A victim's deliberate use of deadly force is a just response to repeated domestic violence.

I will only be showing you what I already said in R1, as well as my opponent's responses. My suggestion, nonlethal violence [which is required sometimes], is not mutually exclusive with going to the authorities. As I said in round 1, "The intent of the weilder should be to disable their spouse, then attempt to either reason with them or call authorities once their spouse is disabled. " The disabling violence is in response to the immediate threat, the calling of autorities is to make sure it doesn't continue to happen in the future. One cannot call the authorities while being beaten. Or at least most people can't. I showed in R1 why a disabling force is virtually always possible. My opponenet's only response to my lines of reasoning, which went through scenarios, was "However, I also submit that in at least some cases, lethal violence is the only way to stop an attacker. Nonlethal violence may simply enrage an attacker, and adrenaline is a powerful stimulant that may make the situation where one attempts to use nonlethal violence into a situation where there is an overwhelming need FOR lethal violence. " He gave NO examples of when lethal violence would possibly be needed. I showed through lines of reasoning that disabling an enemy is always possible - to properly rebut this my opponenet should have to offer lines of reasoning against mine, not simply disagree with an unbacked assertion. Here's an example for reference: Person 1: Dolphins are always better swimmers than humans for these reasons. .. . [insert reasons here]" Person 2: "I think that sometimes, dolphins are in fact not as good as humans at swimming" While person 2 might be right, he should have to back his rebuttal up with something to effectively rebut person 1. Something like "Consider a baby dolphin, or perhaps a severely wounded dolphin. It's conceivable that an injured dolphin could be wounded so badly that it cannot swim at all, therefore dolphins are not always better swimmers than humans. " But simply saying "I think that sometimes, dolphins are in fact not as good as huimans at swimming" does NOT cut it as a rebuttal to person 1. Also, my opponent has said things like "Nonlethal violence may enrage an attacker, so lethal violence must sometimes be used. " Keep in mind that I explicitly stated that the intent should be to DISABLE the person. Who cares how enraged an attacker is if s/he's disabled? Also, keep in mind that if a person is not disabled, the person should continue attacking until that person IS disabled. Whether that ends in the person's death or not is irrelevant, since as I stated in round 1, the INTENT will not have been to kill someone, and therefore it is not a DELIBERATE use of lethal violence. Also, for a reference of where I made the point that a person should keep attacking until the other person is disabled, see this quote from my R1: "Either flailing the weapon with no intent or intentionally attempting to disable their enemy are the justified responses to nonlethal violence in this case. If when doing either of these, the person ends up dead, this is not a DELIBERATE use of deadly force. As is the case with all these examples. " While that surely could have been worded better, it's clear that the intent of a person would be to make their attacker stop attacking. That's the justified intent when it comes to self-defense, that's the justified intent when it comes to protecting oneself from domestic violence. This is sort of what I meant by "Flailing the weapon without intent," but it actually still falls under the category of "intentionally attempting to disable their enemy. " Also, I said in R1 that "Just as deliberate use of deadly force is not a just response to a single act of domestic violence, it is not a just response to repeated domestic violence, since the violent response should only be in response to present and future threat, not to past threats long gone" My opponent's argument against this was that "In other words, my opponent argues that past action has no bearing on one's considerations of the present. The abused spouse cannot defend him/herself till the other spouse is actually attacking. This is, of course, completely ridiculous. " This is a blatant misunderstanding of what I said. I clearly said that vioence is in response to immediate danger. I did not say that past abuse could not lead one to think that present danger existed. I only argued that one cannot respond violently when there is no immediate threat, since immediate threat is the basis of being justified in defending oneself. [With past actions, there's nothing to defend against, since it's already happened]. I clearly made this point in R1, and I backed it up with a scenario. See "CON2 : Response to Paragraph III" for the scenario. My opponent's argument against the scenario itself was much the same as his argument against the conclusion from it. He showed that one is justified in using violence as soon as there is an immediate threat. To quote him, "Philosophically you are perfectly justified in assaulting his as soon as you feel threatened. " He ADMITS here that violence is justified only as a response to a present threat, whether that threat is based off past action or not, the violence is in response to the threat, not in response to the past actions. I have attempted to show that my R1 case was not properly addressed - I showed why some critical points stand, and I believe they are sufficient enough to outweigh my opponent's case. I have shown that disabling the abuser is always possible, and I showed that this was not properly refuted [whether or not you think I'm wrong]. I have shown that one is justified responding violently only to an immediate threat [a point my opponent even agreed with]. I showed that deliberate use of lethal violence can only be justified if there is not a less harmful alternative. To quote me, "Only if there is no other way could deliberate LETHAL violence be justified. " My opponent did not disagree. He addressed this by arguing that there is sometimes not another way, though I already showed that that was an insufficient argument. So let's consider: 1. Deliberate use of lethal violence is only justified if there is no other way to handle the situation [my opponent agreed]. 2. There is always another way [My opponent's response was insufficient to rebut this: I provided examples and lines of reasoning as to WHY it's always possible to at least try to disable an attacker without being at risk, he simply responded by saying, "I think that's incorrect. " That's insufficient, given the backing my argument had. Just from these two points, one could say I've negated the resolution. However, for those who don't like those points, consider: 3. Response should be to the immediate threat, not to the sum of past and present action. [My opponent agreed/insufficiently responded, claiming that past action should be considered when deciding if there's an immediate threat. This does not conflict with my point, and therefore insufficiently deals with it. ] This kills my opponent's biggest offense, that the sum of past moderate abuse could eventually justify murder. And that's not considering that my opponent simply 'disagreed' when I said that X beatings could never equal 1 murder anyway. These statements are on equal ground, so it's not conclusive which one wins out. Welp, that's it. I await the judges' decisions.