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Comment by foxrider | Hacker News Reader

I am not american, but I really wish it was legal to shoot thieves where I live. I see no moral issues with that act - it's really simple to justify. First - why should I value life of someone who's actively robbing me? In my mind, the moment they attack my rights, including my property rights - I don't owe any moral consideration to them anymore, they broke the social contract with me, and I'm going to use anything at my disposal to stop them. Second - if it's generally accepted that if you're gonna steal something you are putting your life on the line - that means people would think twice before stealing something from other people. You should fear for your life if you're going to try and violate other's rights, and I doubt there would be as many people keen on stealing something valued at 100$ by betting their lives on it. And finally, when you're getting robbed it damages you. It's not even about the thing itself getting stolen, but more about the fact that the sanctity of your belongings vanishes and a bit of trust you had for others vanishes with it. Ask anyone who ever got mugged or had their house broken into - it's hard to feel safe after that happens to you once, ever. I really don't think that someone who's a victim of an ongoing crime should ever stop and think about the criminal committing it as someone worthy of moral consideration at all.

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This is the problem with our police not investigating property crime. If you could trust society will stop these people in short order, then there will be less crime and the chance of this happening will be low, and you'll just feel especially unlucky.

But I live in an area with high property crime and the police do nothing about it, as desired by the local government representatives. That's a recipe for vigilantism.

In the US they’re far too busy prosecuting people for having a gram of cocaine on them to have time to prosecute people stealing catalytic converters and actually hurting someone.

Maybe because they're selling catalytic converters to buy cocaine?

Most of the people around here doing these property crimes are illegal drug addicts. Seattle does not prosecute drug crimes.

Do you mean being drug adict in Seattle makes a person immune to (at least some of the) law?

It does end up working that way in practice, though it’s not quite as straightforward as that. What’s really happening is that courts are very backed up, jails are full, and judges release most people on their own recognizance within about 72 hours of the crime. They still have to go to court for that crime…eventually, but in the mean time, there’s nothing to stop them from going right back at it when they get released. There are people who have been arrested dozens upon dozens of times, and by now must have a list of court hearings a mile long, but they keep getting put back out on the street while they await their hearing. So in effect, at least for now, they are immune to prosecution.

In my city they're too busy running from one violent crime to the next, they're understaffed (under statutory minimums) and if you didn't get shot they won't come help. This is seen as the socially progressive thing to do.

I was attacked in a road rage incident, they didn't come. There was video, a witness, a traffic camera all available, they didn't investigate or prosecute.

Shots were fired outside of my apartment on the street the other day, the police didn't come.

I would rather not take the law into my own hands, but what choice does a person have?

What country/city do you live in? Just curious.

Sounds like some blue state in the US. (gunshots = USA, reference to progressive policy ruling implies blue state)

as opposed to the sound of hunting season or “firearm discharges”.

This is Minneapolis.

> In my mind, the moment they attack my rights, including my property rights - I don't owe any moral consideration to them anymore

Wow, seriously? No proportionality at all, no consideration of any mitigating factors that may be present, just simply "they broke my property rights so their life is forfeit".

I'm glad that in general society has moved on from such crude ideas of justice.

I've been mugged, and I've had my house broken into. Yes, it's shit. In neither case did I think anyone should die for it.

You've said the things I wanted to say, but much more succinctly.

Killing someone is something you can't undo.

Even if you truly believe that someone's life is forfeit for stealing something of yours, there's no time given for evaluating the facts.

A split second decision, a bad judgement call, and you find out that the person you shot and killed, is actually some innocent bystander running to get away from the robber.

Maybe they are the person robbing you, but your shots hit someone else who's in their own house.

Indeed, letting individuals decide who does and doesn't deserve to live, is how we end up with endless blood feuds. "They killed my brother so their life is forfeit."

I've read a saying that a government is an entity with a "monopoly on violence." I think that however imperfect it is, giving the government this monopoly means that there's an objective process for deciding who deserves to live, and who doesn't. Personal satisfaction as a criterion is always going to produce outcomes that are massively disproportionate, and will simply shift the dissatisfaction to someone else.

>broke the social contract with me

not how the social contract works. Read Rousseau's "Du Contract Social", or just ask à french person if they think stealing deserves death

I mean come on guys this is pathetic, like HN is known for meticulously breaking down people's arguments point by point line by line, explaining each logical fallacy and you believed it would be okay to dive into justifying death of people... it sounds like you are sad about something personal

Texans decide for themselves what their social contract is. Texan law is not dictated by the French.

It is, actually

https://www.texasbar.com/AM/Template.cfm?Section=articles&Te....

Further reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_colonization_of_Texas

Texas law is still not dictated by the French as the poster said.

Those links don't contradict me.

You should really provide more context if you're going to dump links to try to "gotcha" someone. This isn't Twitter or reddit, come on now.

no one can decide for themselves what their social contract is. that makes no sense.

even if you mean texans collectively decide what their social contract is, they don't, it is determined before them. it's what they were collectively born into.

It was created by Texans, and will continue to be created by Texans. Asking them to defer to the opinions of dead French philosophers is beyond inane.

That's not adressing his point. That is, it's not how a social contract works. It's collective. You break it with everyone or no one. And it's collectively enforced as well. OP's notion that his in charge of his own little arbitrarily determined social contract that inform the worth of the life of the people surounding him and has sovereignty over his surroundings is disturbing. I worry of such people being free to walk about and I sure hope he's not from my country.

You may not understand this if you are from a foreign country, but the relationship of states to the Federal government in the US is not like the relationship of provinces to the central government in France.

The US is a truly federal system in which each state has its own constitution and its own legal code. This is not a purely theoretical point, it's quite true that there are wide variations in laws between states as well as wide variations in state constitutions, which is one reason why, for example, a lawyer has to pass the bar in each state.

And like any nation, the legal code of a state is the result of historic and ethnic forces applicable to that state. For example, my colleague, who is from Italy, was worried about his mother being mugged repeatedly by some local youths, and he was telling me how worried he was about her. The last time she went to the police, she had the following conversation:

"Why do you keep releasing them? They will just steal again."

"Yes, but they are underage, so there is nothing we can do."

"But if I refused to give them my purse, they could kill me with the knife."

"Possibly."

"But if I were to get a gun to protect myself, and then shoot them the next time they threatened me with a knife, I would be arrested."

"Of course".

"So what can I do to protect myself?"

"Just give them your purse."

"But this is the third purse they have taken, and I can't afford another. Will you pay for the purse?"

"Of course not"

"And you wont put them in jail? You will just release them again?"

"Unfortunately, we have no choice"

"If I wait for them to try to hurt me with the knife and then shoot, would I still be arrested?"

"Probably"

So there are some things that are very difficult for Americans to understand that may make sense to someone from Italy and there is bafflement going in the other direction. In the U.S. if someone threatens you with violence, you generally have the right to defend yourself and to shoot them. You never need to allow someone to physically intimidate you into handing over your belongings, and you always have a right to defend yourself. But apparently this is considered unspeakably wrong in other countries. Fair enough, to each his own. But I will point out that strict laws against defending yourself are only possible in very peaceful societies. In more violent societies, the public will not tolerate being repeatedly robbed with no possibility of self-defense -- that is the origin of mafias in Italy, basically groups for protection when the central government was too weak.

This is one example of how there is no such thing as a "universal" social contract, as all of these rules are contingent on questions like what is the likelihood of being victimized by crime. Social contract theory is itself just a philosophy - and a poor explanation of legal codes - as laws and norms are the results of evolutionary processes involving trial and error, not social contract theory.

I can't think of many social norms or government rules worse than ones that consider it despicable or, as you say, "unspeakably wrong" to have a right to defend yourself. The example of the grandmother in your text should be a clear case of someone doing exactly what is the only obvious thing when the policing system has failed at its job but criminals continue to victimize. What kind of absurd, twisted logic would claim otherwise to a constant victim without protection by the state?

France didn’t invent social contracts like Newton didn’t invent gravity. All societies have had implicit social contracts

It just happens that Texas society's social contract is public execution and plastic bags.

yeah, and just like earth can't decide its gravity field, a society can't decide its social contract.

Believing in a different set of axioms cannot be a logical fallacy.

The idea that the French have any claim to ownership of the literally prehistoric concept of the social contract is pretty laughable.

> First - why should I value life of someone who's actively robbing me?

Jesus Christ. You're actually arguing that killing someone for theft is a reasonable and proportionate response? That is a dangerous and unhinged statement and I roundly condemn you for saying it.

All you've done here is reiterate what he said and insult him for thinking it. That's not even remotely persuasive.

What, exactly, is the persuasive counterargument for basic morality? Why isn't morality axiomatic?

Let's put it this way - the argument above would also apply to saying that a private citizen who catches a thief stealing their catalytic convertor can torture them slowly and painfully for weeks without actually killing them. You owe them no moral consideration, it's a deterrent, etc. Do you need someone to make a persuasive argument against the merits of that to realize that it's abhorrent?

If morality were axiomatic, then worldwide we would have a collective shared understanding of what is right or wrong, immutable over time. That’s clearly not the case.

maybe not in every detail, but are the broad strokes really so varried?

Yes.

Certainly morality is a shared part of us all, it was evolved to create ingroup cohesion and resist outgroups in humans, so there are a lot of commonalities like reciprocity, justice, etc.

It’s the divvying up of ingroup and out group that tend to create disagreements in morality. I.e. we understand forgiveness, but we disagree who is worthy. We understand justice but we disagree who deserves punishment or why.

That tends to make a pretty big difference in results and conclusions.

The person above wasn't making a reasoned persuasive argument, they were making a moral assertion. The purpose wasn't to insult someone nor to convince them. It was just an expression of moral outrage.

That's precisely what I pointed out.

Yes, but your comment reads as if you were giving feedback. Implication is that the intent was or should be persuasion, and you saying it's failing at that. Anyway, I don't think "I condemn you for X" is an insult of the normal sort where it's ad hominem, even though it would be better and less ad hominem as "I condemn the idea" (as opposed to the person).

Thank you. This is exactly correct. I was fully aware that I wasn't making a persuasive argument and it wasn't intended to be one. I wanted to emphasise and reiterate what I believe is a widely held moral norm.

The commenter I replied to seemed to unaware how far they had strayed beyond reasonable ethical statements. I don't think I could persuade them to change their position but I couldn't let that go unchallenged. Norms change one person at a time and speaking out is important.

cool

A significant portion of our waking life is spent doing things to obtain property. When thieves steal it they are stealing spent life and possibly livelihood.

I don't find it surprising that thieves face more gruesome punishments like hanging, cutting off hands, etc in places especially when there may be little recourse for the victims of theft and the theft represents a significant impact on their life.

I think reasonable argument against such things is that it is too easy for people to mistakenly hurt a non-thief on accident. That's more convincing to me than simply saying property < life at all times. If I was poor and needed my vehicle to get to work everyday and you're stealing it then yes I would be willing to shoot you to stop you.

Property can be replaced. Lives can't.

property < life at all times.

We make new people all the time.

some of it not even on purpose

You can't replace the life of the dead person though, you've taken that forever.

Well you can’t replace anything, exactly. If your house burns down, and insurance builds a new one, it’s still a different house. Your dog dies and you get a new dog, it’s a different dog.

If you say, people can’t be replaced because they’re just inherently irreplaceable, that’s a tautology.

> If you say, people can’t be replaced because they’re just inherently irreplaceable, that’s a tautology.

This line of argument is entirely disingenuous. My life, once taken, cannot be given back to me. Neither can any substitute life.

But I don't get back the time I spent acquiring the property. I can't replace the two weeks of work it would take to buy a new one. And what if it gets stolen again?

It sounds like you're saying that anybody who wastes my time deserves death? Pretty sure busybody neighbors would be far ahead of thieves in that line...

But you can get the property back or be financially made whole in a variety of ways.

This really is a bizarre line of reasoning.

I actually think your reasoning is bizarre. Not all life is equal.

> Not all life is equal.

That's not relevant to the argument at hand, nor is it a claim I have made.

You keep talking about how you can't take back killing. The thing is I don't want to take it back. The kind of person that would steal things that people rely on to survive has ceded their equal protection under the law.

> You keep talking about how you can't take back killing.

Yes, which is one of the things that makes killing different from property theft.

> The thing is I don't want to take it back.

That's not relevant to the discussion here, which was one in which posters were claiming that their property represents part of their life, time they cannot get back, and thus taking it is somehow equivalent to taking a life. My point was that this is a false equivalence.

You do not appear to be making such an equivalence argument, so it's hardly a surprise that my counterpoint doesn't apply to whatever your reasoning is.

It's like jumping into an argument about which shade of green is better and saying "My favourite colour is red". Uh, good for you I guess.

you can't replace any time, ever, under any circumstances. it's a one way trip.

Even if we assume that there is some kind of property-value-to-life exchange rate (that's not a given), by killing someone you are taking, potentially, decades of their life in exchange for the loss of your two weeks.

If you kill someone who has 30 years of their life remaining to avenge your lost two weeks, you are extracting a 780-fold punishment on them. Unless a geriatric steals your Ferrari, the numbers will be similarly lopsided in other examples.

By that logic it should be legal to kill people stealing things that are irreplaceable. Mona Lisa, Faberge Eggs, Mom's ashes?

That logic wasn't meant to be exhaustive. Even an irreplaceable thing can be recovered from a thief. A life taken cannot be.

FWIW I don't believe that even making the comparison is valid. By the time you're weighing up stuff against literal human life, you've already gone wrong.

We weigh stuff against human lives all the time. Cars, bridges, buildings, and industrial machines all make tradeoffs between safety and cost. We generally value a random life at about $7-10 million - much less than a faberge egg. In reality, adding up all the grief of loved ones, $7 million might be about right.

Treating life as some sort of priceless treasure really is divorced from reality too. I think most people would choose to shoot an arsonist before they could burn the Mona Lisa, and that's totally rational.

We tend to evaluate risk like that. We don't directly talk about buying a death for a certain amount of money.

> I think most people would choose to shoot an arsonist before they could burn the Mona Lisa, and that's totally rational.

I think you might be surprised at how many didn't think that was all that reasonable.

This modern softness is absurd. Let the Mona Lisa burn, let the Library of Alexandria burn, bomb the Louvre. It's ok, it's never worth harming someone to prevent.

We'll be polite and refer to it as pacifism, but the truth is it's cowardice.

This extreme pacifism, if actually practiced by anyone not so absurdly privileged to be able to take that stance, would lead to the downfall of civilization.

> I think you might be surprised at how many didn't think that was all that reasonable.

The magnitude of my disgust would seem to be growing, yes.

irreplaceable does not imply valuable. Every rock is completely unique, and thus irreplaceable.

> When thieves steal it they are stealing spent life and possibly livelihood.

well lucky for you and unlucky for the theif, spent life isn't a real thing and it can do nothing for anyone.

> If I was poor and needed my vehicle to get to work everyday and you're stealing it then yes I would be willing to shoot you to stop you.

do me a favor and stick to speaking from your own actual experience. why would anyone care what you think you'd do if you were poor?

I don't really see anything wrong with that statement. why should i value my material possessions less than the life of some crook i don't even know?

You make it sound like everyone has complete knowledge of a thief's intent, and that the motivation for shooting them is retribution rather than self defense.

If a thief breaks into someone else's home in the middle of the night, they should have a healthy fear of being shot to death. If the homeowner believes their life is in immediate danger, it seems to me like they are well within their moral and legal right to incapacitate the intruder with a firearm. There's no judgement involved, only reaction under fear of imminent violence. If the thief dies, it was due to their own poor decisions.

Likewise, if the homeowner catches a thief jumping out of a window with their beanie baby collection, it would be unreasonable for the homeowner to take some shots at the thief just to try to injure them, and would probably be a chargeable felony. If the thief died, it would probably be deemed a homicide.

Ok but we're talking about people running away with cat converters being shot in the back here

Sure that's the original topic, but I thought this thread was relatively deep down a more general tangent. Regarding whether or not it's justified to shoot someone making off with an automotive part, I personally wouldn't consider that inherently just, but it depends on the details of the scenario. If the car was parked on the street, then definitely not. If the car was in a closed and locked garage and the thief broke in, then the owner caught them in the act while armed with a firearm and the thief did anything but lay down on the floor or dart out of the door, then shooting them is probably justified. If the car was jacked and taken to a chop shop with the owner's toddler in the back seat, then I personally would be fine with a "Liam Neeson" level of response.

I think the earlier poster's question about the legality of defending property with force in Texas is interesting. I also think the subsequent poster's belief that society would benefit from more readily shooting criminals is a rational claim rather than an unhinged one, whether or not it's a good idea. It's certainly true that there would be less theft, whether it's because of deterrence or by the simple fact that thieves would tend to get shot. There's most certainly some complexity and nuance to appreciate there. Singapore canes people for overstaying their travel visas to discourage illegal immigration, and unsurprisingly it seems to be an effective deterrent.

No, we're talking about pointing a gun at a guy under your car and another one holding a bat standing and looking out. They can then either back up and run away or get shot. It's their decision.

If you (or anyone else) see no moral issue with killing someone over petty theft of a catalytic converter, which insurance should cover, I'd say there's a non-insignificant probability you suffer from some kind of antisocial personality disorder.

I'm not saying this to attack your character - I'm just saying that normal and well-adjusted people do not think that way.

It's not that simple. Otherwise it would be legal to shoot someone for walking on your lawn (also a violation of property rights).

I've seen signs saying "trespassers will be shot", and never felt the need to test them. The fact that the shooter was doing something illegal doesn't change the possibility that you may no longer be alive.

Unless it's posted on government land this type of warning just tells you that you're in the vicinity of white trash.

Why would you make such an arbitrary distinction between government and "white trash" posting signage that states "Any trespassers will be shot"?

After using any type of force, lethal or otherwise against a trespasser that type of sign would be used against the owner in court to their detriment.

There's a requirement for "no trespassing" signs to be posted around property but the "will be shot" verbiage could be construed as premeditation since non government land owners aren't allowed to kill trespassers merely for the act of trespassing itself. It literally suggests that the property owner is waiting to shoot anyone who trespasses, which isn't kosher.

Trespassing on government land such as a military base could result in the trespasser being shot accidentally or otherwise and there are typically warning signs posted that will say things like "Use of deadly force authorized".

If that’s the case can we shoot at companies?

Over my life I have had thousands of dollars stolen from me in the form of stolen wages or services paid for but not rendered, but I feel like no one in this thread arguing for shooting of thieves would be fine with me shooting up the local Fedex because they lost my package and refused to reimburse me

What gives you the right to make a life-ending determination?

This: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_doctrine

> to use force (up to and including deadly force) to defend oneself against an intruder

Perhaps only one place (Texas) uses this to justify regaining possession of property, which is what the GP was talking about.

Also:

> At most the Castle Doctrine is an affirmative defense for individuals inevitably charged with criminal homicide, not a permission or pretext to commit homicide.

How can the castle doctrine possibly be applied to most catalytic converter thefts???

Typically, the laws governing one’s jurisdiction.

I'm asking on a moral level.

If human lives are valuable, then I suppose the same also applies to my own life. If a hostile stranger appeared at night in my house, I would take his life to protect mine. Yes, the entire situation is regretful, but it was his choice to make it happen, not mine.

I wouldn't kill a person over stealing a candy from me, or trespassing on my lawn.

morality is subjective; there's no universal morality. That's why laws exist - to make clear what is acceptable to do, and what is not.

I think that you have the right to protect your rights at all costs. If your rights are being violated it's OK to reclaim it by returning the favor. If you don't believe it then there's a discussion to be had about if you even have any rights to begin with or if these are just privileges granted to you by the others.

But surely there are degrees to this? I mean, if someone tall sits in front of you at the movies, they are violating your right to full viewership of the movie. If you get cut off in traffic, your rights are being violated.

Where is the line? Why is property theft deserving of the end of a human life?

In the case of the article, we’re not just asking about blanket “property theft”. I don’t think any of the proponents are say shoot someone who’s stealing a loaf of bread.

In many parts of the world, a car used to get to work. If you can’t get to work, then you can’t make money, and if you can’t make money then you can’t eat.

Does everyone who gets their catalytic converter stolen have enough money to get it fixed? If not, then this crime might be tantamount to depriving someone of their whole car

This.

It’s not just a random part of a car their stealing. It’s entirely possible that loosing the catalytic converter cascades into being jobless and homeless.

You can drive without a catalytic converter (though you will fail smog test so it could eventually cascade to that).

When the cat is removed your car almost certainly violates noise ordinance, so it's undrivable unless you know someone quick with exhaust pipes and clips or a welder.

So, yeah, you can drive a car without a cat, but not without a muffler (generally). Fix it tickets still incur a monetary cost.

You can't drive a car safely without a catalytic converter (unless the thief has been kind enough to patch up their damage with a straight piece of pipe, which never happens.) With a damaged exhaust system under the car, the driver is at substantial risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. And with a driver so intoxicated, everybody else on or near the road is at risk as well.

> You can drive without a catalytic converter

This is incorrect for modern diesels that have a DPF system and inject DEF fluid. The cats are required hardware. You may be allowed 50-250 miles without them then the vehicle will not operate. It is well within possibility that someone stealing your cat between two places in Texas could be a big problem for you.

However this argument can be made for so many things. Even just the tall person in front of you argument, what if the movie (about lottery for example) was so moving to such a person it would have changed their life, bought a lottery ticket and gotten rich, is the person justified to kill the tall person for potentially stealing their livelihood? Joking aside, I can think of a million examples, each more comical and absurd than the last

Being tall isn’t illegal.

Physically ripping out a catalytic converter from a persons car is.

And don’t forget, it’s not like the police will do anything to help you…they’ve abdicated their role in many places for many crimes.

This is an argument that the system in which you are operating is flawed, society should ensure that you are not so vulnerable that a vehicle failing will make you end up jobless and homeless. This is not a good argument that criminals disabling your vehicle for profit is an acceptable justification for killing them.

I don’t agree that you should shoot someone for stealing your catalytic converter either, but just for the sake of argument…

So what if the argument that having your car disabled could spiral you into homelessness is more of a critique on our lack of a safety net? What can the average citizen do about that? At this point, not very much. The system is cruel, yes, but it’s the one they live in.

In my city, catalytic converters thrives are known to be highly organized, armed, and prone to violently confronting people who try to chase them off. A few people have even been shot for trying to do so. The police are too busy with shooting after shooting to do anything effective to try to stop them. When you have a group of people going out night after night, stealing with impunity and threatening anyone who gets in their way, it becomes very difficult to muster any compassion for them.

(little bit confused by your first sentence, I definitely do not support shooting people for stealing ones cat converter, just for clarification)

So if the police are useless and you are beholden to this powerful and highly organized pack of thieves, you think going out there and shooting them is going to make your life any better? What happens if you don't 'get' them all and now you're in a shootout with multiple armed opponents? What about the rest of their organization, reckon they will let you get away with it? Personally, I'd rather have my car temporarily damaged.

What can an average citizen do about their safety net in the US? Probably a whole shitload, anywhere from political participation, union involvement, volunteering, voting for politicians that support a better safety net.

I think you're confusing rights with something else here. I'm specifically talking about natural rights, and I don't know if you're trying to steer the dialog into "what is a right" or just have a wrong idea, but I am not interested in philosophy or deconstruction of well established concepts

And who is it that gets to draw the boundary around "natural rights"?

The point being that humans defining natural rights goes against the concept of "natural". The entire exercise is a catch-22.

Funny how in each case where this comes up, natural rights always means something different. Almost as if the term is consistently used retroactively to justify extreme measures rather than to inform people of their rights per se.

A natural right is a right that you are born with. Rights aren't defined prescriptively in the way that you imply. They're enumerated and acknowledged. Not granted.

Enumerated and acknowledged by whom? What happens when two people disagree about what is a natural right?

You have not proposed a solution to this issue.

Your reply also stinks of moral realism which is a huge can of worms unto itself.

We draw the line ourselves. This line will be the aggregate maximum punitive multiple that you'd append to a theft.

Property theft to many, even implicitly, is very much the equivalent of the theft of some quantity of their life. People work and struggle, expending some quantity of their life to acquire property. To forcibly deprive them of their property is the removal of some portion of their life.

The other way to view this is that in an ideal world, this is done by the state. The state alone possesses the means for other punishment. The individual cannot detain, nor can they fine or garnish wages. The sole means of action available to the individual is force. Thus, if the state is derelict in it's duty, the citizen has only the application of force at his disposal. When you're applying force, you'd better be willing to go to lethal, since being unwilling to do so drastically increases the risk to yourself if the counterparty doesn't play by the same rules.

> To forcibly deprive them of their property is the removal of some portion of their life.

This portion can be made whole again by replacing the property, either through insurance, through restorative judgements against the perpetrator, or various other means.

Taking a life is final.

Replacing property is still depriving others, just in aggregate, rather than on an individual level. Are e so divorced from the concept of how property is obtained that we think we can magic it out of an infinite pool?

> Replacing property is still depriving others, just in aggregate

Not if the original property is retrieved or the thief is made to pay.

I'm not sure in the context of this discussion, the worth of a human life, that your plea to consider where stuff comes from is that important.

I see property in the current context as a proportion of a life. People invest time and effort, the better part of their lives to create and acquire property. The theft of such is thus a theft of said life.

And so if I take a candy bar from a drugstore counter, I deserve a 9mm round between the eyes?

Sure, if you want to have 0 sense of proportionality.

Steal a candy bar, no biggie. Steal a car and I won't sweat that death.

Ideally though, the police would intervene. That they aren't is the root cause of this problem.

> The theft of such is thus a theft of said life.

In an entirely reversible manner.

What gives you the right to make a life-ending determination?

The perpetrator delegated it to me when he chose to break into my house.

If you want to argue that human life has inherent value that can't be voluntarily given up, such that it's never right for me to take someone's life in defense of my property, the arguments in favor of that seem to be religious in nature. They don't always begin that way, but ultimately you have to back up your opinion with something objective if you want to convince me that I'm in the wrong. Basically you'd need to cite a higher authority in order to change my mind, and then proceed to convince me that the authority (a) exists; and (b) backs up your position.

Unless there's an argument I've overlooked, which is always possible. Are there other points of view on this, that don't boil down to either appeals to emotion or appeals to a mysteriously-absent higher moral authority? (Yes, there's the philosophical argument that the state should have a monopoly on violence, but that has the same flaws as the original argument, and can't always be applied in the heat of the moment.)

You are assuming a right to property (along the same lines as your argument about people assuming inherent value).

Not necessarily. In a home-invasion situation, the only person who really knows what's going on is the burglar. I have to assume that he doesn't just want my stuff, he wants to harm me or my family. It's unreasonable to require me to trust the intruder's good faith. These things aren't exactly negotiated in advance.

As used there, the word 'invasion' assumes property rights exist.

How so? I don't follow. It's true that the original question posits a robbery or other home-invasion scenario with the goal of stealing property, but how am I supposed to know that the intruder is only interested in my stuff?

There's no threat created when someone simply moves into a shared space.

The word "burglar" assumes that property rights exist.

Note that I mostly think the inconsistency is silly and should be pointed at, I don't have a problem admitting that property rights exist in most societies.

edit: "intruder" has the same problem as burglar. Along with "home" and "robbery".

There's no threat created when someone simply moves into a shared space.

What I'm hearing is that you've never been the victim of any sort of assault.

Lucky guy.

No, I'm arguing that the right to protect property is the same sort of social construction that the value of human life is.

Without a layer of social construction, it's just the use of dominating force, an exercise of power. If you want to argue that is how the world works, that's fine, but you are demanding that other people justify their social constructions and then assuming that your social constructions are not social constructions.

but you are demanding that other people justify their social constructions and then assuming that your social constructions are not social constructions.

It's natural for me to defend my property with lethal force. (Consider how many animals will do the same thing, if another animal tries to take their food or mate away.) Consequently, assuming it's your position that I should not be allowed to do that, you have to pass a law and use force to stop me.

That means that yes, you're the one who gets to justify your unnatural (but still potentially optimal) point of view. Exactly why are we better off if we strive to remove the personal safety risk from criminal acts? It seems that we're starting to see the results play out in real time -- ask anyone who was shopping at the Nordstrom's in Walnut Creek the other day, for instance.

Does that mean I'd be inclined to shoot someone for stealing the catalytic converter from my car, parked at curbside on a public street? Honestly, I can't see myself doing that, because according to my personal values that would be a pretty sociopathic thing to do. But I'm also not inclined to interfere if someone else wants to do that. The recent trend towards de-policing and non-prosecution of property crimes will certainly lead to more instances of this kind of dilemma playing out on the street. If law enforcement won't act, you can't be too surprised when individual citizens do.

What's our address? I'd just like to enter our shared space and borrow our computer. Maybe our wallet too.

You must have missed the comment elsewhere in the thread where I explained that I do believe in property rights.

I'm making an abstract point about the form of the argument the other commenter constructed upthread, not advocating that property rights aren't real.

Rights are a matter of human convention. Property rights are as real as any other rights however.

> assumes property rights exist.

which, in the OP's world view, does exist, and it overrides the burglar's right to life.

Your argument against the OP's moralism is that the burglar's right to life should not be overridden by the OP's property rights. This is why moralistic arguments are flawed - different people (perhaps different cultures) have differing morals. The law, as codified by society (and hopefully, agreed to democratically) is what should be used to judge actions, not moralism.

Incorrect, I'm pointing out to OP that they are making a moralistic argument. They argue as if their position is objective.

edit: changed "claim" to "argue as if".

I agree. Throughout time there have been cultures without the concept of private property. I've been reading recently how hard-hittingly critical Native American commentary on European culture was back in that day, pointing out all the numerous problems that come with money and private property. Kondairock for example, as related by the French author Lahontan.

Lethal force to defend a life makes sense. Most cultures do not approve of using lethal force to defend property.

There's also the problem of the shooter misjudging the situation, shooting some teenager's playing chase, for example, or someone with alzheimers, etc. I actually know of a drunk that tried to break down the door into his apartment, but it turns out he was in the wrong building. Didn't deserve to die.

But I understand why people feel this way. Nobody wants to be robbed. In our consumerist culture possessions are the most important thing to many people.

I have a problem with those: when the Europeans came they brought with them disease. Other than Columbus's initial contact (which didn't last long as only hit islands), we are no longer dealing with the same situation. The population was greatly reduced and never recovered. This would of course make a lot of major changes to the culture, and for the most part they didn't leave a written record of what things were like before. Gift giving in a culture is something that we cannot learn from unwritten records. Even if there was a written record, in general people write down what they want to be seen as not what they were.

I'm not saying that they didn't give gifts. Lots of people like to give gifts. I'm saying that ownership probably was a bigger deal than we give them credit for - but we will never know.

> for the most part they didn't leave a written record of what things were like before

Europeans and Native Americans interacted. They observed each other. They talked to each other. For quite some time.

Kondiaronk [0] was a highly respected chief, statesman, and political philosophizer. Louis Armand de Lom d’Arce spent time in North America and wrote a book based on his dialogs with Kondiaronk [1]. This book was famous for a while. It contrasted the freedom and justice Indians had for themselves with the injustice of Christianity, subjugation to lords, and the problems associated with money and other facets of the European way of life. The book precipitated a lot of philosophical soul searching, an off-shoot of which was the idea of the "noble savage", which was used to eventually discount any ideas these primitives had as irrelevant to civilized modern people.

I'm not sure if I understand your comment. Are you saying that Kondiaronk would not have known how Indians lived?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kondiaronk

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Voyages_to_North_America

I'm saying he wouldn't have known how they lived 100 years before he was born, and there were major changes to culture then, caused by disease.

He was commenting based on the culture he lived in at the time and based on their known history, and how different it was than European culture. He made a point that it was much better in many ways.

I wouldn't think that the spread of smallpox invalidates what he said, just because things may have been different in the past, maybe for his tribe, maybe not so much. I'm sure that he would have known if a disease drastically changed his culture a hundred years prior.

Even before smallpox there was quite a variety of native cultures, Kondiaronk being Huron, who were quite different than the Inca and Aztec, for example. He probably would have criticized them, also.

I'm not saying there is nothing to learn from him. I'm saying be careful as we are limited to his viewpoint. (history is about trying to find a truth from limited information and biases sources)

Agreed. I'd say that we've tended to be more biased against and dismissive of his viewpoint, though. Primitive. Noble savage. Convert. Re-educate. Exterminate. etc.

> there have been cultures without the concept of private property

Someone taking your car is fine if you can go take a different communal car.

If everyone else still has private property, and now you can't get to work or the store, that's a very different and very bad situation.

> if it's generally accepted that if you're gonna steal something you are putting your life on the line - that means people would think twice before stealing something from other people.

what they'll think twice about is making sure you're not around when they steal your stuff, either by not being at home or not being alive. and i have bad news for you, the aggressor has the advantage.

You see someone under your car, shoot them dead, and it turns out to be a teenager who was crawling after their pet cat.

It doesn't matter what happens to you after this. The child is dead. And the killing of that child was encouraged by your hypothetical "legal to shoot thieves" law. Barring that law would have saved that child's life.

Coaxing a cat with a cordless angle grinder? Your hypothetical concern might seem plausible the way you've written it, sparse on descriptive details, but in real life there is a lot more information to consider that will almost certainly disambiguate the situation.

> your hypothetical "legal to shoot thieves" law.

Not hypothetical in Texas. So if you've got any real examples of teenagers looking for cats under cars getting shot, by all means trot them out.

A quick Google search for [child killed because mistaken for thief] brings up this 2017 case in Alabama: https://www.wjhl.com/news/family-22-year-old-mistaken-as-thi...

In this case the killer was indicted and pleaded guilty to manslaughter: https://www.cullmantribune.com/2019/10/24/cullman-county-fat...

Because it's obviously not legal to murder your own son even if you think they're a thief.

The court seems to be doing its job then. I could cite many examples of justified shootings due to the stand-your-ground statute in Texas, and there are a few examples that are unjustified.

In the unjustified cases, the shooter is found guilty. That's how the system functions: by shooting, you are certain enough that the individual is committing a crime that you are willing to go to jail if incorrect.

It's certainly better than the alternative found in other states, where people are tried and found guilty for defending themselves, their loved ones, and their property.

> In the unjustified cases, the shooter is found guilty. That's how the system functions: by shooting, you are certain enough that the individual is committing a crime that you are willing to go to jail if incorrect.

And meanwhile, the innocent dead person remains dead. Your system may be "functioning" but that's hardly a good outcome.

> if it's generally accepted that if you're gonna steal something you are putting your life on the line - that means people would think twice before stealing something from other people.

For how well that works, see:

- drug related crime in countries where it’s a death sentence

- militarized police forces and the overall outcome for society

- effects on crime levels in US states where such a crime is a capital offense vs states where it isn’t

All this does is raise the stakes and people committing the crimes resort to more violent means of committing the crime/avoid capture.

While it might feel good to know you’d be allowed to kill a thief, it won’t stop it from happening. It’ll just make it that much more dangerous to be around when that crime happens and more likely to get shot as a result.

Well, regarding drug crime, you can look at singapore.

They also have programs to tackle drug addiction. The effects can't be attributed solely on the death penalty when trafficking. If that worked, we'd have no murders in US states where it yields death penalty.

>The effects can't be attributed solely on the death penalty when trafficking

Sure, everything is multimodal. But likelihood of getting caught (consistency of enforcement) and penalty size can both mediate the incentive. I'm not sure why everyone likes to boil it down to "PENALTIES DON'T WORK ONLY SOCIAL PROGRAMS".

>First - why should I value life of someone who's actively robbing me? In my mind, the moment they attack my rights, including my property rights - I don't owe any moral consideration to them anymore, they broke the social contract with me, and I'm going to use anything at my disposal to stop them.

Well then you've just broken the social contract. Since Hammurabi created the first written rule of law(at least this was taught growing up, but I believe they've found earlier tablets since) society generally agrees that an eye for an eye is the rule. The most you can do to an offender while being morally justified is the equivalent. Except in the case there's a proximate threat to your life, of course, owing to the fact that dead people can't get justice.

If you kill someone for stealing, off to prison you go. To put it into terms similar to yours-- why should I value the life of someone who broke the social contract as well as the law? The death of a man shakes me more than the theft of a catalytic converter, and the second you kill a man in my country you are affecting me far more than some common thief. Now you're making my family feel unsafe

Super weird mental gymnastics you got going on there. Hope you find love, and you don't kill them because they cross you.

It’s a bit more complicated in practice though. Are you saying you’ll be OK shooting a mother stealing a loaf of bread for her kids? What about a child stealing a loaf of bread?

What about the neighbor who likes your wife and decides to shoot you and then plant his wallet in your pocket?

Vigilante justice is not the answer.

> It’s a bit more complicated in practice though.

What if the person had a gun pointed at the head of your child, finger on the trigger, ready to go.

What if they had already shot one of your children in the head?

Do you use the gun in your hand then? Or is it not the answer?

I replied to a comment about executing thieves.

Not sure if any my examples match any of yours.

Besides, vigilante justice is breaking the social contract. He's committing the same problem and therfore by his own logic subject to the same treatment

The problem with this approach are those cases where it is not clear cut.

The consequences of being wrong outweigh the benefits of being right.

And have you ever taken someone's life before? It is not to be taken lightly and will no doubt haunt the shooter for many years. And for what, because someone stole $1000, $100, $10 or $1? If you are comfortable putting a value on someone's life and ending it with a bullet without remorse, that would make you a sociopath or a psychopath.

Yeah, if it's not clear cut - don't shoot anyone. I'm talking about people who are in the process of the crime when you caught them as it happened, not about some kind of vigilante track-them-down. As for shooting someone - I haven't, and I hope I'll never have to, but I can't imagine feeling remorseful for stopping a crime against myself. Yeah 10$ is pushing it, but as I've said - it's more about the violation than the actual value here. I have no idea what someone is trying to steal from the car, but just breaking into it is enough.

To be clear: the idea of someone breaking into your car is enough to justify ending a human life?

Not the idea, but the act, if I'm going to be pedantic. If the law would've been on my side and I would've seen my car broken into with someone in there, I would not hesitate to use lethal force at that point.

Wow, okay, I guess we are just on fundamentally different pages. That is, quite frankly, sickening to me. I cannot imagine valuing human life – any human life – so lowly.

That is, quite frankly, sickening to me. I cannot imagine valuing human life – any human life – so lowly

Don't tell me, tell the perp. He's the one who determined what his life was worth.

What? You’re gonna point a gun at someone who is not threatening your personal safety in any way, and tell me they gave away their life?

What sort of moral framework do you subscribe to that makes that okay?

Yup.

Do you think a person who is stealing catalytic converters thinks like that? They already could get crushed by the car and don't seem to care. You are the only one in the situation who thought it through and still made the decision to end a life, you are a sociopath.

It’s not quite enough for me, but I would not judge others if they drew the line there certainly.

Also keep in mind that while it’s happening, you have no idea how far this individual intends to go. Were they just intending minor theft? Or maybe they broke into your car because they were trying to get to you? If they announce their intentions, do you even believe them?

Of course it’s easy to make the decision in the middle of the day with perfect information. Now picture waking up at 2am to sounds in your drive way and there’s 2 or 3 guys out there fucking with your car.

One way to have better information about the situation is to not shoot them.

Again, very easy to say as you talk about the issue in the abstract, behind a keyboard across the internet. Wake up in the middle of the night to strangers at your home - you just caught a bunch of people in the middle of committing a felony and maybe they are not the type to leave witnesses behind.

I don't know if you are putting on the airs of being a brave knight, or you truly are detached, but there's such a thing as visceral fear that people are coming to take your stuff or hurt you. Be glad that you've lived a privileged life where you've never known such a fear

The strangers are outside my home, and your suggestion is to leave my home to confront them? With lethal force?

That is crazy to me. Truly insane. If they tried to enter my home or harm my loved ones, that’s a different story. But if I saw people destroying my property, not attempting to get to me, I would call the police and lock the doors, not go fucking hunting.

No one in this thread that I've seen is using the language of hunting. No one is saying "boy I wish some fools would come try some shit so I can bag a couple of heads". Do those people exist in the world? Sure, of course there are. There's a few people of every view point given 7 billion of us.

Here people are saying, "Well I can't just let them have this valuable part of my car (that I might not be able to afford to replace). And I'm pretty sure the police aren't going to help me. And I don't think they will stop if I ask them. So I guess I have to shoot"

If you've already judged those people in your head as "hunters", then you're the one who's lost, not them. You have this completely distorted perception of your fellow human perhaps based on the media reporting on 0.0001% of crazy people in the world, and now you believe everyone who lives in texas thinks that way or something.

No, no one in this thread is using that vocabulary. I am, because I think that's what people are describing, and it makes me sick.

I'm not misinterpreting a thing you said. No, I'm looking at exactly the situation you are describing:

I'm in my house. It's 2am. I see a couple of people in my driveway fucking around under my car.

And you're saying that a valid moral decision is to leave my house with the intention to kill someone?

That is seeing a situation that you know you could leave alone, and choosing to introduce lethal force. That is fucking hunting for conflict to a degree that is absolutely frightening.

> I don't think they will stop if I ask them. So I guess I have to shoot

You are not saying "I would confront the thieves and bring a weapon in case I am attacked".

You are not even saying "I would use a weapon to threaten them into compliance".

You are saying you would shoot on sight. Instead of de-escalating, you would take the opportunity to ambush and kill. Can you see why some people might call that "hunting"?

I'm sorry you live in a world where the theft of a car part is a life-threatening event. I can see how vigilante justice would make a crazy sort of sense in that situation. However, in a stable society, those actions would be considered a serious crime.

'Wake up in the middle of the night to strangers at your home - you just caught a bunch of people in the middle of committing a felony and maybe they are not the type to leave witnesses behind.' Literally every country deals with this problem, the vast majority of us do without using firearms.

Do you think that 'visceral fear'? only exists in the USA? Normal people in England, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, etc have had their home invaded or the car broken into and have dealt with the situation without guns.

Well what do you want me to do? Apologize? Parts of the US are shitty and not as good the countries you listed. The police show up and beat the people who called them

https://youtu.be/jgjEbKc6jXk

You can judge us if you want. It really doesn't matter what some far away people who have no understanding of the way of life here think. It's good a thing we have a system where we are judged by a jury of our own peers here.

Police have beaten people who have called them in Australia, it does not justify me shooting criminals for taking my car parts.

You say 'not as good as the countries you listed.' Yet you dismiss the thoughts of someone from who is trying to explain why people like YOU think we are 'good' countries.

Your last sentence is the summation of the modern American attitude that is so problematic, it is parochial, arrogant and unable learn from the rest of the world unless it is for profit.

And re jury, who do you think the jury is in each of those countries I listed? In Australia my jury is made of my 'peers' too buddy. It just my peers in my system don't believe crime against property justifies summary execution.

For me? No.

For a single parent who needs that car to provide for their kids and risks losing their job if they don’t have it? Perhaps.

> Yeah, if it's not clear cut - don't shoot anyone. I'm talking about people who are in the process of the crime when you caught them as it happened

Can we trust you to accurately determine which situations are "clear cut" (and therefore justify summary execution)? Can we trust any random with a gun to make that determination? And can we trust them when they're the only surviving witness?

Is it a crime worthy of death when someone wanders onto your property due to some kind of mental illness? Is it a crime to accidentally open the wrong door? What about when you accidentally open the wrong door (see Amber Guyger)? Is it a crime to be in a store 1 minute after closing time? Or to walk on someone's property to deliver a package?

Is it a crime to upset someone at the bar and then turn up dead on their property, "in the process of committing a robbery"?

You are advocating for giving everyone the power of judge, jury, and executioner, regardless of whether they are qualified or honest. And you are encouraging those people to engage in gun battles where the "victim" is also at risk of death.

Spend more time thinking about your opinions.

> Is it a crime worthy of death when someone wanders onto your property due to some kind of mental illness? Is it a crime to accidentally open the wrong door? What about when you accidentally open the wrong door (see Amber Guyger)? Is it a crime to be in a store 1 minute after closing time? Or to walk on someone's property to deliver a package?

One does not have the luxury to perform moral analyses of this nature when somebody hostile is running toward them with ill intent. In the heat of the moment, you have to make split second decisions to survive.

OP was trying to justify killing thieves and trespassers on sight. Self-defense is a completely different issue.

Here's another viewpoint: why is 10$ so valuable and life-ending for you?

I would argue that the fact that one would be so scared of losing money would be that they fear losing their shelter, food, water etc., no?

Would it therefore not be more condemnable that a society is pitting people against each other in such a way that money is survival? Isn't this Squidgame's whole point?

Thank you for the response, so many interesting points. I’ll try to address most of those from my viewpoint, and why I think the current solutions US are attempting are not effective, but comments like this help me understand other peoples’ point of view so they are really valuable.

So here we go.

The way I think about it its perfectly fine to use a bit of force to protect yourself, a little bit of thrashing of the thief will make him reconsider their actions. What I find weird is the execution bit. We condemn public beheadings and hangings in places like Singapore, but think its totally ok if our neighbors does it? Is our neighbor wiser than a whole state + the legal system?

If you shoot him dead, first of all there is little lesson learned, as there is noone to lean from. Yeah somebody else might hear about it, but how much will it affect them? The stats from the US are quite clear that deterrence does not actually happen, and other more lenient policies can be more effective. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel just copy some of the more successful societies.

I’d imagine a thief who gets a beating, some punishment and a path of redemption will be a hugely more influential to future thiefs as it will act both as a deterrent and a guide. Being dead doesn’t seem to be teaching anyone, or at least thats what the stats show us.

You are totally right about the emotions of being mugged, or live in a house that’s been broken into. Both have happened to me (though maybe on a much lower scale than what I see is the norm in the us). But to be honest I don’t _really_ want to punish the person for that. What I want is for that to never happen to me again. Punishment is just a tool for that to happen, and I believe a very blunt and ineffective at that. I want to leave in a society where stuff like that just doesn’t happen. And we have plenty of examples of more effective solutions. I’m not aware of any state that’s “solved” it, but I think more than half of the world are “better” based on objective stats and talking to people who live in those societies (highly subjective based on my experiences).

Funny thing - where I live you are not aloud to take someone’s life even in self defense, if your home is being robbed. E.g. if you wake up to someone in your house going through your things and shoot him with your shotgun you will be charged with murder. With mitigating circumstances, but still murder. Its only when your own life is threatened are you allowed to defend yourself.

Lots of people dislike this, but its actually surprisingly safe to live here, so I guess its effective.

For example, nobody has pulled _any_ weapon on me in my entire life (35 years) and I’ve never seen a drawn gun outside of a range.

And I’m pretty happy that the chances of someone ending my life on purpose (or even accidentally) are astronomically low, I kinda like living.

You want to shoot someone for stealing a Catalytic converter?

I pull mine off and throw them in the bin lol

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