I am so proud to live in a country where a citizen can defend himself from people whose GPS directs them to the wrong driveway and from his own urologist.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.
Only Democrats have agency, apparently.
Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.
The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.
Infrastructure week. at last.
Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?
They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.
In my day, never was longer.
But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.
If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.
Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.
Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.
Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.
When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.
Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!
“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”
Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.
I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.
Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.
… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP
We still have time to mess this up!
Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.
JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?
The willow is too close to the house.
ranchandsyrup
Tyranny is a brah person showing up in your driveway.
Especially if you are a veteran and a former church missionary.
Patricia Kayden
But guns don’t kill, remember?
Amazing how in the first story, the killer didn’t even say anything before he started firing shots.
Soonergrunt
If guns don’t kill people, people kill people, how come every time they sent me to a war zone, they made me take a gun?
? Martin
Newport Beach practice urologist lives in Huntington Beach? He must have been a bad doctor.
Snark aside, I’ll have to ask my aunt about that. She works at Hoag.
BGinCHI
How is it possible that Louie Gohmert has not already shot himself to death?
No way he owns a gun.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/01/29/rep-gohmert-calls-on-obamas-former-students-to-file-class-action-lawsuit/
BGinCHI
@? Martin: Probably had a thriving practice given all the dicks in Orange County.
? Martin
@Patricia Kayden:
When you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.
Ben Franklin
Gunz….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9831819/Sword-gang-were-like-a-pack-of-dogs-as-they-stabbed-16-year-old-to-death-in-central-London.html
JPL
The Gwinnett county man who killed the person in his driveway
is remorseful but he was acting in self-defense. The 22 year old was taking his girl friend and brother skating. They were picking up another friend when they pulled into the wrong driveway. What a sick country we live in.
Punchy
What’s sickening is that I’m guessing that that first link describes a perfectly acceptable usage of the SYG law had this happened in Florida. If any of the house lawyers here want to disagree, please explain how it’s not.
Mnemosyne
Don’t worry, I’m sure our resident NRA troll will be here any minute to tell us that we shouldn’t get all emotional when people die and should accept that logic and rationality demand that we not change anything about our current gun laws or gun culture.
ranchandsyrup
@BGinCHI: +1 for funneh. +1 for accuracy. Well done.
Soonergrunt
Until today, both of these men were the famed “law-abiding gun-owners” the NRA likes to hector us about.
? Martin
@BGinCHI: He was a premature ejaculation specialist, which would have made for a better joke if it was an accidental shooting.
I’m just numb to the gun violence now. We’re just reaping what we’ve sowed.
joes527
It is amazing how the story about the dead doctor is about 2/3 quotes from anonymous cranks on the internet smearing him.
I have no idea whether he was a good or bad doctor, but spending most of the article about his murder quoting from bad internet reviews seems a bit off.
BGinCHI
Would the world be better if instead of guns we all had access to chainsaw shooting slingshots?
I say affirmative.
http://www.geekologie.com/2013/01/my-armory-demands-it-a-chainsaw-shooting.php
? Martin
Yes, imaginary desert beheadings are way down.
Fuck McCain.
redshirt
So, this is a change in the national discussion, yes? That we’re not alerted to these daily events?
If so, this will be the impetus that drives change – drip drip bloody drip.
JPL
@Punchy: GA has a stand your ground law.
Matthew Reid Krell
@Punchy: Spitballing, and my assumptions may be false, but I can’t remember whether there’s an objectively reasonable element of the SYG defense. In other words, four brah people sitting in a car waiting can’t reasonably be an imminent threat to your life. It might justify (if you’re racist and paranoid) going out to the car with the gun in hand, but not walking through the door and opening fire.
If the defense requires only subjective fear, then throw all of the above out the window.
BGinCHI
@? Martin: The media line-up to suck McCain off for returning to somewhere near sanity is really, really surprising.
Jesus. How fucking low is the bar for these lazy bastards?
cathyx
I wish they would give the reason the guy killed his doctor. I don’t get it.
Patricia Kayden
@Ben Franklin: I’ve read about the stabbing deaths in the UK. Awful.
? Martin
@joes527:
Well, it’s rawstory.
Here’s the OC Register story. It’s a shitty paper, but its better reporting on this.
muddy
@cathyx: I’ve known a couple that were really asking for it.
Schlemizel
Yup
AAAAAHHHmmmmmmmmmmmmm PROUD TA B ANA MERICAN WEAR AT LEAST AH NO AHM FREEEEEEEEE
in case you need a laugh to brighten your day this web site catalogs accidental shootings:
http://accidentalgunshots.tumblr.com/
catclub
@? Martin: “When you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.”
Ooh, ooh, I know that one. Tuco.
muddy
@BGinCHI: Wasn’t it just 2 years ago that he had the commercial where he is walking with some sheriff and saying how we really really need to finish this wall? Bygones…
Chet
Roderigo Diaz was killed by a .22 caliber handgun. Therefore we need a national ban on assault rifles!
cathyx
Since all these killers that we read about were males, we should ban men from owning guns.
gwangung
@Chet: We need a national ban on such sloppy thinking.
Try again. You can do better.
David in NY
@Punchy:
Unless the stand-your-ground laws remove the requirement that to be justified in using deadly force, one has to be in reasonable fear of the use of such force against oneself, then they don’t justify what the guy did here. That is, it’s not reasonable to think that a brown guy parked in your driveway, and leaving when you come out, poses any threat of death to you. The stand-your-ground laws remove the duty to retreat, which exists in non-SYG states even if you reasonably fear death, but they don’t (I don’t think) remove the requirement of a reasonable fear.
This is Georgia, however, so the alternate rule — you are always in “reasonable” fear of any brown guy — may apply.
RossinDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
Was just reading a Whiskey Fire rant about nobody actually ‘needing’ AR15 type guns. I think that argument’s a loser. Not because anyone outside of a military organization actually does need them, but because it leaves its chin wide open for the right hook counter argument of all of the other things we don’t ‘need’ yet have.
The point may be valid but it’s a weak argument to pick from a number of more winnable ones.
MikeJ
@Matthew Reid Krell:
Even if you did feel threatened, why not call the cops before taking on four people by yourself?
? Martin
@Matthew Reid Krell: I think it depends on the state. IIRC, Texas and maybe Florida consider your property as part of castle doctrine, not just the structure.
Remember the shooting of the Japanese exchange student in Louisiana back in the 90s who went to the wrong house for a Halloween party. Rang the doorbell, no answer, turned to leave and the homeowner came out and shot him.
The shooter wasn’t charged at first (castle doctrine, police determined it was legal) but the Japanese government protested and the shooter was charged but then acquitted at trial.
Ben Franklin
@Patricia Kayden:
If he’d defended himself with a gun, he would have gotten prison time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Martin_(farmer)
mtraven
@Patricia Kayden: talking is for pussies.
bemused
It’s amazing how many panic stricken guys have shot people without thinking recently including one who shot his own granddaughter in MN. I just can’t imagine why that would be.
David in NY
@Chet: No, we need background checks, and periodic relicensing, to assure that lunatics don’t have guns.
Mnemosyne
@MikeJ:
That’s the beauty of the current gun culture: they have convinced people that calling the police is useless, they’ll never get there in time, so it’s always better to take things into your own hands and shoot anyone who looks threatening.
When I was looking at the story of the guy who took his loaded assault rifle to the Kroger for a little stroll around the store, I swear half the idiots in the comments said that it was “proof” that calling the police is useless, because the guy could have started killing people before the police got there.
ranchandsyrup
@David in NY: chet should go and shoot that big ol’ strawman he built.
BGinCHI
@muddy: With Paul Babeu, who had a few problems after that…
http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/mccain-give-my-friend-sheriff-paul-ba
Mnemosyne
@bemused:
For one thing, last I heard she survived and was recovering in the hospital.
yutsano
@Chet: Stay classy, Chet.
OT: Miss Lyndsey seems quite put out. I wonder if Sully has a Moore Award ready for him.
David in NY
@MikeJ: There is no paranoid justification defense. To be justified in killing, one must have an objectively reasonable belief that one is in danger, probably deadly danger to use a gun. You can’t just have a stupid-ass belief.
Of course the caveat about it being objectively reasonable to be scared shitless of every brown guy who comes along, applies in many states.
Mnemosyne
@Chet:
I’m still waiting for your logical, rational, non-manipulative reasons why any citizen who wants one should be allowed to own an assault rifle. Hint: “protection from the government” fits none of those criteria.
SatanicPanic
@Ben Franklin: Your argument is with British law saying that if you don’t have to kill people while defending yourself, you shouldn’t? That sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
Fort Geek
I guess the NRA can add two more people to its enemies list, posthumously.
Roger Moore
@cathyx:
They don’t either, which is why they can’t explain it to you.
lumpkin
Wouldn’t be surprised to find out the Georgia guy has early stage Alzheimers or other dementia. Just like we take the keys to the car away when people get too old to drive, their guns should also be removed when they lose their good judgment. I guess their 2nd amendment right would trump that bit of common sense, though.
David in NY
@ranchandsyrup: Thank you.
Emma
@joes527: I noticed that too. I guess it’s important to find “a reason” so that the limp dicks can point to something.
ranchandsyrup
@David in NY: Strawman is the hip fallacy for spring 2013. Tu Quoque is so 2012.
Punchy
@David in NY: But I didnt think the shooter had to prove reasonableness, only “fear”, which is subjective and proving the absence of such impossible…but IANAL.
Anne Laurie
@joes527:
Even the best prostate surgery has a less-than-zero chance of causing permanent impotence and/or incontinence. If you are a man whose Penis Issues have affected your thinking, blaming the surgeon for your ‘bad outcome’ has got to be more attractive than accepting life in a diaper as just another twist of fate. This guy with Penis Issues was also a gun owner, what are the chances?…
Roger Moore
@yutsano:
Nah, the Moore award is for intemperate language by a lefty, and even Sullivan isn’t dumb enough to classify Graham as a lefty. He’s only eligible for the Malkin award, which has much, much tougher competition.
Ruckus
2nd amendment collateral damage.
All wars have it.
And until every white, man, woman and child have at least one(and preferably many) semi-auto weapon(s) with an extended mag(s) to use for the coming apocalypse the gun mfg and all racist conservatives will be at war with the rest of us over the ability to defend one’s self from every imagined and made up bullshit “security/safety/crime” non issue. And of course at that time the gun mfg will still be on a crusade to have every one still without a gun have one to protect themselves from the crazy motherfuckers with guns. It’s Dr. Strangelove with Pintos instead of B-52s.
Gian
@Chet:
gun nut trolls gotta troll I guess.
Me, I’ll be happy when there are “free shooting zones” like the “free speech zones” that we have now, that and it’ll be as hard to get a gun as it is for a black person to vote in a red state.
BGinCHI
@Anne Laurie: First they came for the urologists, and I said nothing….
muddy
@BGinCHI: Oh dear, I had forgotten about all that. I just can’t keep track of all the hypocrisy, my memory is not what it used to be.
Ruckus
@gwangung:
No. No he can’t.
muddy
@BGinCHI: Yer a pisser.
Ben Franklin
@SatanicPanic:
No worries…you are in perfect harmony with the groupthink.
Comrade Mary
@joes527: I don’t know: I got the impression that those bad reviews could all have come from one deranged person: that is, someone deranged enough to kill the doctor.
Anne Laurie
@cathyx:
The ‘between the lines’ assumption the story seems to be making is that a bunch of old guys blamed the doctor for not fixing their prostate problems, or making those problems worse. Angry men with penis problems (pain / impotence / incontinence) want to take out their anger on someone else; the shooter had a gun and used that gun to do so. Whether the victim was actually a “bad doctor” or just working in a specialty that was going to expose him to a lot of angry older men with penis problems is not yet clear.
Ben Franklin
@Mnemosyne:
Hint: “protection from the government” fits none of those criteria.
And, why, is that subject to the exclusion rule?
David in NY
@Punchy: Actually, the shooter doesn’t have to prove anything, I think, he just has to create a reasonable doubt, which gives a jury a lot of play to inject the brownness of the victim as a factor.
But I’m pretty sure that at common law, and in the states I’ve practiced in, the fear had to be objectively reasonable, but sometimes I’m pretty sure of stuff that just ain’t so.
Mnemosyne
@Ben Franklin:
I know, it’s so weird how people think it’s bad to shoot and kill people for the crime of being lost and pulling into the wrong driveway.
SatanicPanic
@Ben Franklin: Don’t blame me if you haven’t thought through the implications of the links you’re posting.
Mnemosyne
@Ben Franklin:
Because it is not logical, not rational, and is emotionally manipulative. It fails all three criteria.
If you don’t understand that it’s irrational to be so afraid of government intrusion that you feel the need to buy an assault rifle, either you’re a drug kingpin or other criminal who has a logical fear that the cops are going to burst through your door at any moment, or you’re so lost in paranoid fantasies that you shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near weapons. Which is it?
kay
I’d like to see an additional charge for holding the survivors at gunpoint until police arrived.
Gun nuts do not actually have the right to detain the rest of us.
handy
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah but what about WOLVERINES!!!11!!!
David in NY
@Punchy: Turns out the Bernie Goetz (if you’re old enough to remember) case says fear must be reasonable in NY. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Goetz
? Martin
@Anne Laurie: I’m sticking to the reliable OC practice that the whole measure of a person is what they drive and where they live. Newport Beach practice doctor living in Huntington Beach means he’s a failure and probably a terrible human being. Maybe if he was driving a Bentley we could upgrade him a bit, but they haven’t reported on what kind of car he drives (like I said, OC Register is a shitty paper).
Ben Franklin
@SatanicPanic:
That you don’t think it is reasonable for a person to protect his home with more than a 2-round capacity weapon, is enough to blame you. When the fun-hogs come to raid your stash I suspect you will be a willing victim.
muddy
@Mnemosyne:
Indeed. Their own idiot argument proves them too crazy to own the guns in the first place. At the very least they are hoping for a chance to commit treason. Patriot-verines!
Ben Franklin
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t know just how to address your naive notions.
Jay in Oregon
@? Martin:
Assuming this is not snark, why did the guy fire his first shot in the air then? If it was a warning shot, why not let the people in the car drive off or offer an explanation before you start killing them?
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
I notice Chet (or Whidby, or whatever his name is this week) still hasn’t answered your question.
Gravenstone
@Chet: Right on cue, here’s fuckwit. What caliber is your pen!s replacement, eunuch?
muddy
@gogol’s wife: Neither did he when she asked in the previous thread. Crickets.
Mnemosyne
@Ben Franklin:
According to the article you linked to, prosecutors felt the crime was that Martin was lying in wait for the robbers and fired on them without warning with an illegal gun, and the jury agreed with them. Even in the US, lying in wait to kill someone pretty much automatically disproves a self-defense argument.
Can’t you even get your own facts straight?
SatanicPanic
@Ben Franklin: Where did I say anything about rounds or capacity? You’re reaching buddy. Don’t post a link if you can’t be bothered to read the entry it links to.
Mnemosyne
@Ben Franklin:
I’m not sure how to address your paranoid irrationality, so I guess that makes two of us. Nonetheless, arguing that you need an assault rifle to protect yourself against the government is by definition an irrational, emotional argument, not a logical, rational one.
bemused
@Mnemosyne:
Yes. He was lucky he didn’t kill her. His legal situation is another story.
Guys are freaking out all over the place. Now what in the world has caused them to be terrified out of their minds in their own homes , some of them buying guns for the first time. It’s not like there’s any fear stoking going on….
Calouste
@Ben Franklin:
Ah yes, Tony Martin, the guy who “defended” himself by shooting one of his attackers in the back.
kay
I’m just glad there were witnesses to the GPS shooting, or we’d be reading about how the brave gunman was threatened by the person who committed the hostile act of pulling into his driveway.
Gravenstone
@Mnemosyne:
The fucking Milwaukee (WI) County Sheriff David Clarke is in a snit about the county cutting back his budget. His solution? He bought radio ads in the county, advising people to fucking buy guns (and get training) because you just can’t rely on 911 anymore.
Its already bearing fruit (and nuts). Over the weekend, a misguided soul decided to fire a handgun into the ceiling during an argument. Her justification was Sheriff Clarke’s fucking commercials!
Ben Franklin
@Mnemosyne:
prosecutors felt the crime was that Martin was lying in wait for the robbers and fired on them without warning with an illegal gun,
Listen to yourself; prosecutors felt.
He had been burgled 10x and the cops weren’t on it.
Were you present at the scene? Did you witness his cold-blooded act of murder? (later downed to MS)…
Yes his gun was illegal; a pump shotgun with more than 2-round capacity. You see, this is the slippery slope gun nutz fear. Where does it end?
What is currently sought is max 10-round capacity, and assault weapons. Where do you, personally draw the line?
Gun Bans?
SatanicPanic
@kay: Careful, they might still try to do that.
Susan K of the tech support
Another news source for the M.D. — The Daily Pilot (hometown newspaper; way back in my youth, I helped my bro wrap papers with rubber bands before he went and delivered them).
Gah. The area is way too familiar. Way familiar.
Ben Franklin
@SatanicPanic:
Where did I say anything about rounds or capacity?
You don’t have to. It’s implicit in your unspoken objective.
ranchandsyrup
@Ben Franklin: Projection, how in the fuck does it work?
Roger Moore
@kay:
That would classify as false imprisonment, wouldn’t it?
kay
@SatanicPanic:
Home invasion! Or, loud music, whatever. They’re all grounds for execution, right?
Watch your step, is all I can say. Best to just stay in our bunkers.
Paul
@Ben Franklin:
Do you really want to compare the number stabbing deaths in the UK vs the number of gun deaths in the USA? You do realize it is like comparing the Miami Heat to some junior high school team.
Ben Franklin
@kay:
Home invasion!
Where, the fuck do you live, that this is not a problem?
Gravenstone
@Paul: “Ben” only realizes he’s not garnering enough attention, so he has to act out.
kay
@Roger Moore:
I don’t know but I think it’s important to get thru to them that they are not, actually, state actors. They seem to be reading this “militia” bit literally, regarding the rest of us.
SatanicPanic
@Ben Franklin: Of course. It’s implicit. Just like you’re trying to argue you know better than the jury what went on at some English farmer’s house. You’re right. I do want to take all guns, and then your knives, and then your forks. And then you will be home invaded by British teens and where will you be?
SatanicPanic
@kay: I’m putting down my deposit for home in the Citadel. Only way to be free.
Smiling Mortician
@Ben Franklin: Where the fuck do you live, that “not grounds for execution” = “not a problem”?
I live in America, asshat.
Ben Franklin
@Gravenstone:
Bullshit. I don’t care about my outlier status. Reply, or don’t reply. It’s not about agreeing for the sake of being part of the ingroup, it’s about context and THINKING. If you are here for the social graces, and not learning something outside your little bubble, GFY.
Ben Franklin
@SatanicPanic:
You’re right. I do want to take all guns, and then your knives, and then your forks. And then you will be home invaded by British teens and where will you be?
I spend of a lot of time and energy looking for honest folks; so, I thank you.
trollhattan
@Chet:
Keep rogering that rooster.
Silva
@? Martin: Tuco!
Emma
@Ben Franklin: I call troll. Nobody can really be this idiotic.
Ben Franklin
@Emma:
Which is the precise reason, you, and others don’t respond with any alacrity.
Trollops don’ nee’ no reason to spew their propaganda.
Kyle
@BGinCHI: WIN!
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
Even worse was a page from some horrific site somebody in the comments liked to. The commenters there are actually talking about how they’re looking forward toward the coming insurrection, since that’ll give them a good excuse to begin shooting liberals. I don’t know much about law, but at what point does idle talk stop being idle and become sedition or incitement to sedition?
Ben Franklin
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.):
Little Bill; “You cowardly sonofabicth. You just shot an unarmed man”
Muny; “Well, he shoulda armed himself”
rea
One point about driveways–they are open to the public. I know this from search and seizure cases. The cops don’t need a warrant (or probable cause plus exigent circumstances) to enter your driveway, or to go up your walkway to your front door. You have no reasonable expectation of privacy in those palces. If they go into your backyard, that’s a different story. But of course, you have no right to feel threatened if a stranger pulls in your driveway, or goes up your walkway to your front door–otherwise, lots of mail carriers would get shot.
ruemara
Isn’t “Ben Franklin” also anti-drone? How is he suddenly an apologist for guns?
Fred
I feel it should be pointed out that both these guys were old. Now I’m getting old and I can understand how they feel. I get more pissed off each day and care less and less.
Naw, I’m just kiddin’ about the pissed off part.
But really, old guys do tend to get crankey and if we forget to take our vitamins we can get a bit irrational.
Guns don’t kill people. Demented old farts with guns kill people. Just watch a recent Clint Eastwood movie if you don’t believe me.
A moocher
@Ben Franklin: every fucking street, anytown, USAUSA.
You dumb fucking cracker and/or lying stooge. Go have nice hot bath with a nice live toaster.
Ben Franklin
@ruemara:
Backatcha. How is it apologists for killing citizens remotely, oppose private gun ownership?
Ruckus
@Emma:
You may be willing to give some people more credit than I am but in my experience…
Yes they can be that stupid.
Paul Harrington
Oh, those are two different stories.
Mnemosyne
@Ben Franklin:
I live in Glendale, California. I don’t consider something that happens maybe once a year in a city of 200,000 surrounded by an even larger urban area to be a problem so severe that it justifies keeping an automatic weapon under our pillow.
Ben Franklin
@Paul Harrington:
Tell me how?
Mnemosyne
@Ben Franklin:
True, I should have put it this way: prosecutors proved to the jury that he was laying in wait for the robbers.
If you’re at the point where even a jury trial isn’t good enough for you and the only possible justice is at the barrel of your personal gun, then there’s no hope for you. Move to a goddamned Unabomber cabin in the wilderness so you at least won’t be a danger to some poor neighbor kid who makes the mistake of ringing your doorbell on Halloween.
Ben Franklin
@Mnemosyne:
even a jury trial isn’t good enough for you
Have you served on a jury? If yes, then all they need is 11 other idiots to convict me.
That likelihood ;that there could be an assemblage of random idiocy in 11 others, such as yourself, would lead me to believe it was fate which convicted me. The odds are with me; so far.
A moocher
@Ben Franklin: because your trigger happy six inches of justice ™ is so much more reliable than a system that has stood the test of a thousand years. and we should be taken in by your juvenile posturing why, exactly.
Mnemosyne
@Ben Franklin:
If you ever decide to lay in wait for someone with an illegal weapon like Martin did, I’ll be happy to serve on your jury. I have a feeling that your claims that the police were useless and a legal weapon wouldn’t have served the same purpose of shooting a man in the back will probably get the same hearing they did in England.
NonyNony
@Ben Franklin:
Wait – seriously?
At this point it’s apparently time to pack up your guns and move to Somalia man. You clearly hate the USA and Western civilization in general with your ranting against trial by jury and professional police departments. If life the USA is too scary and dangerous for you to bother with, pack up your weapons and move to a country where you can go it alone.
Chet
@NonyNony:
So, the police are 100% good and competent? Juries never make mistakes and are never misled by prosecutors – ever?
Which website is this, again? It’s amazing to watch you trolls turn on a dime when it’s necessary in order to demonstrate your fealty to the in-group by contradicting someone in the out-group.
Paul
@NonyNony:
Amen. Why is that police departments in other countries are more than capable and have the trust of its citizens? Yet, a vocal minority in this country seems to strongly think that the police in the USA is useless and perhaps the worst in the world and good for nothing. Their rhetoric is just mind-boggling. But why be surprised? Last night there were NRA gun nuts who heckled a poor parent of one of the murdered children in Newton at a city hearing. How low can these selfish people sink?
Chet
@Paul:
Typically we call those people “Balloon Juice commenters.” Usually it’s the right-wingers who evince complete faith in the authority and competence of police, unless it’s necessary to turn on a dime in order to troll people, I guess.
Paul
@Chet:
Really? You must have turned a deaf ear to the NRA rhetoric since the Newtown massacre.
pseudonymous in nc
@joes527:
You’d almost think that professional headline-news journalism these days entailed “entering the guy’s name into Google, seeing what shit comes up, and copy-pasting it into a story.” I’m only surprised that there wasn’t a Twitter or Facebook account quoted.
Ruckus
@Paul:
In case you hadn’t noticed, chet and ben are gun nut trolls who seem to assume that they still live in the old west. The old west that only lives in their feeble, scared little minds and dime store novels of that era that is. I wonder if either one of them had the balls to volunteer for active duty military or attempt to join a police force? I’d bet not.
pseudonymous in nc
@Ben Franklin:
“Defend yourself” != “shoot someone in the back”
See, troll, Americans who cite Tony Martin tend not to note that he was tried by a jury, and the jury was given very clear guidance on the long-established reasonableness standard for self-defence, and that jury made some clear distinctions in the verdicts on each of the charges. So really, don’t be an idiot. I mean, more of an idiot.
Chet
I don’t own any guns, and it’s pretty obvious that you’re the troll.
slightly_peeved
@pseudonymous in nc:
It’s actually extremely rare that the British police prosecute cases of self defence.
Cases of shooting unarmed burglars in the back as they are running away, well those they prosecute.
Jebediah
@slightly_peeved:
“I was mortally threatened by the disrespect of turning his back on me. I had to shoot him before he could turn his back on any other defenseless citizens.”
DavidTC
OTOH, if I drive up to someone’s house, and some completely random person who is not someone who lives there (as far as I know, because I’m at the wrong house) walks out with a gun in his hand, I think it’s rather reasonable that _I_ am in sudden fear for my life, and logically the SYG laws would let _me_ shoot _him_.
Like I have said previously, at some point brown and black people need to start shooting any armed white person who walks up to them and starts questioning them, and then justify it under SYG. Because those sort of people are _objectively_ dangerous and _actually threatening them_.
Of course, we already have a few instances where that doesn’t work. Hell, the goddamn much-vaulted ‘castle doctrine’ apparently doesn’t apply to black people, like that black lady in Florida, around the same time as Trayvon Martin, who shot someone who had attacked her before and had currently broken into her house and was chasing her through it.
Being a white person, I sometimes find it astonishing that black people aren’t in armed revolt about the justice system in this country.