[steve-b]

you could have shot him if you had the moral license from a government to do so.

Moral license comes from government??

You really do not want to go there....

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Moral license to take the life of another human being not posing an immediate threat to oneself and property or to others can only come from the government, since they are the only ones who hold power over life and death.

"No person shall be deprived of life ... [by the government] without due process of law."

So long as Osama was not immediately threatening another person, a random stranger could not legitimately just go up and kill him, even knowing his intent. A government could, as an act of war or self-defense.

The right to life comes from God but is mediated through the just laws and actions of human society, which is why the death penalty, war, and defensive killings, can be morally done.