Although its sad that his life went that way, he gets no special latitude to go get a shotgun and go confront the cops. Anything the family says about his service might be true,,, the ptsd might be true,, but that just explains how he got there. It didn’t give him license,,
Lots of violent criminals were victims of horrifying abuse as small innocent children. It explains some things for us,,, but we never excuse what they did. Same for this kid, the neighbor has a right to not live in fear, no matter how honorable his service was.
This guy sounds like he should have been institutionalized. His own sister says he sometimes had hallucinations that he was actually IN Iraq.
Lots of vets have flashbacks,, but for most, its a whiff a diesel or jet exhaust that gives you that ‘oh yeah’ memory,, its the unexpected firework at Disneyland that makes you jump right out of your skin, or hit the deck,,and feel kinda embarrassed in front of people. But if that boy actually couldnt tell reality from delusion,,, and people knew it, he should have been an inpatient somewhere.
But i’m sure a lot of people will be blaming themselves for a long time.
It is interesting that you should phrase it this way; as it brings up a VERY important point.
The Second Amendment says: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
(This version, with a single comma, is that which was ratified by the several states. See this and this.)
The intent of this is obvious: the government cannot disallow the right to keep and use (bear) arms, because that is deleterious to a free state. (The colloquial would be "the first step toward permanently institutionalizing tyranny.") So then the police, being agents of the State, must be included in those who are prohibited from infringing upon that right.
Given the above, a person simply carrying a weapon cannot be justification enough for the police to kill.
Furthermore, as the entire 2nd amendment would be worse than useless if there was an obligation for the citizen to obey any/all orders given by an officer of the state, the failure to obey [police] commands also cannot be held to justify the use of lethal force by agents of the state.
Anything the family says about his service might be true,,, the ptsd might be true,, but that just explains how he got there. It didn’t give him license,,
No, but this leads to the question of "a free state," for it is undoubtedly a free state's militia to which the 2nd Amendment applies. (The actuality is much more broad, as the right is guaranteed to 'the people' not the militia, that is another topic, however, and irrelevant to this case because it must needs be a superset of the militia.)
So, is it a free state when a police officer can shoot someone for a) possessing a weapon, and b) refusing to obey their orders, while c) not in the commission of an actual crime?
Lots of violent criminals were victims of horrifying abuse as small innocent children. It explains some things for us,,, but we never excuse what they did. Same for this kid, the neighbor has a right to not live in fear, no matter how honorable his service was.
Irrelevant; this man was shot not for something that he did, but for something he did not do; to wit: he refused to be [illegally] disarmed.
This guy sounds like he should have been institutionalized.
Perhaps, but that is actually tangential to the actual shooting; the reason I say this is that the government is prohibited from ending someone's life without due process (the 5th amendment). That he was not actually in an institution is irrelevant to the issue, which is that the police were acting contrary to the Constitution. Even if there are laws they may have been acting under, those laws should provide no protection for them BECAUSE their actions were so contrary to the Constitution.
But i’m sure a lot of people will be blaming themselves for a long time.
Perhaps, perhaps not. It is amazing what one can rationalize.