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Ongoing gun violence/injury thread

WakeForestRanger said:
How in the age of mass shooters can anyone not be seen as a threat who is open carrying an AR-15?
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Completely agree. How do we know Rittenhouse wasn't there to shoot up the entire scene, but backed down after being accosted and shooting his assailants? His word?

If I'm in a chaotic situation, with family or friends, and I see someone (clearly not law enforcement) wielding an AR-15 nearby, I'm probably going to try to tackle & disarm them. And I guess, if I don't do a good enough job, I'm going to die. And it will be justified.
 
06deacon said:
Lol I mean jeez scooter what do you think the protests have been about if not for this, and how a certain subset of folks get disproportionately “mis-perceived” or made up threats with zero consequences.
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That is a different issue - I am talking about self defense laws and what they say/mean. You are talking about police shootings that they justify as addressing a threat which may or may not have existed. Some of those situations are egregious and certainly there should be consequences - often there are, but sometimes there aren't. Some of those are miscarriages of justice - which are terrible - but I am not talking about those.

My real point is that the Rittenhouse verdict is not a hill you want to die on - the facts and the evidence, at a minimum, create a real doubt as to whether he was reasonable in his belief that he was acting in self defense - and, taken in the light most favorable to the defendant, establish a clear case of self defense.

I just think this is a stupid case to be protesting about. The other examples y'all bring up and that have happened over the past few years are much worse - many are terrible.
 
Rittenhouse shot people who were protesting about one of those “worse” cases.
 
06deacon said:
If that guy who got his arm shot while pointing a gun at rittenhouse had the situations reversed and he shot rittenhouse instead, he’d likely also be cleared on self defense right? So now everyone gets to have guns feeling constantly and justifiably threatened and having shootouts where the one who lives gets to write the narrative. This is dumb as hell.
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Well, I don't know, did Rittenhouse initiate the interaction with the guy who was shot in the arm, threatening to shoot him? To my understanding, that guy was chasing Rittenhouse and he himself testified that he was a few feet away from Rittenhouse, I guess yelling or something and Rittenhouse did not shoot him and that when he pointed his gun at Rittenhouse then Rittenhouse shot him.

Honest question - do y'all think the Rittenhouse kid wanted to shoot people that night? That if the first guy had not threatened him, followed him, chased him and tried to take his gun, that he would have shot someone anyway? Because I don't. I think that if people would have left him alone he would have strutted around all night with his gun, feeling important, and then gone home and told all his friends how he protected the city.
 
tigerswood said:
Completely agree. How do we know Rittenhouse wasn't there to shoot up the entire scene, but backed down after being accosted and shooting his assailants? His word?

If I'm in a chaotic situation, with family or friends, and I see someone (clearly not law enforcement) wielding an AR-15 nearby, I'm probably going to try to tackle & disarm them. And I guess, if I don't do a good enough job, I'm going to die. And it will be justified.
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In this situation there were apparently lots of people, clearly not law enforcement, walking around with guns. For an extended period of time. Not shooting anyone. In that situation if you tried to tackle and disarm one of them you would be an idiot.
 
scooter84 said:
Well, I don't know, did Rittenhouse initiate the interaction with the guy who was shot in the arm, threatening to shoot him? To my understanding, that guy was chasing Rittenhouse and he himself testified that he was a few feet away from Rittenhouse, I guess yelling or something and Rittenhouse did not shoot him and that when he pointed his gun at Rittenhouse then Rittenhouse shot him.

Honest question - do y'all think the Rittenhouse kid wanted to shoot people that night? That if the first guy had not threatened him, followed him, chased him and tried to take his gun, that he would have shot someone anyway? Because I don't. I think that if people would have left him alone he would have strutted around all night with his gun, feeling important, and then gone home and told all his friends how he protected the city.
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If that guy shot R and R was unable to testify due to death then guy would have been able to say R was a suspected mass shooter holding a gun and he reasonably feared for his life. Done. See how fucked up this all is? That’s the point.
 
PhDeac said:
Rittenhouse shot people who were protesting about one of those “worse” cases.
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No, according to the evidence presented, he shot people who were attacking him. If they had left him alone no one would be dead.
 
scooter84 said:
do y'all think the Rittenhouse kid wanted to shoot people that night?
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Yes. Absolutely. First there is plenty of evidence regarding his background and political/cultural proclivity towards authoritarianist intervention. Carrying a weapon implies a willingness to use that weapon.

Second - he put himself in harms way taking on an authority to protect other peoples property in a chaotic situation. He took on the responsibility of law enforcement, which is vigilantism. If there is no clear line between citizenry and authority then you have chaos.
 
The notion that he was just randomly attacked by protesters is absurd. How did the protesters know that he wasn’t one of them? How many police officers in Kenosha were killed or shot at that night? How many Kenosha officers shot in self defense that night? We *don’t know* who instigated this fight where Kyle had to defend himself, and dead men tell no tales. But we can certainly assume that if Kyle either A. hadn’t been walking around with a gun pretending to have authority or B. had actually been a cop in uniform, he would have been safe. What actually happened was he chose to assume authority over others that he wasn’t given, and he endangered himself.

Owning a weapon and being confrontational and patriotic doesn’t give a citizen the right to deputize themselves, and if the law allows us to do that via open carry/self defense grounds then the laws should be amended. People can’t just just get a wild hair up their ass and pretend to be fucking cops because they got pissed off watching the news.
 
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Ban open carry and ban any weapon that is both fed with a detachable magazine and capable of semiautomatic fire.
 
06deacon said:
If that guy shot R and R was unable to testify due to death then guy would have been able to say R was a suspected mass shooter holding a gun and he reasonably feared for his life. Done. See how fucked up this all is? That’s the point.
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Now you are bringing up the evidentiary problem - which is always a problem. In this case there was video and testimony and the outcome would depend on what could be established.

The Trayvon Martin case was a perfect example of the evidentiary problem - no witnesses, no video, just a survivor of the interaction claiming self defense. I don't think anyone really liked that result. That punk Zimmerman walking around with the gun as the self appointed guardian of the complex (He wasn't officially a watchman or anything, was he - I forget now... whether it matters or not). He obviously initiated the interaction - why would the kid approach him? But our system requires that the state establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt - that is purposely a high bar. Essentially the state had to prove B.A.R.D. that Zimmerman was not attacked and was not reasonable in his fear.

These evidentiary issues are no different than every other law that the state tried to enforce.

How do you fix that situation? I don't think you do. Self defense has to remain a concept and our system is designed such that 10 guilty people will get off before one innocent person gets put away.

I am a supporter of a person's right to own a gun but it is clear that there are too many on the streets. I have some ideas about what to do about that which I might share later - but I don't know how much they will help.
 
Gun people always say to treat every gun as if loaded, so it stands to reason that any time you see a gun to assume the bearer is willing to use it. What purpose did he have to bring it there if not to use it? To intimidate people? Like that's much better. If it was only brought there for self defense, why did he go in the first place if it was such a dangerous place that merited he come with an AR-15?
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
Yes. Absolutely. First there is plenty of evidence regarding his background and political/cultural proclivity towards authoritarianist intervention. Carrying a weapon implies a willingness to use that weapon.

Second - he put himself in harms way taking on an authority to protect other peoples property in a chaotic situation. He took on the responsibility of law enforcement, which is vigilantism. If there is no clear line between citizenry and authority then you have chaos.
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I fundamentally and completely disagree with this. There is a chasm between thinking it is cool to grab your AR so you can strut around with the other people carrying rifles and protect businesses or whatever - and "man, I am just itching to shoot somebody tonight". What about all the other people that were there with weapons who didn't shoot anybody? Did they leave disappointed? Why didn't they pick somebody and take them out?
 
BarcaDeac said:
Gun people always say to treat every gun as if loaded, so it stands to reason that any time you see a gun to assume the bearer is willing to use it. What purpose did he have to bring it there if not to use it? To intimidate people? Like that's much better. If it was only brought there for self defense, why did he go in the first place if it was such a dangerous place that merited he come with an AR-15?
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Being willing to use it is different from wanting to use it.
 
scooter84 said:
I fundamentally and completely disagree with this. There is a chasm between thinking it is cool to grab your AR so you can strut around with the other people carrying rifles and protect businesses or whatever - and "man, I am just itching to shoot somebody tonight". What about all the other people that were there with weapons who didn't shoot anybody? Did they leave disappointed? Why didn't they pick somebody and take them out?
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Of course you do. I don’t give a shit what people think is *cool*. It shouldn’t be legal for a non-deputized citizen to take on state authority by intimidation though open carry or threat by weapon. It was not Kyle Rittenhouse’s responsibility to protect other peoples shit by acting tough with a rifle, and it’s very clear though the consequences of his doing so why it should be illegal. Even top flight mall security guards have to be fucking licensed and credentialed, and most of them just carry around pepper spray or tazers.
 
PhDeac said:
Rittenhouse shot people who were protesting about one of those “worse” cases.
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after being fired up by a litany of lies by the col anuses and sailors of the world who have been fired up by "alternative facts."
 
Open carry is nothing but legalized violent intimidation. It should be illegal to publicly brandish any firearm that isn’t for hunting, sales, or target practice purposes.
 
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