Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertoad
... To really work this, the word "responsibility" has to be defined. What would constitute parental responsibility in this case?
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Undertoad appears to be the only one who kinda, sorta, maybe gets it. My saying that parents can fail their children by not teaching them to go out of their way to avoid hostilities is not the same as saying that parents are
responsible for the occurrence or outcome of hostilities. People have free will to become combatants and some hostilities cannot be avoided.
Both domestic and international law differentiate between combatant and noncombatant status whether civilian, police or military. Those who still want to hold Zimmerman accountable for murder in consideration of the totality of his actions, rather than just his actions as a combatant, are essentially ignoring those conventions. Ignoring them on a larger scale would allow police and military personnel to use any level of retaliation against anyone who tried to kill them, even after their opponents surrendered or are otherwise rendered noncombatant, by simply taking the totality of their opponents actions into consideration.
It has already been determined by law and the jury which applied the law that Zimmerman acted responsibly in killing Martin while both were in combatant status. Therefore, when I said "Whether it's guns or knives, legal or illegal, if parents aren't teaching their children that discretion is the better part of valor then THEY'VE FAILED AS MISERABLY AS ZIMMERMAN TO CONTROL A POTENTIALLY LETHAL SITUATION THAT MINORS MAY FACE." The key is "POTENTIALLY." I was not only referring to parents in general; but, limiting parental responsibility to pre-hostilities. After people become combatants, they're pretty much on their own barring intervention by anyone else willing to enter combatant status. The gist of the idea is to keep minors and others ill prepared for hostilities from entering combatant status in the first place. Your children can live; but, they don't have to live. You may be able to influence that outcome by having a conversation with them about discretion being the better part of valor.