Originally posted by: Velk
Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
Originally posted by: Velk
Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
Not only do I have a constitutional right to protect myself, I believe as a teacher I have a moral obligation to protect the children given into my care for 1/3 of their day. I can not effectively do that against an armed attacker without my firearm.
Stop there just for a second. Let's not objectify the situation for a moment - armed attacker indeed. As a teacher, you wish to have a gun, so you can shoot one or more of your students to protect yourself and the rest of the class from them.
Is this correct ?
Now I would ask you - if a child in your class, in your care, produces an unloaded weapon in a potentially threatening manner, and you gun them down, do you feel that your actions would be justified ?
Do you think that their parent's opinion would agree with you ? Do you believe the school board would agree with you ? The national media ? The courts ?
What are you smoking, and why haven't you shared???
I never said ANYTHING EVEN REMOTLEY SIMILAR.
Your suggestion is in response to a student killing. The implication is clear. Fortunately you go on to say exactly that next, so we can skip this bit of the discussion.
IF a person, student or otherwise, threatened to take someones life in my immediate sphere of influence, yes I would kill them, the same as any soldier, any law enforcement officer, any reasonable citizen.
Now on to some discussion which may be profitable.
As for your question, I would face absolutely NO legal action for shooting someone in that scenerio, as the use of lethal force is justified when you believe it is necessary to prevent injury or death to you or someone in your immediate area. It's impossible to tell if a weapon is loaded without looking in it, and therefore no one, not citizen nor law enforcement, is required to consider that when defending themselves.
So - even if you were wrong about the threat, you would feel justified in killing one of your students to prevent what you perceived to be a threat ? As to the facing 'no legal action', I am afraid you are purely delusional.
The people we're talking about are not innocently bringing empty weapons to show others, they're coming in fullly loaded and intended to murder as many people as possible. They are not good lost sheep, they're criminals bent on murder. They might be troubled in general, but at the point when they try to take a life, they're criminals and MUST be stopped.
No, the specific example I asked you is to highlight a particular problem that many people are going to have with your way of thinking. That is - what if you are wrong. I know it may be hard for you to imagine the possibility that you would ever be mistaken about something like that, but there is ample evidence that trained law enforcement officers make these kind of mistakes, and you are *not* a trained law enforcement officer. You are a schoolteacher. Even if you are unable to accept the concept of yourself making a mistake consider that if it is alright for you, it is alright for anyone - do you feel it is the place of a schoolteacher to make life and death decisions about their students, regardless of how much weapons training they possess ?
I believe if I stood there and watched a criminal murder my students and did nothing, the parents would object. I believe if after an event such as this, I met all the parents the ONLY ones who could possibly be angry at me are the ones who's kid I shot. However, the parents of the 30 kids in my class whom I protected would have only me to thank for their children being alive. How do YOU imagine they'd feel.
If you shoot a child carrying an unloaded weapon, as you indicated you would do above, then no, the parents of the children that you 'protected' from them are not going to be thanking you for their children being alive. Even in the best case you can imagine where it was clear that doing so saved the lives of many other people, there are going to be many of those parents who will not accept that you should *ever* have made the decision to kill one of the children in your care.
"even if you were wrong about the threat"
I wasn't wrong about the 'threat'. Threat is not a reality, it is the perception of harm. If I find you on the street, and pull out a gun and point it out you, I have threatened you. I have commited a crime. You are legally empowered to shoot me, or stab me, or snap my neck, or in any way available to you stop me from carrying out my 'threat'. That is true in every state as far as I'm aware, and in most if I'm wrong.
"As to the facing 'no legal action', I am afraid you are purely delusional."
Pull your head out of your ignorant butt and try researching some time. This crap happens ALL the time. You are NEVER guilty of committing a crime if you act reasonably to a perceived threat. The law states ABSOLUTELY that you are allowed to use lethal force to respond to a perceived threat. Every case you can find will support that. If you threaten someone with a viable threat, they can kill you legally. Period. Cops shoot people all the time, and they're found innocent all the time. As long as you act 'reasonably', you're totally safe. Furthermore we aren't talking about unarmed weapons remember, these kids are armed and killing.
You're just so sorry, so pitiful, so afraid of losing your frail grip on reality that you're making stuff up and pulling out of your a$$ as we go along. Not only is what you suggest unreasonable, it's patently false. Either you provide right now citation from United States law that supports your position, or I hereby declare you absolutely and unequivocably a liar trying to further a personal agenda and everyone who reads this will know it's so.
"what if you are wrong."
In your example I WASNT wrong. You respond to the threat, not the reality. That's life. If you don't like or accept that you're free to kill yourself and find a different life to live in. In fact, I wish you would because your complete stupidity is actually offensive to me.
IF someone pulls a weapon and makes a threat, you are legally empowered to kill. them. PERIOD. ABSOLUTE LAW OF THE LAND. You can choose morally not to do so, and that's fine. But the choice is the individuals and he is not liable for his actions if they are reasonable in response to a reasonable threat.
"do you feel it is the place of a schoolteacher to make life and death decisions about their students"
It is every humans right to make decisions about their own life and act accordingly to everything that happens within their sphere of influence.
Your ridiculous argument is like saying no person anywhere ever has the right to do anything that isn't an itemized function of their job. I've got news for you jacka$$, people do things all the time that aren't specifically their job. People stop on the street and provide CPR, even though they aren't medics. Parents teach their children, even though they aren't teachers. And any citizen, even (or maybe especially) a teacher has the right to defend him/her self from perceived threat against their person or those in their immediate viscinity. That's not just my morality talking, that's the absolute law of the land, and is upheld DAILY in our courts.
"If you shoot a child carrying an unloaded weapon, as you indicated you would do above, then no, the parents of the children that you 'protected' from them are not going to be thanking you for their children being alive. Even in the best case you can imagine where it was clear that doing so saved the lives of many other people, there are going to be many of those parents who will not accept that you should *ever* have made the decision to kill one of the children in your care. "
Wrong, if you perceive a threat you are not liable for action of reasonable self-defense. You are simply to ignorant to understand that, so I suggest you drop it before you make yourself look that much more stupid.
As to the rest, some people are pacifists. They don't believe it's ever ok to do harm. That's fine. It's a personal choice and I respect them for it. They can not, by morality or law, make that decision for me however. Again remember that the 'child' who draws a weapon as a threat is no longer a child, they are a criminal and intending murder. Rather they actually are or not is irrelevant, only the immediate threat matters.
Basically I refute everything you say, and the law supports me, not you. I think you're an idiot. I think you're incapable of making relevant and rational arguments. I think you have narrow world views and lack any concept of reality. I will continue to make you look like a fool if you wish, just keep trying to bat out of your league.
Dork.