The Thread Where We Discuss Guns and Gun Control

[Lexicus]

We're not "killing people to show people that killing is wrong", it's "we're killing people who kill to deter killing". If the killing deterred killing, then it's killing to prevent killing.

Why do we want to deter killing?

 

[El_Machinae]

Why do we want to deter killing?

Honestly, I cannot even figure out why you asked this question. Maybe you're going for a point, but it's not at all clear.

 

[Berzerker]

First of all, the second sentence does not make any sense, because I'm not sure what "your individuality as defined by existence" is supposed to mean.

Existence has made you an individual, you are you and no one else. Thats why you have the right - the valid moral claim - to live your life.

But even putting that aside... you say animal rights come from "society" but human rights come from "existence"... Why? What is it about humans especially that they get to have their rights come from "existence" rather than "society" as with the other animals? Why don't animal rights come from "existence" too?

Human rights define interactions among people. What are animal rights? The right to be killed more 'humanely' before we eat them? Maybe we prolong the extinction of species we like. If there is any confusion between human and animal rights, it was the result of animal rights activists co-opting human rights for their agenda. Like I said, if a lion is chewing on my leg nobody will accuse it of immorality.

This is just factually incorrect. It is pretty standard practice to euthanize a dog or lion or any zoo or domestic animal that attacks and maims and/or kills a human.

That's just another way of saying that "morality and rights" come from "society".

It was more like a critique of the whole idea that human life is somehow special or sacred, which is exactly the argument you are making here when you say the human rights to life and self-defense come from "existence", but animal rights don't. And his conclusion... that this/your position is all just made up self-serving BS by humans, is what I am suggesting in response.

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But we dont euthanize animals that attack us for violating our rights, we dont view animal attacks in terms of (im)morality. If a person murders other people we do. The moral code is limited to humans because animals dont play the same game, they have their own codes and our rights are not included.

Rights involve human interaction, that doesn't mean they come from society. If they did slavery and genocide would be moral if society said so.

Carlin was lampooning pro-lifers who speak of the sanctity of life before eating animals at the dinner table. Its actually a straw man, they're pro-life about human life and oppose abortion.

No. This does not follow for numerous reasons. First of all, you've dubbed the right to life and self defense as "natural" rights which exist superior to any laws and come from "existence" rather than the laws/rules/consensus of "society". So if they exist independent of law/society how can they be stripped by society? The only way a right could be legally/morally destroyed by society is if it was created by society in the first place.

The law derives part of its moral authority to kill a murderer from the victim's right to kill them in self defense. The right was first, the law came second.

Also, the "right to self defense" comes from the specific fact that you are protecting your own life from imminent danger doesn't it? So once you're dead, your life is no longer in danger, so there isn't any more "right to self defense" for you or anyone else to to invoke or your behalf. Suggesting that the right to defend oneself from imminent harm can somehow survive the lack of any danger of imminent harm , and even the death of the possessor of the right is a complete non-sequitur... doubly so is the suggestion that this danger of imminent harm can somehow "transfer" to someone else months later.

The pursuit of justice doesn't die with the victim. If you see someone get attacked the victim's right to defend them self grants you the right to defend them too.

Finally, if the "moral authority to kill the would-be murderer in self defense" can "transfer" into a right to kill the murderer "in the form of after-the-fact punishment", then why can't the victim's neighbor, or relative, or any citizen-at-large just go mete out the "after-the-fact punishment" by killing the murderer themselves? We're talking about a "natural" right here, which according to you, supersedes any societal rules or laws. If the victim had a "natural" right which has now been "transferred", doesn't it remain a "natural" right? So why would anyone have to wait for "society" to exercise it? See it just makes no sense to talk about rights existing above or outside of societal creation.

They can, morally... The reason society has intervened in the process with laws is to protect the rights of the innocent, the people who get mistaken for murderers. If the state makes that mistake and punishes the innocent, the valid moral claim (the right) belongs to the person we wrongfully jailed of killed. How do you react upon learning the innocent was punished? Do you say, "what society giveth, society taketh" or do you think society owes its victim an apology and 'reparations'?

OK, but what if it was "universal"? What if we were living in some kind of environment, like a post apocalyptic world, for example, where food sources were so limited, that cannibalism was common, widespread practice? Would it then become a "natural" right? If yes, then that wouldn't that seem to suggest that "natural" rights are actually quite flexible and circumstance-dependent, rather than hard-and-fast principles that have higher moral authority than law. On the other hand, if not, then "universality" can't be the basis of something being a natural right can it?

Also, just note that we've gone as far down this path to actually start suggesting that there might be a natural right for people to kill-and-eat each other.

Killing and eating people violates their right to live, wouldn't matter how common it was. But if society says differently, who are you to argue?

 

[cardgame]

Honestly, I cannot even figure out why you asked this question. Maybe you're going for a point, but it's not at all clear.

Because killing is wrong, why is killing wrong, because it deprives rights -> back into the 'rights' discussion

I assume.

 

[El_Machinae]

The motivation doesn't really matter to the argument. All you need is to understand is that a society would try to reduce the number of murders that takes place within it.

It's a separate question whether a society will try to stop murder outside of itself, although the two schools of thought will have a bit of intersection

 

[Lexicus]

Honestly, I cannot even figure out why you asked this question. Maybe you're going for a point, but it's not at all clear.

I guess for the same reason you don't see any contradiction in "killing to deter killing."

 

[Berzerker]

It's morally consistent to kill people who kill people because killing people is wrong? Whatever you're smoking to make that look morally consistent. I want some

Killing the innocent is wrong

A real-life application of this would be the case of a police officer who shoots a suspect approaching him with a knife. The alternative of simply backing away from the suspect existed; therefore the police officer was not actually defending herself, she was defending her right to not back down - to "stand her ground" if you will.

The cop was given the job of defending the innocent, they cant just stand their ground, they have to subdue the criminal.

No. It isn't consistent. Self defense hinges on the imminence of the threat. Otherwise, if the right survives the imminence, then you'd have a right to go hunt down and kill the guy who "threatened" you with a gun a week prior, out of "self defense".

Yeah, someone threatens to kill you and you kill them first, thats self defense. The imminence was created with the threat. If you deter them the first time does the threat disappear? No, a reasonable person would think the threat still exists and act accordingly - buy a gun, tell the cops, lay low, find them before they return. All self defense.

Aye there's the rub isn't it? Because if my right to a gun the state giveth... then the state can taketh away... but if my right comes from god then no one except god can take it away... even better... if my right comes from "cause I say so" then no one can question it.

The problem with "cause I say so" though... is that there is no limit to what rights I can declare are inalienable. "I have the "natural" right to set a huge bonfire in the middle of the street cause fires occur universally in nature all the time so my very existence gives me the right to set fires"

Do you own the street? Does everyone set bonfires in the street? If a right is based on universality it isn't "cause I say so" but because everyone says so.

As I said, the objection to the death penalty is that it doesn't actually create a self-defence outcome. Not that the foundation is immoral.

That murderer wont be killing anyone else. I cringe when I hear a jailed murderer has murdered guards or inmates. Just send him off to meet his maker.

 

[El_Machinae]

I guess for the same reason you don't see any contradiction in "killing to deter killing."

I never commented on that contradiction. In fact, up thread I even pointed out how it was fundamentally incoherent. Edit: I guess, unless, the deterrence was sufficient to deter all killing. But we're not discussing that hypothetical

I said that the death penalty can be framed as a variant of self-defense. If you refuse the premise, that you can kill someone in order to prevent being killed, then you're not disagreeing that it's internally consistent.

I can think of more than one moral foundation that believes that you cannot kill to prevent a killing. In general, the adherents require the protection of benevolent society that does not believe what they believe.

 

[Lexicus]

The cop was given the job of defending the innocent, they cant just stand their ground, they have to subdue the criminal.

That murderer wont be killing anyone else. I cringe when I hear a jailed murderer has murdered guards or inmates. Just send him off to meet his maker.

"What? There's no way American Libertarians could be fascists!"

 

[El_Machinae]

That murderer wont be killing anyone else. I cringe when I hear a jailed murderer has murdered guards or inmates. Just send him off to meet his maker.

Killing someone for something they might do is not a fundament of Justice. Assuming that not 100% (pretend it's 20%) jailed murderers end up murdering again, your logic means that you're killing people who needn't have died. You're killing 10 to stop 2.

Because killing a death row inmate is casually seen as murder, it's just a bad trade.

It is pretty easy to create moral reasoning that allows a death penalty, but that's not it. I would rather that you cringe whenever you hear that a hungry person has murdered, or that an unemployed person assaulted, or whatever. We can influence the conditions that causes someone to become a murderer.

If 20% of your jailed murderers are murdering again, you're doing jail wrong

 

[Lexicus]

Killing someone for something they might do is not a fundament of Justice.

Yet with your deterrence idea, you're talking about killing people not even for what they've done or what they might do, but because of what others might do

 

[El_Machinae]

Yet with your deterrence idea, you're talking about killing people not even for what they've done or what they might do, but because of what others might do

Yes. But it's the law of large numbers. It's why I said deterrence had to work in practice for the idea to be defensible.

At that point, it is just the trolley problem. Do you intentionally cause a harm? Or do you possibly allow a greater harm?

With a real deterrence effect, you can say that there are five people on the track and one person on the other track. With no deterrent effect, 3 + 3.

There is even reason to believe that the death penalty in its American incarnation has a perverse deterrence effect. 4 and two.

Both answers to the trolley problem are incoherent. Both actions result in something that you say you don't want to happen. It's good for people to notice the individual incoherence in one answer. But people should be able to recognize that both answers are incoherent with the stated desired outcome. It breaks down as a question to whether performing an action matters more than the consequence.

You'll note, that purely from a defensive perspective, the trolley Union will vote that pulling the lever become policy. If the workers are randomly assigned to the tracks or to be in the carriage, the self-preserving move is to pull the lever. As well, you refuse to allow the union member who won't pull the lever to drive the trolley.

The person who wouldn't pull the lever also shouldn't want to drive, because once it's their job to pull the lever, they are just as responsible for the resulting deaths if they do or don't. Because everyone got onto the track understanding that the lever would be pulled in those conditions

 

[Sommerswerd]

So, 'deterrence' is an effect based on a matrix: it's a function of the perceived probability of being caught, the benefit of committing the crime, and the predicted penalty (plus others I'm missing). Each of those variables can be changed to influence the odds of deterrence being effective. But 'deterrence' is a fair portion of our underlying reason for having a Criminal Justice system. It's not perfect. It needs to be better. But we're okay with deterrence being a goal - we're just arguing about the efficacy of the various inputs.

This is why we're willing to jail a kidnapper. It's not just rehabilitation, by no means. (full disclosure: I don't view 'punishment in service of Justice' as morally worthy ... so, I usually just don't understand that viewpoint). We're jailing kidnappers in order to protect ourselves from kidnapping. A deterred kidnapper is the goal, in the end. We're not trying to jail all kidnappers. We're trying to get no kidnappings.

If the death penalty had some type of real deterrence effect, then I don't think it would be immoral to have one. You'd be killing someone in order to prevent other deaths. It's all a probabilistic argument, but it's also law-of-large-numbers. It would require a certain set of conditions of deterrence for a death penalty to prevent more murders than it causes (the death penalty being a 'caused death'), but that's about it.

We're not "killing people to show people that killing is wrong", it's "we're killing people who kill to deter killing". If the killing deterred killing, then it's killing to prevent killing.

You're missing the point. Everything that you're describing... ie theories behind the criminal justice system, including strengths, weaknesses, motivations etc... its all about law/society, not "natural" rights. There is no "natural" right to own a gun. Nothing you've said about the criminal justice system contradicts that.

Existence has made you an individual, you are you and no one else. Thats why you have the right - the valid moral claim - to live your life.

My cells "exist". Cancer cells and viruses "exist. A rock "exists". The sun "exists". Are they all "individuals" with a "valid moral claim - to live their life"? A chicken "exists". Has its "existence" made it an "individual", with a "valid moral claim - to live its life"? Existence itself establishes no moral claims whatsoever. This whole claim you're making... that "existence" bestows inherent rights is a poor argument, and I reject it. In fact, you said:

If you were the only person in the world rights would become irrelevant.

So you've already acknowledged that "rights" don't come from "existence", they come from other people, thereby contradicting yourself. Your arguments are not even internally consistent, which is part of why they don't stand up.

 

[El_Machinae]

You're missing the point. Everything that you're describing... ie theories behind the criminal justice system, including strengths, weaknesses, motivations etc... its all about law/society, not "natural" rights. There is no "natural" right to own a gun. Nothing you've said about the criminal justice system contradicts that.

So?
I'm not defending the right to own a gun. For me, it is so obviously a 'privilege' that I only think of it as a right in the US. Certainly not as a natural right.

Not even Americans think of it as a natural right. The US government disarmed the Iraqi citizenry as soon as it was able to. It's post-hoc thinking on their part.

 

[Sommerswerd]

So? I'm not defending the right to own a gun. For me, it is so obviously a 'privilege'

Full stop. We agree. The "right" to own a gun comes from the state and can be taken away by the state. There's nothing "natural" about it.

 

[Farm Boy]

Everything can always be taken by the state through naked force. That's "natural." Full stop.

Edit: unless, I suppose, we argue that human society is not natural. But that seems a stretch, given the animal. Hens socially peck each other to death according to a rough and communally enforced rank, and I'm not certain one can reliably make the argument that one is full on Hobbesian and the other is not. Both are in their predispositions.

 

[El_Machinae]

Let me explain how it works with lobsters...

 

[Lexicus]

Let me explain how it works with lobsters...

...aaaaand wow we've gotten far afield.

Let's talk about how the historical genesis of the idea that a natural right to firearms exists is literally the aftermath of slave uprisings.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Found this article in my travels, thought I'd share:

Business Insider, 5 Nov. 2017 - Only 3 countries in the world protect the right to bear arms in their constitutions

The United States, Mexico and Guatemala, if you're wondering.

 

[Farm Boy]

Let me explain how it works with lobsters...

Is there a counter claim that being social is not in the predisposition of humans? To the point that it would be "unnatural" however that is defined. Maybe that communal pressure backed by violence is not a predisposed response to socially undesirable/disruptive/destructive behavior, and is therefore "unnatural?"

Or is this just random Jordan stuff, which this forum kind of sucks at discussing in general. Or maybe just isn't particularly fun for me. Dunno.