We’ve turned into a nation of cowards. Just completely craven people who shoot first and ask questions later because the news has made them terrified that they’ll be murdered in their beds, despite violent crime being historically low, comparatively speaking.
Having mingled with the gun community for some time, there are a lot of level-headed people among gun owners but there are also a worrying amount of terminally fearful people with violent ideation. Many are likely one bad life event, one half-cocked response to an uncertain situation from being a mugshot on a news story like this prick.
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And if you don’t have insurance, likely cheaper too.
Are you kidding? Even with insurance a gun is cheaper.
Cheaper too.
And significantly easier to not accidentally kill someone as a gun owner. I get your gist but that’s a terrible comparison.
Having mingled with the gun community for some time, there are a lot of level-headed people among gun owners
This is why US has so much gun violence. Like rabid dog owners assuring you theyre safe. You just havent seen them when theyre not level headed, we’re all emotional apes.
Yep. Even the “responsible” gun owners I know radiate the “I want you to know I’m dangerous” energy when they tell you how prepared they are, “just in case something happens that requires a gun”
There are other quieter owners you never really hear about though. My brother never really talks about it, doesn’t chime in to water cooler “what are you shooting” kinds of talks, and basically just keeps them in the gun safe except for his ~2x a year gun range trips to make sure he stays competent.
He treats them like his garage full of dangerous power tools. Not a toy, but good to have in your back pocket should there be a need for that particular tool some day.
I know most gun owners go their entire lives never shooting someone.
But i dont trust anyones judgment on who will or wont. Its not just the loud and proud gun enthusiasts that end up on the homicide news.
I know most gun owners go their entire lives never shooting someone.
But i dont trust anyones judgment on who will or wont.
Even the cops who aren’t bastards could make the wrong assessment here, too.
It’s safer to go unarmed so when the pros show up you don’t become a concern for them for an instant.
Cops who… aren’t bastards?
I don’t follow.
He treats them like his garage full of dangerous power tools. Not a toy, but good to have in your back pocket should there be a need for that particular tool some day.
A significantly unfortunate number of gun owners treat them like fashion accessories. To be displayed, accessorized, collected, and carelessly treated.
Every gun owner is a responsible gun owner until they aren’t.
For the same reason, it makes spur of the moment suicide attempts more likely, and more deadly.
there are a lot of level-headed people among gun owners but there are also a worrying amount of terminally fearful people with violent ideation.
The problem is that both groups have the same ease of access to weapons.
Until there are a lot more reliable ways to tell the 2 groups apart, weapons need to be a lot more difficult to get your hands on.
Yeah. I have friends that won’t even let their kids walk a quarter mile to school, in one of the safest communities in the entire state. It’s insane. The media has put the fear of “but what if…” into so many people.
You’ve got better odds winning the lottery than what these people are afraid of. Be smart, be savvy, be aware of your surroundings and watch out for the oblivions as you go about your business. But there’s no need to be afraid of everything around you.
In that situation I’m concerned about other drivers, and also the child not paying attention while staring at their phone. I have seen sooo many teens just step off the curb and walk across the street without even looking up from their phone. Stranger Danger would have nothing to do with it.
There needs to be a better balance between the latch key kid independence/responsibility and the absolute lack of trust in your kids and your community to just not be child kidnapping murderers???
Fixing transport infrastructure would have the most impact. Narrower roads with fewer lanes and more complexity, 20mph/30kmph speed limits, better designed pedestrian crossings, and separated bike and pedestrian infrastructure. And requiring the vehicles themselves to be designed such that they are not just safe for the occupants, but safe for other vehicles and people too (which means lower hood heights and lower weight).
And in general, providing viable alternatives to driving so there are less vehicles on the road, making it safer to walk and bike.
but safe for other vehicles and people too (which means lower hood heights and lower weight).
Small note on this, but better crash compatibility and an upper weight limit might also increase the relative safety of bicycles, motorcycles, and even potentially some larger local wildlife, on top of just increasing safety for pedestrians and people driving relatively smaller cars, like sedans.
The whole way our society is built is not around pedestrian safety or teaching it to children.
My daughter is growing up in a subdivision with low traffic and no sidewalks and I have to regularly remind her to look both ways when crossing the streets when we’re elsewhere because it’s just not something she has to do all the time.
There’s room for sidewalks, they just didn’t build them. If there were sidewalks, it would be far easier for her to remember to do it every time.
You’ve got better odds winning the lottery than what these people are afraid of. Be smart, be savvy, be aware of your surroundings and watch out for the oblivions as you go about your business. But there’s no need to be afraid of everything around you.
Awareness prevents the vast majority of dangerous situations. Carrying is actually more likely to escalate situations into being dangerous than not. even a basic situational awareness will keep you far safer than a fire arm ever will.
I agree that people shouldn’t be afraid of this stuff, but I think you underestimate the odds of winning the lottery and your chances of being murdered.
Around 32,000 homicides/year in the US. 333,000,000 people, so about 1 in 100,000.
Powerball odds are 1 in 292,000,000.
the distribution is different though, if you buy a powerball ticket you have the same odds as everyone else who bought one assuming the numbers are equally distributed and truly random
the difference between living in Biden’s suburban neighborhood in Delaware vs west Philly or Baltimore is huge
Sure, but nowhere is the chance of winning the lottery greater than the chance of getting murdered. Even Singapore, which has the lowest homicide rate, is around 1 in 1,000,000.
I suppose if you classified getting a playback prize on a scratch off as a lottery win, but I doubt most people count that.
Everything is a threat. Thank you Faux News and the rest.
Different color skin - threat
Gay - threat
Trans - threat
Environmental rules - threat
Immigration - thread
Vegetarian - threat
Equality - threat
Atheism - threat
Non-western religion - threat
Woke - threat
Electric cars - threat
The list is endless. Everything is a threat to them. Their pocketbooks, their marriage, their jobs, their theism, their TV, their guns…
An endless barrage of threats that they are constantly reminded of.
What can they do against all these threats? Elect a Strong Man that will crack skulls, He Has All The Answers. But those pesky libs keep getting in the way, so you gotta take matters into your own hands. Thank god and the good ol’ USA you can have a personal arsenal at arm’s reach to instantly panic-fire at that dark-skinned person pulling into your driveway who wants to steal your TV.
The “I feared for my life” rhetoric is just an excuse to shoot people, borrowed from police when they wanted to shoot people. You don’t have to politely believe them just because they said it.
Yeah this was just a car in the driveway right ? No one is fearing for their life over that.
Violent crime being historically low except for idiots who shoot at people for turning around in their driveway, ringing the wrong doorbell, etc…
The NRA fear paranoia narrative has permeated our society. Add to that those who feel inferior so they carry a gun to feel powerful. Now add the hate farming by Russian trolls and right wing media, (the two are the same, with different names)
How often I witness roadrage/aggressive drivers makes the mass gunownership in this country kind of terrifying. I’ve seen a truck try to push another car off the road for getting off a left hand exit. I can only assume the truck driver was mad at the car for “being in the way.” The power tripping and entitlement to being aggressive towards others combined with your list of problematic cultural phenomenon and guns is horrifying.
I’ve talked about in in several other posts regarding gun control.
The rampant media sowing fear is poison. It’s the culture that’s being fostered that’s more dangerous than the guns. “Fuck around and find out” and “come try and take them” keeps reinforcing that guns are a totally normal thing to use to solve problems.
I saw an ad for a news app that literally said “fear watch”
So you can always be on top of what to be afraid of next!
You’re right that the vast majority are cowards, but you also have psychos who jerk off to a fantasy of shooting someone. There are all kinds of crazies out there just looking for a reason, and they’re getting crazier in their psycho echo chambers.
But it’s a great chance to exercise your right to be left alone by shysters.
As a late night cab driver, if you’re ever wondering why I’m on the street rather than the driveway in your sketchy, pickup truck filled suburban neighborhood, this is why.
Give me a shady looking industrial district or run down residential neighborhood over semi-rural suburbia any day of the week. I feel much safer.
Yikes.
I’m like the exact opposite, but it’s mostly because I’ve had bad experiences with gangbangers.
I was lily white guy living in ground zero of MS13 gangland in Los Angeles in the early 2000s for four years. I know it’s crazy, but best neighbors I ever had. We all bbq’d together, watched each other’s kids, and got along well.
One morning I was taking a bus to work. Two guys robbed me while I was standing at the bus stop. I had fifteen dollars, which I happily gave to them.
I went over to my neighbor that evening and told him what happened.
The next day, there was fifteen dollars in my mailbox.
I moved from there to high end HOA in Texas and holy hell it was miserable. I hated them all. They were the nosiest, most judgemental assholes imaginable. One lady would go walking down the alleys checking how many beer cans people had in their recycling and called the police on one house charging them with child neglect because of beer cans in their recycling bin. Fuck that neighborhood forever.
(There’s a funny coda to the robbery. I smoked a lot back then. When they were done shoving the gun in my ribs and walking away, I blurted out, “guys, I’m stressed. Do one of you have a light?” and I swear on a stack of books of your choice that one of them turned around and lit my cigarette)
Oh boy, I can’t even imagine… just parking in the street and suddenly: surprise gangbang on your hood
A Vivid scene you describe.
If you’re serious, there are two different uses of the term.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gangbanger
-
(US, slang) A member of a violent gang; a violent person.
-
(vulgar, sex) Someone who takes part in a gangbang.
I am a member of a violent gangbang.
Yes but do you bang gangs, or bang at other gangs?
Weird the US slang version comes before the actual definition. Someone needs to edit that Wikipedia article.
Every other dictionary (Including US ones)
gangbang /găng′băng″/
noun
- Sexual intercourse forced upon one person by several others in rapid succession.
- Sexual intercourse involving several people who select and change partners.
- Sexual intercourse involving more than two persons, especially with a high proportion of men.
- A street gang attacking random people on the streets and/or committing gang crimes.
intransitive verb
- To participate in a gangbang, either consensually or as an aggressor.
- To participate in violent gang-related activities.
- To subject (someone) to a gangbang.
Whether a term is characteristic of a certain dialect or region isn’t generally considered all that much when it comes to order on Wiktionary, unless it’s an “obscure” dialect. I contribute a lot to Wiktionary (mainly for languages other than Modern English though) and there are few rules on the specific the order of definitions, it’s mostly just common definitions above uncommon definitions (but this isn’t even a hard rule).
Editing it to change the order for your reason specifically might be considered vandalism, as it’s typical and allowed for entries to be like this and it’s common for little disputes like that to cause editing wars (although that’s admittedly far more common on Wikipedia, since many Wiktionary contributors are actually linguists and are less controversial).
That being said, someone actually did intentionally move the “gang member” definition above the other one, so there’s clearly some sort of difference in opinion.
If you want it changed, the course of action you should take is starting a discussion about it. It’s a good way to get a community consensus.
Was it changed recently? Lol
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So let’s be clear here. You’re implying very heavily. Are you actually claiming that this person did this nefarious thing? What are you saying?
No, not at all. You can easily view the edit history of all Wiktionary pages – 2 years ago, someone put the definitions in the order they are now for a specific reason. This person thinks it should be the other way around, so if they want to change it it’d be best to make a discussion about it. That’s the best way to get a community consensus on it. Wiktionary is a collaborative effort, people have different opinions on the specifics of a page, that’s why discussions exist and are the go-to for settling differences in views.
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It’s really sad watching you people make light of a serious topic.
I guess it’s because you can’t tolerate any criticism of cities, even if they house most of the people who own guns illegally and use them on other humans.
But it’s not front-page news on these websites whenever someone dies due to gang violence, because it happens every day.
Yeah same thing comes up whenever high density housing is mentioned, you’re not allowed to mention how horrible it is because everyone is locked into an ideology where poor people belong in very small compressed areas because then we’ll be forced to ride bikes which is going to magically solve everything
It also depends where. Suburban or exurban driveways in the South can be deadly with all the 2nd amendment hardliners. Especially in small or midsize cities. In northern or western urban or suburban areas, not as bad.
In my experience, it’s drunk drivers and gangbangers in cities that have killed my friends.
One doesn’t exclude the other.
Your comment specifically says that one is and one isn’t so much of a problem
“So there I was, watching Fox News on one TV, NewsMax on another, dick in hand of course - I’m an alpha you see. And I see this dude trying to steal my freedoms. I ran after him, and I heard him say something woke. It was either “Sorry - wrong house” or “I want to rape your wife and abort the baby”. I couldn’t tell which. Of course I had my blue steel beauty in the hand I wasnt using to rub one out - so I started blasting…”
It’s amazing he managed to wank, hold the gun, and drink a gallon of Pabst Blue Ribbon with only two hands.
That’s what the beer hat is for.
Huffing Right-Wing media all day turning people extremely paranoid for no actual reason.
Sortof the defining characteristic of regressives is that they are easily brainwashed by media. An enlarged amygdala makes them fear and rage-addicted.
That doesn’t explain the city/rural divide though. It could well be that listening to reactionary right wing rhetoric leads to an enlarged amygdala.
Or that people prone to fear of others would self select living in areas that provide them with fewer others
It could be that the kinds of life experienced which lead to large amygdalas also lead to conservative political views.
But sure, let’s pretend it’s not trauma that enlarges the amygdala, but rather the act of listening to long-form interviews.
I’m not sure there is a distinction of kind between trauma and listening to right wing media.
An enlarged amygdala is a sign of having been through some really hard shit
That’s exactly the reason. When push comes to shove, these are the people that will be willingly used for fodder on the front lines.
Knowledge Fight takes a critical look at Alex Jones(I put this in every post I make about him because I can’t stand to listen to AJ direct, and I don’t want people thinking I do). Anyway, he goes out to break quite often shouting stuff like THEYRE COMING FOR YOU, THEY’RE COMING FOR YOU, THEY’RE COMING FOR YOU!!! after having discussed the “demonic antifa/BLM/democrats coming to your houses.”
Obviously not everyone is as sensationalist as Alex Jones, but he’s been bragging about how other places have started sounding like him. Including Joe Rogan (probably more on Vax and stuff like that, but still)
Alex thinks he is fighting the literal christian devil. Like there is no way to deal with that other than violence.
Also hello fellow wonk
No he doesn’t, he’s a con man who frightens people to get donations and to sell survival scams. His listeners might believe that but he’s there when he makes some of that shit up himself and just uses the improv “yes, and” for other crazy shit he sees or listeners/viewers call on with (assuming they aren’t just actors saying what he’s told them to).
I wonder how many vatniks went to the front line eager to kill some ukranians and then collect the medals and go home.
Babcock told police what he could see on his Ring camera made him think someone was breaking into his car, so he went outside and started shooting.
Turns out your life is not in danger of someone is breaking into your car and it is not legal to shoot at them. I’m guessing this dipshit considers himself a responsible gun owner.
What the fuck are these people so scared of that they start blasting folk for pulling into their driveway? This seems to keep happening and nobody ever thinks to check up on the mf who almost blasted a delivery driver who got the wrong address? Forget just charging the dude with attempted murder, can we search the house and take away firearms from somebody so clearly irresponsible that they can’t distinguish a genuine threat from an imagined one?
If the second amendment won’t allow that to happen, then the amendment needs to be re-written.
A diet of fear mongering media with a heaping helping of social isolation.
Antisocial monsters are made surprisingly easily.
Maybe they just want to kill someone.
The second amendment absolutely would allow that to happen. To people purposefully misrepresenting what it says won’t.
First, it says what it says because we need a militia to protect the nation, which was once true when an professional standing army wasn’t expected but no longer is.
Second, the goal is for a well regulated militia. Even if we assume it still applies (it doesn’t, but let’s pretend), nothing about this is well regulated. Make sure people have training if you’re going to let people own firearms so freely.
It wasn’t that a professional standing army “wasn’t expected” - in fact they were quite common at the time. Standing armies don’t tend to go unused, they make it easy for asshole politicians to pick stupid fights with other countries. Not having one was a deliberate choice we made to avoid such things, and for the most part it worked, for a little while at least.
I wouldn’t say the were quite common. They weren’t unheard of, but only the major powers in the world could afford them. The US would be a nation of mostly farmers isolated from most of the developed world. There’s no reason they would have expected to become a world power. A militia, at the time, would seem to be the reasonable expectation for such a nation for the foreseeable future.
As a responsible gun owner: they can and should take his guns away. There’s multiple felonies he can be charged with and he’ll almost certainly be convicted of at least one.
It’s more about hate and bravado than fear.
It may be in the constitution, but I doubt the founding fathers envisaged that you’d all be such fuckwits.
Worse, we seem absolutely proud of our stupidity.
Evidence?
Here’s the laugh though. Read “Democracy in America” by Alex de Tocqueville. A large part of it is observations amounting to “these fuckwits need to be aware of what they’re doing and in many cases they are not”
The constitution should be changed. Or better: Thrown out and written from scratch
Maybe we could ammend it or something. Just spitballin here
No, because the Founding Fathers were so scared of tyranny of the majority, we have tyranny of the minority instead, and they will never let it change.
The founding fathers are much worse then this guy. founding fathers owned slaves, this dude only traumatized one person.
$50k bond for almost killing the delivery driver. Bullet hole upper part of the driver door for assuming that the truck was being stolen.
Either he hates dominos or his wife cheated on him with a delivery driver.
Dude fired seven times, and three hit the car. What a menace, should have been charged with attempted murder.
And unless he lives in the middle of nowhere… then yeah where did the other four end up?
Outside the environment. /s
Doesn’t matter, shot gun.
Bora-bora.
The worst part about that fact is that that’s better accuracy than the average for cops. For the US army, it’s about 50% accuracy under duress, and cops are about 30%.
I don’t understand why he wasn’t charged with attempted murder. This is a bullshit defense.
Babcock said he went outside and “began shooting at the truck” to “disable” it…
Yes, killing the driver would do that.
I don’t understand why he wasn’t charged with attempted murder.
Because…
Tennessee
He should be stripped of his weapons for his lack of discipline.
Not a requirement to own or use a gun, at the insistence of “responsible gun owners” who demand that responsibility remains 100% optional.
weaponsfreedomNot freedom from consequences. He nearly killed someone.
I’m saying he should be stripped of his freedom, not just his weapons.
I’m not sure about the exact laws where the incident occurred, but in several other states that I know the law of, aggravated assault carries the exact same penalties as attempted murder. Because of the wording of the two laws, aggravated assault is much easier to prove. If you’re a prosecutor, why would you not go with the easier to prove, exact same penalty crime?
I have to be honest, I was surprised the delivery driver wasn’t black. This idiot was just ready to kill someone, anyone. He’s probably been looking out his front window, gun in hand, at every little noise for months or years.
And even if the kid was trying to steal an empty car, this guy would still go to prison if he killed him because no one’s life or health was in danger. Stealing a car is not a capital offense.
Maybe some gun nut can help me with this. If the teen had, say an AR15 because he was concerned about running into some wild hogs. If he ducked down and started firing back in a clearly self defense situation, would he fine in doing this?
Or does it depend on the color of his skin?
Nevermind the racial part.
Your scenario actually highlights a good point, what kind of society do we want to live in? Some western everyone for them selves, shoot first talk later, or do we want to live in a civilized society?
My belief is that guns in general make us less safe. Both of the individuals in this story would be safer if neither had any guns. As well as the entire neighborhood, would also be safer without guns.
I’ll take the civilized society please. Unfortunately I seem to be surrounded by people who think they’re the badass, and they advocate for their ideal Wild West shoot first world from the comfort of their suburban home.
They always live in the dullest suburb.
Yes I’m sure this rant is based on reality and not just matching the pattern of “classic anti freedom rant sequence #63”
“They’re stupid people”
“And they’re dumb!”
“And I bet they eat their boogers”
“They totally do”
Deep thoughts indeed
Nevermind the racial part.
Yeah I don’t think I will… This isn’t happening in a vacuum.
It’s not but he was making the point that you don’t even need to have that aspect included and it’s still coming off terribly
guns don’t kill people… stupid does.
there are countries with guns AND no crime.
Yes. That’s why you need to make sure there’s no stupid involved when you sell a gun, and the US seem to fail pretty hard at that.
there are countries with guns AND no crime.
I’m sure you have a ready list to support a bold statement like that, and that they are all desirable places to live. I remind you that you said NO crime.
what is hyperbole
what is hyperbole
Not a valid support for this statement, among other things.
guns don’t kill people… stupid does.
That’s funny I view “everyone for themselves” as the definition of a civilized society.
There theoretically could be a situation where two people shoot at each other and both can claim self-defense, but it would be convoluted.
Self defense does not apply if a person legally provokes the attacker. Now legal provocation means committing a crime, not telling a yo mama joke. As an example, if I try to rob a bank and someone starts shooting at me, I can’t claim self defense because I provoked them by robbing a bank.
So in this case, depends on if the trespassing is a crime that would count as legal provocation. If not, delivery guy is allowed to return fire. And I hope every sane person agrees it is not a provocation or a crime.Edit: So in this case, the only provocation could be trespassing, if parking in some ones driveway counted. Which it almost certainly does not as explained in replies to this comment. In addition, I am not sure trespassing would qualify as provocation, this may depend on state laws and the details of the trespass.
Edit 2: Just to make it even clearer, the answer is yes. I believe the delivery driver could legally return fire, but I am not a lawyer.
Pulling into someone’s driveway isn’t trespassing as a general rule, unless you know they don’t want you there.
Trespass at its heart is legally something you need to have had intent to do. “No trespassing” signs or verbal warnings to leave inform someone that this is land they aren’t wanted on, so are pretty important in proving trespassing.
This is also why door-to-door salesman and missionaries aren’t sued out of existence. Both use the land in an attempt to offer something to the owner, its a legitimate use, as long as they leave when told.
But since the delivery man believed he had explicit permission, since he thought this was the house that ordered a pizza, it’s perfectly legal. He just would’ve had to leave when he was told to go.
But the pizza man did nothing to provoke shooting, so I expect the owner gets no self-defense argument here. Just the pizza guy.
But the pizza man did nothing to provoke shooting, so I expect the owner gets no self-defense argument here. Just the pizza guy.
This is where the part about skin color comes into play… E.g. Trayvon Martin
This would not be criminal trespassing though. They would have to have been told to leave then, given an appropriate amount of time to leave, they refuse to do so, you now have a criminal trespass. Just pulling into someone’s driveway isn’t gonna cut it. Everyone has the legal right to enter your open property for the purpose of contacting you.
I don’t disagree. Sorry if it sounded I did. I just did not want to state it with certainty as I am not read up on trespassing laws.
oh sorry if i came off rude, or snippy, I was just trying to put in some more info on the subject.
No, it was my fault for wording it misleadingly :) I will edit it to clear it up
You guys are nice. It’s nice.
If that asshole didn’t wanted anyone in his driveway he should have a good fence with a door, not an open one. As it has it (and with his trigger happy response) it’s not s driveway but a honeypot.
Yeah people like him, even if they somehow haven’t really broke the law, need to be labeled as dangerous to society. Like, shooting someone for pulling in your driveway? That is insanity. This person is definitely not stable enough to just be loose in society.
Also what kind of idiot starts shit from his own front door?
It’s not just theoretical. Kyle Rittenhouse shot Gaige Grosskreutz and successfully claimed self-defense because Grosskreutz incidentally pointed his gun at Rittenhouse because he was moving his hands around while he was attempting to deescalate the situation. If that’s true, then on the other side, Grosskreutz could’ve shot Rittenhouse and also met the standard for self-defense. After all, Rittenhouse pointed his gun at him after he’d already greased two other dudes. In that case, “self-defense” was just a matter of who shot first.
American law be all sorts of fucked.
Absolutely no. Gaige Grosskreutz would not be able to claim self defense exactly for the reason I explained. You don’t get to claim self defense immediately after assaulting and battering someone. That counts as provocation.That would be true even if Rittenhouse no longer had a claim of self defense (for example because Grosskreutz visibly stopped attacking), since as I wrote, those are two different things.Grosskreutz did not touch, attack, or batter Rittenhouse. You must be thinking about Anthony Huber, who hit Rittenhouse with a skateboard.
You seem to be correct, I misremembered.
That being said, I don’t think he would have a valid self defense claim against Rittenhouse after running up to him with a gun and pointing it at him. But I am not sure on this one.
Obviously, neither of us is a court of law, but to me, the law around self-defense is based around an individual’s subjective perception of danger. Grosskreutz perceived an active shooter situation, and thus it would have been eminently reasonable for him to shoot RIttenhouse on sight. Instead, he approached with the intent to de-escalate, but it would also have been reasonable to shoot when Rittenhouse pointed the weapon at him. But, as you say, Rittenhouse perceived another threat charging at him with a gun, and a court of law did find reasonable grounds for self-defense. Each man perceived a threat for which the law allows a deadly response, and that’s why I say the law is messed up.
Yes, as I wrote earlier it is theoretically possible.
That being said, the subjective here is subjective perception (what you see, hear, …), not subjective evaluation of that perception. So IMO perceiving that someone shot someone else without seeing what preceded that absolutely does not give you the right to shoot immediately. Objectively evaluating that perception, it could be a murderer, or self defense, or an undercover cop. You do not have the justification to fire unless you see them threatening you, or someone who you actually perceived to not be a threat.
The way I see it, appearing threatening goes with carrying a gun. If you choose to carry, you need to be responsible for your appearance to the surrounding. As an example, aim a gun at a cop and it does not matter whether it is intentional, unintentional or even outside your control due to a medical condition. You will likely be turned into swiss cheese. It is your duty not to point your gun at people. The duty comes with the right to carry a gun. If you are unable to do so, maybe consider not carrying.
Also, I personally like how many European nations only allow concealed carry. This way, you don’t create tense and possibly dangerous situations unnecessarily. You only reveal your weapon when you intend to use it.
Finally, what is the alternative to subjective perception? Oh, the terrorists gun was not loaded. You had no way to know but you go to jail, because objectively he was not a threat? That does not make sense.
Both subjective and objective evaluation of your subjective perception is the current requirement and IMO the reasonable one.
Of course, there are always details that could be improved.
On the presumption that robbing a bank is always an armed robbery, yeah, the law is likely going to tolerate parties using violence to stop the robbery if they think they are preventing harm.
Trespassing with intent to deliver a pizza is not going to cut it as justification since nobody was in physical danger. Probably not even in Texas since no property was in danger. He wasn’t even warned to exit the property, and he wasn’t fired on until he was leaving.
IANAL but there is absolutely no chance of a self-defense claim here. His best move will be to take whatever plea bargain his lawyer can get.
You are confusing two different questions here. Whether someone is justified to shoot the robber in the bank and whether the robber is justified to defend themselves if they are attacked (fired upon).
Yes, it would have to be armed robbery to justify shooting at the robber, and even then that alone may not be enough. (IANAL, depends on state, it’s complicated)
On the other hand, even in an unarmed robbery, the robber does not have a claim of self-defense if they injure/kill a guard trying to stop them.
I was talking about whether the delivery driver was allowed to return fire, not if the homeowner was allowed to shoot them, which is somewhat unexpectedly not the same thing.
By the way, another interesting and unintuitive law is felony murder. Lets say you rob a bank with a permanent marker, pretending it is a gun. You obviously do not intend to harm anyone. However, lets say a cop shoots at you thinking it is a gun, misses you and kills a bystander behind you. You can go to jail for felony murder, because you created the dangerous situation by committing a felony (the bank robbery) and the bystander died as a result of that dangerous situation.
I don’t know about the law, but morally he would have been fully justified in returning fire. Getting your attacker to take cover forces them to stop firing at you. That’s the utility of “covering fire”.
However, his best move overall was driving away. Returning fire while driving away would have been fine, but delaying his leaving to stop and return fire would have had no benefit.
Again, not sure what the laws says here.
The ONLY ONLY ONLY way to Prevent this is to make sure TEENAGE DELIVERY DRIVERS shoot at every home they pull up in before getting out!
Please make sure this fuckhead is never allowed to touch a firearm for the rest of his life. And give him a few years in a secluded spot to think about what he did wrong.
Sincerely,
Responsible Gun Owners
You know what this guy was before he tried to kill someone for the first time?
A responsible gun owner.
“Responsible” as in “doesn’t know the laws regarding firearms ownership in his area so he just tried to shoot someone he was never legally allowed to even if he was breaking into his car?”
Trust me on this one, anyone who owns guns but doesn’t know how to use them safely, efficiently, and legally, isn’t “responsible,” as those are prerequisites for “responsibility.”
The point is there is no way to distinguish the two until they try to kill someone or kill someone. (And seemingly every effort to make it possible to distinguish the two ahead of time - well, you know how those go.)
Right, you can’t know what’s in the can until you open it. Unfortunately there isn’t really a way to distinguish it ahead of time in many cases.
Sure, there are cases like Parkland, in which Broward Co had received over 40 calls about Cruz in the years before the shooting and each time decided not to charge him with a felony or hold him on an adjucated IVC, both of which could have been done but weren’t. Same for that recent kid who’s parents got charged, he had been begging for help, there are times which we could’ve done something even with our current laws and the system failed. In those cases there was a clear indication of the “can’s contents” so to speak. There is clear evidence to speak that they are a danger, and we can already do something about that, even if sometimes we fail to do so (and I blame in part, in the above cases, Broward Co Sherrifs and the kid’s parents respectively for their failure to act on the information they had).
But that isn’t what they’re advocating for. They want everyone to be treated as if they are a danger without evidence simply because “some people are.” That is frankly the antithesis of our justice system, which considers (at least ostensibly) people innocent until proven guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I agree that taking guns from people who have proven themselves dangerous is a good idea, and that it can be done before significant harm is done in many cases. What I do not agree on is the concept of being considered dangerous without any evidence to base the assumption on.
They want everyone to be treated as if they are a danger without evidence simply because “some people are.” That is frankly the antithesis of our justice system
And yet, we have the patterns of behavior we see in our police. That’s tangential, but I couldn’t not mention it in response to this comment.
I agree that taking guns from people who have proven themselves dangerous is a good idea, and that it can be done before significant harm is done in many cases. What I do not agree on is the concept of being considered dangerous without any evidence to base the assumption on.
You know what would shut me the hell up on gun control? These simple measures, which would be treated by the right like I’m calling for a total ban on guns.
- To own a gun, you must be licensed as a gun operator.
- To be licensed as a gun operator, you must complete a nationally standardized gun safety course. Then and only then can you take legal possession of a firearm.
- To teach such a course, you must be trained and certified to do so.
- Trainers of such a course are empowered and encouraged to reject issuance of a license based on a standardized list of criteria. One might call them flags. One might call them “red” flags, to highlight that they should be cause for concern. Edit - such “flags” could in some cases be resolvable.
- To maintain your license status, you must have a safety course refresher on some periodic basis. (I’m thinking a certain number of years, more than one, but not too many.)
Caveats:
- If you are licensed, you get concealed and open carry privileges in every location where this doesn’t violate applicable local/state laws.
- If your license lapses, it’s a felony to leave your home with your guns.
- Charges dropped if you make a valid self-defense case after doing so.
- And if you are leaving the home to overthrow your tyrannical government, then the laws don’t really matter at that point, right?
Would my plan solve every problem? No. Would it be a better solution to school shootings and other related issues than “let’s arm teachers and everyone else Wyatt Earp style?” Yes, yes it would. And, like any such measure, it could be further refined over time.
Edit - I made a distinction between owner and operator, I think this makes it better. shrug
And yet, we have the patterns of behavior we see in our police.
And yet we continuously decry this as “bad.” It’s wrong when they do it yet you encourage it more. Guess you’re one of those “thin blue line” guys who thinks it’s good if you want to do it too, eh?
To own a gun, you must be licensed as a gun owner.
2a prevents this, it would have to be overturned to pass. Licensure is seen as turning a right into a privilege by the courts. Personally I don’t like it because of how easily it could be abused to deny “the dangerous blacks” or “those suicidal trans” from gun ownership by an “instructor” so inclined.
To be licensed as a gun owner, you must complete a nationally standardized gun safety course. Then and only then can you take legal possession of a firearm.
See above. Though I did want to mention accidents are on the low end of our actual problem in terms of numbers. I think gun safety is important too but this does nothing to stop murderers and the like.
To teach such a course, you must be trained and certified to do so.
The license thing being blocked by the 2a still throws a wrench in your plan, but these are the guys who can decide “I won’t approve guns for blacks” that I was referring to. Currently, these people are sheriffs doing it with carry permits, because that’s the extent of their power, but it is being done as black people are iirc 60-70% of permit denials in some areas. Furthermore some guy deciding I’m “weird” is no basis for denying me rights. Even if it isn’t due to skin color, I’m certainly not christian, what if I happen to wear my Anti-Christ Demoncore (great band) shirt and the instructor decides that’s a “red flag” simply because he doesn’t understand Vegan Satanists from California aren’t actually all that bad just because they use scary imagry? Hell, “those columbine kids loved metallica, any metalhead shouldn’t own a gun” is a thing I’ve actually heard before. Having the basis for denial of rights being anything other than “is criminal” opens denial of rights up far too wide.
Trainers of such a course are empowered and encouraged to reject issuance of a license based on a standardized list of criteria. One might call them flags. One might call them “red” flags, to highlight that they should be cause for concern.
Sheriffs currently can do this to some degree with those permits, it’s just that those “red flags” are often “is black.”
To maintain your license status, you must have a safety course refresher on some periodic basis. (I’m thinking a certain number of years, more than one, but not too many.)
Frankly safety doesn’t change much over time, the guns themselves haven’t even changed all that much in the last 100yr.
If unlicensed, it’s a felony to leave your home with your guns.
But they can have them unlicensed at home even though they can’t legally own them at all without a license? A) How would they get it home from the store? B) From the home to the range?
Charges dropped if you make a valid self-defense case after doing so.
So if you carry it illegally out and don’t get attacked and don’t shoot anyone but get searched by an overzealous likely racist cop you’re fucked, but if you do get attacked and kill a guy it’s cool that you were carrying illegally? Why not just not harass the guy for not getting attacked?
And if you are leaving the home to overthrow your tyrannical government, then the laws don’t really matter at that point, right?
Well sure lol.
Guess you’re one of those “thin blue line” guys who thinks it’s good if you want to do it too, eh?
LOL you are either being intentionally obtuse, or otherwise reaching so far, I don’t really see the point in trying to tease any further nuance out of this discussion.
I do find it genuinely amusing that my sideswipe at police was interpreted as a pro-police statement - but clearly we’re having two different conversations.
Youre hearing about him after he tried to kill someone for the first time. I said before. Now, think to before this happened, how do you tell this guy isnt a responsible gun owner?
These aren’t the actions of a responsible gun owner …
I think you missed the word before
Didnt see myself needing it to be honest…I thought I was clear in that what I meant was it is normal to some, not all. Ill try to be clearer in future.
Did he know the laws before, simply getting amnesia the day he broke them thus “becoming” an irresponsible gun owner, or did he never know the laws, and was always an irresponsible gun owner?
Whether you can tell or not has no basis on whether he is or not. Can you tell what is inside of an unlabeled soup can before you open it? No, but that doesn’t make it not chicken noodle, you just have to open it before you know that it’s chicken noodle. Just because he hadn’t opened his can and shown his irresponsible contents doesn’t mean they weren’t in there to begin with, the closed can doesn’t contain tomato soup until you open it and it magically becomes chicken noodle now that it is open.
Whether you can tell or not has no basis on whether he is or not.
I know youre used to the US where tons of gun homicides happen everyday, but its not normal for the rest of the developed world. If you want guns to be a safe thing, you have to be able to tell before these people go murdering. Hindsight is 20/20. There are people today that are going to kill someone for the first time, people that to the outside world look like responsible gun owners.
Unfortunately, like unlabeled cans, people are able to hide their contents. Unlike the cans, people can even actively attempt to resist “opening” them to find out their contents, making it all that more of an impossible task.
right, do you see the problem here? To the outside world, a responsible gun owner, and an irresponsible one that hasnt killed yet look the same. how do you keep guns away from irresponsible gun owners before they kill someone? You have to treat every gun owner as irresponsible, because we cant tell before it happens. And it needs to stop happening.
If all it takes is 40 questions and some for show handling test? The system is fucked and not strict as others would make you believe.
Car license is 10x harder here and that’s still loose.
Eh, he clearly was not, but I’m not here to get into a debate about guns or gun control. We definitely need way less of the former and way more of the latter but everybody has different ideas on that and I’ve had that online argument dozens of times.
Alright see you next crazy shooting
Hope not but it’s inevitable since our leaders are unwilling to change anything.
The difference between a responsible gun owner and a fucking lunatic with a firearm is one mistake.
He’s been charged with a felony, the only thing that could “save” him there is pleading down or acquittal. We do have some laws, y’know.
Signed.
Thank goodness for living in a civilized country where things like that simply don’t happen.
I can’t imagine anyone being so cowardly and scared of their own shadow that they would even want to own a handgun
Absolute fucking shitebags
This and what else makes the mind boggle is how these Walmart-fed, low self-control guys think they would be able to properly handle themselves in a crisis situation like an armed burglary or amok run for example. Watching too many hero movies probably fucked up the American psyche for good. Look how often even trained police officers who outman the perpetrator 20:1 get shot before they can kill or subdue the target. And Billy Bob thinks that he could handle professional criminals if they come to rob his house at gunpoint and would stand a chance lmao It’s like those Jan 6th guys thinking they have a fighting chance against the US military
They’d be blown away before they could unholster (while out of breath) their pistol. Don’t play hero.
I am sorry, but as a handgun owner, I must disagree. In the civilized world, owning a (hand)gun usually means you have to pass some kind of test.
In my country, it is a written test of about 40 questions where only one single mistake is allowed, non-live gun manipulation where you have to basically be flawless, and then live gun manipulation and firing.
The law is pretty strict, which means actually using a gun to defend yourself has to be absolutely last resort.
In Canada, obtaining a verdict of self defense with a firearm is extremely difficult. You basically have to prove that you did everything in your power to diffuse the problem before turning to a firearm, you contacted the police, your life was in immediate danger, you somehow managed to unlock and load your firearm while still being in danger, and that if you hadn’t done what you did you’d be dead.
Yes but the article above says that the fuckin cowards consider a lost pizza boy a danger 😂
Yeah, the US doesn’t just have a gun problem unfortunately, it has a culture problem. I don’t know of any other society that is so insanely paranoid.
Remove guns and you’re left with crazies without means of causing massive harm?
Till they rent a big truck and go driving through a parade…
Which also isn’t great. Having to defend yourself and then going bankrupt with lawyer fees is a kick to the nuts
Same, same. Here it is either “necessary defense” (when you defend yourself against an attacker) or “extreme emergency” (covers all the other situations of using firearms).
Ah yes, a test.
Surely anyone passing a test like that, like for a driving license, would never, ever break the law and cause danger to those around them, right?
Sure, there are cases, but they go into the 10s per year (with LEGALLY held guns). People are not perfect, but we did hell of good job with our laws.
canada?
About any country apart from the US and some that are involved in active external or internal wars.
Holy shit you guys need some serious help.
Tennessee again. Goddamn, Tennessee what the living fuck is happening over there?
Fox.
Everyone’s afraid of the immigrants and minorities because the right wing media needs a boogeyman to keep them donating.
And pizza delivery drivers continue to be pretty badass.
The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory. He’s got esprit up to here. Right now, he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night. His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air. A bullet will bounce off its arachnofiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door, but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. Where his body has bony extremities, the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello, protects like a stack of telephone books.
When they gave him the job, they gave him a gun. The Deliverator never deals in cash, but someone might come after him anyway-might want his car, or his cargo. The gun is tiny, aero-styled, lightweight, the kind of gun a fashion designer would carry; it fires teensy darts that fly at five times the velocity of an SR-71 spy plane, and when you get done using it, you have to plug it into the cigarette lighter, because it runs on electricity.
The Deliverator never pulled that gun in anger, or in fear. He pulled it once in Gila Highlands. Some punks in Gila Highlands, a fancy Burbclave, wanted themselves a delivery, and they didn’t want to pay for it. Thought they would impress the Deliverator with a baseball bat. The Deliverator took out his gun, centered its laser doohickey on that poised Louisville Slugger, fired it. The recoil was immense, as though the weapon had blown up in his hand. The middle third of the baseball bat turned into a column of burning sawdust accelerating in all directions like a bursting star. Punk ended up holding this bat handle with milky smoke pouring out the end. Stupid look on his face. Didn’t get nothing but trouble from the Deliverator.
Since then the Deliverator has kept the gun in the glove compartment and relied, instead, on a matched set of samurai swords, which have always been his weapon of choice anyhow. The punks in Gila Highlands weren’t afraid of the gun, so the Deliverator was forced to use it. But swords need no demonstrations.
The Deliverator’s car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater, the Deliverator’s car unloads that power through gaping, gleaming, polished sphincters. When the Deliverator puts the hammer down, shit happens. You want to talk contact patches? Your car’s tires have tiny contact patches, talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. The Deliverator’s car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of a fat lady’s thighs. The Deliverator is in touch with the road, starts like a bad day, stops on a peseta.
Why is the Deliverator so equipped? Because people rely on him. He is a roll model. This is America. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing, you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them. As a result, this country has one of the worst economies in the world. When it gets down to it-talking trade balances here-once we’ve brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they’re making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here-once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel-once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity-y’know what? There’s only four things we do better than anyone else:
- music
- movies
- microcode (software)
- high-speed pizza delivery
The Deliverator used to make software. Still does, sometimes. But if life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph.D.s, the Deliverator’s report card would say: “Hiro is so bright and creative but needs to work harder on his cooperation skills.”
So now he has this other job. No brightness or creativity involved-but no cooperation either. Just a single principle: The Deliverator stands tall, your pie in thirty minutes or you can have it free, shoot the driver, take his car, file a class-action suit. The Deliverator has been working this job for six months, a rich and lengthy tenure by his standards, and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes.
– Snow Crash
Great book!
I need to read this again.
