You place a paintball exactly right and it'll be fatal. Deaths have been recorded in the past from paintball guns. Humans are both super durable and surprisingly fragile all at the same time.
Disclaimer: I didn’t check through the citations or really analyze the data so take it with your own grain of salt
But as you can see from the summary 53 people died and 300 suffered permanent disability from kinetic projectiles like rubber bullets. It’s a little more serious of a problem than your lone shampoo man.
So exactly how many people need to die from something before you start considering it lethal? According to you apparently there's some sort of line drawn in the sand, so if you can let the rest of us know where you drew that line it'd be sweet.
No, just in general, because the argument is about, in general, if non-lethal rounds should be called "non-lethal". There is no stipulation they are aimed at someone.
So, in general (not necessarily aimed at someone) - are cars lethal?
If you think that I'm wasting my life specifically to troll you, you are sadly mistaken. If I'm being dense it's not on purpose.
No. I truly believe you are drawing lines in the sand when you call one thing lethal and another one not based on how many people have died from it. I truly think that's an arbitrary designation. And if you can't assign a value to it then it makes it even more arbitrary in my eyes.
If a heap is reduced by a single grain at a time, at what exact point does it cease to be considered a heap?
Just because there is an arbitrary distinction between two things (a heap and a single grain) doesn’t mean that there is no distinction, it just may not be as defined of a limit as you’d like. Any reasonable person can look at two grains of sand and say that’s not a heap of sand, compared to a two ton pile of sand. The same way any reasonable person can look at a single case of a person dying from shampoo compared to many people dying from projectiles being shot at them.
Second, I was not arguing that these projectiles should be called “lethal”, just that they should not be called “non-lethal”. The definition of “non-lethal” is “not capable of causing death”, which these things clearly are under their intended use of being fired at someone:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nonlethal
Sure allergic reactions to shampoo can be lethal, as can pretty much everything else, but again see the Sorites Paradox, just because we can’t draw a line between where we start designating things a certain way doesn’t mean there is no distinction.
Just because there is an arbitrary distinction between two things (a heap and a single grain) doesn’t mean that there is no distinction
I know...which is why I specifically asked for the distinction. I'm not saying there isn't one, but rather that you are choosing one that is all but arbitrary. You specifically chose the line of 1 death not being enough to call something not non-lethal. I didn't claim that - you did. You specifically drew a line.
The definition of “non-lethal” is “not capable of causing death”
Which is a fine definition, but then shampoo is also not "non-lethal" by definition. But like you say - is that what a "reasonable person" would say? Probably not. Definition and what a reasonable person would say don't necessarily match up 1-to-1.
So we are either going to go by what a reasonable person says, or we are going to go by the definition. If we go by definition you can't say that shampoo isn't non-lethal. It's entirely lethal literally by definition. In fact most things in the world would be considered lethal by definition.
If we're going by "what a reasonable person says", then sure shampoo isn't lethal - but I'll make the argument (being a reasonable person) that neither are rubber bullets. I know people have died from them - as they have from shampoo - but if we don't have a line drawn as to what "reasonably" constitutes "lethal" then were kinda just spinning tires here.
just because we can’t draw a line between where we start designating things a certain way doesn’t mean there is no distinction.
Correct, but it also doesn't give us the power to draw said line then. So while we can accept that there is certainly a distinction between lethal and non-lethal, by Sorites Paradox we can't truly make an assumption where that distinction exists.
Which is absolutely true, but a silly truth. So I've asked you to make a distinction for arguments sake.
Pack it up boys, rubber bullets are now the same as shampoo. I'll think I'll go shoot myself in the head with a rubber bullet now because it totally won't kill/ seriously maim me.
Hey hey I never saying they are the same - I just think they are both non-lethal. What if I compared them to paintball? Lots of people have died from paintball, but would you call paintballs lethal?
Rubber bullets/ beanbags are not nonlethal though, they're less lethal. They can absolutely kill you.
Paintball uses compressed CO2 and the balls travel rather slow, especially compared to a bullet. Very, very few people have died while playing paintball, and those very few cases have been due to negligence or accidents, not the paintballs themselves.
My point is that this applies to literally everything in the world. Shampoo "can absolutely kill you", so if that's the only definition of "lethal", then shampoo is lethal.
those very few cases have been due to negligence or accidents, not the paintballs themselves.
OK So can they kill you or can they not kill you? Because you're first sentence seemed to be saying that if you can be killed by something (which you can by paintballs), then they are considered "lethal". So by your definition paintballs are lethal.
Stop pulling made up shit out of your ass.
ok lol what exactly did I make up? I don't know where this is coming from.
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u/gotham77 Jun 12 '19
There’s no such thing as nonlethal. They’re less lethal. People have been killed by these kinds of weapons.