[This is part of a series of posts drawn from my Nonlethal Self-Defense, Nonlethal Weapons, and the Rights To Keep and Bear Arms, Defend Life, and Practice Religion (forthcoming in the Stanford Law Review). For footnotes, and for the rest of the argument, check out the full draft; I will also post most of the rest of the argument in the coming days.]
Some people are especially reluctant to use lethal force or possess lethal tools, even when they legally can. There are many possible reasons for this, some of which may be mutually reinforcing:
(1) Some people have religious or ethical compunctions about killing.
(2) Some feel they will be emotionally unable to pull the trigger on a deadly weapon even when doing so would be ethically proper.
(3) Some worry about erroneously killing someone who turns out not to be an attacker.
(4) Some are reluctant to kill a particular potential attacker, for instance when a woman doesn