8/24/01 7:03:39 AM, "Cox, Michael" <michael.cox@honeywell.com> wrote:

>"EVER?"  So...you're saying that no one has the right to protect themselves
>or their family?  Is that what you're saying?  Because that sure *sounds*
>like what you're trying to say...

  The Line is the distinction between self-defense and retaliation.  If I am attacked, and I 
neutralize the immediate threat, 
I am not justified in using force to punish the aggressor.  As a civilized human, I have delegated 
my natural right to use 
force in retaliation to a neutral arbiter.  This is the moral justification for the existence of 
government - read the 
Declaration of Independence for details.  Crossing that line is vigilantism, or Hatfield/McCoy, 
Crip/Blood, 
Protestant/Catholic, Jew/Moslem, Serb/Croatian perpetual civil war.