Dueling, should it be legal?

If your intended on subjecting your self to grave injury, What is the difference? Maybe your both Sorry shots!
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Except that a motocross rider, or football player, does not intend to subject themselves to great injury. Nor do they generally intend to gravely injure others...generally if it's found out that they did cause grave bodily harm to another player intentionally, they are sanctioned and possibly kicked out of the sport (in some instances I believe they can be criminally charged as well). There is an acceptance of risk, but at no point is the grave injury or death of players intended.

Even in a boxing match (which I brought up as a slightly more relevant example) the actual point of the match is not to maim or kill the other boxer; it's merely to win by decision or knock them unconscious. If a boxer appears to be at great risk of actually being maimed or killed, the fight can actually be stopped by the officials.

Even so, it can be argued that the entire point of a boxing match is to injure (though not kill, and not maim) your opponent...and in fact there have been calls to ban boxing for this very reason. Some countries have actually done so.

Interestingly, while the actual point of boxing is to injure your opponent I believe it actually has a lower fatality rate than some other popular sports (such as football). Though the injury rate (particularly brain damage) is likely higher.

Sending your son into a little league ball game could be construed as child endangerment.
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If you did so without taking the proper precautions (equipment, rules) to prevent grave injury, yes it sure could. And likely would.

No one intends on getting maimed, or broken in a football game , but the possibilities are high!

Where do you draw the line?
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Well lets see. Considering the risk of grave bodily harm (or death) during a football game is an order of magnitude or two lower than that during a dueling match where two people are firing pistols at each other...I don't know, maybe somewhere in the gaping expanse between the two?

Your entire line of reasoning is absurd.
 
Beretta:

Games are meant to be won! That is the difference between a game and a exercise! I quit taking my son to the ball game when it became that fiasco!

Juan: My point is there is risk in everyday endeavors! People take risk doing every day things. If two people wish to stand at say 50ft and shoot at each other, Not Sport, but to correct a perceived Wrong, there is a parallel!

Here I stand down and concede that it is a grudge match to the death. Here I go back to my first post!

Back to my first post! Who is in control of your life??? It's ok to go to Afghanistan and Die for your country, It ok to go to Iraq and die for your beliefs? But it's not ok to subject your self to Die for your perceived wronging?????? Mono De Mono????

Your wife was violated, Your child was violated, your family was churned?
 
:confused:

Between the inappropriate punctuation and general incoherency of your posts they can be a little hard to follow, but from what I gathered there was only one new point in that one.

It's ok to go to Afghanistan and Die for your country, It ok to go to Iraq and die for your beliefs? But it's not ok to subject your self to Die for your perceived wronging?????? Mono De Mono????
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So now we're trying to draw parallels between dueling and combat? Probably better than sports, but I'm still not buying it. There is some difference between the governments of two sovereign nations deciding to engage in armed conflict, preferably after diplomatic options are exhausted and under the laws of war, and two people deciding to go out back and shoot at each other over a perceived wrong.

Not only that, but in many modern conflicts (such as the two mentioned, Iraq and Afghanistan) the point isn't necessarily to go out and kill or die; I believe a majority of US soldiers in Iraq never fire their weapons. Actual engagement with deadly force is a last resort, and generally reserved for self-defense.

Soldiers also don't "sign up to die." Or kill, for that matter. Again, it's a risk but one that a vast majority of soldiers, through policy (and diplomacy) or protective gear, manage to avoid. Unlike when two guys decide to go at it with pistols.

Lastly, wars of aggression (which would probably be the closest international analog to dueling) have largely been outlawed under international law anyway, which is why you don't actually see too many of them anymore (civil wars are, I believe, more common now).

It's actually hard to come up with a comprehensive and coherent list of the ways in which your comparison fails (there are many), and I apologize for that. Suffice it to say that it does fail, though, and hard. Though admittedly not as hard as the sports comparison.

Juan: My point is there is risk in everyday endeavors! People take risk doing every day things. If two people wish to stand at say 50ft and shoot at each other, Not Sport, but to correct a perceived Wrong, there is a parallel!
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This was a recycled point, but I feel the need to address it one last time; the two are not parallel unless you're crosseyed or drunk. See my other posts for more in-depth argument.
 
It has to be a agreed event! One person has to feel they have been wronged in the most greavas maner! One party has to be willing to die to show that he did or did not do the greavas deed.

I wouldn't procive meny events! With any bit of luck the gang bangers would pick up on it and it would become a national TV Event every sunday!
 
It has to be a agreed event! One person has to feel they have been wronged in the most greavas maner! One party has to be willing to die to show that he did or did not do the greavas deed.
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So are we creating a legal requirement that a grievous offense much occur first? How do we define this? Otherwise what is to prevent two idiots from just going and shooting each other because they just can't get along? Or what is to prevent one person from coercing another into such an agreement? [EDIT: The latter being of greater concern than the former.]

I wouldn't procive meny events! With any bit of luck the gang bangers would pick up on it and it would become a national TV Event every sunday!
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Good lord, we're back to this nonsense?
 
I have thought about it, but never asked for opinions, after reading about the duel between Alexander Hamilton vs. Aaron Burr. I wonder, if two consenting adults were to sign waivers of some sort and duel to first blood or death (or whatever conditions either party agrees to.) couldn't that still be considered legal? I'm not taking sides on this issue, this is more of a social opinion thread.
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Although it's my opinion that Hamilton was shot about ten years too late to help America, I'm not of a mind that bringing back dueling would be a positive.

The year of the anniversary of the Hamilton-Burr duel, Richard Dreyfus did a good job narrating a very thorough documentary on exactly what took place in this duel. It went over the preliminary requirements, there was a lot of correspondence that had to take place, offers and counter offers, requests for non-violent responses and the like. What makes it genuinely important as a documentary is that it gives a deep background of both participants, including their respective political positions and lives. Suffice it to say, Hamilton was a political has been before he was shot, only in death was he elevated to the level he's seen as today. Get a copy if you can and watch it, very informative.

Based on my reading, what ended dueling was that the wealthy elite wanted to not have the risk of being shot in a duel as a result of running over someone along the way to their acquisition of property or power, so passed laws to eliminate that threat.

That said, there's a lot to be said in favor of dueling, but not enough to bring it back.
 
Get a copy if you can and watch it, very informative.
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I may actually have to do that...sounds interesting.

That said, there's a lot to be said in favor of dueling, but not enough to bring it back.
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This is basically my take on it. I think there's also a lot of romanticism surrounding dueling (such as homefires' talk of "grievous wrongs" and what not) that probably isn't warranted, especially in the context of today's society.
 
By the standards of the day, duelling was an affirmative defense to criminal charges of murder. In accordance with the custom of common law standards, a duty of care existed and had to be exercised to escape legal liability.

The de facto code of the duel required that:

--there had to be two parties: one to issue the challenge, and one to accept.
--each party had to appoint a second, a person who would act on his behalf in communications with the other party's second.
--the two seconds would have to get together to try to work out the differences and present a compromise, with the intent of preventing the duel from taking place (much like how lawyers will get together to try to settle their parties' cases to prevent a trial).
--the duel had to take place sometime after the challenge and acceptance, as a cool off period (two days was commonly accepted, though it was a matter of fact for a jury to decide).
--the two parties had to start with their backs to each other, take a specified number of steps, turn, and fire. If one party fired, and the other did not, his second would count "one, two, three, fire." If he did not fire by that time, he forfeited his turn.
--in any circumstance that either no party was killed or injured (after both had fired), or one party did not fire and forfeited his turn, the duel was ended, and the seconds had to escort the parties away. If the parties did not agree that the dispute was settled, another duel would have to take place, with another challenge and acceptance.

Such a defense would not work in today's legal system, due to codified legislation that would cover all the actions carried out in a duel (possession of a weapon for a criminal purpose, murder, attempted murder, etc.). Self-defense cannot apply because it requires that you reasonably attempted or could have attempted to escape the situation (if you intentionally place yourself into a fight/combat situation, you cannot later claim self-defense). Contracts are not legal if they require the parties to carry out illegal activities, and therefore are not enforceable or binding.

Bottom line, in today's legal standards, the whole body of law, from legislated statutes to the courts, place more weight on human life than on personal pride or property, and therefore the law will not sanction private individuals engaging in mutual combat.
 
I'm all for Gladitorial duels, similar to the Mad Max Thunderdome scenario. PPV crews go around the country to broadcast these duels and the winner gets a share of the profits and some go to the loser for burial costs.

I'd be challenging many policitians to rid this country of the evil they've created.

Have a great gun carryin' Kenpo day

Clyde
 
Alright...

Let's keep this clean, or else just challenge each other to a duel and get it over with. :D:D:D


Epyon
 
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