What could drive you to take a life?

[Dirge Eterna]

I already know I have no hesitation in me if I'm being shot at, I just go all analytical and return fire as accurately as I can... so that's one stimulus. Pretty sure I'd do that in any situation where I perceive a deadly threat to me or mine... be it with firearm, blade, or just a prolonged blood choke.

But then, I don't have any beliefs about intrinsic value to human life. Ordinarily I go by "live and let live" (unless my target is food. Elk are made of the stuff. Who knew?)... but that's gone the instant violence happens anywhere in my vicinity.

Other things that could drive me to kill: rape. If I caught a rapist in the act, I'd most likely kill 'em on the spot (a few friends of mine are rape victims). Fortunately that hasn't happened, or I'd probably be a convicted murderer.

Joke answer: if a mothafucka looks at me crossways.

That is exactly the reason why I couldn't be a civilian police officer after I left the military. I would probably hurt them or kill them if I found someone in the act killing, raping, molesting or generally hurting someone else severely.

 

[Dirge Eterna]

Well I can say that I would kill to protect myself, my family friends and innocent people because I have. In the military I was called upon to take lives and no matter how someone feels or says I couldn't do that or I would let someone kill me first rather than kill them, you don't know until you are in that situation. I have no regrets or guilt for what I had to do, it was them or me and my squad mates. The biggest regret I have from that time is actually something I couldn't do not something I did do. Never underestimate the drive to survive that we all have inside even if we don't recognize it. Humans are still animals at heart.

In the time since I was out of the military I shot and severely injured a burglar who broke into my apartment in the middle of the night. He rushed at me when I went to check on the noise and all I saw was the flash of his weapon and him running at me. So I shot him twice and I was able to subdue him until the police arrived about 5 minutes later. I shot him twice by instinct as I was taught to double tap. He ended up partially paralyzed and in prison for 11 years, the police were able to attribute several other break-ins and attempted rapes on him. Even after shooting this guy twice with a .45 he was still dangerous as he had a large hunting knife and was trying to stab me with it while I held him down.

 

[Estranged180]

Lay one finger on my wife... that'd do it. Not that I have the means to take a life, but what I do have (no Taken jokes here) is enough anger to do the job. Also, I tend to be the cook in the house, so I have a good deal of access to all of my rather large collection of kitchen cutlery. =)

 

[Strazdas]

A driver perhaps.
I guess the question is what would cause me to kill others.
This question can be answered twofold, whether reprecursions exist or not.
Of they exist as they are now, very little. Self defense is obvious one as is the extent to my immediate family. Beside that, well does making death sentence count?
If there are no reprecussions there would be a lot of people i would kill. From druglords to torturers and the lot. Though probably myself as well as i tend to take things way too far with such powers and may end up being the one on the list of worth killing.

 

[Gunjester]

I feel I'm heavily desensitized to this. I could easily find myself killing in self defense, even if there's not full intent to kill me but merely wound me...i.e. a guy with a knife lunging at me when he botches the mugging.

That being said, I tend to think that people who commit certain levels of atrocities forfeit their humanity, and thus should be treated as one would treat a demon. Rapists, Serial Killers, Warlords, Genocidal maniacs; all of which could be terminated if I witnessed their evils first hand and had the power to do something about it. The only reason to not do these things would be out of fear of being caught by law, not fear of higher judgement or destruction of morality.

Maybe that makes me no better than them, but my reasons will always be different than theirs, even if we both perform the same acts I don't perform them unprovoked or out of purely selfish reasons. (Unless you're one of those people that asserts self-defense is a selfish act or that I'm killing them out of my own inability to withstand their atrocities.)

 

[FalloutJack]

There are a number of reasons that I woul want to kill for, but don't because of the consequences. However, it would be safe to say that a man can onlly take so much.

 

[Johnny Impact]

There are people I could cheerfully kill. I've known a number of individuals the earth would be better off without, whose mere existence I have found..... "deeply and personally insulting," is the best way I can think to say it.

I'm also not big on the sanctity of life, or the notion that everyone has a destiny to fulfill. Most humans, myself included, do not and will not contribute in a meaningful way to human culture. If I died tomorrow, the world would keep right on turning. My junk would be hauled away, and someone else would fill my house with his own junk. Others would step in to take my shifts at work, etc etc. Sure, my family would mourn, but the net effect on society would be zero. Take one drop from a bucket, what happens is nothing. It's like that for most of us. Most people, we can simply do without.

Whether I could be driven to take a life isn't the question at all. There are two questions:

1) Is it worth going to the trouble? The amount of preparation and planning it takes to defeat modern forensics is considerable.
2) How certain can I be of getting away with it? Even going to that trouble, there are always wild cards. Neighbors or family members can hear the noise, there's the slight chance a cop car could be cruising down the street at that moment, you can never clean up ALL carpet fibers/skin cells/whatever, etc. There are too many things that can't be controlled.

So far, the answers to both questions have been "not really."

That's my answer for premeditated murder.
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Whether I would kill "in the moment" is a separate question. The answer is in a do-or-die situation, e.g. shooting someone who was about to stab me, I would be indifferent to whether the other guy lived or died, I would just do what I needed to do. I would not go out of my way to kill, but I would aim for the chest rather than the less lethal (and far more difficult to hit) kneecap. By attacking me with a deadly weapon he forfeits any consideration on my part.

Make any counterargument you like about what is or is not permitted within the law. If a guy is running at me with a knife, do you think the force of the law is going to stop him? No, it is not. The force of a bullet, however, will.

 

[Panthera]

I don't think there's a single instance that would make me want to specifically kill someone and act on it. By that I mean that if given the choice between killing someone or doing something non-lethal, I'd choose the latter if it had the same end result. Obviously that is rarely going to be the case, and if the act of protecting myself or someone I cared about from serious harm required a degree of force that could potentially be fatal, I wouldn't hesitate for a second to use that force. But that wouldn't be deciding to kill someone, the goal would be solely to prevent the death/grievous injury of someone else, their death would be an unintentional and not guaranteed side effect.