I love that you can only track them down and kill them, if the supposed theft occurs at night. The cops are off duty once the sun goes down, so it’s every man for himself. It’ll be interesting when someone tries to apply this law at twilight and they get into a fight about what, exactly, is night.
Reminds of the whole OJ Simpson Vegas thing. Had that been Texas, OJ could have gone and busted a cap into the guy.
Is it like one of those vampire movies in which “night” is defined by the actual sun rising and staying within the shadow of a nearby castle or cliff?
“Yeah, I kilt that fella at 8AM, but he wuz plainly standin’ in the shadow of thet thar steeple.”
The adverb is the key there. The prosecutors can still explain to the jury the difference between theft and a civil dispute over services, and then they can decide if the guy acted as a reasonable person or not. I don’t think it just means “sincerely believe.”
However, there may be a similar element to Stand Your Ground laws: the media gets the actual law wrong so often due to FUD that average citizens start thinking they’re allowed to do things when they aren’t. Usually the system disabuses them of that notion, but not always.
Of course it doesn’t mean “sincerely believed”. But it leaves it in the hands of the jury, regardless of whether there was a mistake of fact (e.g., oops, that wasn’t my car) or a mistake of law (e.g., that actually doesn’t even qualify as theft), to allow someone to shoot someone who is fleeing, even if it is $1 at “risk”. Potentially allowing fatal, irreversible errors of judgement in situations where there is no immediate risk of harm is idiotic, pure and simple.
Timex
4371
I imagine Texas is like that scene in “I am Legend”, with some texan dude standing there with a shotgun, his dogs scratching at the ground, waiting for the last sliver of sunlight to disappear before they can rush you down and murder you.
ShivaX
4372
So 9th Circuit decided that concealed carry isn’t protected or whatever, now people who hate Trump in all my social feeds are screaming Trump 2016 because Hillary is coming for their gunz. It’s especially painful to see a black, supposedly former Republican who decided to leave the party because of Trump completely forget all the racism because OMG MY GUNZ GAIS!!
Expect the GOP to hammer the fuck out of this drum, because it fucking works every time.
olaf
4373
9th circuit is super liberal and gets over turned a lot. This ruling was not surprising. It will be interesting to see if this goes higher.
“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.”
Canuck
4374
Don’t you have to like, join a militia or something?
No, because the constitution doesn’t say that…
We’re no longer a free state because of Obama, so the Second Amendment is now invalid.
No. This comes up literally every ten pages in this thread, and the answer hasn’t changed. The Constitutional authority for formal militias comes from elsewhere in the document. Very nearly every person involved in drafting the Bill of Rights who also wrote essays wrote one about how the militia, generally, is the whole of the population.
Miramon
4378
Stipulating for the sake of argument that the FFs foolishly wanted everyone to have their own weapons so as to be able to form a militia without the skint federal government having to pay for it. However the “well regulated” part is blithely ignored by all and sundry… The 1st amendment has any number of exceptions and rules and laws pertaining to the regulation of free speech and expression, as do various other elements of the Constitution. Viz. the Sedition act for example, which clearly goes against Jefferson’s intentions for the amendment. So it’s marvelous how the 2nd is so critical to uphold when others are either modified by law or like the 14th are considered harmful by the same people.
Meanwhile in Toronto, Canada, there is a recent spate of gun violence. Columnists are writing, allegations, gnashing of teeth about Toronto’s crime problem in our black community, income inequality, no jobs for under-educated, lax sentences, too many guns etc etc etc etc.
So this is all about 21 murders in Toronto, year to date 2016. I just checked Chicago and the number came up as 18. And then I realized it was “June to date”. It’s June 10th.
To buy a pistol in Canada it’s a pain in the butt. Almost all guns used in crimes here are smuggled in from the US.
Miramon
4380
I agree the numbers make it clear that gun control generally means fewer murders, and especially of course it means fewer shootings. But just to be fair, I believe there have been only 12 murders in Boston this year. Chicago is currently out of control due to the abusive incompetence of the police and the city government in general.
Fair point, Boston is also a peer City to Toronto in terms of approximate size. I guess it’s part of the “availability of guns plus all these other social factors” in Chicago, and gun rights advocates can always deflect attention to the other social factors. Certainly won’t be able to move the debate at all with such a simple example, but anyone looking would have to admit the difference is stark.
To be fair, while I’m in favor of much stronger gun regulations, I also believe those other social factors have a greater impact on inner city violence than gun availability does, in a straight comparison. That said, there’s no reason why complex problems don’t warrant complex solutions where we try and address a number of factors.
CraigM
4383
Chicago is also physically sharing a border with another state with, ahem, loose gun laws.
olaf
4384
Yeah its pretty easy to examine the context of the language at the time it was written, if one is inclined to do so. The point of the second amendment was to ensure that the people, ie. the militia, would never be outgunned by the government. That ship has sailed but it still surprises me how the courts shit on it.
Timex
4385
But since the original intent was to make it so you can’t be outgunned by the government, and that’s not possible now, what is the remaining purpose?
ShivaX
4386
Same one as the Amendment about quartering troops? It’s a right. I’m fairly sure no one needs the 3rd Amendment these days, but it’s still a right that we have and one could argue that the second we got rid of it, the government would look to save some money by having everyone take in an Ensign and provide room and board for em.
Also the 2nd Amendment was considered by many of the Founding Fathers to be the “Right to Self Defense” Amendment. Whether that is against bears, natives, your neighbors, foreign armies or your own government. It’s also very relevant that the idea of standing armies was anathema to their concept of a democratic republic, which is why they gave the power over that to Congress and made them check if they wanted to continue every two years.
Ultimately, though, it’s a Right. Now you could say it’s a Right we don’t need anymore, but I think quite a portion of the populace would disagree. Not that it matters because you’d need to Amend the document to remove it which will never happen again anyway.
