Yet he had no time to call the police?
YOU assert that Smith was required to call police in the middle of combat with home invaders, the Constitution does not. If you are so concerned with informing the police, why did you not require it of the burglars, as well? Also I will note here that you did not answer my question to you regarding the results of this incident if the burglars had decided NOT to burgle Smith's home.
I would not want that old man as my neighbor,...
Is that because you fear him waiting in HIS basement for you to break into HIS home and come down HIS stairs, or because you fear he will repeatedly break into your home and steal your stuff to finance his drug habit? I notice you don't seem to be so concerned with druggie burglar neighbors.
...his actions and words will convict him.
Quite likely, in a socialist/statist tyranny, unless a couple of informed jurors are accidentally impaneled.
By the way, the Nazis had a functioning society;I prefer a more enlightened one.
You seem to agree with the Nazi legal system, when applying it to Smith.
Ever read or see Les Miserables ? I suppose you think the man's life should have been forfeit for stealing a loaf of bread ?
Ah, yes, fiction again, where the criminal can be gloriously good and evoke the sympathy of all over that evil rich guy who had the temerity to rise at two AM and bake bread.
I realize you prefer an enlightened society where Jean Valjean shows up the second day to take the bread he is entitled to, and the third day when he is followed by Juan Valjaun, and Wilford Valwilford, and Horst Valhorst, and Yuri Valyuri, and Jamal Valjamal, ect, all entitled to the baker's bread for free, and entitled to invade his shop and use the force they are entitled to use against the baker.
When you cite fiction, I am entitled (ooh, I like that!) to extrapolate fiction. Of course we both know that this is fiction, and no society has descended into mass starvation and death from the imposition of socialist entitlements, and the enlightened concept that private property is evil and no one should be allowed to have any, or keep for themselves anything they produce if there is a person in need.
...one Biblical commandment :Thou Shalt Not Murder...
I stipulate that the Lord God has laid down specific meaning to all his Commandments. I believe that your use of the English translation is correct, and therefore, I agree.
To expand, "murder" is not synonymous with "kill", murder is forbidden, killing is not.
When citing scripture you can often find passages with conditions that permit or even seem to command some acts. ( Exodus 22:2-3: If a thief be found breaking up, and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him. If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him; for he should make full restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.)
You have accused Smith of murder, and scripture seems to permit him to kill.
Moreover, scripture seems to command that those acting in fear of God will not allow retribution by persons or even the State.
If you disagree with scripture, why?
Is it the manner of killing? The fact that the burglar was female? A hundred pounds? That Smith is unattractive and the burglar is cute? That Smith is 63 or 64? That 18 year olds should get a pass?
How about we let the burglars go if they promise to get off drugs and promise not to come back and murder Smith in his sleep? Finally, I do not know if Smith murdered the burglars (I do agree that he has acknowledged killing them), nor am I the one to make that judgment.
As for calling the police ,if Smith had safe access to a phone ,I will say he could have called police and barricaded himself;but Smith definitely should have called police immediately after the break-in ,not the next day.And it is unclear if he actually asked for the police to be called or the neighbor called police on his own.Not reporting the death of a human is a crime in itself.And a strong indicator that Smith knew he had gone too far.
Do we not have laws that ,at least in theory, punish the robber more severely if the victim dies than if the victim was injured but survived ? Arguments about the reasonableness of these laws is another point.
Your view seems to be that if someone breaks into your home or steals your car or tries to rob you that you have the right,maybe even the duty, to kill that person.Fortunately or unfortunately,depending on one’s position, American law does not generally agree with summary execution of the criminal by the intended victim,only stopping the criminal.
Some states have harsher penalties for breaking into an occupied home, in the perhaps vain hope that burglars will at least only take goods not lives.
Out of curiosity ,do you favor execution for kids stealing candy bars from the convenience store?
At what point does theft become a death penalty offense? $1000 ? $100 ? $1 ?
Just as I reject the notion that police are innocent of any wrongs if they happen to shoot or run over an innocent third party in the course of attempting to apprehend a criminal suspect,and also reject the corollary that the suspect is responsible for every wrong that occurs in the entire sequence of events;I also reject the notion that just because a person was the original victim that he can then do no wrong in his or others’ defense.
Humans are supposed to use good judgment in all things.And when they do not there will be consequences.
On the fiction front.it would have been better had Jean ValJean had found some work to do for someone or begged stale bread,but those cases which surelly did happen would not make the point of the Les Miserables tale which is an obseessed pursuit of an individual for a single act of petty crime.
THe Middle Ages had a long list of crimes punishable by death and the rich and powerful apparently lived quite lavishly while condemning their fellow humans to severe poverty;not exactly according to Biblical principles as I understand them.The rich have obligations,not to give away all they worked for,but to at least give something.Remember the owner of fields was not to go over the ground a second time but leave the grain missed in the harvest for gleaning by widows and poor.
Now let it be stated the burglars of Smith’s home were not desperately poor ,starving Frenchmen and I made a mistake bringing up Les Miserables in the first place.