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Using "incendiary device" as a hypothetical, after the same words were used to describe a makeshift flame thrower, was poor communication. However, I think the point remains that less-lethal weapons address the problems you wrote about, and that a firearm may have been a good defense weapon against this specific attacker is not a good reason to opt for firearms over less-lethal weapons.
How do you know?
I'm not an "antigunner" (I'd eliminate practically all restrictions on personal ownership of small arms, if I had my way), but it's difficult to overstate a problem that is literally deathly serious.
No, I don't think they do. I linked the Dolloff case for a few different reasons, here, both that pepper spray did not work there, and that quite a lot of the left that even heard of this case thought it justified the shooting, including the prosecutor.
Continuity of force has a lot of utility in self-defense considerations. When someone has pointed a flamethrower, or thrown a molotov at an elderly innocent and is carrying two more, these considerations become 'what part of my continuity of force is best or most ethical', not 'what part of my continuity of force did I not leave at hom- and I got beaten to death'.
... because I've written at length about a number of Molotov-launchers over the last five years, as well as followed both the court cases and a number of self-defense experts specifically highlighting the threat model they and similar groups represent.
Yes. Yes it is. I would prefer that to be a problem that the defender has to consider than the attacker or attackers gets to exploit.
Could you please clarify this? I'm unsure if I'm interpreting the implication of you disagreeing with me disagreeing with you disagreeing with me correctly.
To be very explicit:
Barring a tiny number of exceptions not relevant here and not demonstrated in past attacks of this class, the moral value of a person who is in the process of attempting to kill or cause permanent injury to innocents rounds to zero, from the negative side. Any considerations regarding their lives either need to actually challenge that belief in a deeper way than ispe dixit, or rely on tactical, strategic, or legal grounds.
Near-universally, those tactical matters overwhelmingly favor firearms, and lethal force with firearms, over less-lethal tools. They provide range, they provide greater accuracy, and they can respond to many more attackers, so on. Less-lethal tools can and maybe should supplement firearms; they can not replace them. The only times a less-lethal tool can not be replaced by a firearm, conversely, reflect either legal or moral constraints.
And those tactical matters weight extremely heavily. I am not going to encourage people take a 10% risk to life or limb or concussion in exchange for even completely removed risk of legal or social attack. I'm not I'm willing to demand at a 1% chance. People should be aware of, and responsive to, the legal constraints for their jurisdictions, but they have no moral obligation to commit suicide over them.
And I don't think that offer is seriously on the table, either. The courts and news media are, in fact, willing to make national news and a jail sentence out of someone leaving a tire skidmark on a crosswalk; the theory that prosecutors and activists will say 'all good' after a taser strike under all but the clearest examples is far from clearly-supported, and most of these future attacks will not be clearly documented. Again, that Dolloff is not just a free man, but one that leftists and media are quite willing to describe as innocent, tells us exactly how much sticking solely to pepper spray buys you. That Hayes is on trial in a week tells us how much it matters if your 'victim' survives; I will bet you cash money he does not get a prosecutor giving him the last-minute Dolloff treatment.
Yes, on net, this leaves a number of circumstances where someone defending themselves, legally and morally, may 'cause' greater total deaths, and not just in the sense of shooting someone that might have been possible to just pepper spray. It's imaginable that an alternative-universe Rittenhouse (or Gardner) situation could result in prolonged violent protests aimed at other people who are not able to defend themselves. I'm not willing to demand Gardner shoot himself in the head lest Omaha burn down.
That's because I don't accept that 'cause' as true, honest, or a norm applied across all political valiances. The people burning down a city over a morally correct self-defense shooting are not the fault of someone defending themselves: they are the fault of people burning down the city. In many cases, they are intentionally cultivated, by centralized organizations justifying their violence and providing false information encouraging them.
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