Appropriate use of deadly force Texas style

[manta49]

Would you put someone's eye out to protect property - or would you never use physical force to protect property? A good punch can kill someone.

That would depend on the situation. As I said if they were in my house then I would use what ever force required. We are allowed to use force in that type of situation even if the person dies as a result. There is a big difference in that than shooting someone that is not a threat and is driving away, not something I would want on my conscience for a few dollars.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

That begs the issue. Someone in your house might be seen as a threat to you.

However, if you were a museum guard and saw someone running towards a valuable piece of art - like the man who attacked the Pieta - would you use any level of force against the person?

Any level of force has the risk of grave harm.

Is force per se not acceptable if it is not to prevent grievous bodily harm?

 

[manta49]

However, if you were a museum guard and saw someone running towards a valuable piece of art - like the man who attacked the Pieta - would you use any level of force against the person?

Any level of force has the risk of grave harm.

Is force per se not acceptable if it is not to prevent grievous bodily harm

Yes if your job was to protect something and the law of the land stated that it was legal to use reasonable force then maybe It would depend on the situation. PS I don't see what that is to do with shooting someone driving away that was no threat to you.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

The law relates to using force to protect property. Thus, the relationship is whether force is ever acceptable for property protection. The man's money was going to be lost forever.

Thus, the law of the land seems to be that the force used was acceptable as determined by jury.

Thus, his action was moral if you go by the standard of the law of the land. If you disagree with the law's principle then in your view it was immoral.

It's really like one of Kohlberg's exercises. The action is moral under a Stage 4 Conventional morality view. A 5 or 6th level analysis might say no.

 

[MLeake]

manta49, just as Glenn summed up in his last post, it all goes back to whether protection of property should be a reason for use of force.

I do find it interesting that you think it might be justifiable for protection of art, or of public property, if the law allows. Such thinking immediately undermines a "moral" argument, and takes the idea of property vs life out of the realm of black and white - which is where you seemed to have taken it not too long ago.

So, why do you think public property is more important than private property?

Or, why do you think use of deadly force is acceptable when the law would say it is, even in cases where you would not think it reasonable?

Edit: As Glenn noted, not everybody can afford to insure valuable property. I sometimes wonder if insurance company lobbyists were among those who pushed for legislation and case law antagonistic to defense of property...

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

As Mleake points out, one cannot really come up with easy dichotomous moral principles for the use of force.

As the book I cited mentions, the only one possible is that it is never acceptable to use potentially lethal force against another human under any circumstances. Taking life is wrong and one should sacrifice yourself or that of another innocent rather than take the life of an evil doer.

This is a principle of some religions and/or philosophies. It is not the operative principle of most and thus the use of force is a set of axes or continuums on many dimensions - some of which probably aren't linear and/or orthogonal.

How's that for Philosophy 101?

 

[manta49]

Thus, the law of the land seems to be that the force used was acceptable as determined by jury.

Just because something is legal to do doesn't mean its the right thing to do. If people are happy to shoot someone in that situation it's up to them I wouldn't.

So, why do you think public property is more important than private property? I don't think public property is more important than private property.

Or, why do you think use of deadly force is acceptable when the law would say it is, even in cases where you would not think it reasonable?

I don't think just because something is lawful as in this case that it was a reasonable action to take everyone has a right to protect there property. If people think its reasonable to shoot something for a few dollars then that's up to them. As for morals I decide what my morals are what I think is right and wrong not laws governments or religions.

 

[MLeake]

Who said anything about being happy?

However, I think a good argument can be made that if one is not allowed to defend one's property, then in reality one has no right to property.

I also think that saying, "hey, people can insure stuff," could be translated as, "law abiding people should be required to subsidize thieves, by paying insurance so they can replace stuff, and so thieves don't have to fear physical harm."

Really, aren't you putting the onus and financial burden on property owners, by saying "they should insure themselves against theft"?

I think the burdens should be on the thieves.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Manta - you said it was a joke that the man was acquitted. How is that a joke if the circumstances fit the law of the land?
You said the use of force defend property was acceptable if it was the law of the land.

If you don't like the law of the land, that's different.

Again, you beg the meta issue of force to save property. Is it ever acceptable to you?

If the man shot a woman who stole the money he kept for his dear old grandma's birthday present - would that be OK as compared to stealing his money for sexual services not rendered? Money is money.

Gotta go - discuss among yourself and there will be a moral philosophy and law quiz tomorrow.

 

[manta49]

If the man shot a woman who stole the money he kept for his dear old grandma's birthday present - would that be OK as compared to stealing his money for sexual services not rendered? Money is money.

Where do you draw the line this time it was money. Would it be acceptable to shoot someone for steeling your pen your pencil its all your property. I think when most people are referring to property they are talking about their house and using force to defend themselves and their family most would have no problem seeing the use of force in them circumstances as reasonable.

 

[Fishing_Cabin]

MLeake brings up a good point...

However, I think a good argument can be made that if one is not allowed to defend one's property, then in reality one has no right to property.

I also think that saying, "hey, people can insure stuff," could be translated as, "law abiding people should be required to subsidize thieves, by paying insurance so they can replace stuff, and so thieves don't have to fear physical harm."

Having grew up in a family business which was regularly targeted by thieves, and dealing with insurance claims I have a slightly jaded view. If someone is subject to repeated thefts they may face the cancelation of their insurance, or they may become uninsurable, period. The insurance company will be look for a person(or company) to take care of their (its) property in the first place. If you (or your business) doesn't take care of its property, don't look for the insurance to repeatedly replace/repair it.

There comes a point when the insurance will expect changes or else no coverage for a loss. Its not as simple as it sounds to say, "Oh, its insured" all the time. Due to break-ins, I spent many nights from my late teens in to my early 20's sleeping in a store with a shotgun, not to protect the property itself, but to protect me while I watched over the property.

Gotta go - discuss among yourself and there will be a moral philosophy and law quiz tomorrow.

Uh oh.....Cant we have a sensitivity class instead? Ive aced tons of those classes/texts....

 

[manta49]

Due to break-ins, I spent many nights from my late teens in to my early 20's sleeping in a store with a shotgun, not to protect the property itself, but to protect me while I watched over the property

That sounds reasonable to me, but shooting a woman for taking of with a few dollars is not in my opinion.

 

[Fishing_Cabin]

manta49, I agree that this is not a perfect case, and I also know that juries will do strange things too.

That said, I do not have a problem with legal force being used to protect oneself or ones property, provided they are, or did the extremely best possible to stay within the law. Yes, I did say "force"... Force can be the very basic physical presence of the property owner (or other person(s)) up to lethal force and anything in between. The laws and court system (however we may agree/disagree with it) will be how it will finally be decided, after the even happens.

 

[JohnKSa]

I think when most people are referring to property they are talking about their house and using force to defend themselves and their family most would have no problem seeing the use of force in them circumstances as reasonable.

The law does not specify a minimum value to the property being stolen as part of the justification for deadly force--my guess is that the law was written that way because in some cases it would not be possible for the property owner to make an accurate assessment of what the thief was leaving with. That was obviously not the case in this situation.

I think the punishment should have some relation to the crime obviously not in this case.

This is a common misconception about the justified use of deadly force.

The justified use of deadly force by citizens is NEVER allowed as a punishment. Citizens are NEVER allowed to punish other citizens using deadly force.

Deadly force is sometimes allowed, under very specific circumstances to PREVENT a crime from happening or from being carried to completion, but NEVER as a way to punish the criminal for what he's doing or has done.

Punishment ONLY happens as the result of a trial under an entirely separate set of laws and that that punishment is carried out ONLY by the government.

Trying to equate the justified use of deadly force by a citizen with the legal punishment carried out by the government is bound to cause confusion.

 

[Evan Thomas]

However, I think a good argument can be made that if one is not allowed to defend one's property, then in reality one has no right to property.

It seems to me that this is a simplistic view. As Glenn noted, the only possible absolutist position is that it is always wrong to take a life. Once you allow that it's sometimes OK to do so, things get messy, and there are no dichotomous variables. It's not as simple as "Either I have a right to property or I don't, and if I do I can use any level of force to defend it."

I'd argue that there is a hierarchy of rights, with the right to life at the top.

For me, a list of rights might look something like this:

1. An individual has the right to life.
2. A society has the right -- in fact the duty -- to protect its members and its institutions, including public (or "cultural") property.
3. An individual has the right to protect his personal property.

In the abstract -- without a specific context -- that's how I'd order them. The problem is that in specific cases, the ordering of rights isn't necessarily this clear-cut.

For example, opinions differ as to the morality of capital punishment. If you're someone who always places the individual right to life ahead of the rights of society as a whole, then you must be opposed to capital punishment.

If you believe that capital punishment is OK in some cases, you're saying that the right of society to protect itself is sometimes more important than the right to life. Then you have to get down and dirty and argue about when that's the case.

The same is true if you believe that taking a life in self-defense is justified. You've just opened a huge can of ethical worms: among other things, you have to decide under what circumstances it's OK, what counts as self-defense, and where the boundaries are (for example, someone's claim of self-defense isn't justified if he provoked the incident, unless he then made a clear effort to back off and de-escalate the situation).

As to taking a life in defense of personal property, as far as I'm concerned, the right to life outweighs the right to private property. I can't imagine a situation in which I would feel that defending my money or my stuff would justify taking a life. (There may be exceptions that I haven't thought of, but I'd hold that as a general principle.) So, yes, a petty thief's right to life outweighs a person's right to the contents of his wallet.

But I regard cultural property differently. When I say "cultural property," I don't mean "all public property:" if someone witnesses the theft of a library book, he wouldn't be justified in defending the book with deadly force. But -- to take an extreme example -- in April 2003, at the start of the second Iraq war, looters broke into the National Museum of Iraq and stole irreplaceable antiquities that were part of the heritage not just of Iraq, but of civilization in general. (U.S. forces had no plan in place to protect the museum, although they had been asked to make one.)

I would have been fine with the use of deadly force against those looters, whether by US troops or by civilians. To me, that was a clear case in which the interest of society in protecting an irreplaceable part of our cultural heritage outweighed the right to life of thieves who were, in a sense, committing a crime against humanity.

I think the Mona Lisa is a vastly overrated painting, but if someone tries to vandalize her, whack the heck out of 'em, say I.

 

[Tom Servo]

An individual has the right to life.

We do, and in any just society, violating that right should be subject to very stern and deliberate scrutiny.

Our society is also built on the concept of the ownership of property. As MLeake pointed out, that property loses value if someone can just waltz in and take it.

The problem lies in deciding where the two meet. I have a real problem equating life with property, and that's what we must do if we're to discuss taking a life to protect things. I can place a value in dollars on my television, my banjo, or my 49-state collection of Franklin Mint commemorative plates. Can I place such a value on life?

If I do, it cheapens it. Is a person's life worth $500? $5000? I can't say I like where such a discussion would lead.

 

[teeroux]

Well I can think of a few scumbags I've come across that are probably worth less than the price of a bullet to shoot them. However I do not believe that a person could be justified in shooting them without prosecution themselves because that person crawfished out on a criminal enterprise they were coconspiring.

 

[JohnKSa]

An individual has the right to life.

The law doesn't make any attempt to balance life against property value. It doesn't try to establish a minimum property value that merits a deadly force response, it merely sets forth a confluence of circumstances--which are all exclusively dependent on the criminal's decisions--under which the property owner can use deadly force to retrieve property or otherwise prevent its loss.

In effect, it is the criminal who makes the decision(s) that what he is stealing is worth the risk of his life.

 

[Evan Thomas]

I can place a value in dollars on my television, my banjo, or my 49-state collection of Franklin Mint commemorative plates. Can I place such a value on life?

If I do, it cheapens it. Is a person's life worth $500? $5000? I can't say I like where such a discussion would lead.

I agree with your basic point, but in fact human lives are given a value all the time by courts and insurance companies.

The law doesn't make any attempt to balance life against property value. It doesn't try to establish a minimum property value that merits a deadly force response, it merely sets forth a confluence of circumstances--which are all exclusively dependent on the criminal's decisions--under which the property owner can use deadly force to retrieve property or otherwise prevent its loss.

In a very real sense, it is the criminal who makes the decision(s) that what he is stealing is worth the risk of his life. [emphasis mine]

I'm not comfortable with this as a justification for the use of deadly force. It seems to me that if it's a valid argument in the case of property crime, it could also be used to justify the use of deadly force to prevent or stop all sorts of other crimes: drunk driving, indecent exposure, or littering, for example. In each of these cases, it's the criminal who decides to engage in the activity. It's not clear to me that "But it's mine!" is a sufficient reason to put a petty theft in a different category from these.

 

[ClydeFrog]

2 recent criminal cases in my metro area....

I agree that criminal jury actions are hard to gauge.

A middle age woman in a upper middle class area near me was cleared by a jury for the 2011 death of her boyfriend. The jury took the woman's claim that the victim took the handgun & somehow killed himself in a dispute.

Another local homicide/trial had a SE Asia combat veteran & JD holder shoot a guy who was having sexual relations with the veteran's wife(who later stated she had mental problems & drank a lot).
The jury sided with the husband & he walked out a free man. The victim was shot several times & died at the scene.

ClydeFrog