Posted on 01/17/2014 6:10:16 AM PST by Anton.Rutter
Guns don’t kill people, popcorn kills people. Or maybe it’s texting. Or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time with some fool who thinks he needs to take a gun to the movies.
(Excerpt) Read more at touch.latimes.com ...
Your comments don't match my understanding of SYG. The law relieves a person of an obligation to flee if it can be done safely. It doesn't change the presumption of innocence. The defendant will not face a burden of proving that he was unable to get away. This is why George Zimmerman didn't claim anything with regard to standing his ground. He was unable to get away because Martin was sitting on top of him bashing his head into the sidewalk.
The jury has always had the burden of figuring out whether the defendant was at fault and has violated his legal obligation not to use unreasonable force.
So if I throw popcorn at you in a theater, your only course of action is to leave? I can drive anybody out of a theater I wish by throwing stuff at them without consequences? How many throws do I get? What objects can I use?
Showing a gun without justification to use it is a CRIME. It is called "brandishing". Only recently have some jurisdictions begun to consider allowing the showing of a firearm as a means to ward off an attack.
If you get into a verbal confrontation with somebody at a theater, as described in this case, and respond by putting a gun in your lap that others can see, you're heading to jail. The cops won't be laughing as you claim when a physical assault takes place.
So, if you are wrong and it is possible to draw from a sitting position, would the fact that the shooter was seated when attacked change the situation? Was there a reasonable expectation on the shooter's part that he would not be attacked?
Great. Now, if you find out that the wife was, in fact, not responding to a gun but attempting to restrain her husband out of fear that he was about to attack the ex-cop, does that change anything?
Does it change anything if we find out that it was the action of the wife, pulling on the slide of the firearm, that made it fire? You've already suggested the idea of displaying the firearm. Could it be that the ex-cop reacted rather instinctively to the attack and that the panicked wife actually caused the gun to fire.
Concealed carry holders are trained to avoid confrontation, i.e., yes, to leave.
Police are trained to CONFRONT. Reeves confronted. End of story.
Now, it remains to his fellow King's Men (police, DAs & judges) to get him out of the predicament their training put him in...
You are spinning yourself silly. You are claiming that throwing popcorn was assault - and therefore grounds for escalation to lethal force - yet state that a lesser, non-lethal action - brandishment - should have been avoided because it would have been a crime? I imagine the criminal penalty for brandishment is a LOT lower than that for murder 2.
That, quite frankly, is one of the dumbest lines of debate I have ever seen on FR.
Well, there are a LOT of possible courses of action below the threshhold of escalation to lethal force that could have been considered.
Seriously, you should stop this idiocy, you are really making an utter fool of yourself.
You've definitely got the wrong number here. There's no way anybody could mistake me for being "pro-cop". And don't even get me started on the BATFE.
My concern is that I carry concealed and there is a pronounced media bias against such. Those who carry can make mistakes and those mistakes can be fatal.
What would help, however, is a little less tolerance for behavior such as the attacker in this case. I think it very possible that the ex-cop over-reacted. But nobody deserves a free ride to attack somebody else.
The idea that somebody could angrily throw popcorn into my face and that the police would just laugh it off makes me sick.
I haven't studied the concept of "fighting words" but most jurisdictions outlawed dueling long ago. There's a pretty sharp line between arguing over texting and throwing an object into another's face. I don't trivialize such actions. They are indicative of a serious problem.
In the Zimmerman case the media assured us that some wanna-be cop stalked a little black boy and then shot him dead for the fun of it. I don't expect everybody to maintain the mindset that I would expect from a jury, but I see many possibilities for charges less serious than second-degree murder in this case.
In the Zimmerman case there was a legal concept in play that the jury was not to learn anything about Martin that was not known to Zimmerman. The jury was supposed to view the situation from the perspective of Zimmerman and what he knew at the time of the shooting.
I can imagine how I would feel as a member of a jury if I had found Zimmerman guilty only to find out later what a thug Martin was. The jury in the Reeves case will no doubt be in the same situation; that is, they will be told little or nothing about the victim's background.
These waves of too-rapid, high-volume immigration to achieve the Democrat Utopia have unleased mayhem and destabilized the population. Social mores not only take centuries to build up; they are reinforced by strong family ties, language, shared understanding of the local religion(s) and history, and consistent civic education -- all of which the ACLU has sought to destroy. Coming back from this would take a miracle. Meanwhile, there's no place else to go.
First of all, supporters of concealed carry need to police our own. When someone goes too far, you give the gun-grabbers ammo by trying to justify what has happened.
And second of all, the cop is the one who drove the confrontation. He seems to have a crusade against texting in movies to the point of absurdity. If he had been rational, he could have said, when told the guy's kid was sick, say 'Oh, OK, but if you have to text during the movie, please go to the lobby' and it would have ended well. Or he could have just moved a few rows forward and he never would have noticed the texting. Instead, he went back to the same spot and escalated the confrontation, something CCW carriers are taught NOT to do. So this is not about defending CCW, it's about condemning a cop who still acted like one after he retired - in the wrong situation for such.
I'm sorry, but throwing popcorn does not rise to any kind of threshhold for fearing deadly harm needed for a response with lethal force. Your feelings as to whether it rises to assault are, quite frankly, immaterial to the larger issues here.
The movie I posted above, The Apostle, explores the same question.
Central to a deep understanding of Christianity is the reality that "all fall short of the glory of God" -- we are all sinners in need of a savior. This is a call to a humble life of loving one's neighbor, not a license to sin. As for what drove this white suburban Navy veteran and father to kill another white suburban Navy veteran and father in front of their wives, more needs to be revealed. If I were his defense lawyer, I would have a complete medical work up to look for brain impairment.
But even if he has a brain tumor or degenerative disease, if he did it, he should have to stay in prison for the rest of his life. The best he can hope for is solitary confinement and a prison near enough for his family to visit.
By the looks of things, he is a dead man walking. And that's why they used to call it a "penitentiary" -- so people would have time to repent before they die. May he take comfort in the old saying, "One man's prison is another man's monastery."
I'm not understanding what you mean -- what would explain why?
Hello -- who are you, his son?
It's at the very, very best a misdemeanor. It should not be met with a felony homocide by another citizen. Give it up already; you are wasting JimRob's bandwidth with desperate attempts to defend the indefensible.
In hindsight, if the shooter who is now on suicide watch, having killed another white male American, an unarmed fellow Navy veteran and a young father, could choose whether
1) to take his chances with the legal system for brandishing or
2) for his present second degree murder rap and a jury trial unless he pleads out,
which do you think he would choose?
What conceivable principle could he stand for if he still chose the murder -- "cain't nobody thoe no popcorn in mah faice an git awuay widdit"?
it’s also funny you should mention Chevy and Dodge. Neither use an engine built by them.
I am pretty sure the duramax is made by Isuzu.
You are running from the truth as fast as you can -- that this particular cop acted badly and tragically.
Continuing to set up strawman arguments against a majority of conservative, CCL opinion on this thread that he is morally wrong (and as of the evidence known today regarded as 99% likely to be found legally wrong) does not help your cause; it hurts it. Getting him off on a technicality would not help your cause, either; it would reinforce existing negative sterotypes of guns, cops and STG.
Such extremely extreme defense of THIS PARTICULAR SHOOTING makes CCL, 2nd Amendment conservatives and FR look like they would rather back a flat-out murderer, only because he used a gun instead of a knife. Stop already.
I think your autofill went haywire here. What were you trying to say on this thread?
Agreed — that or actual brain illness like tumor or Alzheimer’s, if found. But he should still stay behind bars for the rest of his life. Surely such illnesses carry forewarnings, and the prosecution should certainly subpoena his medical records to see if he sought any kind of treatment. One hopes the security cameras will reveal if he left to speak to the manager or to get his gun from the car.
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