A Second Amendment hero

[fpb]

Christopher Dorner was clearly a firm believer in the Second Amendment. Meeting what he regarded as intolerable wrong in the state sector, he got out his gun and started shooting. If this is not what johncwright means when he says that an armed citizenship is a bulwark of freedom, I would like him to explain, because I see no other scenario.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

So you have no problem with the principle of one man declaring himself law, judge, jury and executioner?

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I have a big problem with it assuming that this man is living under a reasonably just law. This is why I wouldn't do it myself.

Of course, Derman obviously thought that he was fighting tyranny. If he was right, his behavior might have been rational and even moral -- if he hadn't deliberately killed two innocents, that is, as I stated before. And I don't think he was right.

Do you have a problem with the partisan execution of Mussolini during the war? That partisan band after all was not empowered by either Italian regime of the day -- they took the law into their own hands, and acted as "judge, jury and executioner."

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Mussolini had been convicted of high treason by the legitimate authority of the Italian State, which still existed. On April 25,he had actually met with the leaders of the Internal Army (the Partisans) as they were about to take over the city of Milan, and had refused to surrender because his terms had been rejected. After that, he was on his own, and he knew it; no law of war protects an enemy who refuses to surrender, especially one with a capital charge on his head already. The brutality and slaughter with which his execution was attended was the particular touch of the Communists, who, wherever they went in Europe, tried as much as they could to brutalize and make bloody any kind of justice or vengeance. It seems fairly clear that that was part of their plan, and in Italy it is possible - I will send you the argument in private - that they might have had another goal in murdering him. But while the slaughter of his companions was nothing more than Communist butchery, there is nothing wrong in the execution of Mussolini - as such - according to the laws of war.

And you still seem to think that an individual has the right to set himself up as judge, jury and executioner. I'm afraid that is wrong in terms of ius gentium. Among the principles of war acknowledged by all law codes (including Sharia) there is the requirement that war can only be declared by a legitimate authority. The man who declares war on any group in his own name is a bandit, or, in beautiful and expressive Latin, a hostis humani generis.