# Would you shoot child and kill your child in this situation? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 2, 2004, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759 "2004-12-02T20:57:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kezami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eb8c5e/32.png) [@kezami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kezami)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/21 "2004-12-02T22:04:43Z")
> [@Kel Varnsen - Latex Division](#): > > The child still suffers. What you describe is a hopeless situation and the child will die regardless of any intervention. I would not shoot and kill my child under any circumstance. If I kill myself before I would otherwise witness his final suffering what does morality have to do with it? ---
**Author:** ![Greenback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/2bfe46/32.png) [@Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greenback)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/22 "2004-12-02T22:05:09Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > No I would not shoot the child, I would just watch him burn. > Now if the front right tire had blown, then I’d plug him right between the eyes, but with the back left tire you have to watch him die. Where do I find this chart you are obviously referencing? I think I die trying. My children will never fear my hand. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/23 "2004-12-02T22:05:53Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > Hey, merry fucking christmas, dude! Thank you for making my day, Kal. This was my exact thought. Marc ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/24 "2004-12-02T22:06:14Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > Only if I wanted to go to jail for murder. If I was a cop and I came upon the scene you’ve described, I’d think it was the work of a stupid killer who shot his son and then tried to burn his body beyond recognition, making it look like he died in the car accident. Coroner could tell that the child was burned before shot, since the inside of the lungs would show damage attributable to the fire. You’d probably still get arrested, and would likely face other charges. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/25 "2004-12-02T22:08:52Z")
I wonder if it would be possible to shoot your kid free in this kind of situation. Either by blowing away chunks of the dashboard, or (much more horrifically) using the bullets to sever the portion of the body that is trapped by the dashboard. I’d rather have my daughters alive no matter what. But that probably counts as fighting the hypothetical. Man, this is a tricky one. Honestly there’s probably no way to know what I would do unless it were actually happening. I’ve always thought it would be better to die instantly than to burn to death in agony, but I don’t know if I’d be able to do something like that to somebody I love. I’d like to think I would do anything, including shielding my child from the flames with my own body, until there was obvious we were all going to die, but … I really don’t think it can be answered unless it was actually happening. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/26 "2004-12-02T22:16:05Z")
> [@kezami](#): > > I’d shoot myself so I wouldn’t have to witness his suffering. Wow, so your kid is trapped in a burning car, he turns to you for help/comfort/something, only to see his father blow his own brains out. Talk about making a really bad day worse. ---
**Author:** ![kezami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eb8c5e/32.png) [@kezami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kezami)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/27 "2004-12-02T22:16:09Z")
> [@wnorthr](#): > > That was great. Now I have to clean the coke out of my keyboard. Why? Were you in mid snort? (use the little spoon) ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/28 "2004-12-02T22:17:48Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > Why would you turn the gun on yourself because it would destroy you? I would consider it morally more disturbing not to kill someone I cared about who was hopelessly suffering and could not be saved (unless they were capable of saying they just preferred to suffer hopelessly and die without intervention.) Basically, and not to be snide here, if you have to ask this question then you’ve either never been a parent or never lost a child. To SEE a child of your own die is hard enough (and I have first hand knowledge of this)…to KILL my child, reguardless of whether it would be more ‘human’ to do so would destroy me. If you figure you could blithely shoot your kid and walk away…well, we are different people. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/29 "2004-12-02T22:23:51Z")
This is a classic situation of basing morality on absurd situauations. I refuse to answer the question as my morals are based on what happens in real life, not on high school philosophy . ---
**Author:** ![kezami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eb8c5e/32.png) [@kezami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kezami)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/30 "2004-12-02T22:24:43Z")
> [@Malodorous](#): > > Wow, so your kid is trapped in a burning car, he turns to you for help/comfort/something, only to see his father blow his own brains out. Talk about making a really bad day worse. Who’s he going to share the indescribably unpleasant experience with? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/31 "2004-12-02T22:52:33Z")
Here’s an alternate hypothetical for you: A crashed bus teeters precariously on an overpass, partly blocking the commuter rail line. You can push the bus to the east, and it will fall off the overpass to crush an minority orphanage, or you can push the bus to the west, where it will fall and destroy a home for the cheerful mentally disabled, or you can leave it, in which case a train full of concerned environmentalists and civil rights activists will be derailed and careen into a series of refinery storage tanks, creating a huge fire. Above it all, an anal-retentive angel with a penchant for symmetry waits, eager to rebalance the equation any time you come up with a justification for a choice. Don’t like orphans? The orphanage is now an animal shelter. Don’t care about the disabled? It’s now a veteran’s home for Medal of Honor winners. Don’t like environmentalists and activists? The train is now full of AIDS researchers and Nobel Peace-prize winners. So what do you do, hotshot? _What do you do?!_ And this time shooting the hostage is not an option! ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/32 "2004-12-02T22:56:44Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Here’s an alternate hypothetical for you: A crashed bus teeters precariously on an overpass, partly blocking the commuter rail line. You can push the bus to the east, and it will fall off the overpass to crush an minority orphanage, or you can push the bus to the west, where it will fall and destroy a home for the cheerful mentally disabled, or you can leave it, in which case a train full of concerned environmentalists and civil rights activists will be derailed and careen into a series of refinery storage tanks, creating a huge fire. Above it all, an anal-retentive angel with a penchant for symmetry waits, eager to rebalance the equation any time you come up with a justification for a choice. Don’t like orphans? The orphanage is now an animal shelter. Don’t care about the disabled? It’s now a veteran’s home for Medal of Honor winners. Don’t like environmentalists and activists? The train is now full of AIDS researchers and Nobel Peace-prize winners. > > So what do you do, hotshot? _What do you do?!_ And this time shooting the hostage is not an option! Finger the angel, set the bus on fire, light my first cigarette in 4 months, and watch the screaming and flailing of multiple burn/crush/blunt trauma victims with nicotine-induced emotional detachment, while waiting for Satan to arrive and offer me a long-term employment contract ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/33 "2004-12-02T23:02:15Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Here’s an alternate hypothetical for you: A crashed bus teeters precariously on an overpass, partly blocking the commuter rail line. You can push the bus to the east, and it will fall off the overpass to crush an minority orphanage, or you can push the bus to the west, where it will fall and destroy a home for the cheerful mentally disabled, or you can leave it, in which case a train full of concerned environmentalists and civil rights activists will be derailed and careen into a series of refinery storage tanks, creating a huge fire. Above it all, an anal-retentive angel with a penchant for symmetry waits, eager to rebalance the equation any time you come up with a justification for a choice. Well, leaving aside the angel, who I’d just ignore anyway (‘what, don’t like my choice? Well get your skinny winged ass down here and YOU make the call you prat!’), I would mournfully have to sacrifice that train full of concerned environmentalists. Hell, its what they would want, and I could, with regrets, let them plumet to their deaths to save…well, just about any other group I can think of. 😉 -XT ---
**Author:** ![Paladud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Paladud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paladud)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/34 "2004-12-02T23:04:45Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Here’s an alternate hypothetical for you: A crashed bus teeters precariously on an overpass, partly blocking the commuter rail line. You can push the bus to the east, and it will fall off the overpass to crush an minority orphanage, or you can push the bus to the west, where it will fall and destroy a home for the cheerful mentally disabled, or you can leave it, in which case a train full of concerned environmentalists and civil rights activists will be derailed and careen into a series of refinery storage tanks, creating a huge fire. Above it all, an anal-retentive angel with a penchant for symmetry waits, eager to rebalance the equation any time you come up with a justification for a choice. Don’t like orphans? The orphanage is now an animal shelter. Don’t care about the disabled? It’s now a veteran’s home for Medal of Honor winners. Don’t like environmentalists and activists? The train is now full of AIDS researchers and Nobel Peace-prize winners. > > So what do you do, hotshot? _What do you do?!_ And this time shooting the hostage is not an option! I’d leave the bus alone because, in no particular order: a) I’m not directly involved with making a choice, and do not objectify any of the parties involved, thus not violating Kant’s categorical imperative. b) More time to read the SDMB. c) Huge fires are fun. d) I’d feel much worse about the deaths of veterans or animals than treehuggers or Nobel Peace Prize winners 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/35 "2004-12-02T23:10:26Z")
Okay, wiseguys, the angel magically transports your entire family onto the train. Then again, judging from some of the pit threads, I expect a number of dopers would be cheering the outcome. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/36 "2004-12-02T23:12:30Z")
Am I allowed to rip the angels lungs out as an option? -XT ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/37 "2004-12-02T23:20:48Z")
> [@Tapioca Dextrin](#): > > This is a classic situation of basing morality on absurd situauations. > > I refuse to answer the question as my morals are based on what happens in real life, not on high school philosophy . The OP might be unrealistic, but people have been known to kill their children in desperate situation (and also in situation they perceive as desperate when they really aren’t). So, the concept isn’t utterly off base. However, how would anybody know what they would do in a truly awful situation? IMO, answering the OP is pointless. Or at least, I don’t see the point. Except if it’s related with the “euthanasia in the Netherlands thread”, but honestly, this hypothetical isn’t well thought (to say the least). ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/38 "2004-12-02T23:47:56Z")
Would I shoot my child if he was trapped in a burning car? Well, I wouldn’t shoot him right away. I’d fire a warning shot first, just to let him know I was serious. Then, if it absolutely couldn’t be helped, I’d try to shoot him in the leg or something, just to disable him long enough for me to get away. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/39 "2004-12-02T23:51:53Z")
> [@pravnik](#): > > Would I shoot my child if he was trapped in a burning car? > > Well, I wouldn’t shoot him right away. I’d fire a warning shot first, just to let him know I was serious. Then, if it absolutely couldn’t be helped, I’d try to shoot him in the leg or something, just to disable him long enough for me to get away. Obviously an extract from _Jack Handy’s Guide to Parenting_. ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759/40 "2004-12-03T00:08:09Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > So what do you do, hotshot? _What do you do?!_ And this time shooting the hostage is not an option! Kick myself for cheaping out on the Karl Malden-approved Green Card instead of the [Black Card](http://www.snopes.com/business/bank/blackcard.asp)? Betcha those fuckers could fix things for me while still finding time to procure a rug made from Saddam Hussein’s new beard. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-shoot-child-and-kill-your-child-in-this-situation/277759.md?page=3)