You don’t really think Giamanco made any conscious decision to prioritize any action against the possibility of future rehabiliatation, do you? Because I seriously doubt that was running through his head at the time.
Moderating:
@Irishman, @Dr.Drake, I wanted to offer some nuanced moderation. Discussing how the age of the shooter may/may not matter is absolutely at the heart of the thread, no argument. But abstracting it out to entirely different scenarios is going to be a distraction from the actual event and the actions taken there.
Note, this is not an absolute ban (like gun debates), I just want us to be extremely careful on how easily different scenarios can lead us fully off topic (such as a discussion of gun violence between gang members).
To be clear, neither of you more than touched on this scenario, so I have no serious concerns about either of you. But to all, please be very careful and considerate of such comparisons.
This is just a guidance, not a warning.
No, of course not. (& mod note noted!)
While i acknowledge that he needed to make a decision quickly, any under extreme stress, i reject the idea that it’s binary, either deadly force “is permitted” it is not. That’s how we end up with police killing too many people. Because there’s always some risk. I think we should always be aware that killing another human being is bad. It may sometimes be less bad than other options, but it’s always bad. And i think that if that is the background sentiment, we would end up looking fewer people. Because there’s always going to be some marginal situation where the person who is just looking to check off the box, “will i be prosecuted if i kill this person” is going to be faster to kill than the one who doesn’t want to take a life.
That being said, i don’t feel the age of the murderer is very important in this story. He was an active shooter. He had an adult (or nearly adult) body. His death is perhaps a bit more tragic than if he’d been 61, but in the heat of the moment, that’s a lot lower on the scales than either “he’s killing people with a gun” or “he is a human being”, which is as far as I’m willing to do the moral calculus.
Okay, so what do you think the standard should be for when deadly force is permissible?
Of course there’s risk! We’re talking about inherently dangerous situations where life and limb are at risk, and I think we’re all in agreement deadly force should not be employed unless there’s a risk of being badly injured or killed. We agree on that, right?
I wonder how many people have refused to defend themselves or another person because they’ve been condition to think fighting is “bad?” I’m not sure what you mean by bad. I’m not trying to be pedantic, but bad in that it sucks or bad as in it’s wrong? Because I can’t tell. I don’t blame you I blame English.
I think “is deadly force permissible” is a bad framing, and the question should always be, “is deadly force less bad than the alternative?”
And to be clear, I think it’s morally wrong to kill people. I think even if you do it for a good reason, it’s bad for you.
I respect people who have the strength to not fight in situations when most of us would be lashing out. I’m not saying you should not defend innocent children being gunned down – that’s MORE bad than killing the murderer. But it’s still morally wrong to kill.
I very much disagree with the first clause: we cannot, and should not try to, judge how much someone’s life is worth based on criteria like their age (or whether they have “special needs”, or any of the other trivia that people have brought up). I also agree that there is no way the father was carefully running through philosophical syllogisms and metaphysical calculus before formally arriving at a decision on how to act.
For me, the choice to shoot is strictly utilitarian. One dead shooter is better than one or more dead victims.
If it’s bad to kill one rampaging human, then it’s certainly more bad to allow him to shoot a 5-year-old, a 7-year-old, an 8-year old, an 11-year-old, a 25-year-old, and a 54-year-old. Let alone some number of future n-year-olds. He’d shown that he was willing to kill kids, he had 40+ additional shells ready to go, and the gun was still in his hands.
It was legal, it was moral, it was right. I’m honestly not seeing the bad here. Unfortunate, sure. Sad, okay. But in the end, completely innocent lives were almost certainly saved.
You’re not seeing the bad in unfortunate and sad?
It was arguably necessary. It was justifiable. IANAL but I expect it was legal. It may well have been done by a good person, and if so he’s still a good person. None of that makes it good.
I think they’re three separate things, bad being worse than unfortunate or sad. Good is somewhere on the other end of the spectrum.
What makes it good is that he may have prevented numerous deaths of little kids and teachers.
Bad/Good/Neutral is a judgement of the totality of the action. If, in balance, the act was “bad” that would suggest the person shouldn’t have done it. If it’s “good” then he should have done it. If it’s “neutral” then we’d accept both possible choices as equal in total effect.
I have a tough time seeing this situation and thinking that this man’s inaction would have had an equal or better overall outcome than the action he took.
OK, we don’t mean the same thing by the word. To me, “bad” is a very general term that covers all sorts of negative things.
Seems the case, and I’m not 100% sure how Puzzlegal was using it.
I do tend a bit toward Cheesesteak’s interpretation, though.
The fact is that a child-murderer was caught in the act and put down. I don’t know many who would call that a bad thing.
Stopped. Not “put down”.
There was a previous reference in this thread to a rabid dog. Rabid dogs get put down.
Killing a rabid dog that has been caught and is safely caged, is a thing that is justifiably done.
Killing a teenager who doesn’t present an immediate risk to the safety of others is not a thing that is justifiable. This particular teenager DID present an immediate risk, so his killing is justifiable ONLY as the most effective available means to stop him.
All of which I’ve said before.
Put down, much like bad, means a great number of things. Check Shakespeare, More, the KJV, OED, even Etymonline.
Lemme try …
Stopping him was an unalloyed good. No debate.
Killing him was (probably) not the only possible way to stop him timely. Killing him was certainly quick, it was certainly convenient. But was it the only possible way given the rest of the circumstances? We do not know the answer to that. And probably never will. Certainly not to the satisfaction of those who prefer their apparent murderers executed on the spot long before a trial.
If people here cannot distinguish between “stop” and “kill” I’m not sure what else to say. Every bit of loss of life that day was a tragedy. An unnecessary tragedy that ought not have occurred.
Okay. Can you give me an example of how someone would apply the less bad than the alternative standard in a self-defense situation?
I suspected this was the case. Do we condemn Giamanco for his immoral actions? No, I don’t think so. If his actions were justified then that must mean they were moral. Is it ever moral to use violence to defend oneself?
Amputating a gangrenous limb to save a life is morally good, right? It’s bad in the sense that losing your arm sucks, but the surgeon is morally in the clear, right? What’s morally good doesn’t necessarily feel good and what’s morally bad doesn’t necessary feel bad.
Are you talking about applying the framing in the moment, in public discourse afterward, or when on trial?
I’ll throw an example your way.
Is deadly force less bad than running away?
Example #1 you are faced with a fit young man with a pistol who wants to kill you. Maybe running away is a bad choice and shooting is less bad.
Example #2, you are faced with an emotionally disturbed old lady holding a knife. Maybe running away is less bad than shooting her down.
In the moment. I’m going to assume if it comes to trial the judge/jury is going to consider the defendant’s state of mind at the moment. As far as public discourse goes, who knows?
Okay. What’s bad? And for whom?