Originally posted by: CycloWizard
Furthermore, I believe that every law-abiding citizen has the potential to become a criminal. People who seem perfectly normal burst out into office shootings. If you hand everyone a gun, they'll kill the office shooter with minimal damage (meaning a few injured people, except if it's an AK-47 or RPG). But if you have a chance to keep the gun out of that person's hands, you'll avoid much of the damage.
Keeping high-powered guns out of citizens hands can decrease un-premeditated murder. And for premeditated murder, as I said earlier, if the criminals want to kill you, they will find a way to kill you whether you have the gun or not.
Every citizen has the potential to become a suicide bomber too. Are you going to take toilet cleaner off the shelves, since it can be used to make bombs? You cannot predict the potentiality of a situation involving human behavior with the degree of certainty that you're suggesting, nor do I believe that outlawing firearms will make it any more difficult for criminals to find a gun when they want it - it would likely just make it slightly more expensive for them to do so, as in the case of illegal drugs. Obviously, illegal drugs still run rampant on the streets. However, this wasn't really my point. My point is that if a criminal has a knife and tries to kill me and I have a gun, then I am in a much better position, even if he's well-trained in knife fighting. If he has a gun and I have a gun, I'm in a much better position than if I were unarmed or armed with a knife. A gun is an equalizer that allows society's most vulnerable to be protected from its least vulnerable.
Your argument is also predicated on potentiality - the idea that a criminal would have a potential to cause increased harm should the citizen not have a gun. I just got out of pchem class, so I'll give you an analogy. For the actions of single particles, we cannot precisely what the action of the particle will be. Similarly, we cannot know exactly what a single person will do at any given time. But, we can stochastically determine the actions of groups of many particles, to give probabilities.
If we make it extremely difficult to obtain guns, we can probabilistically lower the chance that a criminal, or potential criminal (unpremeditated), will commit a murder, among a large group of people.
If we give every person a gun, we can probabilistically lower the amount of damage caused by a criminal, but cannot do anything about the potential criminals who would commit unpremeditated murder. Moreover, you conceded that if a criminal wants to commit a premeditated murder, he or she will find a way, regardless of whether you have a gun or not. Thus, giving everyone a gun does not clearly lower the potential for premeditated murders, and does nothing to prevent in the heat of the moment unpremeditated murders. On the other hand, taking guns away, in theory, does not clearly lower the potential for premeditated murders, but lowers the potential for unpremeditated murders. Substitute probability for potential if you wish.
Originally posted by: totalcommand
My argument is as much philisophical as legal. Something does not exist as a separate entity, in my opinion, until it has fully reached the ability to exist separately from the mother. It's pretty simple, so maybe it sounds like a legal argument. But you probably know by now, I rarely use legal arguments, and this isn't one of those cases.
The determining of when the fetus becomes a separate entity, however, does become a legal issue. I won't delve into that here, but I provided a partial argument above because I thought you might try to counter something that I won't argue over.
When I have more time, I will put here an argument as to why even if the fetus becomes a separate entity, yet unborn, abortion is still an acceptable option.
OK, then the real question is how you define a distinct 'entity'. Hypothesized methods that immediately come to mind are genetic uniqueness, viability (able to survive outside the host), and independent consciousness. Feel free to suggest others, but these are the three that I most often see here.
Viability
Clearly, a zygote/embryo/fetus is genetically distinct from the moment of conception. If it's not, then it never would be - hopefully we can at least agree on this point.
It is clear.
Viability does not mitigate the necessity of substantial effort and support of another to continue the life of the entity. Thus, the only logical distinctions between an entity that is considered 'viable' is that it is spatially unique from its host, and that the host need not be the one who continues to lend support to the entity. Hopefully we can agree that spatial uniqueness is much less conclusive in determining distinction of an entity than is genetic uniqueness, as this would imply that any cell that falls from your body is a distinct entity. I'm not sure how the second criterion (that the caregiver need not be the original host) can be construed as determinant in whether or not an entity is distinct.
It is not effort and support that I use as criteria to separate the mother from the unborn fetus. Nor is it spatial uniqueness. It is the physiological connections between the mother and the child.
As a side note, the conclusivity of determining distinction does not determine whether or not we should use one distinction over another; it is the qualities of the distinctions as related to the issue at hand that does.
Regardless, I believe the distinction is very clear, or "conclusive". Cells that fall from your body do not have the potential for life.
A thing, for the purpose of this discussion, becomes distinct when it is not physiologically dependent on the mother, and has the potential for separate consciousness in the first place. We therefore not concerned with somatic cells. Let me make it clear, however. It is not consciousness alone that makes the distinction, it is physiological separation and viability of the fetus. That is, the fetus is considered separate when it has consciousness, physiological separation, and independent viability. However, since we would agree that physiological separation and independent viability require consciousness, these are the overriding factors.
The advance of medical technology makes it possible for the fetus to exist separately and remain viable earlier and earlier. My distinction is flexible to this. This begs the question of whether should we be able to make, say a 2 week old fetus independently viable, that those fetuses should be protected from abortion. Here, we would have to fall back to the consciousness criterion; but such medical advances are very very far off, if not impossible.
In my opinion, these distinctions only matter when the mother has the abortion out of free choice, and is not forced to because of medical dangers, etc.
When the mother's life is at stake, I would support abortion at all times.
The independent consciousness, the point made repeatedly by many, could be a valid criterion. However, as I've mentioned many times before, it is impossible to quantify. Thus, using this as a basis for determining what is or is not alive is open to completely subjective interpretation. For example, what comprises consciousness? This criterion could also be used to legalize killing of those who are already granted personhood when their brain activity temporarily stops (note that stopping brain activity is part of several medical treatments).
It's not my criterion.
Of these three, I can only conclude that genetic distinction is sufficient cause for the granting of personhood.
Viability is sufficient cause. Emotional, financial, etc. efforts do not determine this viability. It is purely a medical. A fetus that is physiologically separated from the mother must be able to survive on its own, using all possible medical advances available at the time.
Oftentimes we have to treat the symptoms when we cannot find the cure. Think of it as abdominal pain; doctors usually have no idea what the cause is, but treat the symptoms (pain, dehydration) to alleviate the feelings the patient has. In an analagous way, no one can come even close to telling what causes people to shoot other people, what malfunction there is in their brain that tells them not to value human life. When we cannot find the true sources of problems, we are forced to treat the symptoms; and even when we find the true source of problems, we treat both the problem and the symptoms. Especially where we are concerned with human life, we should treat both.
Often, however, treating the symptoms without knowing the underlying cause of the malady causes more damage than the malady itself. If you take the pistol away from the old woman, you have just made her the subject of any person of greater physical stature or ability. Now, instead of worrying about someone having a bigger gun than you, you must worry about anyone who has better fighting skills or physical size. The firearm has had such a significant impact in history specifically because it places those of dissimilar physical stature on an equal playing field. This enables a return to domination via brute force. I'm not sure how else to explain it, other than what you're suggesting amounts to discrimination based on physique.
That's incorrect. Treating the symptoms in this case would not cause additional damage, it would decrease damage as I have shown earlier. It really has nothing to do with discrimination based on physique, that's a red herring.
Is the purpose of a gun to give physically disadvantaged people a level playing field? We have already agreed that the criminal will find a way to kill the person regardless of whether the person has a gun if the criminal wants to really try. Kids are among the most vulnerable people in our society. Should they be allowed to carry guns also? Training people to use guns does not put them on a level playing field. The criminal with a gun (since we say he can easily obtain it) will be much more skilled with it than the woman. What makes you think the criminal will run away?
We place trust in our police force to prevent crimes, and to be a deterrent. The reason the police exist is that citizens do not trust other citizens to police themselves or control themselves;
in other words, the very reason the police exist is to prevent domination based on brute force.
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