Can killing a mass murderer be considered “justifiable homicide”?
The short answer to this is “no,” but it is not always apparent why. The Church teaches that people and nations certainly have the right to defend themselves, even if necessary with the use of lethal force. Scripture and tradition also teach us that we have the duty to defend the innocent and rescue them, but there are several provisions that put this admonition into a moral context. The lethal use of force to protect or rescue someone is to be employed in the midst of a life-threatening aggression already in progress; it is not to be used as retaliation, and it is usually not pre-emptive. The use of force has to be proportionate to the aggression (that is, one can’t use a gun to kill someone who only insulted him). There also has to be a high likelihood of success in actually stopping the aggressions. And finally, one has to have tried using every other means possible to stop the aggressor up to the point of using lethal force. In light of all this, the killing of even mass abortionis
The short answer to this is “no,” but it is not always apparent why. The Church teaches that people and nations certainly have the right to defend themselves, even if necessary with the use of lethal force. Scripture and tradition also teach us that we have the duty to defend the innocent and rescue them, but there are several provisions that put this admonition into a moral context.The lethal use of force to protect or rescue someone is to be employed in the midst of a life-threatening aggression already in progress; it is not to be used as retaliation, and it is usually not pre-emptive. The use of force has to be proportionate to the aggression (that is, one can’t use a gun to kill someone who only insulted him). There also has to be a high likelihood of success in actually stopping the aggressions. And finally, one has to have tried using every other means possible to stop the aggressor up to the point of using lethal force.In light of all this, the killing of even mass abortionist
