

My obligations, though, no longer allow me to focus on whether or not I, alone, am safe and will be so. I have a wife to care for.

Now, if something happens, I need to make sure I come out of it better than just okay, so that I can try to protect her. That 1% of the time seems a lot bigger when there's somebody else to watch out for.

[Boozy]

I guess my opinions don't apply here, because I live somewhere where I feel safe the grand majority of the time, and have never heard anyone here decry the need for these kinds of laws.

Canadians don't usually "get it" because we aren't worked into a lather of fear every time we turn on the TV.

We don't necessarily have lower crime rates (especially in certain cities), we just have a less skewed understanding of crime statistics.

[Difdi]

I'm not against people protecting themselves, but some of these laws take it too far and make the life of the so-called criminal worth less than the life of the law-abiding citizen (castle doctrine).

I've noticed this attitude before. It seems to be almost unanimous among people in the UK, but to US sensibilities, it's nonsensical to the point of sounding like suicidal insanity. The sort of insanity that you tie people into straitjackets over, to prevent them from harming themselves.

To the average person in the US, the criminal (no so-called about it) is worth less, on a life per life basis, than a law-abiding citizen, when a choice must be made between them. Why? Because the criminal made a conscious choice to violate the law and threaten harm, or carry out actual harm, against someone who never harmed the criminal. If the criminal is harmed, or even killed in the course of the altercation, then that's too bad for the criminal. But it was the criminal's choice to do so, the victim didn't have the ability to opt-out.

Just because criminals do not care about the law doesn't mean there shouldn't be laws.

There's a bit of military wisdom that is particularly apt here. "Never give an order you know will not be obeyed." By the same token, do not pass a law that punishes the law-abiding, that criminals will ignore. If criminals respected laws, they wouldn't be criminals. Passing a law that bans "crimes" will be just as effective in stopping violent crime as one that bans "weapons". The criminals will equally respect both laws.

[the_std]

We don't necessarily have lower crime rates (especially in certain cities), we just have a less skewed understanding of crime statistics.

That's the thing. I live in one of the cities with the highest violent crime and murder rates per capita in this country. In fact, it has tied for first in the past five years. I know the fear of someone trying to mug me, and I know what it's like to have my house broken into. My boyfriend weighs sixty pounds less than I do and has reduced mobility in his arms as a result of a series of seizures, so I know the feeling of responsibility and the need to take care of my significant other. He would be useless against any attack, so it falls to me. And yet I don't think I will ever understand the "guns a-blazin' and I'm gonna get you" mentality that seems to be so prominent, even subconsciously, in the states.

... And I think I'm glad that I don't.

[Slytovhand]

Hey Pedersen... I just did a long-ish post in Slippery Slope that sums up a bit of how I'll respond to this, but...

I was going to do a similar post to this (and still might... it's slightly different angle to come from), but I do this at work, and ran out of time...

Difdi... having laws, while being ignored by the criminal, does mean that when they're caught, they are worse off than if the law isn't there.

Back to you Ped...

The sort of criminals who carry guns... and want to use them.. on you ...will be very few and far between... probable that you'll never encounter them in a few lifetimes (unless, of course, you are trying to piss off a few gangs in the area )

Those who carry guns don't want to use them, and would avoid trying to shoot someone as much as possible. Thus, when you are in your home, and there is someone in there who shouldn't be, there are options which are non-lethal to prevent that danger that are statistically extremely effective. Even if you're getting mugged, if the mugger wanted to use that gun on you, you'd already be dead... so don't give them a good reason to use it.


But back to the question... it implies that the 'worth' of a life is dependant on how one relates to society and the other members in it. Maybe it does... maybe it doesn't. I think, life is intrinsically valuable regardless of how you interact with everyone else. That's why suicide (well... attempted, at any rate) is illegal. It's also why, even though you go vigilante and take out the local drug lords (or their hired hands that do all the dirty work.. including the murderers), you'll still end up on death row (if you have one in that state). In most areas, murder is murder, regardless of who you kill.

As for the intent of this thread... I think the debates have come up because various people want 'shoot to kill' to be the very first option that one chooses - because life means something (as does things like 'redemption', 'forgiveness', 'rehabilitation')... and they are opposed by those who think that attempting to kill someone should be a last resort. When such discussions come about (such as in Gun Control, and Castle Doctrine debates) the pro-gun lobby hasn't even suggested once that there are other viable alternatives before shooting.

I'm going to start that other thread now... see you there

Slyt

[Greenday]

Hell, if a trespasser isn't armed and then all of a sudden he has a gun trained on his head, I highly doubt they will continue with what they are doing. Just the sight of a weapon if they are unarmed can be enough to get rid of them. Honestly, I don't care about this all lives are equal. My life > my assaulter's life 100% of the time. I don't have to aim to kill, and it may be highly unlikely that I'll ever need to, but there's no guarantee I'll never be in that situation and I shouldn't be put in the position of not being able to defend myself.

[the_std]

I feel that the two topics in question (knife laws and the castle doctrine) are different ways to defend yourself, but your right to strike back isn't being annihilated. There are a lot of other options.