Oh, I'll go ahead and say it if YOU won't
If you've missed it on the news, there was a shooting here in Utah Monday evening. An 18-year-old with a shotgun killed five before being cornered by Ken Hammond, an off-duty police officer who kept him pinned down with fire until uniformed officers arrived. It's not clear who fired the shot that killed Sulejmen Talovic, but the perp is dead, and
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When it comes down to a situation like that, an officer doesn't have a "right" choice. Killing a human being is never right in my book.
What they have is a choice between taking someone down using whatever means necessary or allowing them to cause yet more harm. It is a choice between necessary violence, perhaps even inflicting death, and victimization of the innocent. That the officer has to make that choice in the first place is only another tragedy. I wouldn't want to have to make that choice. I regret that he did.
That the media, who wasn't there, didn't have to face the choice between the death of a criminal or that of an innocent, doesn't have to live with the fact that, however necessary it was, they had to take a human life, finds it somehow appropriate to further compound the strain of the situation, is just another cruel injustice. I don't know many law enforcement personnel at all, really, but I appreciate the dangerous, difficult job they have voluntarily chosen to do. Maybe someday they won't have to make choices like that anymore.
That day isn't coming tomorrow and it won't be the day after, either, much as we may hope. Until it arrives, I'm thankful that we have people willing and able to step up and deal with the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. And I offer my prayers, for whatever good they may do, to those hurt in this mess.
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The choice that ends the day with the most people alive and free of bullet wounds is the right decision...
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The choice that ends the day with the most people alive and free of bullet wounds is the right decision...
change that to "the best we can do", and it is more accurate.
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Let me explain something as clearly as I can: I do not regard the killing of another human being as ever being right, ethically or morally. Necessary, certainly, as I tried to make clear, even acceptable as the best of the likely outcomes, but not right. It is never right to take a human life, even in circumstances that make it necessary, acceptable, and the best available option, at least as far as I'm concerned.
Please do not misunderstand, I am not criticizing the officer's decision. He made a necessary choice between the lesser of two evils and, in my opinion, he made the best one by removing the gunman. I simply regret that the outcome ended in the necessity of killing him. I have no objections to the use of lethal force in situations where it becomes necessary, I simply do not believe that taking human lives is ever fundamentally "right" even if it is necessary and the best choice in the situation.
*sighs, shakes head again*
It's very hard to properly articulate my beliefs along those lines. Let me put it this way, I regard killing as a sin but one that can be forgiven provided that the circumstances call for it. Does that make more sense?
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Like I said, I find taking someone's life to be an extreme step, one that is never "right" in an ethical sense but one that all too often is necessary under the circumstances. It's a sin in the sense of being an offense against the basic principles I believe in. But, I don't have a large problem with the death penalty or the use of lethal force in those situations where it becomes necessary. If one must take or end a life because there is no better choice or because the other has committed so offensive and heinous a violation of the law, then it is forgivable because it was best or only option available at the time. In an imperfect world, the best of intentions can lead to the worst of outcomes, something that I believe God understands. "Necessity" and "best option" as ethical concepts do not always equate to "right" to me.
It's not necessarily rational. (Actually, it probably isn't, to be honest.) It is what I believe and it works for me. *shrugs* That's really all that matters in terms of religion, as far as I'm concerned.
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In my disgust at reading this statement, I started to reply with an ad hominem attack on your intelligence. Instead, in the name of good taste and respect for my host (this is Howard's journal, and we're guests), I'll just say that you really need to think about your place in society and re-evaluate this statement and whether you really believe it.
I'm not going to give scenarios to try to "prove" you wrong. But if you don't believe that sometimes the only way to deal with a person's extreme misbehavior is to use deadly force to instantly incapacitate them, then I feel you aren't entitled to the benefits of the protection provided by that force, should you ever need it.
In other words, if you wouldn't kill to defend yourself, why should anyone else do it for you?
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