My flatmate asked me an interesting question in the pub the other day, so I thought I'd pass it onto you lot...

If murder wasn't a crime, then would you kill? And if so, under what circumstances? And how would you behave if murder was still a crime, but with a lesser penalty - such as a fine or smaller jail sentence?

Is it just the law that acts as a deterrant to us (or not, in some cases!), or would most of us respect each other's basic human rights without it?

After giving it some thought I decided that the only thing that could provoke me to kill somebody was if they harmed my friends or family. I think it's morally wrong to take the life of another human being, regardless of what the law says, unless your own life or the lives of your loved ones are under threat.

Thoughts???

Good question, I think I would only add one other controversial scenario to your, mercifully, brief list and that would be consensual in the case of a terminal illness.

Everyone is capable of killing - all it takes is the right set of circumstances.

If it meant protecting my family i could, althought i would find it hard to stab someone with a knife, would have to be a gun....much cleaner.

Originally posted by commuter
Good question, I think I would only add one other controversial scenario to your, mercifully, brief list and that would be consensual in the case of a terminal illness.

Oh god, that really is opening a can of worms. I suppose it depends on what each individual is passionate about and what makes them see red.

Personally I get incredibly angry when people are cruel to animals, just for the fun of it. I think there's nothing more cowardly than picking on something so totally defenceless. I'm not saying I'd kill someone for pulling the wings off a daddylonglegs, but if common assault wasn't a crime I might be tempted to give them a bit of a bruising!

If the law permitted it, I'd be going around killing people all the time... especially the old people who stop in front of me when I'm trying to get through Meadowhall... or women with oversized prams trying to get through tiny shops and in doing so blocking everyones path!

or just how about ignorant people who dont know how to say thankyou:rant:

Originally posted by Snook
If the law permitted it, I'd be going around killing people all the time... especially the old people who stop in front of me when I'm trying to get through Meadowhall... or women with oversized prams trying to get through tiny shops and in doing so blocking everyones path!

I can't think of any better reasons than those Snook :hihi:

Huntley would have to have it

Regardless of the law or what punisment murder holds, without question it is (how do I put it) I would never harm anyone, I simply have too much respect for people. It is just part of human nature, not to kill others. Its weird to question something that is so innate.

Besides the law does permit it, um war springs to mind.

Lets be serious... I'm not talking about day-to-day anger here, I'm talking about ending someone's life.

Yes, the old people in Meadowhall are annoying, but I don't think that seriously merits pulling a gun on them or stabbing them in the chest.

Originally posted by Zenmaster
Regardless of the law or what punisment murder holds, without question it is (how do I put it) I would never harm anyone, I simply have too much respect for people. It is just part of human nature, not to kill others. Its weird to question something that is so innate.

Besides the law does permit it, um war springs to mind.

Lighten up Zenmaster....forums dull enough today as it is ;)

'Would you kill if the law permitted it?'

Definitely, given sufficient provocation and hence justification to my mind.

More to the point, I'm more than willing to let someone else kill on my behalf... i.e. I'd support the re-introduction of capital punishment, the possibility of mistakes being made, notwithstanding...

Sorry Poppins, bit serious for you, eh? ;)

Well at least if the law permitted it, I wouldn't have to worry about being shot dead for just running down the street with my sword :wow:

i couldnt bring myself to kill someone just because i was angry with them but im sure that if someone hurt my kids i would totally lose my mind and have the ability to kill.

Originally posted by Zenmaster
Its weird to question something that is so innate.


I don't think it's weird. I think it's interesting.

You don't have to comment or even come onto the thread if it offends you Zenmaster.

But if would be a shame if you didn't, because the comment you made about war was a good point.

If we're going to talk about basic human nature, then we're really just reducing ourselves to animals. And most animals kill their own kind under certain circumstances. They don't kill each other for sport like some of the murderers you see in our courts today, but they do kill when their young or mates are threatened.

I suppose when it comes to survival, yeah if anyone threatened the life of me or my family, I would do everything to stop them. Self-defence. Isn't it if you murder someone in self-defence it is only man-slaughter. Can anyone confirm that.

Originally posted by JBee
Lets be serious... I'm not talking about day-to-day anger here, I'm talking about ending someone's life.

Yes, the old people in Meadowhall are annoying, but I don't think that seriously merits pulling a gun on them or stabbing them in the chest.

I promise you it would happen if it was made legal!

I have rage issues.

If you mean more serious murders, then of course it would happen. If your partner cheated on you, if someone broke into your house, if someone hurt a member of your family... they would all be things people would kill for, but at the moment are stopped because of a fear of getting caught. Animal instinct, we were born to kill.

I still think the people in Meadowhall would get it too though.

Originally posted by JBee
I don't think it's weird. I think it's interesting.

You don't have to comment or even come onto the thread if it offends you Zenmaster.


It doesn't offend me. I just find it a bit strange to question something that generally is a natural law apart from in extreme circumstances. But yes an interesting topic. ;)

Originally posted by Zenmaster
I suppose when it comes to survival, yeah if anyone threatened the life of me or my family, I would do everything to stop them. Self-defence. Isn't it if you murder someone in self-defence it is only man-slaughter. Can anyone confirm that.

It's manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

If the laws allowed it, yeah i think i would turn into patrick bateman from american psycho and go a little crazy!!

Originally posted by Zenmaster
It doesn't offend me. I just find it a bit strange to question something that generally is a natural law apart from in extreme circumstances. But yes an interesting topic. ;)

a natural law?
People have been killing each other willy nilly for very little reason for thousands of years. So it can't be all that natural.

The fact is that the law already allows it in certain circumstances, self defence being one, and defending others is included in that category.
So some of the reasons being given are basically already allowed.

If it were decriminalised I don't think we'd see a huge change immediately. Most people won't just kill randomly.
But I'd guess that quite rapidly a few people would take advantage of it, with the effect that everyone else would become paranoid and arm themselves. Things would quickly dissolve into some sort of anarchy. Afterall if you can kill, you might think it worth the risk to pop the guy with the keys to the ferrari over there, theft isn't that serious (well compared to murder) and he won't be reporting it anyway!

Personally i'd quite like to carry a rocket launcher for the next time 2 lorries are taking out both lanes of a two lane motorway or for when the idiot in the supra near crystal peaks uses the wrong lane of the roundabout and cuts me up.

Originally posted by JBee
It's manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

missed that.

No, it's self defence. It allows you to use 'reasonable' force. If you believe your life is in danger then killing the person attacking you (or your family) is quite reasonable.

If murder was allowed - hell, encouraged - it would be absolute murder in town on a Saturday night.

But overall I'm not sure that everyone would start arming themselves with chainsaws every time they went to get a pint of milk. I think most adults just like to get on with their lives in peace without all the bloodlust – that's why Playstations were invented, to channel people's existential anger.

I think a few bosses would do well to watch themselves, mind. A few pay increases may start to be demanded in no uncertain terms.

Originally posted by Greenback
If murder was allowed - hell, encouraged - it would be absolute murder in town on a Saturday night.

But overall I'm not sure that everyone would start arming themselves with chainsaws every time they went to get a pint of milk. I think most adults just like to get on with their lives in peace without all the bloodlust – that's why Playstations were invented, to channel people's existential anger.

I think a few bosses would do well to watch themselves, mind. A few pay increases may start to be demanded in no uncertain terms.

ah - but if someone else might try to kill you whilst buying your pint of milk, you'd be silly to go without an assault rifle and deadmans-switch wired to 2kg of C4 (and a sign advertising that fact).

Originally posted by Cyclone
ah - but if someone else might try to kill you whilst buying your pint of milk, you'd be silly to go without an assault rifle and deadmans-switch wired to 2kg of C4 (and a sign advertising that fact).

*makes notes*

:D

If the law permitted me to kill there are actually one or two people who I would like to kill and believe deserve it, but I'm not sure I'd be able to do it. :mad:

Originally posted by Patchy
If the law permitted me to kill there are actually one or two people who I would like to kill and believe deserve it, but I'm not sure I'd be able to do it. :mad:


I'll help you :clap: for a price that is :heyhey:

no I would not kill, indeed, I could not!

Originally posted by poppins
If it meant protecting my family i could, althought i would find it hard to stab someone with a knife, would have to be a gun....much cleaner. poppins,have a google and look at gunshot wounds,they are incredibly gruesome and messy, when the round exits it draws your innards and shattered bone fragments out with it,

If murder were legal, and everyone had loved ones for whom they would be prepared to kill, then EVERYONE would be dead. In killing someone, a member of their family might then come and hunt you down etc etc etc. We would live on an unpopulated planet.

Originally posted by depoix
poppins,have a google and look at gunshot wounds,they are incredibly gruesome and messy, when the round exits it draws your innards and shattered bone fragments out with it,

Indeed shooting someone is messy, but I think I can see where they were coming from. To stab someone somehow you seem more involved in the mess, whereas to shoot someone you you can do it from a distance and dont get involved in all the 'mess' on the victims end. Just pop and go.

Thanks for chucking in reality to this depoix. Well I definitely wont be following up your suggestion to do a google search to look at gunshot wounds. Pity the poor nurses who'd have to clean up the mess and I can guarantee that wont be me.

Originally posted by depoix
poppins,have a google and look at gunshot wounds,they are incredibly gruesome and messy, when the round exits it draws your innards and shattered bone fragments out with it,

I'll take your word for it, although with a gun you could shoot from a distance...then run.... a knife you would have to stand too close, you would get blood on your hand before you could make a run for it.........God i can't belive i'm saying this :help:

Originally posted by Babooshka
If murder were legal, and everyone had loved ones for whom they would be prepared to kill, then EVERYONE would be dead. In killing someone, a member of their family might then come and hunt you down etc etc etc. We would live on an unpopulated planet.

didn't happen before we formalised the 'law' and said that it was illegal. No reason to assume it would happen now.

What I wrote was that IF everyone WOULD kill over the murder of a loved one.

In reality, I am sure that most wouldn't. It is all hypothetical.

Originally posted by Babooshka
If murder were legal, and everyone had loved ones for whom they would be prepared to kill, then EVERYONE would be dead. In killing someone, a member of their family might then come and hunt you down etc etc etc. We would live on an unpopulated planet.
Strange that Babooshka is the only person to realise that it may be yourself who gets shot,what blameless lives every one must have.I can see bad spellers being shot on this forum.:thumbsup:

The act of taking someone's life must have a detrimental effect on the person who kills. Your personal integrity would be diminished and the rest of your life would be the poorer for it.
It must be terrible to hate someone enough to want to kill them, but I wonder if you would actually feel better for having done it?
There have been occasions, such as the Inneskillen (sp?)bomb in Northern Ireland, where the father of a murdered girl came forward and forgave the misguided man who had set off the bomb.
We are higher than the animals and I feel sure would be less happy as a race if murder was accepted as normal.

Shakespeare summed up the dreadful consequences of murder in his play "Macbeth".
Macbeth cannot live with himself after murdering the man he saw as an obstacle to his advancement.

Act 5 scene 1
Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.

Act 5 scene 3
Macbeth: Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
Doctor: Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
Macbeth: Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.

He can't sleep and is mentally tortured by what he has done.
The play is a tragedy.

Originally posted by matsalleh
Strange that Babooshka is the only person to realise that it may be yourself who gets shot,what blameless lives every one must have.I can see bad spellers being shot on this forum.:thumbsup:

I thought that I was implicitly accepting that by going with the C4 and deadmans switch.

I think that some of you have a rosy view of human nature. There are a lot of people killing and being killed all the time.
In Cambodia until recently there have been children committing atrocities.
We are not better than animals, we are worse because we have tools to make the killing quicker and easier and less personal (pulling a trigger isn't quite the same, I expect as beating someone to death).

Originally posted by Cyclone
pulling a trigger isn't quite the same, I expect as beating someone to death).

Indeed. When the mission was planned to drop atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki there were fears among officals that they would not find anyone to pilot the planes because nobody in the airforce would be willing to actually kill so many people. But introduce a few layers of abstraction and killing becomes much easier. If you only have to push a button and not be around to see the scale of the devastation.

Thankfully killing is illegal...

...otherwise we would have an awful lot of dead vigilantes.

We've just came back from the USA (yesterday). All of last week they were discussing on various news channles a "new" law which states you are allowed to use deadly force if you are being attacked or burgled.

This to me was very worrying as guns are every where there and there must have been at least ten shootings in Florida alone while we were there.

In Walmart, the company who owns Asda, as well as all your shoping you can buy car tyres, exhausts, perfume,oh and shotguns, handguns and hunting rifles.

There in the isle between the fluffy cushions and the kids toys !!

hmm there are quite a few people on here i wouldnt think twice about kiiling..muhahahahahahhaha!!! :P

*gives evil look :mad: * is that scary enuf for ya? punk?

If my life or the life's of my family or friends were threatened and I had no other choice then the answer is yes...sigh.

I'm not a pacifist so there is no idealogical reasons for me not to kill, rather its a question of him or me/us.

Killing someone should be a last resort, and I certainly wouldn't kill someone to gain their 'spoils' as Teflon Tony would, sorry has !

If someone actually killed someone in my family, or a friend and didn't have remourse then I would kill them.

Originally posted by Snook
If the law permitted it, I'd be going around killing people all the time... especially the old people who stop in front of me when I'm trying to get through Meadowhall... or women with oversized prams trying to get through tiny shops and in doing so blocking everyones path!

LOL

Dont forget the people who gather to talk in door ways!

Originally posted by poppins
I'll help you :clap: for a price that is :heyhey:

Sent you a PM with the details etc. :thumbsup:

Is it ok to use Paypal, or would you prefer brown envelopes?

Originally posted by depoix
poppins,have a google and look at gunshot wounds,they are incredibly gruesome and messy, when the round exits it draws your innards and shattered bone fragments out with it,

I googled :gag:

Please don't follow link if you are squeamish or easily upset! :gag:

Gunshot wounds (http://www.ispub.com/xml/journals/ijs/vol2n2/gswsi-fig2.png)

See the thread about the hanged puppy for the answer to this one!!

everyone could kill it just takes the right thing to trigger you of...........like bloody child molesters . imagine you seeing the bloke who did it to your child ????????????????? or the drink driver saying it wasn't my fault the kid ran out in front of me. i wouldn't think twice if it meant saving my kids ..............there's a lot of sick evil people out there

Yes I would
Yes I could

I already have a list

:suspect: :evil: Mwuhahahahaha!