This is what irks me about the current setup: we put people everywhere with guns. We turn schools into what are essentially prisons. We let officers shoot unarmed people because they’re afraid, with no consequences. But if there’s someone actively killing kids it’s acceptable for them to be too scared to do anything.
The right to be an executioner comes with the potential to be killed - that’s literally there job and the reason for their elevated privilege: they are given these tools because they have to put themselves in the line of fire to protect the public. If they are unwilling to do that they shouldn’t have a gun. Otherwise the only time they shoot people is when they aren’t in sufficient danger to be scared.
> Otherwise the only time they shoot people is when they aren’t in sufficient danger to be scared.
I hadn't really thought about it like that until after I read your comment. It's really making me second-guess my prima facie opinion on this whole thing, thanks.
Actually I suspect this won’t go anywhere - I recall a story that reached HN a few years ago from the (I think) N.Y. subway where a wanted criminal attacked (and stabbed) someone and the police literally just stayed on the other side of a door while watching and doing nothing. The attacker was eventually subdued by the other passengers. When they were taking to court they were found to have done nothing wrong: the opinion said something along the lines of “police are not required to intervene”, eg stopping attempted murder is apparently not part of their job requirements. Yet they have tasers and guns “to stop crime”
The right to be an executioner comes with the potential to be killed - that’s literally there job and the reason for their elevated privilege: they are given these tools because they have to put themselves in the line of fire to protect the public. If they are unwilling to do that they shouldn’t have a gun. Otherwise the only time they shoot people is when they aren’t in sufficient danger to be scared.