Lethality is not binary. Firearms are more lethal than fists, in the same way that a tazer is less lethal than a handgun.
But lethal is lethal. That's why if you try to stab a cop, they open fire with their handguns. They don't try to match you knife for knife, that's idiotic. Once you decide to use lethal force, your victim is entitled to use lethal force against you. It may not
matter that you may not have intended to use lethal force, for instance if you're laboring under the mistaken assumption that a couple of punches might hurt and injure them real bad, but not kill them. Every now and then someone has an "eggshell skull" and those people are entitled not to die simply because you had no idea that punching them repeatedly would be fatal.
And yet you advocate using a gun, which is in effect a form of execution.
Not at all. It's not an execution in any way. An execution is death delivered as a punishment - i.e. retribution for an act.
I'm talking about self-defense. That's when someone is engaged in actions that will result in your serious injury or death if they aren't stopped. You're morally entitled to stop them. If that means killing them, then you're morally entitled to kill them. It doesn't always mean killing them, though. Some people will stop when you produce the handgun. You're not entitled to kill them, then. Some people won't - they have to be shot because they won't stop, otherwise.
They have to be stopped or you'll die. They won't stop unless they're killed. I don't understand the moral reasoning you arrive at that suggests that you have to let them kill you because it would be wrong to kill them. Pacifism isn't a suicide pact. People have a right to be alive.
Not use a taser, or pepper spray, or his own fists, or anything less lethal than a gun.
You can't use a taser or pepper spray if you don't have a taser or pepper spray. You can't use your fists if they're not strong enough to stop the other guy, or you don't know how to throw an effective punch. It's a firearm or nothing, sometimes, and in that kind of situation people have a moral right to use the lethal force required to defend themselves.
Because you escalate the violence.
No, you de-escalate it. You draw down on your assailant and he backs off or you fire. Either way, he stops. The fight's over. Violence has come to an end. Using a weapon to end a fight is a fundamentally de-escalatory act. That's the point - de-escalating the confrontation by ending it.
Marty is only "forced" to face any risk if he steps up and fights Biff. He could try to talk. He could ask for help. He could run.
He can only run
if he can run. Again, you assume equally-physically-capable combatants, but again I remind you that it's specifically the physically under-abled who are most at risk for violent crime. You keep ignoring that. Marty can try to talk Biff out of it but words can't make Biff stop if Biff chooses not to stop. If Biff won't make the choice to stop punching then he has to be made to stop, and that's what lethal force provides for.
But none of that requires me to use a gun.
Of course not. But in some situations a gun
is required. Just because you expect to have other options in every situation doesn't mean you will, or that everybody will. People have to make their own choices about how to defend themselves. You can't make them for them, because you'll be wrong and it's not going to be you who suffers for it.
What you've done is escalated the risk for a thief
Good! The risks of breaking the law should be high, indeed.
It's a simple false dilemma, crash - you don't need a gun, there are less lethal methods at your disposal.
At my disposal? Yes. That's why I don't own a gun. At your disposal? Yes. That's why
you don't own a gun.
At
everybody's disposal, in
every situation? No. And that's why we should not stop law-abiding people from owning guns for their own protection, if they choose.
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