If It Was Legal, Ethical and Moral To Shoot Someone Of Your Choosing...

...based only upon whatever you decided would be selection criteria as to whom it would be, whom would be the top five people on your list? Number one would be the person you would most want to shoot, number 2 the second most and so on? 
 

I am not condoning shooting anyone unless actually legal, ethical and moral, under current laws, regulations and generally acceptable morality and ethics in which case I advocate for self-defense shooting to save a life or prevent serious bodily harm (where and when legal). All I am doing by way of this blog post is posing a philosophical question for your consideration. Think about it, discuss and even politely argue the answer with yourself, with an imaginary character, with a friend over a few beers (no guns around if drinking please), with someone you recently met, with a neighbor, with someone who feels differently on the right to keep and bears arms than do you, with a crime victim, with a thug, with anyone of your choosing and see who you come up with on your list of five. Your answer could possibly tell you a lot about yourself or the person with whom you share this exercise.

Note a few things before you do this. Note that I did not say shoot to kill but my bet would be that most people assumed that. Note I did not say shoot with any particular instrument like a gun, in other words I could have meant with a camera but most people will probably assume I meant with a gun (they would be right on that one). Also note that I did not say that you had to select anyone or even agree that you would ever consider it legal, moral or ethical to shoot someone and on and on and on, you may decide shooting people is not for you.

This little mental exercise, I think, can be a very revealing self-study if you follow it through with a lot of thought. I think it has the potential to also be very revealing about other people, that is if you do it with a friend or loved one, a neighbor, a crime victim, a criminal, a clergyman, a shrink, a teacher, a stranger or even with a large group of people. It may tell you a lot not only about yourself and others who participate in this with you but also may tell you a lot about society in general.

Why not try it? I recommend this for older teens (with parents' permission) and for adults. Don't anyone try this at school or work,  it would likely get you arrested or at least thrown out of school or fired from work. Also don't try to do it in secret or to make it look like a hit list or anything other than a philosophical exercise, doing other than that would be asking for trouble. I think, if done reasonably, it has great potential to educate you regardless of: political leanings, gender, race, ethnicity, citizenship, age, how you feel about guns, how you feel about self-defense, how you feel about retribution, wealth, social standing, or how you feel about people in general among many other things. Besides that, it could make for one hell on an interesting and fun conversation; just make sure to do it calmly and with a level head.

I am not asking you to answer that question here in the comments' section - in fact I will not allow such name dropping comments but I will allow other discussion on the topic if you do care to comment and do it respectfully.

All the best,

Glenn B