I haven’t watched the Rittenhouse trial, but one account I read said the sole surviving shooting victim made this point before the court: it was an active shooter situation. That’s important to bear in mind because it explains the reaction of the people Rittenhouse came to town specifically to menace after he shot the first victim dead. Ironically, their reaction to the active shooter in their midst may establish the basis for the self-defense claim that will likely end with the murderer walking free.
I’ve often wondered how a state with “stand your ground” self-defense laws* and open carry statutes would handle competing interests if a bystander saw a person brandishing an AR-15 and, in fear for their own life and the lives of others, preemptively killed him to neutralize the danger. We know what would happen in that scenario if it was a black dude in a Walmart/black child on a playground with a BB gun in an open carry state — the cops would shoot them dead and get away with it.
But for the sake of argument, lets take race and badges out of it. Say I’m on the second floor of an anvil emporium, and a car backfires on the street below. I look out the window and see a white man on the sidewalk below brandishing an AR-15 and assume he’s fired a shot. If I drop an anvil on his head to neutralize the threat, am I justified under the stand your ground law? I have no idea.
Josh Marshall explores the concept of conflicting open carry and permissive self-defense laws in a (paywalled) article over at TPM. He notes that Rittenhouse went to Kenosha looking for trouble. It was an act of aggression, a huge and dangerous escalation of the aggressive antics of open carry activists who parade around cities with AR-15s slung across their shoulders. It’s an escalation because Rittenhouse’s mom dropped him off in a riot zone:
Permissive self-defense laws allow a Rittenhouse to have his aggression double as self-defense. You intentionally go into a chaotic situation. You travel across state lines, highly and visibly armed, allegedly to ‘protect’ people who haven’t asked for your protection. Then you feel threatened, which seems likely to happen in a chaotic place when you show up, chest puffed out with a military style weapon. Your perception of danger entitles you to murderous violence, which you arrived locked and loaded to pursue in the first place. In Rittenhouse’s case part of his perception of threat came when people freaked out after he’d shot and killed the first person. And of course only other people get hurt or killed because you’ve got the over-the-top firepower and they don’t.
Marshall says the confluence of permissive self-defense laws and open carry statutes creates a “murder safari” situation where “[t]he inherent aggression and menace of carrying around high caliber weapons, which we’re told is only a problem for squeamish libs, becomes a path for the person carrying the fire arm to themselves feel threatened and decide they need to use the gun.”
Yep. And when Rittenhouse gets away with it, it may inspire similar psychos to go on “murder safaris” of their own. Even if they have to take an Uber because their mom won’t drive them to the riot.
*Not meant to imply Wisconsin has a SYG statute. I have no idea how the Badger State regulates self defense.
Kids Shots & Boosters
Old School
Wisconsin isn’t a “Stand Your Ground” state, but I haven’t been watching the trial to know what the jury has been told about this.
Ruckus
If we want to live in a “civilized” society we have to get away from the concept of an armed society, where guns are not just allowed but almost required for your own “safety,” because of course, an armed society is not a safe or civilized society. An armed society is one of a race to be the most powerful, because that increases your risk but it also allows you to be the most powerful, until someone else comes along with – more fire power. It’s a race to the bottom and it always ends the same way – worse.
Edmund Dantes
But for the sake of argument, lets take race and badges out of it. Say I’m on the second floor of an anvil emporium, and a car backfires on the street below. I look out the window and see a white man on the sidewalk below brandishing an AR-15 and assume he’s fired a shot. If I drop an anvil on his head to neutralize the threat, am I justified under the stand your ground law? I have no idea.
^^^
as you noted. First check is the skin color comparison chart.
secondthird check will be the net worth comparison chart.Edit – second is the gender chart. Female vs male, male vs female if that doesn’t resolve. Then it’s net worth
Old School
@Old School:
According to this A.P. article:
Roger Moore
@Old School:
I don’t think they’ve done jury instruction yet. It’s part of standard self-defense law that you can’t use self-defense if you were the one who created the dangerous situation you’re defending yourself from. We’ll see if the judge bothers to tell the jury that.
Ol'Froth
I’ve always said this is the problem with stand your ground and self-defense. I don’t know if the guy openly carrying a firearm is a good guy or a bad guy. If he’s wearing a pistol on his hip, and reaches for his wallet in his back pocket, if I interpret that as “going for his gun” aren’t I justified in firing first? After all, I’m afeared for my life. If I’m shopping and someone comes in with a rifle slung across his chest, how am I supposed to determine if he’s just someone with an inferiority complex out shopping, or a terrorist bent on mass murder? Similarly, if I’M the one bent on chaos, and I see someone carrying openly, guess who the first one to die is? Now I have his gun too. Open carry is tactically stupid. If you feel the need to go around armed, get a concealed carry permit and keep that weapon under wraps unless you actually need it to defend your life or the life of another. And THAT is the standard, to defend your LIFE or the LIFE of another, not to protect inanimate things.
Ajabu
I remember a cop friend back in the day when there was a home invasion problem in my neighborhood telling me the magic words. “ I saw a glint of metal and a furtive motion”
and you’re home free…
SiubhanDuinne
@Ruckus:
This. This. Everything you said.
Wilson Heath
Isn’t this just the George Zimmerman defense carried barely forward?
Betty Cracker
@Old School: Didn’t mean to confuse the issue by implying Wisconsin has a “stand your ground” statute. I don’t know anything about their laws.
Haydnseek
“Now remember Kyle, if you run into trouble just shoot three times into the air real quick and I’ll come to pick you up.”
“You bet I will! Gee, you’re the best mom a guy ever had.”
kindness
It’s pretty apparent the judge in that case wants him to get away with it. Karma does happen even if it takes a while.
zhena gogolia
The judge in the Rittenhouse trial makes me look like Steve Jobs.
JoyceH
Steve Bannon indicted by federal grand jury.
Baud
@JoyceH:
Too late. Yesterday was my deadline for action.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ol’Froth:
Mercifully, I’ve never had occasion to use it, but for years I’ve carried a card in my wallet that reads in part:
To be honest, if I ever found myself in a restaurant where someone was openly carrying I’m not sure I’d have the presence of mind to dig out the card and leave it under my plate, but I come across it periodically when cleaning out my purse and for some reason I find it reassuring.
Roger Moore
@Ruckus:
The idea that “an armed society is a polite society” is one of the dumbest ones I’ve ever heard. It’s foolish on its face. Maybe people in an armed society don’t needlessly insult each other because they’re afraid of being killed, but a society where everyone is constantly on best behavior because they don’t want to be shot is terrified, not polite.
Also, experience says this was not the case. Societies where being a gentleman meant you had the right to be, and generally were, armed were not polite. They were places where those most skilled at arms could insult others with impunity because their insults were backed up with the threat of death to anyone who had the temerity to object. Nor is this something that needs deep research to find out. Just read any literature from a time when duels were common.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Exactly.
Roger Moore
@JoyceH:
BuT GaRlAnD IsN’t MoViNg FaSt EnOuGh!!!1!!
UncleEbeneezer
@Roger Moore: Beat me to it (though I would’ve used slightly different formatting)
Philbert
Everybody carrying plus stand your ground if you feel threatened (of others carrying) is kindling for a chain reaction mass shootout. Like the atomic chain reaction demo with mouse traps and ping pong balls.
Paranoid thought: I wonder if the prosecutor is throwing the case on purpose, so that Kyle walks, there is trouble, and it is then a clear invite for vigilantes. (shudder)
Hoping against hope that the jury says screw this judge and this punk.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
BREAKING: Judge Judy indicts Steve Bannon
Baud
@Roger Moore:
The theory that the were waiting for the new US attorney was likely accurate.
debbie
@Philbert:
Seems to me the judge is taking care of that himself.
Quicksand
Let’s go murder now
Everybody’s learnin’ how
Come on and safari with me
MattF
… and there’s now an arrest warrant for Bannon. Too late for taking that flight to Brazil.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
The most important theory is that our leftist betters are always looking for signs of betrayal and will assume it any time they don’t get their way. There can be a perfectly reasonable explanation for why something takes time, but if the indictments didn’t come the moment a suspect was named, it’s proof the DoJ is in on the crime and is refusing to indict their co-conspirators.
sixthdoctor
@JoyceH: I will be using screenshots of that blotchy bastard’s perp walk as Christmas tree decorations :-D
And I hope Mark Meadows saw the news and crapped a tomato.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: Of course, this one isn’t Garland; it’s the USA for DC.
gvg
Even if there was a stand your ground law, it seems to me that the first shooting wouldn’t be self defense. After that, if anyone shot you, that would be reasonable too. He got lucky no one potted him.
I seem to recall from both the Gabby Giffords shooting and the Colorado movie theater that it turned out there were armed bystanders who didn’t draw their guns because they couldn’t tell who was the original shooter and they thought other people would/could shoot them. Those 2 people were smart IMO.
debbie
I’m reading CNN’s report about this and I see this:
Isn’t this obstruction, and is it legal?
dmsilev
@JoyceH: What a nice treat to end the week on.
germy
@zhena gogolia:
Edmund Dantes
@Ol’Froth: we’ll there’s Supreme Court case hoping to gut stricter concealed carry laws. So they are working on it. “Constitutional”/open carry was just the foot in the door.
debbie
@germy:
Kind of like the 1960s, no?
Omnes Omnibus
@Philbert: Why would a prosecutor want a city full of armed vigilantes? Lots of prosecutors and lots of judges at the state level are simply mediocre at best.
germy
@debbie:
History repeats itself.
Young people being radicalized could mean they engage more (voting, protesting) or engage less (deciding it’s all bullshit and withdrawing).
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
I’ve said it before here. I carried a loaded pistol when on in port duty in the navy. Every port in every country where ever we were. Now strangely enough we were told to hide that pistol in Copenhagen because it was a public dock and there were people walking by and the PTB didn’t want a public display of power. This on a ship with 2 largish bore gun turrets, 2 types of missile launchers and triple torpedo tubes. The entire 437 feet of the thing was a weapons platform, that was the entire reason for it’s existence. But that very mobile weapon in the hands of a human, that could actually harm another human easily, at close range was going to be over the top if seen in public. We didn’t have to do that in any port in the US. Maybe, just possibly the concept of an armed populous should be treated the same way, unnecessary and likely to be confrontational. Our cops who are armed to the teeth and wearing body armor actually gives the same impression and aura – they are very ready to kill. Maybe, often, their actions speak volumes, without actually doing anything.
Baud
@germy:
Agreed.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: USA! USA! USA!!!
What?
germy
The Dangerman
If I understand correctly, victim 1 wasn’t armed (unless you count grabbing for the gun, which I don’t think he did; I think he tried to push the gun so it wasn’t pointed towards him). Victim 2 was armed only with a skateboard, and one of the next ones was the Good Guy With A Gun in this scenario. Too bad he didn’t shoot the little shit. Now THAT would have been self defense.
Another Scott
@JoyceH:
Hehe.
Cheers,
Scott.
SpaceUnit
I assume that at some point this kid’s mother is going to be in the crosshairs of a civil suit for driving her underage child to a heated protest with an assault rifle. And I would not want to be her attorney.
Edit: Could this be considered criminal negligence?
Roger Moore
@debbie:
It’s illegal and obstruction. Trump doesn’t have the right to claim executive privilege. Not only is he not the President, Bannon wasn’t a US government employee in the time period in question. There’s no reasonable basis in law for claiming executive privilege for someone who didn’t even work for the government.
Gin & Tonic
I am annoyed at the inaccuracy of the weather app on my phone. At 3:57 it said the rain would end in 31 minutes. It is now 4:21 and the rain has already stopped. Feh.
Yarrow
@JoyceH:
Tick tock, motherfuckers!
Betty Cracker
There’s got to be a happy medium between “OMG, do something to hold the Trumpsters accountable right fucking now, you timid twats!” and “STFU and stop questioning the actions of any member of the Biden admin, you whiny leftist cockwaffle.”
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
There is not. This is how things must be.
germy
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, that’s what people who said this shit can take time meant.
Ruckus
@debbie:
What did that judge say about TFG?
“Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President”
And that reasoning, and truth, makes the people using he’s president as an excuse, like Bannon, without a leg to stand on. I hope that people like him have to pay the high price they deserve to, for attempting to overthrow the government.
And as Rodger said at #45
Bannon wasn’t a US government employee in the time period in question. There’s no reasonable basis in law for claiming executive privilege for someone who didn’t even work for the government.
Chief Oshkosh
@Betty Cracker: Is this Bannon indictment somehow for ignoring the subpoena
ETA: never mind, I see from TPM that it’s indictment on two counts for contempt of Congress.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
The last happy medium was Madame Blavatsky.
//
germy
Irishweaver
@Quicksand: ?
WaterGirl
@germy: That John Cole guys is good. He should start a blog.
germy
@WaterGirl:
Cole is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice.
germy
@NotMax:
But the Long Island Medium laughs all the way to the bank.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Is it too late to ask you to send me about 30 one-liners to trickle out while you’re gone?
Geminid
@Edmund Dantes: Virginia is an open carry state. The General Assembly passed six gun safety laws in 2020; one modified open carry to the extent that localities can prohibit firearms at demonstrations.
Gun rights advocates have been trying for years to get unlicensed concealed carry. They call this “Constitutional Carry,” but that is wishful thinking. If it’s so constitutional, why do they need a statute? My Republican State Senator, Emmett Hanger, had a primary challenger who made “Constitutional Carry” a big issue. I was interested to see that Hanger used the issue against her in campaign literature. He won easily.
Ohio Republicans are trying to push a permitless concealed carry law through. Last I read they haven’t done it yet, but the legislative session is not over.
germy
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Surely, you’ve compiled all of my historical bon mots for the BJ 20 year anniversary celebration, right? Right?
schrodingers_cat
Will Do Something Twitter shut up for at least one day or will they take credit for the indictment.
Which resister will be the first to say, my Podcast and Twitter whining is responsible for Bannon’s indictment?
Jeffro
None of this should depend upon ‘if a reasonable person would be in fear for their life…’ or ‘if a reasonable person felt they had no choice but to shoot…’
None of it. It’s all completely subjective, both on the part of the shooter and then later on the part of a jury.
The standard should be: were you in your own home when you shot to defend yourself/your family/your property? No? Then you shouldn’t have been out parading around with a gun, or used one. You should have called the police and/or avoided the scene to begin with. Open carry and ‘stand your ground’ and all that crap is just that – crap.
WaterGirl
@germy: Recognized more and more? Tell me more.
Baud
@Jeffro:
The Self defense standard isn’t limited to the use of guns, even though that’s how it often plays out in most cases.
germy
@schrodingers_cat:
I think Bannon should get full credit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat:
No, yes, and they’ll beyond to the next Great Failure of the Establishment by happy hour
ETA:
It’s a whole thread of “I told you so!” and “This isn’t enough!”
germy
@WaterGirl:
People nod to him at the farmer’s market.
Kent
Based on the defense arguments, I have a hard time seeing now anyone at that protest would not have been justified in gunning Rittenhouse down where he stood. He was clearly a deadly menace. Whatever self defense arguments he has, would apply equally well to anyone downstream of his AR.
Sounds like we should actually be blowing away any of these open carry assholes where they stand whenever we find them Just on self defense grounds.
Jeffro
I hope every single one of the folks that the Jan 6th commission has subpoenaed realize…the jig is UP. Time to talk, baby, time to talk!
schrodingers_cat
Any guesses how many shirts Bannon will be wearing when he turns himself in. I say 3 because it is getting chilly.
germy
Q: What do you call Bannon being placed under arrest?
A: A start.
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Hoarse whisperer is working on multi-part thread written in an extremely condescending tone as we speak.
Mike in NC
They need to lock Bannon’s shabby ass up before he flees to Cancun.
germy
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/us/politics/trump-statement-steve-bannon.html
(an oldie but goodie from the former guy)
Sure Lurkalot
@Baud: Hahaha.
Enjoy your trip, hiatus or whatever. If it’s Greece, say hello to the so-called birthplace of democracy for us.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mike in NC: he would certainly seem to be a flight risk to me, but IANAL, still less a judge
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t follow him. But he does show up on my timeline sometimes. He is beyond tiresome.
germy
sab
Since IMNAL I hate watching legal proceedings. I went to law school not paid by Federalist Society, so I have a huge respect for legal norms. Pre 1980. It’s visceral to me. I cringe when other legal people don’t respect our norms. But obviously they don’t . So here we are.
lowtechcyclist
Open carry is of the devil. That is all.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: IMNAL? Or should there be no N in that acronym.
WaterGirl
@germy: hahaha
Jeffro
@Baud: I hope my focusing on guns didn’t distract from my main point. =)
Baud
@Jeffro:
You were saying no self defense outside the home. I don’t think that’s feasible.
Warblewarble
Send officers Fanone and Goodman to arrest Bannon.”Lets go Bannon”
Bill Arnold
@germy:
Yeah. He refused to show up; if he’d appeared and refused to answer most of the questions, he’d be fine. He was stupid, and (probably) mentally addled by all propaganda he’s been willfully marinating in. (Some of his own manufacture. Which makes it stupider. Metacognition 101 – “Don’t believe everything you think”. )
sab
@schrodingers_cat: I went to law school and graduated 1980. Passed Michigan bar 1980 based on my test scores not my writing. My test scores were so high they didn’t look at my writing. Good thing for me.I practiced badly for four years then moved on . Mostly tax accounting. More suitable to my brain and personality.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: So it is IMAL, right counselor?
Jeffro
@Baud: I think I was saying, “no guns outside the home”, but opinions differ.
Betty Cracker
@sab: I’ve never seen any stats on this, but anecdotally, I’m under the impression that law is one of the professions people walk away from the most. Two of my family members got law degrees, passed the bar, practiced for a short time and said, “yeah, no.” Two friends did the same. I don’t know any ex-doctors.
Kay
@SpaceUnit:
We had one where a 16 year old shot and killed his 17 year old friend, fooling around with a loaded gun they found tossed on a clothes dryer in the garage. They were sheltering in the garage, waiting for the school bus and found the gun. The uncle who left the gun there was charged criminally (a misdemeanor) but they went a different route with the mother- they found the child “neglected” and removed him from her care. He was placed with more responsible relatives. The kid himself was not charged. He was suicidal, just destroyed. They had to hospitalize him.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
I’ve met a few MD/PhD’s who gave up practicing to do research full time. And a few people who got their MD overseas and decided it was too much hassle to get their license to practice here in the US.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: I used to be a not very good lawyer. Gave it up years ago.So I am not a lawyer and haven’t been in years. Law you have to keep up. I do feel for the old lawyers points of view. I don’t think Federalist Society lawyers are any kind of lawyer the rest of us could recognize. This isn’t just about party. This is about the whole legal system.
Non-lawyers ( reporters) are casual about this. Lawyers are shrieking.. This isn’t how their system is supposed to work.
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: Yep I know two doctors like that both from India. One became an epidemiologist and the other a neuroscientist.
The epidemiologist was a doctor with Britain’s NHS and didn’t want to go through the USMLE. They decided a PhD program was less hassle than the licensing exam. Or may be they were just done with medical practice IDK.
sab
Betty Cracker: Yeah. You go into law hoping to help and you find out you are part of the problem. The really good tough lawyers plow throw that. Plowing through that is what good lawyering is all about. Us wimps just quit.
Cameron
Rittenhouse walks, white boy walks, quelle surprise! A barbarian nation pretending it’s civilized.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cameron: are you assuming or do you have news?
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I am not seeing anything yet either on WashPost or on Twitter
I am seeing this instead.
Steeplejack
@Roger Moore:
Thanks, I was wondering about that.
Kathleen
@Omnes Omnibus: Then it doesn’t count. //s
Almost Retired
So I had a court appearance this morning in downtown Los Angeles. Parking was tougher than usual, and there were media trucks and dozens of sign-wielding demonstrators gathered at the entrance to the Courthouse. Hmmmm, I thought. Maybe the public and press is more interested in my motion to compel further production of documents against a Santa Monica dental practice than I expected. Turns out, they were actually there for the Britney Spears conservancy hearing. I won my motion. And so did Britney. I expect you’ll read about both victories in the trades.
Dopey-o
In America, there are 300,000,000 firearms owned by private individuals. In a typical year, less than 1% are used in self -defence. I take that to mean that 99% have no practical use (other than hunting.) Superfluous. Excess.
There is no way that these 99% are employed by any “well-regulated militia.” They are purchased in service to some dark deep-seated psychological defect. 300,000,000 guns is the sign of a dangerous sickness, and someone needs to find a cure.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
I just don’t understand why people let this kind of thing happen. It’s a cultural thing, not something that just inevitably happens. Here in LA County, people just don’t leave their guns where kids can find them; there isn’t a cultural assumption that it’s necessary to have a gun at the ready, so people keep them locked up. I’m sure that California laws that require guns to be locked up have something to do with it, too. Most years there are zero deaths (out of a population over 10 million) from kids accidentally shooting someone. I’m not pretending that we don’t have problems with guns- plenty of teenagers murder people with guns- but not with guns being left where kids can get them.
Cameron
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I apologize. I’m one of those despair-wollowing dudes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cameron: I hear ya. I feel the same way. It just wouldn’t surprise me a bit if that whackaloon judge dismissed the case outright, and it seemed like Friday afternoon would the time he’d do it.
And if the judge lets it go to the jury, it won’t surprise me if they take less than a hour to acquit.
Sure Lurkalot
@Roger Moore: The plumber who repaired a water line for us started out in med school and said nah.
Baud
@Almost Retired:
Have you thought about selling the movie rights to your story?
Dopey-o
Have you tried turning it off, then turning it back on?
WaterGirl
@Almost Retired:
Too long for a rotating tag, darn it! Good for a laugh, anyway
edit: So glad to know that you both won!
Geminid
@Kay: One of the six gun safety laws passed in Virginia made it a crime to have an unsecured firearm in a house with children. That won’t end these tragedies, but it’s a start, and you have to start somewhere.
After Virginia Democrats took over both legislative houses in 2019, it was obvious they would pass gun safety legislation. Many Democrats had run on gun safety platforms, and it was a winning issue in the suburbs. When the General Assembly opened its session in January 2020, gun rights advocates staged a rally in Richmond to protest proposed legislation.The rally drew over 10,000 gun toting protesters. The Democratic majority had astutely prohibited firearms on Capitol grounds the first day of the session, so protesters vented on the streets around. But when the six new laws went into effect that July, I did not hear of any protests. The laws were quite modest and polled at 70%+ approval. (A proposed assault weapons ban polled at about 50% approval, and was punted to the State Crime Commission for study, where it’s still being studied.)
Almost Retired
@Baud: Movie rights? No. I’m envisioning turning my story into an opera.
SpaceUnit
@Kay:
That’s an awful story. I think The Rittenhouse kid bears a lot of responsibility here because he wasn’t just fooling around with a gun he happened across by accident. He was looking for trouble.
But his mother, damn. I think that if nothing else she ought to be sued into the dirt.
@Kay:
karensky
The imagined image of you dropping an anvil out of a window onto a ammosexual now lives inside my head!
debbie
Not quite the level of skateboarding down the Alps, but a very close second.
People are nuts.
Baud
@Almost Retired:
I see a little silhouetto of a motion,
Scaramouch, Scaramouch, will you turn over the documents.
SpaceUnit
@karensky:
I didn’t even know anvil emporiums existed. Must be a Florida thing.
I always order mine online from ACME.
trollhattan
@germy: No flight risk there, nope.
J R in WV
Glad Britney got out from under her father. Hope she gets the money back from that rat bastard that he’s been stealing since he managed to get the signature rights to her check book.
What a bastard, stealing from his own daughter!
WAY MORE glad Bannon is indicted, was hoping to hear that a US Marshall had picked him up and dropped him off in jail, pending the forthcoming lawyering. What a fascist monster that fat bastard is!!! I hope he pleads guilty and gets two one year sentences, to run consecutively.
I would wager that in jail, his arrogance would bring about his curb-stomped damage, taken to hospital all broken. I know that isn’t being a peace loving gentle person, I always thought of myself as a peace-loving non-violent person, but on the other hand Bannon is a despicable fascist….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Patton Oswalt’s Darker Younger Brother
burnspbesq
@Betty Cracker:
Patience. The D.C. Circuit gave Trump his stay pending appeal of the District Court’s obviously correct rejection of his bullshit privilege claims. However, he got a rocket docket (oral argument on 11/30) and arguably the worst possible panel.
I’m betting the committee has the docs by year-end. And once the D.C. Circuit blows up Trump’s privilege claims, Brannon has no defense left.
Ain’t it funny how Republicans suddenly care about conditions in D.C. jails?
Gvg
@SpaceUnit: I think his mother should go to jail as an accessory to murder. None of this footsie with civil suits. Murder. In fact that is the only defense this kid could mount that I can think of, that might make me think he isn’t guilty of murder. Bad parenting. Really bad examples do lead young people astray and kids are influenced by parents.
burnspbesq
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Fuck that noise and all the fools making it.
Old School
@debbie:
Here’s the advertisement it was filmed for.
Almost Retired
@Baud: They’re privileged, I will not let them go.
Let them go!
They’re privileged, I will not let them go.
SpaceUnit
@Gvg:
Hey, I’m with you 100%. I’m only talking about civil suits because if the kid beats the murder rap with the self-defense argument there won’t be any accessory-to-murder charges filed.
But criminal negligence charges against the mother or a civil suit might fair better.
Roger Moore
@J R in WV:
I saw a very interesting editorial that basically said this was the main reason for the whole conservatorship. From the time she was a kid on Disney, Britney’s dad build a career as her manager. That might have made some sense when she was still a kid, but when she was an adult he had no right to control her the same way, and she started to run her own career.
When she had her public meltdown, someone who loved her needed to step in and get her the help she needed. The temporary conservatorship might have been the right way of doing that. But her dad just couldn’t give up the control and money he got by running her career again. It was like things were back when she was a kid and he could run everything. So he used her temporary problem and claimed she needed a permanent conservatorship. The laws governing conservatorships are way out of whack, and once he got control it was almost impossible for her to get it back. If it weren’t for the publicity and her legions of fans, her father probably would have kept controlling her life until he died.
Baud
@Almost Retired:
?
J R in WV
@Dopey-o:
Actually, a whole lot of people do lots of productive things with their guns. I have peace-loving hippy friends who hunt deer on their farms, for one example. Other people enjoy target shooting (that would be me) since they were introduced to shooting as kids.
My grandma taught me how to shoot, how to be safe with firearms, when I was about 10 or 12. My cousins would come down from Ohio and we would shoot in grandma’s back yard with a .22 rifle. Grandma had a pistol, we never shot with it, but she held house breakers at gun point waiting for a sheriff to come and take the guy trying to break into grandma’s back door to jail.
Now my cousin has that pistol, and we shoot plastic pop bottles with it out behind my shop building. It’s a 1903 Colt hammer-less automatic pistol, and grandma used to carry it in her apron as a general store shop keeper back in the 1930s and ’40s. Cousin tells me his dad, my uncle, carried that pistol when he ran whiskey into the clubs in town.
debbie
@Old School:
Thanks! What a great video!
Steeplejack
@germy:
And yet Trump was magnanimous enough to grant Bannon a pardon on his way out of office.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@burnspbesq:
I know I’m a lot less starchy and wedded to dawdling procedures as other lawyers here, but in what universe is this sort of delay truly acceptable?
We need to expect more from our judiciary, legislators and prosecutors. No one feels bound to move with alacrity, nobody moves decisively. We’re so busy respecting (and expecting to reinstate) norms which haven’t worked for decades that justice truly isn’t done.
I was peaking today with a guy who used to be in my office – he used to be the President of Louisville’s Metro Council (a position with significant power) to the Kentucky Senate, a Democrat among a heaving sea of a GOP supermajority. He has zero power, but is of use to slightly less crazy Republican tort lawyers in the chamber, because he’s expected to say the bits that may keep tort reform a little at bay. They’re too scared to buck their caucus by starting a fight (the primary worry is a huge thing), so he’s expected to say a piece to peel off some votes. Says he has to remain respectful lest he get yanked from committees.
None of this is normal.
Karen
I don’t know why they’re bothering with a trial, the judge already decided before the trial. Hopefully his bias will lead to an appeal.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
as a non-lawyer who knows nothing about how DoJ operates, I don’t believe this, but isn’t it pretty to think so?
prostratedragon
We sometimes hear about backlogs in the Federal system because the number of judges hasn’t kept up with the increasing volume of case over the years. Perhaps this delay is partly a symptom?
lowtechcyclist
@Roger Moore:
If it was true, those urban ghettos that suburban and rural whites fear so much would be some of the most polite places on earth.
lowtechcyclist
@Roger Moore:
Well sure, but if no such explanation is forthcoming, one has to wonder. I kept waiting to see that reasonable explanation, especially since it seemed such an open-and-shut matter, but .
MinuteMan
Has the straw purchaser of the gun been arrested?
Has Rittenhouse’s mother been charged? She was certainly aware that her son had an illegally obtained weapon, transported him across state lines with that loaded weapon, etc. Seems like she could be charged with a boatload of things and there would be no “self defense” argument to muddy the water.
Perhaps federal charges for Rittenhouse are in order after this trial—win, lose or draw.
Cthulhu
@Wilson Heath:
Yes.
The defense really wants people to think that the kid with the illegal weapon who stated openly before hand he wanted to kill people, who marched into a highly emotionally charged crowd with an assault rifle WASN’T the aggressor.
Pull the other one, defense attorneys, it has bells on it.
Rittenhouse had himself a big ol set of what we in the biz used to call “Gun balls”. Assault rifle in hand, he thought himself a badass, and acted accordingly.
Hint though. You don’t get to start a fight and claim self defense when you’re losing.
Cthulhu
@sixthdoctor:
Pineapple.
forestvillain
@Roger Moore:
“An armed society is a polite society” was written by a guy fired for incometence by Hallmark Greeting Cards, who then went to work for the NRA. /s