Shooting to kill: St.
Thomas Aquinas provides balanced view of respect for life
and self-defense
by
Christopher Dodson
Executive Director
North Dakota Catholic Conference
March 2007
It is late at night, well after you have
fallen asleep. The sound of someone rummaging through a
part of the house awakens you. What would you do?
A bill moving through the North Dakota legislature –
though not exactly on point – has produced a great
deal of discussion about what people would or should do in
that situation. From the comments, it would appear that
many people would shoot the burglar with the intent to
kill.
That is not, however, what Samuel Aquila, Bishop of Fargo,
did when confronted with the same situation a few years
ago. I don’t know whether the bishop even owns a gun,
but it appears that even if he did, he would not have used
it. Rather, when he found the intruder in the kitchen of
the Bishop’s Residence, the bishop yelled, “Get
out!” The intruder left, broke into another house,
and was later arrested.
Someone might respond, “Well, that is to be expected
from a man of the cloth, but the average Joe needs to
protect himself and his family.” When it comes to the
dignity of his life, however, Bishop Aquila is no different
than anyone else.
What can someone do in that situation? How much force can
someone use to protect himself or his family? Does it
matter where the event occurs? Though at one level these
are legal questions, they are ultimately moral questions.
We are called to do what is morally right, not just what is
legal. Moreover, our civil laws should reflect the moral
law.
As is often the case, St. Thomas Aquinas provides the most
accepted and definitive, treatment of the question. It also
the reasoning cited in the Catechism of the Catholic
Church.
Aquinas stated that, even in self-defense, it is not
permissible for a private individual to intentionally kill a
person. A person can, however, use moderate force to repel an aggressor when it
is necessary to do so in order to protect oneself or
someone for whom the person is responsible. If the use of
force meets these conditions, and the aggressor dies as a
result, the person is not guilty of murder. The death of
the aggressor in such a situation is a double effect. In
other words, the death is an unintended result. (It is
important to note that the rules are different for a person
authorized by the government to preserve the peace.)
Underlying this teaching are three fundamental principles.
First, intentional killing of an innocent person is always
evil. Second, it is never permissible to do an evil act to
achieve a greater good. Third, the mere fact that an
individual is not where they should be or may be intending
harm does not create an exception to the rule. Even in that
case, a person cannot intend to kill the individual.
Supporters of less stringent parameters sometimes cite
Exodus 22:1, which states: “If a thief is caught in
the act of housebreaking and beaten to death, there is no
bloodguilt involved.” What they often leave out is
the next verse: “But if after sunrise he is thus
beaten, there is bloodguilt.” In other words, killing
an intruder at night was permissible, but killing in an
intruder during the day was not. Why the difference?
Scholars have noted that a person had options in daylight
which he or she would not have in the small, lightless,
dwellings of that time. So long as options other than
deadly force were available, killing was not permitted. The
passage, therefore, actually supports the Church’s
teaching that deadly force can be used only when it is
necessary.
Through the centuries, courts and lawmakers incorporated
Aquinas’ principles into law. English common law, for
example, provided that a person had a “duty to
retreat” from an aggressor if possible, since the use
of deadly force could not be viewed as necessary if the
person could escape. Similar to the passage in Exodus, some
jurisdictions, including North Dakota, removed the duty to
retreat with regards to a person’s dwelling.
The bill
generating discussion is House Bill 1319. It would remove
the duty to retreat in non-home situations and abolish the
current law that “deadly force is not justified if it
can be avoided.” Additionally, it would create a
non-rebuttable presumption that a person reasonably feared
imminent death or serious bodily injury when faced with an
intruder, even if the facts were otherwise.
St. Thomas Aquinas provided a careful balance between the
obligation to respect all human life and the right to
self-defense. The North Dakota legislature would do well to
heed this Doctor of the Church.
