Tags
"thou shalt not murder", A Nation of Cowards, Cain and Able, Castlerock v. Gonzales, Ghandi, government has no conscience, Hurricane Katrina, Judeo-Christian Tradition, Los Angeles Riots, Martin Luther King, Michael Brown, non-violence, self-defense, The Ferguson Effect
The second article of this series ended with this paragraph:
Glock 19 with Crimson Trace Railmaster Pro laser/light
Let us assume that this article has, at least, inspired thought to the point you are willing to tentatively concede that an individual, inalienable right of self-defense is probably necessary. Or perhaps you’ve just been enraged to the point that you’re anxious to see what lunatic ravings I present in the next article. What then? The next installment of the series explores the legal, moral and spiritual issues revolving around taking the life of another, legally and illegally. I hope to see you again next Tuesday.
To find every article in this 2020 series, enter “guns and liberty” in the SMM homepage search bar.
IS KILLING MORALLY JUSTIFIED?
This is an ancient argument about which countless volumes have been written. I can only touch on a few of the salient points, but for our purposes that is all that is required. Since Western culture is built on the foundation of the Judeo/Christian tradition, and America is, by and large a Christian nation, which tolerates, and for the most part, embraces all faiths, I’ll focus on that tradition and its holy texts.
Disclaimer: I do not claim that belief in Christianity is the only way to come to an understanding of the morality and social utility of laws against murder; I merely use that vehicle for analysis for the purposes of this article.
The Sixth Commandment, in the King James translation of the Bible (1769), states:
‘Thou shalt not kill’ (Exodus 20:13 / Deuteronomy 5:17).
It is the misunderstanding of this Commandment that has caused much confusion. The Bible–particularly in the Old Testament–makes clear, explicitly and implicitly, that killing is both justified and unjustified, and that unjustified killing is murder. In fact, more recent translations of the Bible use that word, the word closest to the correct translation of the Greek and Hebrew: “Thou shalt not murder.” It is this ancient distinction between justified and unjustified killing, between lawful and unlawful killing that is the foundation of our criminal justice system.
According to the Bible–Genesis 4:8–the first murder was committed by Cain, who killed his brother Abel, and lied about it to God. For this, he was terribly punished, and remembered as not only a killer, but as a servant of Satan, as in 1 John 3:12:
Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.
The distinction between killing and murder requires one additional, vital, understanding: each individual, each human life, has immeasurable value, and life may not be taken except under the narrow exceptions in God’s law, and man’s law so long as it faithfully reflects God’s law in embodying the importance and value of each life.
This is why the rule of law is so important and why those that understand these issues and distinctions express such great concern when our own government appears to trend toward tyranny. When the rule of law is no longer in effect, when God’s law is ignored in favor of the whims of a man, or a small group of men, human life has only the value their whims accord it at any moment. The sanctity of life goes unrecognized by government and the value of the individual rests only in their transitory usefulness to the state.
Government has no conscience, no morality. This is also why tyranny is Godless and inherently hostile to religion and people of faith. No tyrant can allow anyone to openly recognize anyone or anything greater than the tyrant. That fosters rebellion.
It is important to realize too that killing animals is justified in the Christian tradition. While the Bible does not specifically state “thou shalt hunt,” there are many references that make clear that hunting—and of course, killing game—is not only acceptable, but expected. For example, Genesis 27:30-31:
And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting. And he also had made savoury meat, and brought it unto his father, and said unto his father, Let my father arise, and eat of his son’s venison, that thy soul may bless me.
In the Judeo/Christian tradition, there is a very clear distinction between animals and man. Surely, no moral man mistreats animals or causes any animal unnecessary pain, and our laws rightly and harshly punish the wretches that harm animals. However, murder with its attendant penalties, is reserved for the unlawful and unjustified taking of human life. As God recognizes a fundamental difference between Man and animals, so too does the law.
The Bible also, in many ways, makes clear that killing is anticipated by God and is permitted when justified. Ecclesiastes 3:1 & 3states:
To every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven: …A time to kill, and a time to heal…
Yet the Bible also draws the distinction between the province of Man and of God in Matthew 5:21:
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall KILL shall be in danger of the judgment:
Remember the Biblical difference between killing and murder. One may kill if justified, and face no penalty under the laws of Man or God, but murder is quite a different matter, invoking not only the potential destruction of the body by Man, but the eternal damnation of the soul.
And while the Bible enjoins believers to respect governmental authority because God allows it to exist, it makes clear that each individual, because of his or her intrinsic worth, has not only the freedom to protect their most precious, God-given gift–their life–but the duty to do so. This was, at one time, almost universally understood (see Jeffrey Snyder’s article A Nation of Cowards, for additional commentary on this issue; it’s very much worth your time if you missed the first article). Decades of relativistic thinking have, to greater and lesser degrees, and in some quarters, muddied what were once transparent philosophical waters.
In Jewish tradition, the word for murder is based on the concept of longing for or desiring, in other words, invoking passion, a passion to kill–to murder–in an unjustified manner and for unjustifiable reasons. Killing, however, is a matter of necessity or of justifiably applied justice. Neither the Bible nor the Torah prohibit self-defense and both recognize the inherent value of each human life. Therefore, the distinction between justified and unjustified killing—the latter being murder or lesser crimes such as negligent homicide or manslaughter—is obvious.
S&W Bodyguard .380 ACP Pistol
NON-VIOLENCE:
But what about those who believe in and practice non-violence? Isn’t that a viable, even a noble, way to live? What about Ghandi and Martin Luther King? Ghandi and Dr. King were educated, intelligent men who knew their methods could be effective and held little or no risk of death because they were employed against peoples and governments who recognized the rule of law informed by the Judeo/Christian tradition. In effect, they knew that the people who ran the governments whose policies they opposed might imprison them for a time, but were highly unlikely to seriously harm or kill them. Their international celebrity status was, surely, a substantial help in this.
Ghandi and King also knew that governmental leaders could be made to feel shame and embarrassment, and that those feelings of shame and embarrassment could be harnessed to leverage desired social change. Such tactics employed against a great many governments, then and now—such as Iran, Russia, Syria, China, Cuba, North Korea and others–would be virtually certain to result in torture and/or death.
Non-violence as a method of social change is effective only if those who oppose you have a conscience, and you or your followers are around to take advantage of the change their pangs of conscience might provoke. To that end, the governments to be opposed must be carefully chosen.
While non-violence as an individual lifestyle may be, in some respects, a noble choice, its effectiveness ends at the moment its practitioner meets one bent on violence, including murder. At that point, the choice becomes immediate and stark: noble words in a eulogy affirming a morally superior, non-violent life tragically cut short, or survival to continue to work for higher ends. The world will certainly be better served by the continuing existence of one who rejects violence unless absolutely necessary, but who is willing and able to employ it when unquestionably required. It can reasonably be argued that pursuing non-violence in the face of one’s all-but-certain impending violent death is not a sign of noble conviction, but of mental illness.
A central lesson of Christianity is the sincere practice of love and mercy. There is no inherent contradiction in one who believes and practices those virtues but who is willing and able to protect their life or the life of another, even at the cost of their life. The Bible notes in John 15:13:
Greater love hath no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends.
As I mentioned in an earlier article of this series, lesser saint–General George Patton—said (this is a paraphrase): You don’t win wars by dying for your country, but by making the other poor bastard die for his.
Similarly, it is also a great expression of love and mercy to make one who would take your life, or the life of a friend, lay down his life instead. In such a case, the issue is who benefits from that mercy and love, and who is deserving of those benefits? Is the innocent under attack more deserving, or the violent, unprovoked attacker?
THE SOCIAL UTILITY OF KILLING:
What about those who reject killing under all circumstances, who claim that killing can never be a social good? Take the case of India under the British Colonial Government of 1829. A common Hindu practice—Sati–was to burn a man’s widow on his funeral pyre. The story goes that when the British Governor-General, Lord Bentinck, objected to this practice, he was told that it was the Indian custom. He replied something to the effect of:
Very well, you may practice your custom, but we too have a custom which we will practice. It is our custom to hang those who burn widows.
The Indian custom was hastily abandoned and soon outlawed. The social utility of being willing to kill those who were customarily killing innocent women, can scarcely be denied.
credit: askakorean
The mere threat of deadly force can also be a substantial societal good when public order has broken down. Take the case of the Los Angeles riots of 1992 in the aftermath of the Rodney King verdict. A great many citizens of the City of Angels took it upon themselves to express their righteous indignation at what they considered an unfair verdict by helping themselves to expensive consumer goods without the intermediate step of paying for them. Many Korean merchants took up arms—including evil “assault weapons” such as the AR-15 (that’s a Ruger Mini-14 at right in the photo), with their standard-sized 30-round “assault magazines”—banded together, and prevented not only the looting of their businesses, but their destruction by arson even as nearby businesses not protected in such an obviously effective way were burned to the ground—after first being appropriately looted, of course.
In that case, social order in large sections of Los Angeles had totally broken down and reverted to a Hobbesian state of nature where life had the very real potential to be nasty, brutish and short. The police abandoned the law-abiding to the mob, lest they be forced to injure or kill members of a favored D/S/C victim group. In that case, the mere threat of deadly force was sufficient to protect lives and property—as it commonly is everywhere—and was surely a social good.
August, 2005: Hurricane Katrina caused substantial damage in new Orleans and social order broke down. Remaining residents quickly understood the need to protect their lives and property with privately-owned firearms, but the corrupt politicians and their lackeys had other ideas:
In the nearly two weeks since Hurricane Katrina, the government of New Orleans has devolved from its traditional status as an elective kleptocracy into something far more dangerous: an anarcho-tyranny that refuses to protect the public from criminals while preventing people from protecting themselves. At the orders of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, the New Orleans Police, the National Guard, the Oklahoma National Guard, and U.S. Marshals have begun breaking into homes at gunpoint, confiscating their lawfully-owned firearms, and evicting the residents. ‘No one is allowed to be armed. We’re going to take all the guns,’ says P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police.
Even the police took advantage of the breakdown in the rule of law and behaved like conquering barbarians:
In the rest of the city, some police officers abandoned their posts, while others joined the looting spree. For several days, the ones who stayed on the job did not act to stop the looting that was going on right in front of them. To the extent that any homes or businesses were saved, the saviors were the many good citizens of New Orleans who defended their families, homes, and businesses with their own firearms.
Why did the police abandon the people of entire swaths of Los Angeles? Were they cowards? Some surely were, but most were not. And what of New Orleans? In that city, the inherent corruption that had always reached deeply into the ranks of the Police Department saw its chance and acted on it.
In both cities, more than a decade removed, the police understood several vital truths that every citizen must know. The police have no obligation to protect any individual and cannot be successfully sued for failing to protect anyone (Castlerock v. Gonzales ). Their duty is to the general public to deter crime by their presence and to investigate it after it occurs. In LA and New Orleans they knew there were huge numbers of rioters and looters and very few of them. The mere fact that they would be badly outnumbered among hostile, violent, even murderous mobs made it very likely they would have to kill people—many people—merely to protect their lives and to escape from those who, in the anonymity of the mob, saw a chance to kill police officers and get away with it.
Finally, they knew that most of the people they would have to confront were not honest, middle class citizens, but people of favored racial/ethnic victim classes, people then being broadly painted as sympathetic, even saintly, suffering at the hands of evil, racist Republicans. Shooting them, no matter how justified, would surely cause those officers to be arrested and charged with murder. A ravenous, anti-police, leftist press willing to print any outrageous lie would demand it.
And so the police of Los Angeles, and to a lesser degree, New Orleans, made a conscious, rational decision to abandon the innocent to the mob, and in New Orleans, even to join it. Keep in mind that most of those Los Angeles innocent were deprived of arms—as they are to this day–by the draconian anti-gun laws written by a Democrat-ruled legislature. In New Orleans, they were deprived of arms in the aftermath of disaster, making everything even worse. In short, it was a lose-lose situation for the police—and for the honest public, a real descent into a state of brutal, survival-of-the-most-vicious nature.
credit: nbcnews.com
The same thing has happened to a lesser degree in Ferguson, Baltimore, and other places where Black Lives Matter cracktivists and other race hustlers, including the then President and Attorney General of the United States, stirred the racial pot.
There is a very important lesson here, a lesson all thoughtful police officers know: they truly are the thin blue line between civilization and anarchy. The only reason they can do their jobs–their very survival– depends upon the fact that most people are willing to obey the law most of the time. Should that voluntary compact change, for any reason, the police will abandon the public; they will have no choice.
In those Los Angeles and New Orleans riots and mass lootings, would the deaths of looters and arsonists have been a social good? Indeed they would. Remember, that for those days and in those places, the rule of law was suspended and as a result, the citizens stranded there were reduced to a state of nature, of survival of the fittest. The government, demonstrating its refusal to so much as to try to enforce the rule of law, ordained that grim state of existence.
Under the rule of law, killing to protect property is generally not allowed, but there are some exceptions in some states. We generally may kill to prevent arson, which is not merely a crime against property. People may be seriously injured or killed by fire, which may be used as an instrument of murder. In that state of nature, if the most brutal and feral reign and succeed in stamping out the civilized, the state of nature may become permanent.
Whose survival best serves a just society governed by the rule of law: the honest and law-abiding that wish harm to none, or the brutal, cruel and sociopathic? In Los Angeles in 1992, New Orleans in 2005. Ferguson in 2014 and Baltimore in 2015 the politicians and the police knowingly chose the latter. In truth, the veneer of civilization is thinner and far more fragile than most imagine.
When the rule of law is suspended, those that violate societal norms justly do so at their own risk, unless public servants disarm the innocent.
In next week’s installment of this series, we’ll explore additional realities of law and morality. I hope to see you here again.
“It can reasonably be argued that pursuing non-violence in the face of one’s all-but-certain impending violent death is not a sign of noble conviction, but of mental illness.”
Perhaps one of the reasonable arguments were the countless victims of the Holocaust collected and re-located to the ghettos of Europe.. then “willingly” marching into the gas chambers.. as being suffering from mental illness for not turning on their captors in self-defense?
Actually, toward another point… take the various ghetto uprisings… like Warsaw. They had no guns at first.. then some were smuggled in… and using those, and their heads, they managed to ambush and collect more weapons from the German forces, and held them off for nearly a month. There might be a message in that about the “unalienable” right to defend one’s self does not necessarily mean an unalienable right to own a gun as the only means. I’m simply making an illustrative point… not taking sides.
You cited Patton’s quote as an example of a kind of confrontation. War is a tad different than defending oneself from an evil-doer against you. For one thing.. each opposing force always assumes God is on their side… hence killing each other is a measure of a soldier’s faith and honor. In a one-on-one confrontation on the street or in the home, it’s an act of desperation, likely enhanced by mental health issues, by the one intending you harm.. and an act of desperation for you in trying to survive the assault. How many people actually have the courage to kill in self defense? Yet many of those same folks would kill to save a loved one.
I did like the way you attempted to explain the religious context. I would introduce into this that all that you explained are fairly complex religious interpretations for adults to comprehend and digest. The vast majority of us adults were taught our religious ways as children and we tend to hold on to those things. When I was a kid in Sunday School class or going through confirmation class.. “Thou Shalt not kill.” meant exactly that. One of the reasons for battle PTSD is the incomprehensible contrast as a soldier with a moral and religious faith indoctrinated in youth, forced to kill for your country’s policies.
As a civilian living in Peoria with their gun drawn against a home invader walking down the hallway toward them…. desperation, not logic rules the event…. and the outcome can be felt for a long time after.
During hurricane Harvey here in Houston, where I live, a lot of good folks showed up with their boat&rigs to move their semi-neighbors from their flooded houses to dry-er places. My son and I were part of that.
I feel the need to be careful in regard to how I say this; but there was a strong and simple reason why the amount of looting in those days was not just low, but less than zero.
See, the overlap between the CHL community and the guys who showed up was ~ 100%
And very few people abandoned their homes who did not have to; meaning that they had stayed in their homes with their weapons.
I said that looting was in negative territory because vastly more stuff was given to the suffering innocents by decent people than was ever taken by looters from the righteous but well armed innocents who were over watched by more heavily armed ad hoc volunteer boatmen.
So.. let me get this straight. You feel that the reason there was negligible or zero looting was the fact that people chose to stay in their flooded homes with their guns? Maybe, I suppose. Although, it wouldn’t be the fact that potential looters maybe didn’t have boats at-the-ready cause they were tending to their own storm misfortunes.. or big enough boats in which to make off with cargo of soggy big screen TVs, or other soggy “booty”. Also, seems to me the lurking looters laying in wait to take off in Billy Bob’s jonboat wouldn’t necessarily be notified in advance that all those home owners were indeed locked & loaded to shoot would-be looters… so you’d think there would have a least been a few unsuccessful looting attempts thwarted by armed homeowners to make the headlines.
I dunno. Trying to loot a flooded home seems a bit difficult to me in general. Not like you’re gonna don scuba gear or snorkel in murky dark water.. along with the Florida snakes and gators. Most the valuable stuff would be underwater, would it not? I’m no anti-gun person (nor do I claim any experience in planning a looting mission) but if you are gonna claim the gun was king in this event as a deterrent in this storm scenario.. seems a little leaky to me.
Dear Doug:
You are aware, surely, the media is loath to report on any citizen that uses a firearm to deter or stop crime?
I thought that was the responsibility of the NRA in their unbiased reporting of such stories in their column in the American Rifleman.
To my way of thinking, deterring a bad thing from happening is the win win scenario. I mean, if LE and CHL holders, etc. never deployed at all, that would be wonderful and no reason for anyone to disarm.
Remember those various “studies” that claim to show that lethal self defense with guns are rare and so it should not be allowed? That is crazy, IMO. It is like saying NATO was a failure because no Russians were ever killed.
1. The Russians were aware that NATO was (is) there, which in turn forced (and continues to force) the Russians to think twice toward some level of aggression beyond their own borders. In your scenario.. or rather, your experience in the hurricane aftermath, how would a potential looter know any given house, under feet of water, would have the owner wading around carrying his assault rifle, in order to avoid that house as a looting target? I’m trying to understand where the deterrent exists here. Seems to me for a deterrent to work both sides have to know it exists in order to A. avoid it on the part of the potential looter, B. realize for the owner his efforts, in this case, standing guard in the sludge and muck, were effective.
2. From what you are describing, some home owners stood guard to make sure no looters came to their own homes. Now you have the moral dilemma of what you intend to do if a looter does show up and you walking around in your hip waders accessing your own damage carrying the family AK-47. Does the weapon help to scare him/her off or do you presume to think that a devastating storm, making a police response very unlikely, much less any technology to contact them still working, that you can just shoot to kill if the looter is not armed?
Now.. if you put a sign up or paint on the side of your home, “Looters will be shot.” that would certainly convey a level of threat deterrence that someone in the home has a gun and is willing to use it to defend their property. If you are in a row boat, or standing in front of your home looking like a colonial Minuteman, that would certainly be a similar sign to looters. Seems to me sitting in your home laying in wait for an intruder with the idea that you will use your weapon on any person you determine using your own judgement as being an intruder (not someone trying to find food, a rescuer, etc.) is a bit like a setup… or a trap.
As I said before.. I’m a gun owner and would use it to defend as any normal gun owner would. What I am saying is that you are trying to assign the right to bear arms is some “automatic” or implied deterrent. Actually in your scenario there… I’d take an empty 12 gauge any day.. as we all recognize the cocking sound would make a pretty good deterrent without having to discharge the weapon.
Dear Doug:
As one that has interviewed innumerable criminals, we can count on several facts:
1) criminals fear armed citizens far more than the police. They’re less predictable, and they might not play by the rules manipulated by criminals.
2) Criminals will go out of their way to avoid burglarizing or looting any home they have reason to suspect might contain armed occupants.
I’ve previously mentioned in response to one of your questions that the law governing the use of deadly force is constant. One cannot simply shoot someone without appropriate cause, under any circumstances. If that cause is present, it doesn’t matter if the event happens during a natural disaster or on dry land in bright sunlight. In general, defending your home in a situation where a greater threat of criminal intrusion is possible is not at all “a setup.”
And please keep this in mind: no one should ever think brandishing or cocking a firearm will cause criminals to flee. It may, but if they’re sufficiently stupid or drugged, it may have the opposite effect. One should never draw a weapon unless the conditions for the use of deadly force are present, or very well might be any second., and no one should carry a weapon for self-defense unless they’ve worked through the moral/legal issues about which I’m writing in my current Tuesday series.
And indeed, criminals are deterred if they think anyone is carrying a concealed weapon. Many I’ve interviewed have complained that concealed carry makes their jobs much harder because anyone might be carrying.
“Criminals will go out of their way to avoid burglarizing or looting any home they have reason to suspect might contain armed occupants.”
“And indeed, criminals are deterred if they think anyone is carrying a concealed weapon.”
Both these statements make my point. To your first statement… unless they knew the person.. what would make evil-doers suspect a home would contain armed occupants?
To your second statement… If a weapon is concealed how would any evil-doers suspect their target carries? Isn’t that the idea? Keep it hidden until such time you choose to bring it out?
Doug:
All criminals with an above room temperature IQ assume virtually any homeowner will meet them with a gun. That’s why hot burglaries are uncommon in America, but common in countries that disarm the law-abiding. It is the fact that concealed carry is ubiquitous that cause crooks to avoid attacking people, because any and everyone they try to rob could be armed, and they can’t know who is or isn’t without potentially finding themselves on the wrong end of a gun. That’s the deterrent.
How do I know? The criminals have told me, and their actions bear out their words.
Soo.. what you’re suggesting, it’s the mere idea, the knowledge, of 300 million guns owned by the public that is making criminals not be as “bad” as they have been, or more to your point, they could be? Seems desperate people will do desperate things with thinking and without thinking.
You are not being serious. The laws regarding self defense are easy to learn about with just a little effort. And no, they do not allow you to do stupid things. Anywhere.
I know people who put a “beware of dog” sign on their fence even if they do not have a dog.
I have never heard of anyone posting a “It is certain that there are no dogs here” sign on their property.