This is been bothering me for few months or over an year.
When you have right to act in self defense with equal measure as person threatening you.
For example:
One of my close family member is in armed forces back home. One day he dropped off his child at school and still had a smaller child in
the car. In front of the house, two guys with handguns held him up and took his cell phone.
Suppose child was not in the car and he was not distracted should he shot those both robbers ???
Deeper question here is, when A draws a gun on B, and in that state if some one killed A, would there be any thing morally wrong?
I don’t think so.
Now when I read Ramon Davis killed to such boys who chased him with guns, I DO NOT think he did any thing wrong.
We in pak can not have gun drawn on our faces and think “oh… he is trying to scare me for my cell phone”
I think what Jesus said fits rather well “he who lives by the sword dies by the sword.”
@Monk Some of your post does make sense, especially the scenario
But consider another scenario which is notoriously popular these days. A crowd in a public market gets a hold of someone try to pick pocket. Now instead of handing him over to cops, they start beating them and stopped only when he was dead. i.e. lynching. Now they didnt use any weapon, but does beating a suspect to death makes sense? Absolutely no.
Just very recently MQM’s Khwaja Izhar was attacked during Eid prayer and the mob caught a person and suspected him of being the attacker, and killed him after beating ferociously as well. Now when the investigation is being done, the video is showing that the killed person was most likely NOT the attacker but someone who just got caught in the middle.
Who is responsible for his death esp if he is innocent?
So trying to take law in hand and do the street justice is never the answer.
With Raymond Davis, there is another worst thing. He was a foreigner and was here on a “spy” mission as a contractor. So his intention was not only to take care of things my his own hands but also moving swiftly away from here. That makes him at at double fault despite the fact that he was being mugged.
By himself he is pretty much a mentally unstable person and no different than a white supremacist
It still doesnt justify killing a human by your hands, is it? I mean, we still arent the authority, whether others obey the system or no, we have to stick with it inorder to lead a good example and be a better person than the rest.
Person A has killed 50 people and has the law in his hand. He takes out a gun on me and I have a way out of it without killing him but I can also kill him and put it on self defense. If I choose to kill him thinking I’m protecting the next 50 who will most likely be killed by him, am I wrong? Am I answerable islamically? I’ll get out of it in the world by justifying it as self defense.
Self-defense is perfectly fine but you gotto be honest. Is it really a self-defense or your eagerness to kill that guy in hatred or whatever you want.
Lets put it this way. You know how justice system is weak in Pakistan, India and a lot of third world countries. Now does it mean that whoever gets upper hand, more guns or more power kills the other person (who may be a criminal)? The whole society will be in complete chaos and everyone will be avenging everyone putting some charges on them and thinking its their “social justice”.
Seemed like it was murder, he would not have been arrested if it was deemed self defence. I believe he was not found innocent the victims families were paid off to secure his release. I am not in favor of the burden on victims families as powerful people intimidate victims family for pardon.
By no means I am asking that crowd doing justice to petty thieves.
I am saying if a person(A) threat you(B) with life with a gun.
What he(A) is saying is “I have a gun i intend to make your (B’s) soul leave your body”
Now a person A automatically volunteers himself for a killing.
That is what law says (acting in self defense). That’s how law enforcement all over the world deal with this situation.
Suppose A holding gun on B’s face. Now C a police man see it. All over the world C will take a clean shot at A ..killing him.
Again what I am saying is A point a gun on B threatening to take his life volunteer him self(A) to be killed.
Thats exactly what Ramon Devis did.
If I was IK my message to pakistani youth would be “what did you think ?? you chase people with weapons now you whining ??”
If I was PM of pak, I would put an ad in newspaper. “dear armed thieves … you point a gun at some one.. you might be killed. be ready… its not a toy.. and its not game”
in case of Devis ? no because of all the circus around it.
Other wise perhaps its very easy. A person with a pistol with couple stolen phone on a bike. With half a witness would be sufficient. I suppose.
But my original question was about expressing that we should not have a moral barrier when looking at such situations.
(person holding a gun threatening to kill)
They were shot in the back, their motorcycles were in front of Raymond’s car and I believe US govt did not plead self defence only diplomatic immunity on a non diplomat psychopath who probably killed just to get off and in a power craze. A 2.4 million payout was admitting murder, we should be open minded without presenting opinions as facts. Self defence is unsubstantiated and unproven, the victims were not killed pointing the guns at him. Yes one can kill in self defence but there was hardly any evidence of self defence.
Have you heard about road rage? secondly it has been contested that he knew them and there were records of phone conversations bw them, could be some espionage crap gone wrong. RD was involved in a whole bunch of suspect activities. He ordered extraction after killing, why would he not ask for back up when he was being chased. US govt would have been jumping up and down if the self defence claim had an iota of credibility.
