I don't like when the people in charge kill someone's character without them having any say. I myself use characters to explore various concepts and stories and themes, and if the narrative requires it they'll die. But if someone just rolled up and said "Whoops you're dead!" I would protest if I still had stuff to do.

I think that every character should be able to die. I'd only be upset if my character was killed without warning right after the first post. That wouldn't be much fun.

I guess I could put my two copper into the pot.

I am not opposed to death in RPs. I like someone dying if it fits the bill. However, I avoid RPs and never make RPs where the GM has exclusive rights to end a character life at any given time. I am of the stance that RPing and Tabletop gaming are collaborative efforts. Thus, if you want to kill someone or see it as highly likely, I find it courteous to communicate with the other person. This even opens up more creative cooperation to make the death even more impressive, silly, heroic, grand, etc.

On the topic of no death clauses, I find those tacky at best and outright distasteful at worst. If you must include a pseudo no death clause, at least make it a talk to me before attempting to kill my character clause. That seems a good way to prevent issues where a GM is a bit too liberal with killing or a player is too attached to their character.

All of this assumes a good working relationship among the players and GM of course.

I think you should be able to die in only two ways. 1) If you're in a situation where you are confined to a space in a situation where you have to die, say: Your character has been trapped against a wall, with major injuries and a 15 man gun squad in front of them. 2) Also, if you want your character to die. I've seen plenty of people just simply kill off a character because it helps the story or they want to debut a new character. Say, this one time, the GM of a roleplay thought that it was unfair how he was playing two players when the rest were playing one. So he got one to blow the others brains out.

Only in these situations do I think it should happen, like, warn them before the death. But can anyone escape going into Cardiac arrest while 15 Mexican soldiers intend to kill them?

Was in a RP a long time ago where one of the members was always making his character the focus. If (looking at names above me) HollywoodMole's character is particularly well read then his character will start spouting quotes immediately. If UnseenShade's character was a member of a small military unit that had to use guerrilla tactics to survive for weeks in some horrid battle, well then as it turns out his character is the master of guerrilla warfare. He did that kind of thing several times, the GM warned him, the OOC warned him, I even sent him a few PMs because he seemed like a decent guy who just didn't realize what he was doing.

The GM ended up posting a very brief IC post wherein his character shot the other guy's character in the leg and then (with a line I'm pretty sure came straight from Boondock Saints) shot that character in the head and buried him.

It was sort of necessary at that point as he just wasn't getting it, but he was the second poster effectively kicked out of that RP and it left a bad taste in my mouth.