On Mon, 14 Nov 2005 16:15:18 -0800, Don Homuth
So now you're saying that the WMDs magically disappeared?
-- This, therefore, is a law, O judges, not written, but born with us,--which we have not learnt or received by tradition, or read, but which we have taken and sucked in and imbibed from nature herself; a law which we were not taught but to which we were made,--which we were not trained in, but which is ingrained in us,--namely, that if our life be in danger from plots, or from open violence, or from the weapons of robbers or enemies, every means of securing our safety is honourable. For laws are silent when arms are raised, and do not expect themselves to be waited for, when he who waits will have to suffer an undeserved penalty before he can exact a merited punishment. The law very wisely, and in a manner silently, gives a man a right to defend himself, and does not merely forbid a man to be slain, but forbids any one to leave a weapon about him with the object of slaying a man; so that as the object and not the weapon itself, is made the subject of the inquiry, the man who had used a weapon with the object of defending himself would be decided not to have had his weapon about him with the object of killing a man. - M. Tullius Cicero