hook
One night, a 17-year-old boy named Daniel Adams was walking home and was mugged violently. He managed to defend himself from the violent muggers, but in doing so, killed one of them. Luckily, Daniel was let off, as it was ruled self-defense. Do you think what Daniel did was justified? Could he have acted differently? Or was he just doing what he needed to do?
The point of the anecdote I just shared with you was to show that although murder is a bad thing, there are times that it does happen, and it is committed by good people, with non-murderous intent, sometimes it happens, and sometimes it is one of the only options they have. Today I will be exploring the two sides of the story on whether or not killing is ever justifiable. I will cover the reasons for committing such an act, and discuss why murder is not ever justifiable because there should always be another way to avoid a dire situation. On the other hand, if someone is willing to put you in that position, why shouldn’t you do what it takes to protect yourself?
To many people, killing is unjust in any situation. There should always be a better way out than to take another person’s life- killing only creates more problems. The pacifist approach to life is one that throughout history has proved to be very powerful- from Gandhi to Martin Luther King, very famous and revolutionary people proved that non-violent approaches to major issues are possible and very effective approaches to a violent problem. While it is different from a mugging, for example, is different from these movements, they fall in a similar area- when met with a violent attack, the best thing to do is not retaliate with the same violence, but be creative and think about another way to resolve the issue.
Even though avoiding violence and death is the optimal outcome of a bad situation, sometimes being in that high-intensity situation prevents you from thinking properly. A mugging, for example, would be terrifying, would send a rush of adrenaline throughout your entire body- any decision you make in the split seconds around this time is not going to be perfect. Your body will run on a fight or flight response, and if you chose to defend yourself from a person willing to do something as terrible as that, then that’s what happens. There could be many reasons for taking someone’s life, whether it’s to protect yourself, or for retributive purposes. The reality is if someone is willing to put you in a position where you have to do something to protect your wellbeing, they are most likely not a good person and someone who is a danger to others for their own personal gain shouldn’t be treated the same as an innocent person. The justice system agrees- self-defense is a legitimate defense in court, and although harsh, a bad criminal being killed is better for society than them being in prison. It costs $94,000 a year to keep someone in prison in New Zealand, and for those people who have done terrible things, they will likely get out, and just continue with whatever they got put away for in the first place, with 60% of inmates in NZ being rearrested within 2 years of being released. I’m not saying that all the prisoners should be killed, but if some of them are killed by someone they were trying to hurt, how is that not a justifiable reason?
In my opinion, there are times that killing does happen. It’s part of being a human. It has happened since the start of time and it’s not about to stop now. I believe that if an innocent person is being attacked, then they have every right to do what it takes to make sure that they are as better off as they can be and if that means taking the attacker’s life, then so be it. I know that answering violence with violence is not the answer, but if a good person’s life is at risk, then there is no point risking it even more just to avoid ending the one who was willing put them at risk in the first place.