[Republican in occupied CA]

Probably why it’s better to carry a pistol than anything else.

You have a perfect right to shoot anyone drawing down on you unless you are on someone else’s private property or they are a cop.

I’m *very* intimidated by guns. But I am going to operate on the assumption that anyone aiming one at me is going to use it, therefore my *only* option if I can’t run is to try to take them (and anyone with them) with me.

Never pull a gun on anyone you aren’t prepared to shoot. And always assume that if you don’t kill them they will feel utterly entitled to kill you and probably anybody related to and/or near you.

I’ve only ever held a weapon on someone once, and that was a crossbow (albeit one with a very nasty tip).

I get your point; you are convinced that Arbry was a thief and that those three were doing the right thing, or at least convinced they were; I am of the opposite opinion, that they had nothing but a hunch and an assumption.

If you pull a weapon first, you are 100 percent responsible for anything subsequent that happens, no exceptions, exclusions or extenuating circumstances; just as if you take the first swing at a person, you should have to utterly take *ALL* consequences of everything that happens afterwards.

You are starting from the assumption the three did nothing wrong; I am starting from the assumption that they were entirely in the wrong, from presuming Arbry was a criminal casing the joint, to playing vigilante, to chasing someone, to aiming a weapon at someone they didn’t *already* have 100 percent justification to kill.

[DiogenesLamp]

I am of the opposite opinion, that they had nothing but a hunch and an assumption.

Well that and the fact that Arbery had been identified to them by the videos that homeowner had sent to McMichael showing Arbery wandering through the house in the middle of the night on many different dates.

Also they had the knowledge that a thief had been spotted in the area at night looking in people's windows.

Also they had the knowledge that someone (presumably the same thief) had stolen a gun from inside of one of their trucks.

And furthermore, as a retired police detective, the elder McMichael used "hunches" as a regular tool in his vocation.

If you pull a weapon first, you are 100 percent responsible for anything subsequent that happens, no exceptions, exclusions or extenuating circumstances;

Disagree. When you are holding a shotgun, you aren't "pulling" a weapon. You are holding it. Nobody was pointing a gun at Arbery until he charged at the man holding a shotgun.

You are starting from the assumption the three did nothing wrong;

I initially thought they did. The lying media reported it as "White racist rednecks hunt down and murder black man jogging through their neighborhood!"

I said to myself, How in h3ll could anyone be acting like that nowadays? Then I learned every single bit of the media claims were lies.

I am starting from the assumption that they were entirely in the wrong, from presuming Arbry was a criminal casing the joint,

Well he was. We have video proof that Arbery was going into the place in the middle of the night on numerous occasions on different dates. The prosecutor at the trial admitted that guy in the video was Arbery.

And the McMichaels knew this was the guy because they had seen the videos which the owner had sent to the elder McMichael precisely because he was a retired cop who lived in the neighborhood.