A reasonable man will not kill if he thinks he will spend his life in jail.... And no, saving one life through deterrent of capital punishment does not make killing others by the state a right action.
You may be confortable in your superiority of allowing a person to break into your home and threaten you and your family. I am not. fortunatly the state I live in allow sa person to protect his/her property and the lives of their family with deadly force if necessary. If a person is unreasonalble then they are basically capable of anything. I would rather be safe than sorry in this case and not take the chance of a family member being hurt or my property being stolen from a common criminal. Maybe you value the well being of a criminal above that of yours and your family and I am sure that works just fine for you. That concept just does not sit too well with me. Just because you dont agree with a person right to defend their family and property does not give you the right to take that right away from a person.
Awww.....Too bad / So sad. Wonder what the last words to the killer could be before the execution? How about: Sorry you got so carried away.....Goodbye bitch. BAMMM!
If you had a choice to stop a criminal breaking into your house without killing them or kill them, what choice do you make?
A reasonable man, correct. But again, what about those shades of grey? You didn't address that......... What if he's, say, half resonable. Or starts beating someone in a fit of rage - unreasonable at the time - then becomes 'reasonable' when sanity enters his mind and says to himself, "shit, I'm gonna kill this guy, I better stop!" I know for a fact that happens,, 'cause I was the one doing the beating. Paid my pennance for it, now it's over. It kept me from doing the deed man, no joke. That's how i can have my position. And by your second paragraph, I surmise that you respect the criminal more than the victim..........
Reasonable men (and women) can do very unreasonable things. We not a bunch of Mr. Spocks, ZZZZzzz. Your argument can extend to mitigate culpability of any crime.
Who is mitigating culpability? I am not saying these people are innocent, I am suggesting that we don't need to have them executed....
The choice would obviously be to not kill someone. No reasonable person wishes to kill a person without reason. At the same time if my family is threatend or my property is being stolen thats it. The criminal has already made a choice, a wrong choice, or else they would not be there. Now the question becomes, is the threat of immediate death enough to make them choice. Personally I would keep them around alive until the cops showed up to haul them off. If they choose to not cooporate then they made the wrong choice again. I guess that means two strikes and your out, not three.
A fit of rage in which reason is overrulled by emotion is not a moment of reason.... "In a fit of rage" is a condition where the emotions overcome reason..... You may have been angry, but your reason overcame the emotion. Your "speculation" that I respect a criminal more than a viction is flat out wrong.... Respecting human life and denying the state the right to take it is for all human beings, criminal and victim. Oh, and a fetus is not a human life...by my definition.