I have been reading R.H.A.T.O. and im at the point where Jason todd kills Cobblepot. of course Batman gets mad and attacks todd. I am curious about why Batman is so obsessed with keeping other specific people form killing. I understand why batman can’t let himself kill, I understand why he wont let superman or other metas’ kill; but why Jason? Jason is just another person with no powers. How would Batman react about jason Killing bad guys if he had a badge? Would batan break the arm of a cop that shot one of the big bads like Joker or Two-face or Cobblepot? Does batman Frown upon members of the military that take down terrorist? Would batman chastise seal team six? Why if one of the Gothem swat cops got lucky while batman was going toe-to-toe with bane in the street and dropped bane right in front of Bruce. how do you think he would react toward the officers doing their job?
It’s not about someone having powers or not. Whether Superman can kill ten people at the same time or Jason can kill one, a human life is still taken. Batman lives by his no kill rule and part of that rule is stopping someone from killing someone else whenever possible. He knows that he is not responsible for the entire world’s actions, but if he can do something about it, then he is going to do whatever he can.
I think Batman also feels a sense of responsibility for Jason and he wants to help him.
In Jason’s case specifically Batman acts because
- It happens in His city and
- the deed is committed by an estranged member of the Bat family
I always hated the fact that Batman has this no kill policy. I love Batman comics, though. Go figure. It’s a stupid sentiment and it feeds off of or into the bleeding heart, weak, unjust policies of our broken criminal justice system. Or…it’s just an easy way to make villains recurring characters.
I love the punisher. He’s right in the face of marvel’s bleeding heart heroes with his method of dealing with criminals.
If you read Metal, the grim knight is an alternate Batman character who kills criminals. But he turned Gotham into a totalitarian state under his control. The punisher is always written as an outcast and a psycho. Whenever a hero does the logical thing and kills the bad guys, it’s suggested that there’s something wrong with them morally or mentally. It’s all political.
I respectfully disagree. The way I see look at it, if Batman kills, thats puts him on the level of the bad guys. Killing isn’t real justice, its revenge. Its what keeps Batman from becoming one of his villains. The Joker is a reflection of what Batman could become if he went down that path. His whole life is dedicated to stopping what happened to him when he was a boy, when two lives were taken in front of him.
Batman, in most incarnations, does have a certain respect for the law and justice system. Yeah, ironic, given that he’s a vigilante, but it’s true. Thus, every criminal gets arrested to have a fair trial and pay their debt to society. Furthermore, he understands that resorting to killing could easily be a slippery slope for him. If he’s running an investigation and chases the wrong guy, that’s one thing. If he kills the wrong person, or decides a more minor offense “deserves” a death sentence so it “doesn’t happen again”, that’s something he can’t walk back from. He’s not enacting justice by finding a mugger that took things to far and leaving him for the morticians. That’s premeditated murder. Killing an enemy in the heat of battle could even be a crime (I’m blanking on the technical term, admittedly).
I get there’s a revenge fantasy element to seeing the hero kill the big bad, and that’s fine for some characters, but I prefer a Batman that doesn’t become a dread killer in the shadows.
I would imagine there should be a particular sting where Jason is involved. Not just about his death, but because he trained him to use nonlethal means, but chose to throw those lessons away when he was brought back. In the hands of the right writer, this could be a good way of challenging Batman’s oath. But I don’t think they ever covered that post-New52. I do know that someone on Batman & Robin Eternal had Bats suggest that Todd would “do what needed to be done when the world needed it” because Bruce wouldn’t or some such excuse, which I–don’t put a lot of stock into, personally.
Batman recognizes that he is already seriously pushing the boundaries of what’s legal for a private investigator or bounty hunter to do. If other costumed figures start killing people, then there’s no wiggle room to argue that superheroes are something more than vigilantes. And since he was the inspiration for all of the current superheroes operating in the city, he would be held directly accountable for their actions by the public.
A dead criminal never commits another crime
But what crimes are actually worthy of death? Does the Penguin deserve to get his head blown off because he wanted to steal a Fabergé egg? Should the Riddler be riddled just because of his annoying habit of littering the city with engimas?
A jaywalker never jaywalks again if you run them over. Is that justice, though?
Both of those guys have been written as capitol offenders. The bigger issue for me is…Who wants Batman to live in a world with no riddler or penguin? Or Joker
In No Man’s Land Batman finally snaps on Joker, and Gordon stops him saying " I wont let you become that." Batman knows if he ever killed, he might never stop.
Thats what also makes The Dark Knight movie a great morality tale. If the Joker gets Batman to kill him, he wins, because he brought him down to his level. That was the Jokers whole mission, to make him break that one rule. We see the effects of that when he helps turn Harvey Dent into two-face. He wanted to prove he can make anyone into a killer if pushed hard enough, which was also the point of the ferry scene at the end of the movie.
And then Batman kills Dent at the end. 
I still love Batman. My favorite dc stories are Batman stories. I just don’t think killing the bad guys would make him morally bankrupt. At least violent criminals. There’s a difference between execution and murder. I understand the concept of why he doesn’t carry guns and always preserves life whenever possible. I just think it’s not really practical. Even for a guy who’ll swing off tall buildings with a rope rather than take an elevator
Lol for that i go with “I wont kill you, but I don’t have to save you.” 
But executing someone in the streets when there are other choices is murder.
“I don’t have to stop you from falling to your death once I push you off this ledge.”
In all fairness, it’s pretty much in line with how he did things from 1939 to 1940. He was always punching, kicking, or flinging someone into death, but he wasn’t popping out with a Tommy gun and mowing down everyone in a room.
That’s how I feel about the end of Begins, too. NOT saving him from the train when you could actually does make you responsible.
Lol I was just reaching for a way out of that one. Hard to defend lol.
“I’m not going to kill you, but I am going to coordinate with the police to have this monorail derailed in midair, and then I’m going to knock you to the floor and gloat about how you’re about to die.”
Pedantic Man Begins