Willravel

I'm not backing off the "generally people are stupid" mentality. It has served me well. As for death being certian: death may be certian, but I do not welcome it. I will do everything within reason to have a full, healthy, happy life so long as it doesn't hurt others.
If our prison system worked, and prisoners were released as corrected individuals who were ready to be functional and safe members of society, I might agree. That is not the case, so putting them all in prison is not a wise solution.
It takes more than free will to become a criminal, but that's a different conversation.
If my neighbor has a knife, and he is a proven danger to the people around him with that knife, would it be more wise to get a knife yourself or try to take his knife? Self defence is great as a last resort, but I've seen no mention, beyond my own, in all of these wonderful gun threads about actually taking an active role in stoipping criminals from getting guns.
I wasn't talking about grocery stores. I was talking aobut the sources of weapons for criminals.
The government will be broken until we, the populaec, fix it. If we want something done we have to fight for it. Instead of fighting to get guns away from criminals, you seem to want to fight to simply arm everyone. You're skipping ahead.
Again, the first logical step should be to disarm criminals. Do you know the statiscitcs of accedental shootings in areas where these laws are in effect? Probalby not. I've tried to find real statistics about the many aspects of gun laws, and I'll I've found on the internet is NRA propoganda. As for escalation, I know it becuase I know a lot of police. It's a reality. Escalation is reality. I didn't pull it out of thin air.
Murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation is called second-degree murder. If you buy a gun and keep it on your person, it can be assumed that if the right situation presents itself, you are ready to try to kill or to kill. If you wanted to just slow down or subdue a criminal, mace or a taser would do just fine. If you open fire on someone, you obviously have a lack of concern for human life. That's second degree murder.

I'm not going to argue why murder is wrong.

As for you're hypothetical situation:
My version: a teenager walks into a convenience store that's operated by an elderly gentleman. The teenager, presumably looking to rob the store, pulls a knife on the old man. The old man gives the kid what he wants and the kid leaves. Later, the old man describes the kid to the police and the police do their job and catch the kid. The old man is given back what was stolen, the kid is sentenced for theft an

Your version: a teenager walks into a convenience store that's operated by an elderly gentleman. The teenager, presumably looking to rob the store, pulls a knife on the old man. You pull out a baretta and pump 6 rounds into the kid. The kid is dead before he hits the floor, and you almost grazed the old man who frantically jumped behind the counter to avoid your wild spray of bullits. You've also put a hole in the wall behind the kid. Little did you know, but there was a 3 year old girl playing in the apartment on the other side of that wall, and she's now dead, too. During your sentencing for second degree murder, you think to yourself why did I disagree with Willravel?

That was fun, but for the sake of the sanity of everyone in this thread, let's refrain from using hypothetical arguments, as they are silly and just flights of fancy.
And what of the emotional effect of taking a life? Have you ever killed someone? I hear it's even traumatic for people who are trained to do so.
An NRA website!!! Fair and balanced reading, I hope...?