NationStates Jolt Archive

There is an issue about allowing the duels. Accepting it seemingly led to the cut in taxes, a higher crime level, and also to the legislation note,
"murderers frequently escape punishment by claiming they were protecting their honour".

This (especially the note) seems totally incorrect to me. Historical duels became a covert action, which lead to possible ambiguity, mostly after they were banned.
A simple and obvious solution for a government allowing duels is to oblige participants to register it beforehand and choose two or even four seconds. Also some kind of arbitrator may be appointed to watch the duel.
Then there would be no reason to relieve the punishment to any murderer whose victim wasn't kind enough to register the ongoing murder.

It's the general nature of NS issues. You select something, and the most extreme outcome possible out of that selection happens. The murderers protecting their honour happens quite often in modern-day; I remember something about a Pakistani case where a murderer would do such a thing. Some things just happen. Also, I believe that old cases cannot be modified unless for spelling or grammar.

> the most extreme outcome possible out of that selection happens

Well, this is clear. If I was losing as much as extra 0.1% of population each year, or had my economy somewhat weakened, it would be extreme but logical. But the outcome I had seems wrong to me, because I did not approve murders.

>The murderers protecting their honour happens quite often in modern-day

Probably. But if my state allows duels, then there would be two cases:
1) someone kills someone at a duel
2) someone murders someone (and possibly says he was protecting his honour)

1 is not a crime.
2 is a crime and the murderer (once blame is proven) must be punished, his words about honour in no way defend him.

If I was writing such issue, allowing duels would lower the crimes level: one who wishes to murder someone has a chance to do this legally if his victim challenges him.