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All articles in this series may be found by entering “guns and liberty 2023” into the SMM homepage search bar.

Part three of this series of articles explored the morality of killing, and explained the police not only cannot protect any individual; they have no legal obligation to do so. That’s not opinion; it’s legal reality. It ended with this observation:

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, Baltimore in 2015 and Seattle, Portland, Kenosha, Chicago, Minneapolis, etc. in 2020, 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 should justly do so at their own, mortal, risk, unless public servants disarm the innocent.

I’d add only that in most of those places, rank and file police officers very much wanted to do their jobs during riots, but were ordered to ignore crimes.  Knowing doing their jobs could destroy them thereafter, they opted for self-preservation and did as little as possible. Pro-active, crime-suppressing policing became, and remains, rare. As regular readers know, I affirm the police are absolutely necessary and fully support them–-when they’re in the right–-but offer professional criticism when they’re not.

When a woman found her handgun the only thing standing between her young children and an armed burglar, she saved all their lives because the politicians of her state had been unable to disarm her:

Sometimes, the mere threat of deadly force does not suffice, as in the January, 2013 case of a woman at home alone with her 9 year-old children when a burglar trailing a long criminal record and armed with a crowbar broke into her home in broad daylight.  Armed with a revolver, she hid her children and herself in the attic, but the thug searched every room of her large home, hunting them down, and when he opened the attic door and advanced, she fired, striking him with five of six rounds, driving him to the floor. Holding an empty handgun, she was able to bluff him, threatening to shoot him again, until she could flee the house–-her own home–-with her children.  He eventually got up and fled, crashing his car nearby.

Who could legitimately argue society would have been better served by the deaths of the mother and her children, that the burglar–who did survive–might practice his trade unmolested?  Many blue state/city prosecutors would make that argument. Yes, he was black and the mother and her children, white, which is in part why those prosecutors would make that argument.

This incident, and innumerable others, puts the lie to the idea law-abiding citizens must leave personal protection to the police, the professionals.  When seconds matter, they’re just not able to be there.

Some people of good will oppose capital punishment, arguing, among other things, putting criminals to death is playing God, capital punishment is not a deterrent, and with life imprisonment, capital punishment is no longer necessary as a means of protecting the innocent.  Perhaps the strongest argument against capital punishment is human beings make mistakes and sometimes execute the innocent.

Before we go on, consider incarceration is not only, perhaps not even mostly, to protect society from criminals, but to protect criminals from society. If the public ever becomes convinced government not only can’t, but doesn’t really want to, protect the public, what recourse will citizens have against rampant, government-sponsored and allowed crime? In many places in America, citizens are well on their way to that realization.  In that climate, justice will tend to be swift and final, and due process a distant memory.

But if the individual may act in self-defense, why is the state, a government deriving its just powers entirely from men, prohibited from acting in defense of men?  True, it is the nature of our criminal justice system that execution takes place not on the spot, but after many years of the exhaustive application of due process, but this long, careful process would seem to be an argument for, rather than against, the capital power of government, for it provides multiple safeguards against the accidental execution of the innocent, which might even be more likely to occur on the spot. In fact, the police, forced to rush into ambiguous and potentially deadly situations, often shoot, and sometimes–-fortunately rarely–-kill innocents, including each other.

Can we limit human action to only that which may be performed perfectly, without possibility of error, at all times and in all circumstances? Can we particularly afford to do that when mistakes unleash evil?

Christian theology recognizes killing is sometimes justified and necessary, hence men acting in good faith under those conditions are not playing God, but acting in ways anticipated and approved by God.  And while capital punishment does not deter the psychopath—perhaps not even the sociopath–common sense (and my own police experience) teaches some will be deterred, and we will likely never know their names or numbers. Unquestionably, some innocents will live who would have otherwise died, and their names and numbers will likewise remain unknown.

Life imprisonment is all too commonly anything but.  There is such a thing as life without parole, but this is far from universal and relatively uncommon in practice. Circa 2023, a growing number of Soros prosecutors in places like NYC, are doing all they can to ensure murderers aren’t actually prosecuted for murder, or in the rare cases where they are, minimal sentences are requested, rendering capital punishment a moot point.  States like Illinois have decriminalized crime.

D/S/C prosecutors have all but abolished bail.  D/S/C politicians furlough murderous thugs. Killers sometimes continue to kill while behind bars, taking lives that while not entirely innocent, are not deserving of that fate.  In addition, escape from prison is not unknown, and foolish politicians have been known to commute the sentences of, or pardon, those who might be in political favor, for no reason other than being a member of a momentarily favored victim group/tribe.

In early 2021, D/S/Cs seized near total control of the federal government and continue to try to implement their frenzied “fundamental transformation” of America, into something no sane, law-abiding American would desire or recognize. Circa January 2023, Republicans narrowly hold the house, so that fundamental transformation may be slowed a bit, but it is by no means stopped.

2020 electoral map
credit: conservativedailynews.com

As we have already agreed, evil exists.  There is a strong argument for destroying evil wherever it is found, for evil exists to destroy the good and innocent. There are many apocryphal stories of stereotypical Flyover Country lawmen asking of murder “victims”: “Well, did he need killin’?”  Those telling such tales usually do so to ridicule supposedly simple-minded, systemically racist, unsophisticated lawmen and the unenlightened denizens of “Flyover Country,” As Barack Obama, the D/S/C messiah, put it when explaining such unsophisticated people to a friendly audience, unaware his words were being recorded: 

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

In reality, any competent police officer investigating an unattended death (all unattended deaths are investigated as homicides until homicide can be ruled out) must determine if the death was caused by another and if it was justified or unjustified. Asking if the dead “needed killin’” is simply a direct, non-woke way of asking if the killing was justified, hence, not murder.  To put it simply, to protect the lives of the innocent and moral, some people do need “killin.”

It is indeed disturbing some innocent people—their numbers are thankfully few–-have been put to death.  This is not an argument against capital punishment but an argument for the perfection of the criminal justice system to the greatest degree possible.  While we must always strive for perfection—merit–in every human endeavor, we cannot cease our endeavors because they do not, at all times and in every way, reach perfection. It is indeed terrible when the innocent are executed, but error is a part of humanity and it cannot be allowed to paralyze us from achieving worthy ends.

It’s ironic one of the central pillars of D/S/C belief is the elimination of merit, the striving for accomplishment and perfection. If perfection is impossible, if it’s outlawed, if all must achieve at the same, low, level regardless of their lack of effort, none are held responsible for their actions, for nothing matters more than equal outcomes—equity. No, that’s not quite right. The meritorious, the responsible, the capable, those that produce rather than take, are held strictly responsible in a two-tiered system of social justice.

LAW AND THE BALANCING ACT:

How does this apply to governments?  To individuals?  Each sovereign nation may adopt its own laws, which may be applied within its borders and within territories under its control.  One of the essential powers of sovereignty is the power to punish those who transgress the law, including the power of capital punishment.  Our laws come from the British tradition, under which, during the Medieval period, there were some 200 capital offenses.  This led to bizarre spectacles, including that of pickpockets happily working the crowds gathered to watch the execution of other pickpockets.

Fortunately, American law has evolved such that there are commonly only two capital offenses: murder and treason.  While kidnapping, under some circumstances, may also invoke capital punishment, these two are our primary remaining capital crimes.  Our society has devolved to the point that it is difficult to imagine anyone being prosecuted for, let alone being put to death for, treason, such “old fashioned” values having fallen out of fashion among the self-imagined cultural and political elite whose default position is to apologize for and criticize, rather than to defend, America. How can one be punished for betraying such a worthless and evil country, full of the “systemically racist?” Treason, circa 2023, is virtually a duty!

credit: thefix.com

With the fall of the Soviet Union, Soviet archives were opened and it was discovered the late Senator Edward “Teddy” Kennedy (Democrat of Massachusetts, misnamed “Lion of the Senate”) actually contacted the KGB (Soviet intelligence) in 1984, through an intermediary Democrat Senator, tried to enlist their aid to defeat Ronald Reagan and his arms control policies.  Kennedy hoped to pave the way for a Kennedy presidency.  While there is no known evidence they took him up on his offer, it’s hard to imagine a sitting US Senator committing a similar transgression during WWII not being tried for treason, but now it’s a completely different matter. This was known–by the media and the Department of Justice–during Kennedy’s lifetime. It was also known, and widely suppressed, by the Democrat/Socialist/Communist media propaganda arm.

ERRARE HUMANUM EST (To Err–Sin–Is Human):

Is killing, in every instance and always, a sin, and if so, may that sin be forgiven?  These too are questions that have been argued for millennia.  There are several possibilities:

(1) Killing, under any circumstance, is always a sin.  God’s gift of life is precious and to take life is God’s province, not Man’s.  Such sin is unforgivable.

(2) Killing, when justified, as in self-defense, is not a sin.  God is omniscient–all-knowing–and understands that his creation–Man–will be subject to situations where killing is necessary—the Bible makes that abundantly clear–therefore why would God consider that which he has set into motion—ordained–-to be sin?  Man has free will, also ordained by God, so he who tries without justification to take the life of another sins, but the person who defends their life or the lives of innocents against an unjustified attack and takes the life of the attacker as a consequence of that defense does not sin.  They have preserved God’s greatest gift (affirmed good) while their attacker tried to destroy it (manifesting evil).  Sin lies with the attacker.

(3) Killing, even when legally justified as in self-defense, is a sin. However, there is no degree to sin, therefore one may ask for and receive forgiveness for any sin.  But what about a serial killer who asks for forgiveness after each murder?  It is inconceivable God does not know whose plea for forgiveness is sincere and whose is not.  God pardons whom He chooses, and He knows the hearts of all men.

Even if one should consider killing under any circumstance, whether homicide, self-defense, killing while serving in the armed forces during war, or accidental killing to be sin, our shared faith tradition makes clear that even this sin, if one sincerely repents and begs forgiveness, will be forgiven.  This does not mean the aftermath of a justified killing will be trouble-free or easily forgotten, but one need not worry for the final disposition of their soul if forced to defend their life or the life of another.

THE AFTERMATH OF KILLING:

America has, since before the founding, had the experience of citizen soldiers reintegrating back into society after combat. Men, and more recently, women, who have killed others have, for the most part, successfully reintegrated into civilian society, becoming productive citizens.  Some have suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, some few have been driven mad by their experiences, but the overwhelming majority learned to deal with the experience of taking the life of another.

So too have police officers who have been forced to kill in the line of duty, and citizens who have been forced to kill to protect their lives or the lives of others, been successful at living with their experiences. Some have been able to simply and effectively compartmentalize, to wall off their experiences as past and done.  They accept what they did as necessary and justified, and it does not haunt them.  Many have sought and found peace through faith and forgiveness.  Some periodically deal with the doubt and pain of their experiences, experiences that never entirely leave them.  Such is the burden of being honorable people, people of good will and conscience, people who deserve to live that society might benefit from their example and that those that love them might benefit from their presence.

That these issues are of concern to you speaks well of your conscience, of your humanity, for if you were not concerned about them, you might very well be a sociopath—one without a conscience, one with no concern for others–-and who as such, is completely indifferent to the suffering of others. Various psychologists and their associations estimate 3%–or more—of the male population are sociopaths, and 1%–or more—of the female population are so afflicted. Of course, one may find a much higher percentage in any prison population.  Three percent may sound small, but consider the next time you’re in a crowd of one hundred, three—or more–-are sociopaths, people who would feel nothing about killing others.  Is one of them standing near you?

Have no doubt that if and when killing ever becomes necessary and is justified, the aftermath may be, personally and in every other way, intense, demanding and difficult.  The way in which one deals with it will depend upon their upbringing, their faith, the strength of their character, their beliefs and those who love and support them. It will always be better to be around to have to deal with the aftermath than the alternative.  I’ll cover this issue to a greater degree in following articles.

Final Thoughts:

Let us further assume that you now accept the unalienable right and necessity of self-defense.  Let us also assume you accept killing–-never murder–-if justified is not sinful.  Or in the alternative that it is a sin, but that sin may be forgiven those who sincerely ask for forgiveness.  The next article in this series will deal with the political issues of crime, social disorder, and employing deadly force.  I’ll get to the matter of attitudes, tactics, weapons and accessories a bit further down the line.  I hope to see you next Tuesday on this continuing journey.