Most would agree — as do I — that violence is rarely the answer, and it’s never a first line of defense. But when my friends tell me they’d rather die than resort to violence, I tell them fine, I’ll light a candle at your vigil. It’s your choice. But those are the stakes. Don’t kid yourself otherwise.
Nicki Stallard
June 22, 2016
The L.G.B.T. Case for Guns
[Via email from Jaime.
Virtually identical, via email from Stephanie, is this:
Most would agree – as do I – that violence is rarely the answer, and it’s never a first line of defense. But when someone attacks you, they volunteer for you to hurt them. When my friends tell me they’d rather die than resort to violence, I tell them fine, I’ll light a candle at your vigil. It’s your choice. But those are the stakes. Don’t kid yourself otherwise.
Nicki Stallard
June 20, 2016
The Pink Pistols: We’re Here, We’re Geared, Get Used To It!
I have nothing to add to either quote.—Joe]
I’ll go with “rarely”, but there are times when violence is THE ONLY answer, at least if you want to be around to discuss the matter afterwards.
That phrase has a number of big problems with it.
One is that it’s often used by people who oppose self defense, and want to limit the use of force only to the oppressive government.
Another is that the phrase completely obscures the critical distinction between initiated force and force in self defense response. As I mentioned to my wife yesterday, kids learn very early on that the most important question in a school yard fight is “who started it”.
Initiating force against another is improper. Responding to such force with a response sufficient to stop the offender is exactly correct. Note that “proportional” is not a word that appears here, nor should it. Neil Smith has pointed out repeatedly that initiating of force crosses a boundary, it’s binary, and that crossing justifies whatever force the self-defending responder chooses to use to stop the threat.
Jeff and Paul quickly noted the issues with this statement. Although it has the right sentiment, there are definitely situations where violence is not only the answer, but it’s the FIRST response, not the last resort.
In those cases I think I would argue it’s the ONLY viable response and, hence, it is also the last resort as well as the first.
But I can see your point. One could interpret it incorrectly such that, in the extreme case, “accepting your permanent injury or death” is on the list hence it is never the last resort. I suspect the reason she worded it that way is to avoid arguments with those that would claim she is saying it should be the first, or near the front, of the list of responses when in a conflict of words or gestures where injury does not appear imminent.