GUEST, Claymore, what I'm saying is that the concept of "an eye for an eye" has been the way the world has operated since our ancestors fell out of the trees, and it is still fully operational. Pub bombings in Ireland, the continuing turmoil in the former Yugoslavia, the Israel/Palestine thing, anyplace else you can name -- blood feuds that have been going on for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. And in most cases, nobody remembers the incident that started it. Sometimes something as trivial as a verbal insult has led to dozens of generations of retaliation after bloody retaliation. Or a battle that was fought six-hundred years ago that is still going on. This kind of idiotic, adolescent squabbling has produced oceans of blood and in a ridiculous number of cases has become national policy. I'm just wondering how much less blood would have been and will be spilled if people stopped feeling that they had to "get even." This is strictly speculation, of course. It'll never happen. AND I'm not exactly looking at life through a "splendid prism." I'm older than dirt and I've been around the block more than once. And I'm not afraid to go out at night.

And DougR, Alex is right. " there's a big difference preventing a killing by making a killing, and avenging a killing by making a killing." What I am saying is that if someone is threatening imminent violence -- not just verbally, but in the act -- do whatever is necessary to stop that someone. If some guy talks big and brandishes a knife -- not yet. If that same person rushes at me or someone else with the same knife, I would have no compunction about dropping him like a bird. Self defense. Or -- if you were to see Timothy McVeigh in the process of setting the timer on the bomb and if that were the only way of stopping the bomb from going off -- yes, pull the trigger. How would you feel if you had the power to prevent one or more people from being killed and/or grievously injured and you did nothing to prevent it? Now, I'm already in some pretty hypothetical territory, so don't ask me if I would have done in Hitler. Trite question anyway.

Don Firth