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First off, this is not about banning guns. I like guns, I think they're cool and useful, I don't want them banned. I'm aware that my question would still apply in a world without guns.
Consider the following situation:
1. I killed someone. It's known that I killed someone, and not up for debate.
2. That person died facing me, holding a gun that never fired.
3. The killing occurred in a fraction of a second.
4. None of the witnesses happened to be looking directly at me during that precise fraction of a second, so they give conflicting testimony.
5. It is possible that I was the aggressor, and it is possible that I was the victim killing in self-defense. The physical evidence would be identical either way.
6. As far as anyone can determine, I do not know the dead person, I have no reason to want to harm them, and I have no history of crime or mental illness, and vice versa.
7. The only thing that can be known with certainty is that I shot first.
By current US law, the default assumption is that I killed in self-defense, and the burden of proof is on the prosecuting attorney to prove a negative, to prove the dead person wasn't going to kill me in the future, correct?
How can this be, when logically the aggressor has an advantage in that situation? By definition the aggressor acts before the victim reacts.
It would take a considerable amount of skill to draw, aim and fire with fatal accuracy in the time the other person, who has already drawn and aimed when you notice them, needs to simply pull the trigger.
So in the above situation, ignoring all other situations, we would expect the aggressor to be more likely to succeed in killing the victim than the reverse outcome.
My question is, why does the law say to take the killer's word for it? Wouldn't it be easy to lie and get away with murder as long as you choose victims and circumstances that would be inconclusive?
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tl;dr
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>>28079038
That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved. - Ben "Thundercock" Franklin
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>>28079038
Innocent until proven guilty, the prosecutor has to prove you committed any crime you are an trial for.
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>>28079038
if you arent doing anything wrong and you feared for your life, you can do basically whatever you want short of going full apache and scalping them. the idea being that you should be capable of doing whatever is necessary to defend yourself from someone looking to do you harm.
thats where you generally lose liberals on guns. most of them refuse to believe there is ever a reason to take a life and thus the ability to do such should not be in the hands of the public. just 'be brave' and call the cops and hope you dont get raped to death when they get there in 10 minutes(average response time to an emergency call)
pic vaguely related
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>>28079080
>>28079103
What if I shoot up a school or a theater, and leave no survivors ergo no witnesses? Can I say all the dead people were going to kill me at some unspecified time in the future?
>Prove me wrong.
>Protip: [spoiler]you can't.[/spoiler]
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>>28079151
>if you arent doing anything wrong and you feared for your life
But if I AM doing something wrong and just decide to kill a random stranger for the joy of ending a life, the law can't touch me. I can probably keep killing and keep lying until I screw up and leave evidence. Why doesn't the law take such an eventuality into consideration?
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>>28079159
>CCTV
>Bullet wounds in the back of people's heads
>people unarmed and 45ft away from you
Seriously nigger? Fuck yourself and get the fuck off my /k/
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>>28079206
innocent until proven guilty. the law inherently favors law abiding citizens.
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>>28079207
Obviously they were going to kill me an hour later when they would have been prepared.
Prove me wrong. The default assumption is that I'm not lying, no matter how unlikely it seems.
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>>28079273
Ah, so if I plan it right I have nothing to fear. Great. See you later!
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>>28079292
if you can evade all modern forensics then pretty much yea. did you not know that?
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>>28079276
You're completely wrong. When you shoot someone, you say that your life is in immediate danger. Saying "prove they won't kill me in an hour" is fucking stupid. You have plenty of time, then, to call the police, leave, and go to a police station. The law is innocent until proven guilty, not "under no circumstances are you guilty unless they specifically wrote out their plans to assassinate you"
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>>28079159
In the case of a school or theater a gun is on the lower end of efficiency in mass murder. Shooting you school or theater is meant for the terror factor not the high body count.
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>>28079206
That's not exactly an eventuality. Doesn't really happen like described.
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>>28079159
>>28079206
If there is no evidence and no witnesses then yeah you got away with murder. However, that is pretty unlikely.
Unless your argument is that we should start convicting people of murder without evidence or witness.
A real life case nearly what you are talking about is the OJ Simpson case, though an argument could be made about the inefficacy of the prosecution's performance. The evidence presented was not strong enough to prove he did the murder, thus was acquitted of criminal charges.
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>>28079038
Innocent until proven guilty. Tho the chances of that situation happening are slim to fucking none , also if you were to be proven guilty it would be through motive, random homicide would be a thing , but even that leaves a trail.
But if you did everything like you were suppose to after a self-defense shooting then that would be very odd and found unlikely to happen.
tl:dr : Innocent , but only because it's a hypothetical question that covers things that could not be covered. I.E a life leading up to that point. But you couldn't get away with it a second time.
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>>28079276
The 5 principles of self defense:
>Imminence
The threat has to be immediate.
So you have lost already on this one.
>Innocence
You have to not be committing a crime
>Proportionality
Your use of deadly force has to be in response to the threat of severe bodily harm or death.
>Avoidance
Unless you are in a Stand Your Ground State.
>Reasonableness
It has to be reasonable to assume that you were in fear of great bodily harm or death.
So, it turns out that you are not as smart as you thought you were. Guess you can fuck off now.
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>The physical evidence would be identical either way.
No it wont
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>>28079206
>random stranger
Choosing passers-by haphazardly, you are going to pick someone without a gun nine times out of ten. If you're branding a gun at multiple people, ready to shoot the one that draws instead of running away or freezing, you will be intercepted by the authorities before too long. Your scenario, although an interesting thought experiment, is highly unlikely.
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>>28079292
Same with every crime
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>>28079339
Hot damn that is a nice looking tank. What's the name
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