Ongoing gun violence/injury thread

[PhDeac]

Some of the stuff out there worshipping Rittenhouse is far out there.

 

[DeacsPop]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/11/rittenhouse-jury-verdict-self-defense-legal-analysis.html

———-

Rittenhouse’s killing of Rosenbaum may have been lawful. But that was scarcely self-evident to the bystanders who heard gunshots and then saw a killer holding an AR-15. The group of protesters who proceeded to chase and attack Rittenhouse could have reasonably believed that killing the armed teenager was necessary to save others from imminent bodily harm. If Rittenhouse had a right to shoot Huber and Grosskreutz in self-defense, the latter had a similarly legitimate basis for shooting Rittenhouse dead.

Put differently: Once Rittenhouse fired his first shots, he and his attackers plausibly entered a context in which neither could be held legally liable for killing the other. Whether one emerged from this confrontation legally innocent or lawfully executed hinged on little more than one’s relative capacity for rapidly deploying lethal violence. Rittenhouse had a more powerful weapon and a quicker trigger finger than Huber or Grosskreutz. Thus, he walks free, in full health, while Huber lies in a grave and Grosskreutz gets by without the bulk of his right bicep.
…

As Shaila Dewan notes in the New York Times, “legally kill or legally be killed” scenarios are just one of several pathological consequences of America’s lax gun regulations, and permissive police use of force and/or self-defense laws. In much of the country, Americans have a legal right to openly carry weapons of mass murder. And yet all it takes is one suspicious bystander, a phone call to the police, and the arrival of a trigger-happy cop for the legal act of carrying an AR-15 — or a toy gun — to become a legal basis for one’s summary execution.

If America’s permissive self-defense laws and abundant guns open up a vast zone of permissible killing, the precise borders of that territory are shaped by white supremacy. In a 2013 study of U.S. homicides, the Urban Institute found that killings involving “a white perpetrator and a black victim are 281 percent more likely to be ruled justified than cases with a white perpetrator and white victim.”

A legal environment that favors the armed in their confrontations with the unarmed, police in their confrontations with suspects, and whites in their confrontations with Blacks is antithetical to social peace, let alone social justice. It is, however, quite favorable to the American far right.

In this case it only had to be reasonable to a jury. Which it was.

 

[scooter84]

Yeah, that's what I am saying. One (1) automatic and semi automatic rifles should be illegal; Two (2), your rights to self defense should not extend to lethal force if there is no evidence of injury on the defendant; three (3), the concept of self defense has to consider the whole context of the claim. Rittenhouse was an aggressor in that he chose to go to this place he knew was dangerous with a lethal weapon, he was looking for a confrontation and he found it. That has to count for something. That should be in the law, but it's not.

Sorry but I disagree with all of this. Automatic rifles are already effectively illegal and there is no reason semi-autos should be illegal unless you are just going to make all rifles illegal. You can't limit self defense to only when you have already suffered injury or then it would be useless. And the self defense concept DOES consider the whole context.

I agree the kid shouldn't have been there, especially not with a gun, but I don't think he was necessarily looking for a confrontation. I think he naively thought that toting a gun would intimidate people and they would leave him alone cause he looked tough or whatever.

Anyway, whether we like it or not, he was within his rights to do what he was doing and should have been entitled to expect not to be attacked. Do we know why those people took an interest in him and attacked him? Weren't there other people there running around with guns?

 

[PhDeac]

Didn’t the other people with guns have the right to be there if Rittenhouse did?

 

[scooter84]

Didn’t the other people with guns have the right to be there if Rittenhouse did?

Did somebody say they didn't?

 

[Les Grossman]

I don’t understand why people don’t like a person to be able to claim self-defense just because you disagree with the outcome in this case. There are other cases where you would agree with the outcome. It basically comes down to three principles:

1. Someone should be able to defend themselves if they are threatened.

2. Someone should not be able to if they are the instigator or primary aggressor.

3. And, the State should always have the burden.

Just because you disagree with a jury’s conclusion doesn’t mean it’s bad law.

 

[WFFaithful]

Sorry but I disagree with all of this. Automatic rifles are already effectively illegal and there is no reason semi-autos should be illegal unless you are just going to make all rifles illegal. You can't limit self defense to only when you have already suffered injury or then it would be useless. And the self defense concept DOES consider the whole context.

I agree the kid shouldn't have been there, especially not with a gun, but I don't think he was necessarily looking for a confrontation. I think he naively thought that toting a gun would intimidate people and they would leave him alone cause he looked tough or whatever.

Anyway, whether we like it or not, he was within his rights to do what he was doing and should have been entitled to expect not to be attacked. Do we know why those people took an interest in him and attacked him? Weren't there other people there running around with guns?

It's not ok to take a weapon to a public space with the intent to intimidate people.

 

[deaconson]

Thankfully it's legal!

 

[Deleted member 7528]

I don’t understand why people don’t like a person to be able to claim self-defense just because you disagree with the outcome in this case. There are other cases where you would agree with the outcome. It basically comes down to three principles:

1. Someone should be able to defend themselves if they are threatened.

2. Someone should not be able to if they are the instigator or primary aggressor.

3. And, the State should always have the burden.

Just because you disagree with a jury’s conclusion doesn’t mean it’s bad law.

Correct. The State couldn't even prove the weapon was illegal in his hands (charged and dismissed). Somebody can engage in five consecutive distasteful acts and still not commit the crime of homicide, so long as each link in the chain is a lawful act.

I've yet to hear an explanation for what he was supposed to do when someone was beating him with a skateboard while he's lying on the ground. While unusual, that's deadly force, and the video shows he'd already retreated.

The narratives took over (again) and the people who usually lose the facts never disappoint. It's not illegal or relevant that he crossed State lines, the gun was apparently in Wisconsin throughout the relevant time period, the State has the burden of proving the elements of homicide (duh) and one white guy shooting three other white guys in self defense is not an act of white supremacy.

Kid's going to get Nicholas Sandman money from the media. Some people never learn.

 

[PhDeac]

I don’t understand why people don’t like a person to be able to claim self-defense just because you disagree with the outcome in this case. There are other cases where you would agree with the outcome. It basically comes down to three principles:

1. Someone should be able to defend themselves if they are threatened.

2. Someone should not be able to if they are the instigator or primary aggressor.

3. And, the State should always have the burden.

Just because you disagree with a jury’s conclusion doesn’t mean it’s bad law.

From refs/officials determining who gets the unsportsmanlike or a tech to parents determining which kid started it, it’s difficult to “prove” one person started a conflict. And that’s when two people can speak for themselves.

As we’ve pointed out several times, 1 and 2 are extremely vague. 3 means it’s very difficult for the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a dead person wasn’t a threat and wasn’t the instigator. It’s often a he said/he said situation and one he is dead.

Lawyers love to claim THE LAW is cut and dry and seem oblivious to the obvious flaws especially how the application of the law primarily benefits white males.

 

[WFFaithful]

Correct. The State couldn't even prove the weapon was illegal in his hands (charged and dismissed). Somebody can engage in five consecutive distasteful acts and still not commit the crime of homicide, so long as each link in the chain is a lawful act.

I've yet to hear an explanation for what he was supposed to do when someone was beating him with a skateboard while he's lying on the ground. While unusual, that's deadly force, and the video shows he'd already retreated.

The narratives took over (again) and the people who usually lose the facts never disappoint. It's not illegal or relevant that he crossed State lines, the gun was apparently in Wisconsin throughout the relevant time period, the State has the burden of proving the elements of homicide (duh) and one white guy shooting three other white guys in self defense is not an act of white supremacy.

Kid's going to get Nicholas Sandman money from the media. Some people never learn.

Was the guy beating him with a skateboard acting in self defense because this kid was walking around with an assault rifle threatening people?

 

[PhDeac]

Funny how “he had a gun” can be justification for killing someone but not justification for defending ones self from a gunman.

 

[Les Grossman]

From refs/officials determining who gets the unsportsmanlike or a tech to parents determining which kid started it, it’s difficult to “prove” one person started a conflict. And that’s when two people can speak for themselves.

As we’ve pointed out several times, 1 and 2 are extremely vague. 3 means it’s very difficult for the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a dead person wasn’t a threat and wasn’t the instigator. It’s often a he said/he said situation and one he is dead.

Lawyers love to claim THE LAW is cut and dry and seem oblivious to the obvious flaws especially how the application of the law primarily benefits white males.

Tell me how you would fix it.

 

[PhDeac]

Tell me how you would fix it.

Require gun users to be licensed by a “well-regulated militia” and restrict carry to people on duty for that “militia.”

 

[Les Grossman]

Require gun users to be licensed by a “well-regulated militia” and restrict carry to people on duty for that “militia.”

That’s a gun possession issue, not a self-defense issue.

The fact of the matter is that no one disagrees with the first two principles I stated. If someone does, I would love to hear their justifications.

The “problem” is that different people when viewing the same evidence, and applying those two principles, may draw different conclusions. That “problem” is not unique to self-defense and pretty much applies to all trials since we have humans making decisions. And, as unfair as the criminal justice system may be towards minorities, I assure it would be far worse if we did not have trial by juries.

 

[PhDeac]

Self-defense is often a gun issue because of the increased likelihood of fatality and the corresponding severity of the potential punishment. Take care of guns and self-defense is much less thorny.

If everyone agrees about 1 and 2 but no one can agree about how to apply 1 and 2, that’s a problem.

 

[scooter84]

From refs/officials determining who gets the unsportsmanlike or a tech to parents determining which kid started it, it’s difficult to “prove” one person started a conflict. And that’s when two people can speak for themselves.

As we’ve pointed out several times, 1 and 2 are extremely vague. 3 means it’s very difficult for the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a dead person wasn’t a threat and wasn’t the instigator. It’s often a he said/he said situation and one he is dead.

Lawyers love to claim THE LAW is cut and dry and seem oblivious to the obvious flaws especially how the application of the law primarily benefits white males.

In this case there was video and testimony, including from one of the guys that got shot, that pretty clearly established a self defense situation.

 

[scooter84]

Was the guy beating him with a skateboard acting in self defense because this kid was walking around with an assault rifle threatening people?

Walking around with a gun does not equal threatening people. I haven't heard any evidence that he was actually threatening people?

 

[birdman]

That’s a gun possession issue, not a self-defense issue.

The fact of the matter is that no one disagrees with the first two principles I stated. If someone does, I would love to hear their justifications.

The “problem” is that different people when viewing the same evidence, and applying those two principles, may draw different conclusions. That “problem” is not unique to self-defense and pretty much applies to all trials since we have humans making decisions. And, as unfair as the criminal justice system may be towards minorities, I assure it would be far worse if we did not have trial by juries.

If you take the guns away, self defense becomes way less lethal and is less of a problem. The precision and fairness of the self defense laws, which are admittedly hard to write, matter a lot less if the likelihood of death is low. Trevon Martin gets beat up, maybe has a broken bone or two, most likely still alive though. People are also much more likely to walk away from a fight before it starts if they are not backed up by a gun.

 

[scooter84]

I don’t know if I saw this here or elsewhere but one lesson of this is that there’s no unarmed right to self-defense against someone with a gun.

I just read this again and wanted to point out that it is completely incorrect. Everyone has a right to self defense. If an armed person is threatening you - pointing their gun at you, threatening to shoot you, or whatever, such that you have a reasonable belief you are in imminent danger, of course you can defend yourself and no one has ever said you can't. It's going to be tough since you are unarmed but you absolutely can.

If you are trying to base this on the unarmed people interacting with the Rittenhouse kid, it was not established that he threatened them so as to place them in such a position.