'I shot a man in Reno . . .'

I may indeed be getting the wrong end of the stick here, because all I’ve really heard or read are the headline reports on television and in the newspapers. But I am going to plough on regardless. What I am talking about is the recently proposed changes in the law in relation to killing.

Now the first proposed change, regarding the killing of intruders, seems to me to miss (and again I have to admit that I have not read the particular report but am flying by the seat of my pants) an important point. The fact of whether somebody confronts an intruder or doesn’t confront him has historically, I would suggest, been little influenced by the matter of law. There are those who will have a go, irrespective of what the law says, and worry about it afterwards. Then there are those who shrink from confrontation, not because of the law, but simply because it is in their nature to shrink from confrontation.

These things happen in the heat of the moment, and an appreciation of the finer points of the law is unlikely to count for much, other than as a post-facto excuse by those who have shrunk from confrontation.

But then there is another category: those hell bent on mayhem, who imagine it lovingly in detail, and create fictional scenarios where they can accomplish their desire, scenarios usually involving various degrees of provocation. Usually the imagining is sufficient, and the fantasy serves its own end of reducing mental tension. In such situations, fear of consequences, and the anticipatory imagining of such consequences, is usually enough to take the edge of such wimpish bloodlust.

It’s a bit like masturbation really . . .

But now it is proposed that the situation be changed. The wimp is to be given free rein. It’s rather like Hemingway’s Francis Macomber—the type of guy who goes on safari with a big game hunter in order to shoot animals from a safe distance and think himself macho.

One can imagine the scene . . . something, to use another fictional analogy, along the lines of Michael Douglas’s character in All Fall Down, sitting there night after night, shotgun on knee, window left provocatively open . . .

Make my day, Suckah . . . !

The second proposed change to the law—the one concerning the definition of provocation—seems to me (to the extent that I understand it) even more contentious. The idea of a delay—for such was the way it was described on television—between provocation and killing, involving the idea that something was playing on your mind, until one day ages later it suddenly triggers you to action, seems to me potentially very dangerous.

One aspect of the proposal, according to the newspaper reports, is to enshrine the concept of cumulative provocation in law—the idea that while no one incident of provocation taken on its own is sufficient to justify killing, the totality of such provocations may nonetheless be taken into account.

Under pressure of the feminists, we have had for several years now a de facto open season on husbands. Some possibly deserved it—but there were other cases where one was left with the distinct sense of the whole thing being framed in such a way as to take advantage of the changed atmosphere. Also, it was very much a one-way street—the idea of cumulative provocation didn’t at all seem to apply to men.

The problem with this whole idea of cumulative provocation, no matter how evenhandedly it is applied, is that, in the end, it seems likely to encourage the Frank Carson “It’s the way you tell ‘em!” type of approach. The idea of evidence and probability takes second place to the creation of a good narrative.

Simone Weil (and I seem to be writing of her a lot lately) was critical, not of the operation of the law, but of its cold majesty, and the contempt it showed towards the offender. But nowadays one gets the sense that things have swung diametrically in the opposite direction. It may be a consequence of the general decay of leadership and authority, but one gets the impression that judges are less and less the remote and frightening figures of tradition, and more akin to football referees, grinning as they hand out yellow cards by way of deflecting aggression.

Law has to change to some degree with the times, but perhaps the process has become too pro-active (whatever that actually means). One gets the impression of law lecturers and commentators etc.—often, one suspects, with an ideological bias—acting more like X Factor contestants and chasing popularity than genuinely considering the implications of what they are doing.

But then perhaps they are afraid . . . perhaps they’re all afraid of what they can see subliminally coming down the line . . . all reactively as lemmings guessing as to which will be the winning side.

There are other issues involved in the new proposals that seem to carry even more serious implications than those discussed . . . but I would need to read the actual report itself before venturing into that argument. And time is a factor.

If I get the opportunity, I will come back to the matter . . .