The right to life

[COLGATE4]

48. What you fail to understand - or do not want to

acknowledge is that the issue is not one of eschewing a specific means of self defense. In a case of self defense the means by which you achieved it are not important. The only question is whether you were justified in using the highest degree of self defense, i.e. lethal force. It doesn't matter whether you defended yourself with a knife, a baseball bat, a screwdriver, a frying pan or a gun, legal or illegal. The legal status of the weapon has no bearing on your claim of self defense.

By the same token, if you are in possession of an illegal weapon the manner in which you put it to use is immaterial. You can carry it, put it in your night stand or wave it around. If you are caught with it then you will to take the consequences the law determines are appropriate for posessing an illegal weapon.

The two are not connected and, as should be clear from the above, do not have any direct relation between them. Your right to self defense can be (and is) conditioned on a series of other factors - the Castle Doctrine, for example; the duty to retreat; the proportionalty of force used to the force resisted, etc. It is not conditioned on the type of instrument you used in order to effect your self defense. You have no right to possess an illegal weapon. It is not conditioned by anything, up to and including the reasons for which you have it. IF you are caught with it you will be found guilty and pay a penalty of either fine, imprisonment or both.