Mike, Nate and Jessica answer a viewer question on whether or not the 5th commandment covers acts of self-defense by the military, police and citizens, with a resounding maybe.
As the 5th commandment (number may vary for non-Catholic Christians and Jews) deals more with murder then any killing. A true act of self-defense that had the unintended side effect of the death of the aggressor would fall under the law of double effect in that the goal of self-defense is good, but sometimes the unintended consequences of it is the death of the other person. So if someone broke into your house and you legitimately feared for your life, stopping them in a way that could be deadly would not be in violation of the commandment not to kill. A soldier in a war can shoot and kill enemy soldiers actively shooting at them, as if not they could be killed. A police officer can shoot an armed criminal if all reasonable non-lethal ways of dealing with the situation have been tried or are unreasonable to do at that time. However, especially for the military and police they can have situations that would not be exempt from the 5th commandment, and morally would be murder, such as: bombing enemy cities filled with noncombatants, using excessive force, killing people who are not actively a danger to others, etc. (Note: we do not talk about the George Floyd case in particular, but do note that the police can not act like judge and jury and that the less amount of force possible should be used in all cases and while an untrained citizen might use more force than necessary due to fear, the situation of trained military and police is not exactly the same.) More info on the subject can be found in part 3, section 2, chapter 2 article 5 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which is #2258-2330. Also to lighten this heavy topic up some we talk about Canadians attacking and how can Mike hurt himself with a dull non-metal sword.
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"Does “Thou Shall Not Kill” Include Self-Defense?" on YouTube: https://youtu.be/sX53azguWT4
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