So I had some free time...
Wow, man. That dude's off kilter. Let's see...
Well, I don't actually believe in human rights personally, I believe more in a concept of duties and permissions, but I guess there is a right to protect yourself. However that does not relate to a right to harm others. I think if you kill someone in self-defense then you are just as culpable as any other murderer and the fact that you were able to do so because you secrete a weapon on your person each day makes you even more culpable.
Well, next time you meet, knock him down and take everything he has. After all, he has no human rights, which means he has no right to own anything unless you give him permission. Indeed, it is his duty to yield up to you whatever you want, whenever you want it. Oh, he could certainly try to protect himself, except (a) he has no human rights, and therefore no right to self protection (presumably even if you intend to kill him(!)), (b) and since he needs permission to do or own anything (because he has no human rights), he has to seek your approval before engaging in self-protection, and (c) since has no right to harm you, his only recourse is in harsh words – if (b, again) he first asks to use, and you allow, those harsh words. (Well, that's wrong, he has no human rights, therefore it is his duty to await your command to speak, or act...)
Oh, and why should he look to you for permission? If he asserts no human rights for himself, others are perfectly entitled to do so, they are perfectly willing, and they are legion.
Criminals generally commit crimes due to a whole range of socio-economic factors in their lives that may be equal in pressure to the desire to defend yourself and they do not deserve to be harmed any more than the person who is having the crime committed against them. We should be focusing on fixing them not killing them.
Sweeping generalization, here, so let's get specific.
Once-upon-a-time, in my sleepy little college town, three fellows working in a local grocery store were murdered by two thugs armed with a knife and shotguns. The goons took turns beating and stabbing the three workers before deciding it was too much work, whereafter they finally shot the incapacitated three (one of whom had been stabbed nine times wit the knife and bludgeoned with a shotgun before being finished off). Murder was their original goal, by the way, as they desired to leave no witnesses.
After improving their socioeconomic plight by murdering three men, and to the tune of $1,200 in cash, one of the murderers paid some bills, threw a steak-cooking party for friends, those steaks taken from the store where he'd murdered three men. His accomplice spent his socioeconomic boon on clothing and jewelry.
The lead in this murderous scheme was described as having come from a good family. He had even worked his way up the ladder in the very store where he later committed his crime, having becoming assistant manager before slacking off and getting fired.
The victims were described thusly: “They were just great guys, going to college to try to make better lives for themselves.”
Notice the contrast between murderers and victims. The victims took a crappy, low-paying job because it was honest work that helped pay for education that they believed would better their socioeconomic status.
The murderers, on the other hand, instead of taking honest work or other honest measures that would improve their socioeconomic status (such as maintaining the job that at least one of them had, once-upon-a-time, held), chose instead to murder and steal. One may say that murder and theft are not equivalent crimes, but each causes harm to another. One can be recovered. The other cannot. But the issue is not one of recovery or of excuse. Instead, it is one of right and wrong. One's socioeconomic plight has nothing to do with choosing wrong over right.
The victims in this case were compliant, cooperative, and have been dead now for 25 years.
Once again, one's socioeconomic plight has nothing to do with choosing wrong over right.
Moving on.
The fact is in the USA you have far more people shooting people in 'self-defense' to prevent things like robberies rather than murder attempts, which let's face it, are ridiculously rare in any society and therefore carrying weapons of any kind is completely unjustified. It is not the gun ownership laws that determine crime rates it is society's general attitude to crime and in NZ at least wider gun ownership would never help to reduce crime or make people safer.
Fact? How does he know? This is an unsupported claim. You can't do that in a serious argument. Murder attempts may be rare, even ridiculously rare, but the rarity of disaster does not help those who suffer it. Let's put that another way: say the odds of getting murdered anywhere may be low, but low odds do not change the fact that, for the victims, the odds are always 100 percent, and those victims remain 100 percent dead. (See, for instance, the story above.)
Last part bolded because of the Aramoana massacre, and every other murder in New Zealand (or anywhere else) of the innocent by the predatory. Had the dead the means to effectively retaliate, they might not be dead. To deny anyone such opportunity, or the tools by which to exercise it, is immoral.
It is not the gun ownership laws that determine crime rates it is society's general attitude to crime
Addendum: it is the criminals' propensity to commit crimes that determines crime rates.
I know you are not a fan of governments over regulating things but for us it works. There are alternatives to using weapons to protect yourself and we do that.
This hasn't worked out well for the Maori, has it? Setting aside the unfair aside … remember that this is the reason there is a U.S. in the first place. Our history tells us what can happen when governments continually overreach, and the bright fellows who wrote our Constitution put something in there to reminds us all – no matter how much it may pain or bedevil those who deny it – that a certain human right must be recognized, even protected, so that history cannot repeat itself.