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[jaxword]

Sure, in this magical land where you can set your bullets to "stun", that's what the police would roll with. Then they could arrest him, throw him in jail, and if he's still a problem, keep him in solitary. Different path to the same goal: put a dude in a box so he doesn't hurt anyone else.

But that's just law enforcement.

In war, even with your magical knock-out bullets, you're going to shoot to kill. What else are you going to do? Arrest all of Nazi Germany?

This is all moot anyway since non-lethal is nowhere near as effective or reliable as lethal; it's all sci-fi.

That didn't take long to invoke Godwin.

Just another reason Star Trek is better than Star Wars.

I like Trek a lot too, but one of the first lines of Star Wars ever was "set for stun!"

Though, thinking about it, Trek came out a decade before Wars, so Lucas probably got the idea from him.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Though, thinking about it, Trek came out a decade before Wars, so Lucas probably got the idea from him.

I can find references to stun weapons as far back as 1953, and Space 1999 also had a similar thing to Trek a couple years later (but still before SW). It's possible that was an inspiration, but no way to know for sure.

 

[ChanHuk]

People forget LWOP is a death sentence.

 

[akira28]

Space-bureaucrats exploring and making treaties for space-sex versus space-knights fighting evil and reclaiming their homes from Space-Satan.

hrm.

 

[PBalfredo]

That didn't take long to invoke Godwin.

Oh, you mean Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies? That only works when someone is comparing something to Nazi. I'm talking directly about Nazi.

Spoiler

What the hell am I doing? I should be in bed.

 

[Dice]

He that dies pays all debts.

Spoiler

I'm just getting ready for Omerta.

 

[lednerg]

I don't think the State should ever kill one of its own citizens unless they are at that moment about to kill someone else. If they are already incarcerated, then the State would merely be acting out of revenge to execute them; if gang members aren't allowed to kill each other out of revenge, then what's the State's excuse? Then there's how study after study has shown that the death penalty is not a deterrent, so it really doesn't make a lick of sense. It also ends up costing more than to have them serve life in prison.

 

[jaxword]

I can find references to stun weapons as far back as 1953, and Space 1999 also had a similar thing to Trek a couple years later (but still before SW). It's possible that was an inspiration, but no way to know for sure.

There's many earlier references, of course, but the likelihood that Lucas had zero exposure to then biggest sci-fi franchise when he was going through film school is really unlikely.

I mean, he watched Flash Gordon and other sci-fi for inspiration, but never a single Trek episode? Can't see the probability being there.

 

[Septimius]

It does take a lot of resources to deal with criminals who are alive..

I might be wrong, but I had the feeling it costs more to sentence someone to death and perform it, than life without parole does. Some quick google-foo seems it might be likely.

EDIT: Further google-foo seems to suggest it costs 300$ million more per death sentence, compared to life without parole. So it seems it's actually more expensive. And quite much so.

 

[Gintamen]

Rapist, cold murderers, pedophiles.....I see no reason to waste resources feeding these people in prison

You can decide if you are a pedophile or not? You can chose to murder or rape, you don't have to have sex with a minor to be a pedophile though. I'm surely hope you meant those that have actually done something to real children.

On topic. Killing people who want to die due to age? That's their choice. Killing prisoners to save money? No, that makes the people killing those even worse. What's their right to take someone's life? Time to move on with plan:Madagascar for prisoners. ;-) Not really.

 

[MickeyPhree]

If you kill some premeditated you deserve to die.

 

[Vilix]

Oh, absolutely. >:^)

 

[Always-honest]

yes i think so.

increasing the chance of others living a trauma free life where they are free and happy to make their own choices. That's a greater good.

Some horrible people decrease that chance by forcing their will on others, despite of others.
Rapists, active pedophiles, murderers, insanely agressive people, dictators, etc,

 

[Machine]

There are presently 7 billion humans alive on this plant and the number is growing. I don't have a problem with a few deaths here and there. To me, it feels like idealistic views about the intrinsic value of human are lovely but only work if all (or even most) humans behave rationally and that doesn't seem to be the case at present.

 

[PsionBolt]

This probably isn't exactly what the OP was thinking of, but... Euthanasia. In those cases, killing someone does 'good' by reducing the amount of human suffering in the world.

If we're just talking about criminals, though, the answer is no. Any good paladin knows that using lethal force when it can be reasonably avoided is a quick way to fall. (Yes, even if the villain has a sweet +3 sword that you want).