[Roberta X]

NBK, the UnClint, whoever you are today...

Originally Posted by NBK2000

Life is a thousand shades of gray, not BLACK/WHITE.

No, it actually isn't -- it just looks that way if you stand far enough away. Up close, the physical world is a whole series of questions, all of which have definite answers, most of which can be put in yes/no form. "Shades of grey" talk is, in my opinion, an attempt to evade responsibility. Olympian detachment might be fine for Greek gods but we are mortal men and women; we live down where questions require answers.

Originally Posted by NDK2000beta

It's one thing to shoot a stranger when you aren't be sure of the reasons for their being there, automaticly ascribing hostile intent despite lack of supporting evidence (mask, weapon, etc.). That's not showing self-restraint.

It's an entirely different situation when you know that your first-born son, the sole heir of a family name going back six generations, is murdered by an idiot for no reason other than the idiots fear.

And yet -- every bad guy ever shot, and the hundred times as many scared off at gunpoint, is some mother's son (or daughter), the bearer of some father and mother's genes, going back countless generations. One is the flip side of the other. Always. When you shoot a man, you're shooting a man. Good, bad -- end result is just so much meat, all potential for further interaction gone. Every death is heartbreakingly tragic to someone. Should they all be avenged, or merely the "idiotic" ones? Why?

(It should be pointed out that in most cases where someone is shot by a lawful gun owner, "idiotic fear" isn't a part of it. Things like forcible entry or approaching while demanding money (or worse) and threatening force are quite clear to the intended victim and to prosecutors and Grand Juries).

I'm not here to cherish strangers. They make their choices. When their choices present a danger to me, I react. And I understand and accept the consequences.

My responsibility -- the responsibility of any true adult -- lies in accurately evaluating the danger. No one can judge that for you; indeed, one measure of adulthood is your ability to make those judgements for yourself with sufficient accuracy and your willingness to accept the results of your decisions.

Originally Posted by NDK2000

Then it's not a matter of that person having murdered only that one person, but by killing him, all future possibility of the continuation of my family name, my genetic lineage, and the history of my ancestors.

H'mmm. I've Scots ancestors, too; but you have two choices here: either what you've said holds true for every killing, from a serial murder sizzling in the electric chair to the most innocent of his victims, from a man shot breaking into a home to a grandmother dieing from a druggist's error -- or it is pure sentimentality.
Potentialities are only potential. Our society counts persons as equal -- or killing a man who'd had a vasectomy or a post-menopausal woman would count far less than killing a sixteen-year-old

Originally Posted by NDK2000

In essence, the murder of at least 6 people, and more than a century of oral history.

I don't think so. Not at all. When you kill a man, all you kill is the man. His ideas, his history, all live on, as long as there is but one recorded account or one other person to remember it.