A single salient question; is there a human right to self defense?

Defend you answer.

 

Yes. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...2A/LawRev/The-Human-Right-of-Self-Defense.pdf

 

A more appropriate question would be is there a human right to effective self defense. There is a substantial difference between the two standards.

 

Answer is yes, it's one of the basic human rights - self-preservation. However as a legal concept it has limits. While you can lawfully kill someone who is trying to kill you, you can't kill an innocent third party to save yourself.

 

Of course there is a right to self defense. Otherwise, door locks would be illegal.

Does somebody have a right to take the property of another. Of course not, people have the right to defend themselves and their property.

If somebody ups the odds and threatens somebody's life, they have the right to defend with lethal force. This even applies during an armed robbery. Some may say that "your" stuff is not worth a thief's life, but that thief is threatening someone's life and the victim should not have to trust in the promises of a thief that their life will be spared.

That's like saying that women should let a guy rape her rather than shooting him in the crotch because taking a human life is worse than being raped. She shouldn't have to rely on the peeing and soiling herself defense.

 

Generally, yes, of course. The one exception I can think of is when one is in the act of committing a crime, and they have created the condition where someone would legitimately use force against them. In that case, for them to use force is illegitimate.

You can extend that to larger groups as well. For example, ISIS has no legitimate right to self defense.

My two cents ...

 

Yes. Can't believe the question even has to be asked.
Who gives me the right? No one but me, what any other human believes about it is totally irrelevant to me.
Every animal on the planet practices some sort of self defense, it's instinct, it's nature.

 

"Early modern English politi(*)cal theorists and jurists often described the right to defend oneself as the first law of nature. Philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke described a world without government or law as a state of nature, a primitive and dangerous world in which each person could use deadly force when(*)ever they judged it necessary. In such a world each person was judge, jury, and executioner. Society and government were designed to provide the security and certainty unavailable in the state of nature. In exchange for the benefits of living in a world governed by the rule of law, individuals, with a few well-defined exceptions, gave up the right to use deadly force....

"Firearm regulations have existed since the colonial era. Laws regulated the storage of firearms and gunpowder, restricted the discharge of weapons at certain times and in certain places, and limited possession to citizens judged virtuous and loyal. The state retained the right to inspect homes to make sure gunpowder was properly stored and, when necessary, conducted gun cen(*)suses to determine the levels of private gun ownership....

"It seems unlikely that any signifi(*)cant piece of gun regulation able to survive the political process would ever be struck down on Second Amendment grounds. Handgun bans clearly are out of bounds according to Heller, but hard(*)ly any other gun laws have been struck down in the wake of the decision. Over seven hundred cases have been tried, and few regulations have failed to pass constitutional muster."
http://www.americanbar.org/publicat...aw--and-the-english-right-of-self-defens.html

In a state of anarchy you have a right to self defense. However, in state of civilization people (for the most part) decide to put down their weapons and fists and let the government resolve disputes between individuals according to law. An unregulated right to self defense is certainly incompatible with civilized society.

 

Yes. But not with any weapon you want

 

We left England over our individual rights and the Bill of Rights material is a big part of that revolt. You can call us uncivilized all you want, but we have the right to protect ourselves with deadly force if necessary. In a few years, I will be an old man living in the country. Who is going to protect me when the neighbors can't see or hear me? The law will only be 20-30 minutes away. Your "civilized society" will not protect me from armed thugs. In your world civilized means "sheeple". Keep bleating. Maybe you'll make sense someday.

Texas law is very reasonable with self defense and lethal force. It's what I call civilized and reasonable.

 

Just stop-your reason for constantly complaining about people owning firearms is because you don't like the politics of the NRA an the candidates gun owners tend to support.

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why should honest citizens not have the same most effective firearms as civilian cops?

 

It's sad you have to live in fear.

 

I ask as part of the op to defend your answer.... you didn't .

 

Yes. I defend my answer, with this:

/ )

 

I'm not the one begging for protection by my government. I have nothing to fear.

 

No, not within society. The right of self-defense, your only real natural right, is the main right you surrender to live in society.

Least that's always been my understanding of John Locke and his Social Contract

 

I suggest you read the "2nd Treatise on Government" by John Locke. Locke had a profound impact on the Founding Fathers.

Focus on Chapter 2.

"But though this is a state of •liberty, it isn’t a state of •licence ·in which there are no constraints on how people behave·. A man in that state is absolutely free to dispose of himself or his possessions, but he isn’t at liberty to destroy himself, or even to destroy any created thing in his possession unless something nobler than its mere preservation is at stake. The state of nature is governed by a law that creates obligations for everyone. And reason, which is that law, teaches anyone who takes the trouble to consult it, that because we are all equal and independent, no-one ought to harm anyone else in his life, health, liberty, or possessions. This is because
•we are all the work of one omnipotent and infinitely wise maker;
•we are all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order to do his business;
•we are all the property of him who made us, and he made us to last as long as he chooses, not as long as we choose;
•we have the same abilities, and share in one common nature, so there can’t be any rank-ordering that would authorize some of us to destroy others, as if we were made to be used by one another, as the lower kinds of creatures are made to be used by us."

 

No, the right for each individual to exact punishment for a crime against the individual is what is surrendered to live in society.

Locke:
"Consider what civil society is for. It is set up to avoid and remedy the drawbacks of the state of nature that inevitably follow from every man’s being judge in his own case, by setting up a known authority to which every member of that society can appeal when he has been harmed or is involved in a dispute—an authority that everyone in the society ought to obey"

He also says: "That’s how it comes about that the commonwealth has •the power of making laws: that is, the power to set down what punishments are appropriate for what crimes that members of the society commit; and"

 

Being prepared is not living in fear. It is living with the confidence you can defend yourself.

What you are implying is that we should live by the Law of the Jungle. The strong survive and the weak get eaten. If you can't physically defend yourself with your body then you deserve to get eaten. If a 90lb woman can't fight off a 200lb man then she deserves to get raped - *that* is what you seem to be saying.

 

They should have the exact same arms as the military if you read Federalist Paper 29!

 

Nope. Colonial laws regulated the storage of gunpowder and weapons of mass destruction such as cannons. Not individual firearms. Federalist Paper 29 says: "Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped". This is *NOT* a restriction on who can be armed. It says "the people", not some people!

As John Locke wrote, civil society is instituted to determine the punishment for crimes instead of each individual that was wronged.
""Consider what civil society is for. It is set up to avoid and remedy the drawbacks of the state of nature that inevitably follow from every man’s being judge in his own case, by setting up a known authority to which every member of that society can appeal when he has been harmed or is involved in a dispute—an authority that everyone in the society ought to obey"

This in no way says that individuals give up the right to self-defense.

 

I am a registered Republican. I don't think you know much about what candidates I support.

 

It's sad you live in denial.

 

"The Founding Fathers instituted gun laws so intrusive that, were they running for office today, the NRA would not endorse them. While they did not care to completely disarm the citizenry, the founding generation denied gun ownership to many people: not only slaves and free blacks, but law-abiding white men who refused to swear loyalty to the Revolution."
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secret-history-of-guns/308608/

Guns were not purely personal property at that time.

And what did John Locke really say about the right of self defense?

"Sec.129. The first power, viz. of doing whatsoever he thought for the preservation of himself, and the rest of mankind, he gives up to be regulated by laws made by the society, so far forth as the preservation of himself, and the rest of that society shall require; which laws of the society in many things confine the liberty he had by the law of nature."
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/politics/locke/ch09.htm

 

If it is wrong to attack a person, then that person has a right to self defense. Anyone trying to hold that there is no right to self defense must also maintain that there is nothing wrong with attacking people.