Originally Posted by
LiamKerrington
Hi there,
@yarri: Well, that is exactly why I ask how things are in the US. And I agree with reaper that "natural law" is a very fundamental and philosophical principle which is the source of many (legal) things. In fact most European legal systems are based or rooted in the principles of "natural law".
Another reason why I emphasize the "European" (or better: German) perspective is to make anyone, who reads my words, understand or at least see that my perspective is or may be different, because I am not from the USA; I just want to prevent misunderstandings of any kind, because someone might assume that I could be on of the few weirdos from the USA.
As for crimes and rapes and stuff ... Well, let me put it this way: The moral and ethical understanding of any criminal act is to no degree different here in Germany or the EU from how things are acknowledged in the USA. Regardless of that I feel inclined to simply neglect the simple logic: "Because there is crime/ rapes, I speak up in favor of more guns for anyone." In my humble understanding both don'T necessarily connect. Just consider all the different kinds of criminal actions which do not involve the harm of individuals - like anything happening in economy (corruption), involving money or valuable stuff (fraud, scams, theft, IT-based crimes).
Too many people are being shot because of a "good cause" in the wake of revenge or self-defense, and in the aftermath his death is too be considered "need- and senseless", because he was assumed to be a certain criminal or rapist, but in fact he was not (reminds me of those death-sentences in which the death-sentenced was not responsible, because the real convict was found later). It is like what Gandalf asks Frodo: To take a life is easy, but could you give it back?
In other cases you shoot your gun in seld-defense - a 100% proper cause, no need to argue about it-, but for whatever reason your aiming is poor and instead of the villain you wound or even kill someone else - a so-called 'aberatio ictus'. And if the one being shot feels threatened by you although you act in self-defense against another one, maybe he starts shooting you because he depicts you as an attacker and thread instead of a defender ... This is spiraling towards epic fail on all sides.
That things like these are not as "paranoid" or "weird" as they may seem at first, is obvious, if you just consider the many, many cases in which police-men (everywhere in the world) misunderstand situations and act - more or less violant - in good faith with all their force available; NYPD is a good (arguable) example. And if trained personell like police-forces is not safe from getting into or performing such crazy situations, then the 'normal guy' around with his gun is just as well in danger of getting things wrong and acting, though accordingly, still failing - maybe even horribly.
But to be frank: I don't want to get lost in details like those (extreme) cases, because they happen in a minority of cases; this is why I don't connect with the different statistics, because statistics either point towards prevention of extremes or over-emphasizing things, which actually are not a real problem at all. I'd rather stick with principles. And here - in all honesty, and although I did not grow up with guns in anyway and thus have no understanding or feeling for it - I actually tend towards supporting private ownership or private property of guns, maybe with some restrictions set up by public authorities (certain age; maybe kind of a test or a licensing system, maybe registration, whatever ...). The reason for this is the - very idealistic - understanding that people living a responsible life won't use guns in order to harm others - like what madmen, criminals, or people with 'self-justic-missions' tend to do ...
All the best!
Liam
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