When is murder justified by self-defense?

[Final-Fan]

hudsoniscool said:

Final-Fan said:

And while I'm on the subject, your stated position sounds to me like it's dangerously close to the attitude of this guy, who deserves every bit of the prison sentence he is serving. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_David_Smith_killings

I don't see how it's close to this guy. If I were inhis position would I have shot the two people who by the way yes we're scumbag trash not worth the air they were breathing maybe, probably. But what he did was obviously excessive. Like for instance if someone broke into my house right now if I had a gun on me yes I would shoot them if I felt threatened but if they saw me and put there hands up in the air would I brutally murder them, no. Rough'em up, you bet your ass I would. if I am very confident someone isn't armed then no lethal force is nessicary but if I walked up on a burglar and couldn't see his hands there is no way in hell in warning them before I either 1 shoot them in the leg of I'm armed or 2 "jump them".

OK.  The reason I thought it sounded dangerously close was that we were talking about using lethal force on people and if you say "these guys don't deserve to be alive" that doesn't seem too far away from "they should die" and in the context of the discussion we are having that would pretty much be "we should kill them".  Since you say you meant nothing of the sort, then no more need be said—but I think your rhetoric lends itself to that kind of (mis)understanding.