Thanas wrote:Simon_Jester wrote:Uh... Thanas?
I think you missed a subtlety there.
I missed nothing. You are the one who apparently doesn't remember a thing of the past discussions.
I am responding to you, not disagreeing with you.
Randomly discharging firearms in a populated area IS dangerous and, I assume, illegal in Germany as well as the US.
No, warning shots are quite okay over here even in populated areas. And nobody got ever killed by one either in Germany.
No Thanas. You are not reading what he is actually saying. He is referring to Civilian Warning Shots.
He is saying that while randomly discharging a firearm for no reason, or taking potshots at people who are not threatening is and should be illegal (because there is a risk of hitting someone else), the necessity of self defense ought indemnify someone from shooting at people who are threatening their own lives, and this applies equally to intentionally hitting AND intentionally missing the attacker.
He uses three lines of reasoning (note: I am not attempting to create valid syllogisms here. I could, but why go through the effort? I trust you will understand my meaning)
1) It is a criminal act to kill someone. The necessity of self defense justifies the killing of the attacker. Thus, provided it can reasonably lead to successful self defense against a potentially lethal attacker, actions that would otherwise be criminal are justified in the case of self defense, up to and including homicide.
Discharging a firearm in an unsafe manner (shooting to miss, warning shots etc) is generally a criminal offense. However, doing so can reasonably lead to successful self defense, and doing so is far less severe than murder. Ergo, firing warning shots is or should be a legitimate form of self defense and ought not be prosecuted.
2) Most bullets fired by civilians in self defense miss their original targets. Shooting at someone with the intent to kill them is legitimate and legally justified self defense, even if most bullets miss. Therefore, the risk (whatever that risk actually is. Logically it does not matter what it is) of hitting unintended targets is justified by the necessity of self defense, all on its own, in addition to justifying actually killing someone. So clearly, if someone shoots to miss rather than shoots to kill, this should be covered under Self Defense, because the harm they do is definitionally less than had they actually killed someone intentionally in their Self Defense.
3) Someone who fires warning shots is clearly unwilling to kill someone and is desperately attempting to de-escalate the situation and thus preserve life. As the law currently stands in the US, this is taken as evidence that they did not need to use lethal force, rather than as evidence of peaceful good and life preserving intention, and people who do this are prosecuted. This is Fucking Insane, because it sets up homicide or retreat as the binary means of self defense. Resultant from this, many innocent people are imprisoned or dead. Therefore, we should allow warning shots.
At No Point did Simon disagree with you. Generally, when someone says that they do not disagree with you, and that you misread something they said to mean the opposite of what you think they said, you should go back and re-read, rather than assume they are trying to gaslight you.
