I believe the judge made it clear that it is inappropriate to call them ‘victims’ as this prejudges the outcome of the trial. As you have already decided the outcome that is perhaps superfluous.
I don't get to decide outcomes. I do get to decide whether I think the judge is an arse and, worse, was putting his thumb on the scales in a criminal trial. I am not pleading a case in his court so am not bound by his idiotic rulings.
As for him not being a white supremacist? Non-racist white kids don't drive long distances with assault rifles for the chance to shoot black people.
As for him not being a white supremacist? Non-racist white kids don't drive long distances with assault rifles for the chance to shoot black people.
I understand he drove 21 miles; his father lives there. My sister-in-law does 50 miles when her son has soccer. I don't get to decide outcomes. I do get to decide whether I think the judge is an arse and, worse, was putting his thumb on the scales in a criminal trial. I am not pleading a case in his court so am not bound by his idiotic rulings./i]
And how extensive is your legal training? Try here for a legal view: https://jonathanturley.org/2021/11/16/rittenhouse-and-the-perils-of-weighing-public-opinion-over-evidence-in-prosecutions/ One of the three he shot was clearly a hero, unarmed yet still tackling an active gun man intent on shooting other unarmed people in the area.
On what basis do you make such a statement? The video evidence clearly shows the defendant attempted to run away and was no threat to anyone. AFAIK all three men who were shot were convicted criminals, having committed violent offences, and one was carrying an illegal, concealed, firearm who was shot when he took it out and pointed it at the defendant.
Your version is very much in dispute. AFAIK the gun was lawfully held and he shot three men who attacked him while he was running away trying to avoid a confrontation. You might note that the judge dismissed the case regarding the firearm at the start of the trial as the prosecution admitted it was legally held.
The prosecution didn't admit it was legally held. They acquiesced over a grey area of law which allows minors to carry long barrelled weapons for hunting. The judge tossed it.
One of the three he shot was clearly a hero, unarmed yet still tackling an active gun man intent on shooting other unarmed people in the area.
On what basis do you make such a statement? The video evidence clearly shows the defendant attempted to run away and was no threat to anyone. AFAIK all three men who were shot were convicted criminals, having committed violent offences, and one was carrying an illegal, concealed, firearm who was shot when he took it out and pointed it at the defendant.
On the basis that that is what was widely reported. Was the murdering bastard running away? Or, repositioning himself to shoot some more people peacefully protesting against racist police murdering people for the crime of the colour of their skin being dark? Were all the witnesses, including the events recorded, mistaken in seeing Joseph Rosenbaum attempt to wrest the rifle from the hands of a nutter who had already murdered one innocent man?
And, what does it matter if Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber or Gaige Grosskreutz had criminal records? Did the teenage terrorist with his military grade gun also have access to the criminal records of everyone on that protest march so he could only pick out "bad guys"? Or, for that matter whether someone else had a gun? Surely the whole point is the very dubious claim that one can carry a gun for self defence - and surely someone pointing a semi-automatic rifle at you (especially when they've clearly demonstrated a willingness to use it) is a good basis for using that gun? Or, is it just OK to use guns to kill those who want Black people to have equal rights, but not OK for Black guys or those who support their rights to use guns to defend themselves?
Now, go and fuck yourself you nasty little racist troll.
Why is it you only ever pop up here to cheer for Trump and other white supremacists?
Now, go and fuck yourself you nasty little racist troll.
Perhaps he sees you as left wing bigots who are not interested in the evidence of the case. but not OK for Black guys or those who support their rights to use guns to defend themselves?
Who said it was not okay? You are aware that the three men that were shot were WHITE? Have you actually looked at any of the evidence?
Who said it was not okay? You are aware that the three men that were shot were WHITE? Have you actually looked at any of the evidence?
Yes, why do you think I didn't say the three men shot by this particular domestic terrorist were Black (there have, of course, been plenty of Black men and women shot by assorted terrorists, some of them wearing police uniforms), rather mentioning them as "those who support [Black people's] rights". I'm fully aware of who he murdered and seriously injured in his shooting spree.
You don't actually understand what "bigot" means, do you?
In any case a legal system that says you can go about armed with a weapon intended to intimidate, kill three people and get off because you were in fear of your life is one that is deeply fucked up. And the fact that it tends to be white people scared by lots of unarmed black people is a big fucking sign that there is a racial component to this.
AFAIK all three men who were shot were convicted criminals, having committed violent offences, and one was carrying an illegal, concealed, firearm who was shot when he took it out and pointed it at the defendant.
This is completely immaterial and smacks of desperation. Extra-judicial fake justice murder is still murder. If someone needs to be brought to justice, it is not the job of teenage vigilantes to do so.
AFAIK all three men who were shot were convicted criminals, having committed violent offences, and one was carrying an illegal, concealed, firearm who was shot when he took it out and pointed it at the defendant.
This is completely immaterial and smacks of desperation. Extra-judicial fake justice murder is still murder. If someone needs to be brought to justice, it is not the job of teenage vigilantes to do so.
We had the same bullshit with George Floyd. Criminal record, should be glad he was dead. Same shit, different day.
AFAIK all three men who were shot were convicted criminals, having committed violent offences, and one was carrying an illegal, concealed, firearm who was shot when he took it out and pointed it at the defendant.
You know jack shit. Rittenhouse didn't know who these people were when he shot and killed. So - post hoc justification, and defending the legal rights of a neo-nazi while denying them for liberal protesters.
The thing is, we accept the verdict. We're here because the verdict seems perverse - a form of anti-justice. So when you come on, blithering about extra-judicial killing, you're not talking about the law being done right. You don't care about the law. You don't give a shit about it.
You just want the law to apply to other people, not yourself. So do fuck off.
You don't actually understand what "bigot" means, do you?
In any case a legal system that says you can go about armed with a weapon intended to intimidate, kill three people and get off because you were in fear of your life is one that is deeply fucked up. And the fact that it tends to be white people scared by lots of unarmed black people is a big fucking sign that there is a racial component to this.
What counts is what Powerderkeg would believe.
BIGOT
a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is prejudiced against or antagonistic towards a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.
The statements are being advanced without evidence or a refusal to consider evidence to the contrary. Debate becomes impossible if there is no common ground in which to discuss matters. In this case people are displaying clear prejudice in their posting. A long distance drive? 21 miles? When I lived in America, I travelled 50 miles across town of an evening to visit a friend on the far side. Running away is threatening? The issue should be to examine the evidence. I thought in this age everyone has their own subjective truth but of course that only applies if you hold the prevailing orthodoxy.
A jury has seen the evidence and reached a conclusion over a three-week period. Every LEGAL opinion I have seen states this is the correct verdict in law. Apparently, people here are legal experts who know better.
Do YOU know the meaning of racist troll?
In Hell all vocabulary can be used but insults are unproductive and give no clarity to the discussion. After so little discussion on the evidence, it is a great disappointment and from an author of whom I would have expected better.
AFAIK all three men who were shot were convicted criminals, having committed violent offences, and one was carrying an illegal, concealed, firearm who was shot when he took it out and pointed it at the defendant.
This is completely immaterial and smacks of desperation. Extra-judicial fake justice murder is still murder. If someone needs to be brought to justice, it is not the job of teenage vigilantes to do so.
It suggests their demeanour would be highly aggressive. He was hit violently with a skateboard; not something I would recommend doing to someone with a gun. How would you react to someone saying they were going to kill you?
AFAIK all three men who were shot were convicted criminals, having committed violent offences, and one was carrying an illegal, concealed, firearm who was shot when he took it out and pointed it at the defendant.
You know jack shit. Rittenhouse didn't know who these people were when he shot and killed. So - post hoc justification, and defending the legal rights of a neo-nazi while denying them for liberal protesters.
The thing is, we accept the verdict. We're here because the verdict seems perverse - a form of anti-justice. So when you come on, blithering about extra-judicial killing, you're not talking about the law being done right. You don't care about the law. You don't give a shit about it.
You just want the law to apply to other people, not yourself. So do fuck off.
AFAIK all three men who were shot were convicted criminals, having committed violent offences, and one was carrying an illegal, concealed, firearm who was shot when he took it out and pointed it at the defendant.
The thing is, we accept the verdict. We're here because the verdict seems perverse - a form of anti-justice. So when you come on, blithering about extra-judicial killing, you're not talking about the law being done right. You don't care about the law. You don't give a shit about it.
A jury has seen the evidence and reached a conclusion over a three-week period. Apparently, people here are legal experts who know better. Wallow away in your self-righteousness.
Do you see that there are differences between someone asleep in their own home finding armed men bursting into his home and using a gun to defend himself, and someone deliberately travelling to another town (irrespective of the distance or any connection he might have there) with a military grade weapon to confront BLM protestors out of some belief that these mostly peaceful protests threaten someone else? Totally different circumstances, so no way any reasonable person could draw a comparison (obviously the far right editors and contributors to legalinsurrection don't fall into my definition of 'reasonable people')
You don't actually understand what "bigot" means, do you?
In any case a legal system that says you can go about armed with a weapon intended to intimidate, kill three people and get off because you were in fear of your life is one that is deeply fucked up. And the fact that it tends to be white people scared by lots of unarmed black people is a big fucking sign that there is a racial component to this.
What counts is what Powerderkeg would believe.
BIGOT
a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is prejudiced against or antagonistic towards a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.
The statements are being advanced without evidence or a refusal to consider evidence to the contrary. Debate becomes impossible if there is no common ground in which to discuss matters. In this case people are displaying clear prejudice in their posting. A long distance drive? 21 miles? When I lived in America, I travelled 50 miles across town of an evening to visit a friend on the far side. Running away is threatening? The issue should be to examine the evidence. I thought in this age everyone has their own subjective truth but of course that only applies if you hold the prevailing orthodoxy.
A jury has seen the evidence and reached a conclusion over a three-week period. Every LEGAL opinion I have seen states this is the correct verdict in law. Apparently, people here are legal experts who know better.
Law does not equal justice. If the law genuinely says Rittenhouse should walk then the law is wrong and should be changed. For starters anyone carrying a deadly weapon openly without a valid reason (e.g. hunting in a suitable area) should automatically lose the right to claim self-defence because such an act is clearly a threat to others. Travelling armed with the intent or reasonable expectation of provoking an armed confrontation should also abrogate that right, and possibly be a crime in itself.
A jury has seen the evidence and reached a conclusion over a three-week period. Apparently, people here are legal experts who know better. Wallow away in your self-righteousness.
You're avoiding the question - which is typical troll behaviour, and imputing motives on other people - which is typical troll behaviour, and creating strawmen - which is typical troll behaviour.
You claim to respect the law, yet you don't respect the law when it becomes inconvenient to you. Which is not just typical troll behaviour, but typical white racist behaviour.
Also, we're wallowing in sorrow, not self-righteousness. So fuck off back under your rock and leave the pity-party to the rest of us.
To those of us living in jurisdictions with more sane gun laws than the USA, it appears that the current interpretation in many states of the "sacred" Second Amendment is that a white man is entitled to shoot dead anyone anywhere at any time. (Of course it's different if it's a black man doing the shooting.)
To those of us living in jurisdictions with more sane gun laws than the USA, it appears that the current interpretation in many states of the "sacred" Second Amendment is that a white man is entitled to shoot dead anyone anywhere at any time. (Of course it's different if it's a black man doing the shooting.)
Yep, that is the root of guns and policing in this country: it all started out as fucking slave patrols. I'm so pissed.
To those of us living in jurisdictions with more sane gun laws than the USA, it appears that the current interpretation in many states of the "sacred" Second Amendment is that a white man is entitled to shoot dead anyone anywhere at any time. (Of course it's different if it's a black man doing the shooting.)
Yep, that is the root of guns and policing in this country: it all started out as fucking slave patrols. I'm so pissed.
Hey, now, it wasn't all slave patrols. Some of it was murdering the native population.
Do you see that there are differences between someone asleep in their own home finding armed men bursting into his home and using a gun to defend himself, and someone deliberately travelling to another town (irrespective of the distance or any connection he might have there) with a military grade weapon to confront BLM protestors out of some belief that these mostly peaceful protests threaten someone else?
The "military grade weapon" thing is a bit of nonsense, but this is the key point.
Going somewhere (anywhere) armed, in order to confront people is a rather different proposition from being armed in a place you just happen to be, and defending yourself.
Rittenhouse traveled to Kenosha with his rifle in order to protect buildings from rioting protesters. He quite deliberately set himself up as an armed guard. He was a 17-year-old kid with no training in policing, or de-escalation, or crowd management, who chose to travel to a protest that he thought would involve rioting, with his rifle, in order to threaten potential rioters with that rifle and hope that they would back down.
This really isn't what I want random idiot kids to be able to do.
I hope Rittenhouse goes into full Nick Sandmann mode, and sues the living daylights out of every politician and media pundit who has been lining up since August 26, 2020 to be judge, jury, and executioner of this case before it even went to trial.
Of course you do. While courts of law are required to assume innocence prior to conviction, politicians and pundits are not, nor are they forbidden from expressing their opinions.
The interesting side of the ruling is that is, under law, it was apparently a mistake that Gaige Grosskreutz did not shoot Kyle Rittenhouse when he had the chance. Since Rittenhouse was an active shooter who had already killed two people at that point Grosskreutz could have used the same self-defense argument Rittenhouse later made. Heck, just the fact that Rittenhouse was visibly armed would have been sufficient legal justification. The fact that Wisconsin law apparently puts its thumb on the scale in favor of escalation seems like a skewed incentive.
Do you see that there are differences between someone asleep in their own home finding armed men bursting into his home and using a gun to defend himself, and someone deliberately travelling to another town (irrespective of the distance or any connection he might have there) with a military grade weapon to confront BLM protestors out of some belief that these mostly peaceful protests threaten someone else?
The "military grade weapon" thing is a bit of nonsense, but this is the key point.
I'm not sure it is. It's a rifle deliberately styled to scare people and look military i.e. for killing people rather than deer. That has an impact on reactions.
The SAR-15 type weapon is a de-featured version of the AR-15 type (it doesn't support fully automatic or burst-modes). The AR-15 type is the weapon of choice for many militaries. That makes it spitting distance from a military grade weapon.
Because you can tell a fully automatic AR-15 from an SAR-15 just by looking at it, at a distance, in the dark. Presumably, in the same way that Rittenhouse could see who in the crowd he was shooting at were the 'convicted felons'.
I'm not sure it is. It's a rifle deliberately styled to scare people and look military i.e. for killing people rather than deer. That has an impact on reactions.
I am given to understand that a number of people kill deer with rifles that look quite a lot like this one. At any rate, there weren't any deer wandering around downtown Kenosha. The only reason to stand around outside buildings with a gun is to either implicitly or explicitly threaten to shoot people with it.
If you're going to have a gun that you intend to threaten to shoot (or actually shoot) people with, whether we're talking about home defence, self-defence, or playing security guard, your needs are pretty similar, and overlap quite a lot with the needs that the army has.
The SAR-15 type weapon is a de-featured version of the AR-15 type (it doesn't support fully automatic or burst-modes). The AR-15 type is the weapon of choice for many militaries. That makes it spitting distance from a military grade weapon.
My point is really that "military-grade weapon" is rather meaningless. Yes, the M-16 is standard issue for quite a lot of armies, and apart from the missing auto-modes that you mention, this is basically the same weapon. It's scary because it's a semi-automatic rifle. It is not, in my opinion, scarier by virtue of being black, or having equipment rails.
If you want a weapon to defend your home (I'm not arguing that this is a good idea, but bear with me) then your needs aren't really so terribly different from an army, and so the weapon you'd choose would be quite similar to the one the army would choose. Economies of scale mean that it's cheaper if it uses the same ammunition, and is largely the same weapon.
Guns, when used for self / home defence, or even for hunting, are tools for killing people. "Civilian" guns are not less lethal than scary black army guns. You could have a semi-automatic rifle with a lot of polished wood and fancy scrimshaw inlays, and it would be just as lethal. "Civilian" weapons don't shoot people more gently that military ones.
If you want a weapon to defend your home (I'm not arguing that this is a good idea, but bear with me) then your needs aren't really so terribly different from an army, . . .
I question the need for suppressive fire in most home defense scenarios. Or close air support.
If you want a weapon to defend your home (I'm not arguing that this is a good idea, but bear with me) then your needs aren't really so terribly different from an army, . . .
I question the need for suppressive fire in most home defense scenarios. Or close air support.
I thought it was obvious from context that I was talking about personal weapons rather than anything else, but sure - you pretend your comment had some relevance to the discussion.
I thought it was generally accepted that unless your house is under attack by hordes of zombies a rifle is really not the weapon you want - a handgun would be more suitable for the "home invasion" scenario of right wing horror stories. Maybe a shotgun at a pinch.
There are certainly questions regarding the suitability of long-barrelled weapons in a domestic environment, including the space to wield one, and the penetrative power of the bullet.
For zombies, a pole-arm such as a bill or halberd would be preferable, but they come up against the manoeuvrability in confined spaces problem. A single-bladed slashing short sword - machete, seax or similar - would be good, but honestly, you can't beat (badum-tish) a good solid studded club or mace.
There are certainly questions regarding the suitability of long-barrelled weapons in a domestic environment, including the space to wield one, and the penetrative power of the bullet.
For zombies, a pole-arm such as a bill or halberd would be preferable, but they come up against the manoeuvrability in confined spaces problem. A single-bladed slashing short sword - machete, seax or similar - would be good, but honestly, you can't beat (badum-tish) a good solid studded club or mace.
I was imagining before they got to the house, while they're still shambling up the drive and tearing through next door's privet. Leather blackjack for confined spaces?
The SAR-15 type weapon is a de-featured version of the AR-15 type (it doesn't support fully automatic or burst-modes). The AR-15 type is the weapon of choice for many militaries. That makes it spitting distance from a military grade weapon.
My point is really that "military-grade weapon" is rather meaningless. Yes, the M-16 is standard issue for quite a lot of armies, and apart from the missing auto-modes that you mention, this is basically the same weapon. It's scary because it's a semi-automatic rifle. It is not, in my opinion, scarier by virtue of being black, or having equipment rails.
If you want a weapon to defend your home (I'm not arguing that this is a good idea, but bear with me) then your needs aren't really so terribly different from an army, and so the weapon you'd choose would be quite similar to the one the army would choose. Economies of scale mean that it's cheaper if it uses the same ammunition, and is largely the same weapon.
Guns, when used for self / home defence, or even for hunting, are tools for killing people. "Civilian" guns are not less lethal than scary black army guns. You could have a semi-automatic rifle with a lot of polished wood and fancy scrimshaw inlays, and it would be just as lethal. "Civilian" weapons don't shoot people more gently that military ones.
Ok let’s ask some questions.
Are you in a military situation?
No
Do you need military grade equipment?
No
Are you thinking you may have to
Kill lots of people with a rapid fire weapon?
Hopefully no.
Do you need a military grade gun?
No
I hope Rittenhouse goes into full Nick Sandmann mode, and sues the living daylights out of every politician and media pundit who has been lining up since August 26, 2020 to be judge, jury, and executioner of this case before it even went to trial.
Really? I hope he gets sued by the families of his victims.
Indeed. Today the jury in the Charlottesville Unite the Right civil case awarded $25 million in damages to 9 people to be collected from 24 defendants. 7 other defendants did not respond to the suit, so default judgements were issued against them, and the court will decide what the damages are.
Plaintiffs invoked a rarely used provision in federal law that allows citizens to sue other citizens for civil rights violations. This provision is in a law passed after the Civil War called . . . wait for it . . . the Ku Klux Klan Act.
And in what has got to take a special place of shame on the firing line of specious arguments, the defense claimed that Arbery could not possibly have simply been out jogging, as the prosecution asserted, because he was not wearing socks and his toenails were not trimmed -- behavior that no serious jogger would dream of engaging in.
Ok let’s ask some questions.
Are you in a military situation?
No
Do you need military grade equipment?
No
Are you thinking you may have to
Kill lots of people with a rapid fire weapon?
Hopefully no.
Do you need a military grade gun?
No
My point is that "military grade gun" is a pretty meaningless thing. In general, military-grade just means that it has been tested to meet whatever specifications for reliability and robustness the military wants for an X that it purchases. Clearly you can't be arguing that citizens should only have unreliable guns.
But perhaps you can explain in what way defending your home against multiple armed robbers (which is the kind of worst case scenario people who purchase weapons for home defense sometimes think about) differs significantly from a "military situation".
So what makes a particular gun "military grade"?
Caliber? Barrel length? Capacity of magazine? Or just that the military actually uses something like it?
Because Arbery was murdered and those who did it were on trial. Call it whatever you please. Miss Amanda is sorry she chose words that don't please you. She'll know to consult you next time to obtain pre-approval.
Why call it the "Arbery trial"? Ahmaud Arbery was not on trial, the people on trial were the three men who chased him down and murdered him.
Because, as with large scale acts of terrorism (not getting into whether or not this should be considered terrorism) the goal is for the names and faces of victims to be what endure and are remembered, and that the perpetrators die lonely and forgotten in a cell. May their names be erased.
"The trial of the killers of Ahmaud Arbery" works to remind us of the name of the victim, while not naming the perpetrators ("killers" because, certainly in this case, there's no doubt that they killed Arbery, the question being was it murder or in come way justified - we can now call it murder because the court has ruled that it was ... although courts aren't infallible in that regard as we saw with a decision that murder can be excused as self-defence).
In so many of these cases there's a tendency to put the victims on trial, bringing up irrelevant details of their lives such as prior criminal activity, in the media if not in the court itself (failure to trim toe nails seems to fit that pattern). Talking about a trial with lazy shorthand that could imply it's the trial of the person named could encourage that idiocy.
"The trial of the killers of Ahmaud Arbery" works to remind us of the name of the victim, while not naming the perpetrators ("killers" because, certainly in this case, there's no doubt that they killed Arbery, the question being was it murder or in come way justified - we can now call it murder because the court has ruled that it was ... although courts aren't infallible in that regard as we saw with a decision that murder can be excused as self-defence).
In so many of these cases there's a tendency to put the victims on trial, bringing up irrelevant details of their lives such as prior criminal activity, in the media if not in the court itself (failure to trim toe nails seems to fit that pattern). Talking about a trial with lazy shorthand that could imply it's the trial of the person named could encourage that idiocy.
Oh, fer cryin' out loud. After you move to the US and live here for a while, you can tell Americans how to talk about these things. Everyone here with any interest in such things knows that 3 assholes were brought to trial for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, and it is known here colloquially as the "Ahmaud Arbery trial." Google "Ahmaud Arbery trial" with the quotation marks and you'll find plenty of national news outlets using that exact phrase in their headers. We know who died, and we know he was shot and killed for being a Black man jogging. We're calling it the "Ahmaud Arbery trial" because that's the name we actually know. If I wanted to list the names of the convicted, I'd have to go look them up.
Of course you know what the shorthand means, as does anyone who's interested. What about those who don't have any interest? When all they see is the headlines on the news stand, do they get the message that Ahmaud Arbery is the victim of murder or categorise it like "The OJ Simpson Trial" as naming the accused?
Of course, needing to use the services of Google to find the names of the accused/convicted is a good thing. They don't deserve to be household names.
Or do they categorize it like the Rodney King trial? Nobody where I live calls it "the trial of the 4 cops who beat the shit out of Rodney King," and in everyday conversation where I live - where it happened - the protest, uprising, and crime that took place in its wake are collectively called the Rodney King riots. I heard this phrase in conversation at work yesterday.
There isn't consistency in the nomenclature here. Stop telling people who actually live here how to talk about it.
Ok let’s ask some questions.
Are you in a military situation?
No
Do you need military grade equipment?
No
Are you thinking you may have to
Kill lots of people with a rapid fire weapon?
Hopefully no.
Do you need a military grade gun?
No
My point is that "military grade gun" is a pretty meaningless thing. In general, military-grade just means that it has been tested to meet whatever specifications for reliability and robustness the military wants for an X that it purchases. Clearly you can't be arguing that citizens should only have unreliable guns.
But perhaps you can explain in what way defending your home against multiple armed robbers (which is the kind of worst case scenario people who purchase weapons for home defense sometimes think about) differs significantly from a "military situation".
So what makes a particular gun "military grade"?
Caliber? Barrel length? Capacity of magazine? Or just that the military actually uses something like it?
I don’t want many guns at all. Just for hobby shooting (Olympic style or clay shooting maybe) Realistically over that side of the pond it will not happen.
The inference of the phrase Military grade is strong weapons, not suitable for domestic use. You could interpret it literally as you do but I think you understand the inference. I am not sure how many robbers go round in numbers. I understood it to be a solo or duo profession. Unless it is something large like a bank robbery.
What kind of home does one have to have that one needs an AR15 to defend it from a swat team? One has to invent ridiculously improbable potentialities to justify having absurd amounts of fire power in citizen hands.
Comments
I don't get to decide outcomes. I do get to decide whether I think the judge is an arse and, worse, was putting his thumb on the scales in a criminal trial. I am not pleading a case in his court so am not bound by his idiotic rulings.
As for him not being a white supremacist? Non-racist white kids don't drive long distances with assault rifles for the chance to shoot black people.
I understand he drove 21 miles; his father lives there. My sister-in-law does 50 miles when her son has soccer.
I don't get to decide outcomes. I do get to decide whether I think the judge is an arse and, worse, was putting his thumb on the scales in a criminal trial. I am not pleading a case in his court so am not bound by his idiotic rulings./i]
And how extensive is your legal training? Try here for a legal view: https://jonathanturley.org/2021/11/16/rittenhouse-and-the-perils-of-weighing-public-opinion-over-evidence-in-prosecutions/
One of the three he shot was clearly a hero, unarmed yet still tackling an active gun man intent on shooting other unarmed people in the area.
On what basis do you make such a statement? The video evidence clearly shows the defendant attempted to run away and was no threat to anyone. AFAIK all three men who were shot were convicted criminals, having committed violent offences, and one was carrying an illegal, concealed, firearm who was shot when he took it out and pointed it at the defendant.
And avoid a confrontation he caused.
And, what does it matter if Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber or Gaige Grosskreutz had criminal records? Did the teenage terrorist with his military grade gun also have access to the criminal records of everyone on that protest march so he could only pick out "bad guys"? Or, for that matter whether someone else had a gun? Surely the whole point is the very dubious claim that one can carry a gun for self defence - and surely someone pointing a semi-automatic rifle at you (especially when they've clearly demonstrated a willingness to use it) is a good basis for using that gun? Or, is it just OK to use guns to kill those who want Black people to have equal rights, but not OK for Black guys or those who support their rights to use guns to defend themselves?
Now, go and fuck yourself you nasty little racist troll.
Now, go and fuck yourself you nasty little racist troll.
Perhaps he sees you as left wing bigots who are not interested in the evidence of the case.
but not OK for Black guys or those who support their rights to use guns to defend themselves?
Who said it was not okay? You are aware that the three men that were shot were WHITE? Have you actually looked at any of the evidence?
In any case a legal system that says you can go about armed with a weapon intended to intimidate, kill three people and get off because you were in fear of your life is one that is deeply fucked up. And the fact that it tends to be white people scared by lots of unarmed black people is a big fucking sign that there is a racial component to this.
This is completely immaterial and smacks of desperation. Extra-judicial fake justice murder is still murder. If someone needs to be brought to justice, it is not the job of teenage vigilantes to do so.
We had the same bullshit with George Floyd. Criminal record, should be glad he was dead. Same shit, different day.
You know jack shit. Rittenhouse didn't know who these people were when he shot and killed. So - post hoc justification, and defending the legal rights of a neo-nazi while denying them for liberal protesters.
The thing is, we accept the verdict. We're here because the verdict seems perverse - a form of anti-justice. So when you come on, blithering about extra-judicial killing, you're not talking about the law being done right. You don't care about the law. You don't give a shit about it.
You just want the law to apply to other people, not yourself. So do fuck off.
What counts is what Powerderkeg would believe.
BIGOT
a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is prejudiced against or antagonistic towards a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.
The statements are being advanced without evidence or a refusal to consider evidence to the contrary. Debate becomes impossible if there is no common ground in which to discuss matters. In this case people are displaying clear prejudice in their posting. A long distance drive? 21 miles? When I lived in America, I travelled 50 miles across town of an evening to visit a friend on the far side. Running away is threatening? The issue should be to examine the evidence. I thought in this age everyone has their own subjective truth but of course that only applies if you hold the prevailing orthodoxy.
A jury has seen the evidence and reached a conclusion over a three-week period. Every LEGAL opinion I have seen states this is the correct verdict in law. Apparently, people here are legal experts who know better.
Do YOU know the meaning of racist troll?
In Hell all vocabulary can be used but insults are unproductive and give no clarity to the discussion. After so little discussion on the evidence, it is a great disappointment and from an author of whom I would have expected better.
Oh look; a black man successfully claiming self-defence.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/11/another-self-defense-case-andrew-coffee-found-not-guilty-on-5-counts-including-murder-attempted-murder/
It suggests their demeanour would be highly aggressive. He was hit violently with a skateboard; not something I would recommend doing to someone with a gun. How would you react to someone saying they were going to kill you?
A jury has seen the evidence and reached a conclusion over a three-week period. Apparently, people here are legal experts who know better. Wallow away in your self-righteousness.
Law does not equal justice. If the law genuinely says Rittenhouse should walk then the law is wrong and should be changed. For starters anyone carrying a deadly weapon openly without a valid reason (e.g. hunting in a suitable area) should automatically lose the right to claim self-defence because such an act is clearly a threat to others. Travelling armed with the intent or reasonable expectation of provoking an armed confrontation should also abrogate that right, and possibly be a crime in itself.
You claim to respect the law, yet you don't respect the law when it becomes inconvenient to you. Which is not just typical troll behaviour, but typical white racist behaviour.
Also, we're wallowing in sorrow, not self-righteousness. So fuck off back under your rock and leave the pity-party to the rest of us.
Ahem.
Yep, that is the root of guns and policing in this country: it all started out as fucking slave patrols. I'm so pissed.
Hey, now, it wasn't all slave patrols. Some of it was murdering the native population.
The "military grade weapon" thing is a bit of nonsense, but this is the key point.
Going somewhere (anywhere) armed, in order to confront people is a rather different proposition from being armed in a place you just happen to be, and defending yourself.
Rittenhouse traveled to Kenosha with his rifle in order to protect buildings from rioting protesters. He quite deliberately set himself up as an armed guard. He was a 17-year-old kid with no training in policing, or de-escalation, or crowd management, who chose to travel to a protest that he thought would involve rioting, with his rifle, in order to threaten potential rioters with that rifle and hope that they would back down.
This really isn't what I want random idiot kids to be able to do.
Of course you do. While courts of law are required to assume innocence prior to conviction, politicians and pundits are not, nor are they forbidden from expressing their opinions.
The interesting side of the ruling is that is, under law, it was apparently a mistake that Gaige Grosskreutz did not shoot Kyle Rittenhouse when he had the chance. Since Rittenhouse was an active shooter who had already killed two people at that point Grosskreutz could have used the same self-defense argument Rittenhouse later made. Heck, just the fact that Rittenhouse was visibly armed would have been sufficient legal justification. The fact that Wisconsin law apparently puts its thumb on the scale in favor of escalation seems like a skewed incentive.
I'm not sure it is. It's a rifle deliberately styled to scare people and look military i.e. for killing people rather than deer. That has an impact on reactions.
I am given to understand that a number of people kill deer with rifles that look quite a lot like this one. At any rate, there weren't any deer wandering around downtown Kenosha. The only reason to stand around outside buildings with a gun is to either implicitly or explicitly threaten to shoot people with it.
If you're going to have a gun that you intend to threaten to shoot (or actually shoot) people with, whether we're talking about home defence, self-defence, or playing security guard, your needs are pretty similar, and overlap quite a lot with the needs that the army has.
My point is really that "military-grade weapon" is rather meaningless. Yes, the M-16 is standard issue for quite a lot of armies, and apart from the missing auto-modes that you mention, this is basically the same weapon. It's scary because it's a semi-automatic rifle. It is not, in my opinion, scarier by virtue of being black, or having equipment rails.
If you want a weapon to defend your home (I'm not arguing that this is a good idea, but bear with me) then your needs aren't really so terribly different from an army, and so the weapon you'd choose would be quite similar to the one the army would choose. Economies of scale mean that it's cheaper if it uses the same ammunition, and is largely the same weapon.
Guns, when used for self / home defence, or even for hunting, are tools for killing people. "Civilian" guns are not less lethal than scary black army guns. You could have a semi-automatic rifle with a lot of polished wood and fancy scrimshaw inlays, and it would be just as lethal. "Civilian" weapons don't shoot people more gently that military ones.
I question the need for suppressive fire in most home defense scenarios. Or close air support.
I thought it was obvious from context that I was talking about personal weapons rather than anything else, but sure - you pretend your comment had some relevance to the discussion.
For zombies, a pole-arm such as a bill or halberd would be preferable, but they come up against the manoeuvrability in confined spaces problem. A single-bladed slashing short sword - machete, seax or similar - would be good, but honestly, you can't beat (badum-tish) a good solid studded club or mace.
I was imagining before they got to the house, while they're still shambling up the drive and tearing through next door's privet. Leather blackjack for confined spaces?
And I understand he wants to enroll at Arizona State University to study nursing.
The irony astounds.
ASU charges a fortune in tuition for Arizona residents, and a mega=fortune for out-of=state residents. I wonder if Faux News will pay him enough.
Ok let’s ask some questions.
Are you in a military situation?
No
Do you need military grade equipment?
No
Are you thinking you may have to
Kill lots of people with a rapid fire weapon?
Hopefully no.
Do you need a military grade gun?
No
Indeed. Today the jury in the Charlottesville Unite the Right civil case awarded $25 million in damages to 9 people to be collected from 24 defendants. 7 other defendants did not respond to the suit, so default judgements were issued against them, and the court will decide what the damages are.
Plaintiffs invoked a rarely used provision in federal law that allows citizens to sue other citizens for civil rights violations. This provision is in a law passed after the Civil War called . . . wait for it . . . the Ku Klux Klan Act.
My point is that "military grade gun" is a pretty meaningless thing. In general, military-grade just means that it has been tested to meet whatever specifications for reliability and robustness the military wants for an X that it purchases. Clearly you can't be arguing that citizens should only have unreliable guns.
But perhaps you can explain in what way defending your home against multiple armed robbers (which is the kind of worst case scenario people who purchase weapons for home defense sometimes think about) differs significantly from a "military situation".
So what makes a particular gun "military grade"?
Caliber? Barrel length? Capacity of magazine? Or just that the military actually uses something like it?
Because, as with large scale acts of terrorism (not getting into whether or not this should be considered terrorism) the goal is for the names and faces of victims to be what endure and are remembered, and that the perpetrators die lonely and forgotten in a cell. May their names be erased.
In so many of these cases there's a tendency to put the victims on trial, bringing up irrelevant details of their lives such as prior criminal activity, in the media if not in the court itself (failure to trim toe nails seems to fit that pattern). Talking about a trial with lazy shorthand that could imply it's the trial of the person named could encourage that idiocy.
Oh, fer cryin' out loud. After you move to the US and live here for a while, you can tell Americans how to talk about these things. Everyone here with any interest in such things knows that 3 assholes were brought to trial for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, and it is known here colloquially as the "Ahmaud Arbery trial." Google "Ahmaud Arbery trial" with the quotation marks and you'll find plenty of national news outlets using that exact phrase in their headers. We know who died, and we know he was shot and killed for being a Black man jogging. We're calling it the "Ahmaud Arbery trial" because that's the name we actually know. If I wanted to list the names of the convicted, I'd have to go look them up.
Of course, needing to use the services of Google to find the names of the accused/convicted is a good thing. They don't deserve to be household names.
There isn't consistency in the nomenclature here. Stop telling people who actually live here how to talk about it.
I don’t want many guns at all. Just for hobby shooting (Olympic style or clay shooting maybe) Realistically over that side of the pond it will not happen.
The inference of the phrase Military grade is strong weapons, not suitable for domestic use. You could interpret it literally as you do but I think you understand the inference. I am not sure how many robbers go round in numbers. I understood it to be a solo or duo profession. Unless it is something large like a bank robbery.