6761

Shove them really, really hard?

6762

So many people are being arrested for threatening to shoot places up lately, I honestly don’t know if this guy has been posted here. His name didn’t turn up in my search results, so I’ll just consider him fresh news.

A Tennessee man was arrested yesterday for allegedly threatening a mass shooting at a Planned Parenthood in Washington, D.C. The suspect is the third person to be charged for threatening violence against the abortion provider this month alone.

Authorities say that on August 13, Jacob Cooper, 20, used the website iFunny to post a message that said, “Make sure you tell them about how I plan to shoot up a planned parenthood facility in Washington D.C., on August 19th at 3pm.”

Cooper allegedly posted a second comment on the website reading, “If you are a member of the FBI, CIA, whatever, and are on my profile I will trace your IP address and kill you if the opportunity arises. And I am dead serious about this. I’ll do it with ricin, a bomb, or .308. Whatever it takes, then end result will be the same. I am serious about this. If I am personally contacted by any federal agents, I will do this. I will kill you. Again, I am serious. Sic semper tyrannis.”

6763

And maybe trip over… them…???

6764

One of the disadvantages of the Stand Your Ground law (which I support) is that it makes civilian shootings look a lot like sketchy police shootings. For a lot of the police shootings you read in the news – not all of them of course – the officer is technically justified to use lethal force by the letter of the law based on the situation at the instantaneous moment when they pulled the trigger.

The fatal mistake is what happens earlier, when an officer – or now a civilian – improperly sets in motion a situation that never should’ve happened in the first place. That might be attempting to detain a mentally disturbed person with a pen or in this case arguing with idiots in a handicapped spot.

The vast majority of gun owners who carry concealed have enough sense and basic training to know that when you carry, you need to be even less confrontational than you normally would. Sometimes you get an idiot like this. Even though he may have been technically justified – the victim escalated the conflict from verbal to physical force, and then approached the shooter in a threatening manner while he was on the ground – I’d have a hard time letting this go knowing that this guy had a history of harassing assholes who won’t follow parking laws.

Frankly, I’d prefer not to have idiots putting my rights at risk.

6765

I seem to remember after officials failed to stop the Parkland shooter that there was a wave of news articles afterwards where they caught more people than usual. Civilians paid more attention to threats and law enforcement actually decided to do their job. I might be imagining this. The point is, I’m not sure this will last, which is unfortunate.

Also, why does a 20 year old man care about Planned Parenthood?

6766

You’ve just pointed out what is probably the biggest issue with stand your ground, even when properly asserted. Those laws all focus exclusively at the slice of time of the shooting.

If you created or substantially contributed to the situation, you shouldn’t get a free pass on having to de-escalate and/or retreat.

I don’t get how you can recognize that and STILL support the law.

6767

This seems like quite a bold assumption stated as fact. Is there a study that proves this somewhere? I would think they would tend to be bolder, knowing they have an ace in the hole if things blow up quickly.

6768

Even if true, it shouldn’t excuse the hypothetical minority owner who is confrontational. “Huh, bad luck that, most other gun owners wouldn’t have done that. Oh well, too bad for you.”

6769

A study… that proves that…?

You could look at how rates of crime for concealed carry holders tends to be lower, which I’m sure has been posted a million billion times in this thread, but that wouldn’t prove the psychological cause and effect.

To be more precise in P&R, I probably should’ve phrased that to mean that every concealed carry course I’ve attended, every self defense book I’ve read, every forum thread I’ve read on the subject, and every conversation I’ve had on the subject, all agreed that’s how you ought to act. Whether that makes it into the brains of a vast majority of gun owners… who knows.

I hope that works better.

6770

What does that matter, when the stakes are raised so high by the exceptions? Trayvon Martin is dead because of the aggressive behavior of a gun carrier; as are many others. It’s a bit like saying only one country has ever used nuclear weapons, everyone knows better, so we shouldn’t be concerned about proliferation.

6771

This one happened in my neck of the woods:

I’ve been reading about it in local news over the last few days, so just to add a bit more context for people who aren’t Austinites:

  • the park where he was arrested was in downtown Austin, about a mile away from the State Capitol building, the UT campus, and tons of other big locations. Not to mention the kids and families at the actual park.
  • one of the charges against him, Deadly Conduct for abandoning a loaded rifle in a park, he could have avoided by keeping his AR-15 with him rather than ditching it shortly before police arrived
  • one of the charges against him, carrying an extendable baton/club, he could have avoided if he had waited a few months, since the Texas legislature is currently working on making that legal.
  • one of the charges against him, carrying a concealed pistol, he could have avoided by getting a license before going on his walk
  • while he wasn’t charged for carrying the large knife on the front of his belt, he really could have done better since it’s legal to carry a full sized sword here
  • As usual, he had a recent domestic violence charge

I’m not sure what to say about this except that it highlights just about every aspect of our state’s insane gun laws. With just the slightest modifications, everything he did would have been perfectly legal and there would have been no grounds to detain him.

6772

I was in a long running debate with two concealed carry guys who swore it was illegal to not have a round in the chamber when carrying concealed. I’m not sure about the vast majority part (generally the older(who grew up hunting) the more responsible, the younger (who see guns as toys/kill the bad guys) the less).

6773

Stand your Ground is dumb, because it means you can murder people with impunity, then say “I felt threatened” and walk free. The important thing is to make sure the other guy is dead so he can’t testify otherwise.

It is pretty much a law saying “Shooting someone but not killing them is illegal, but shooting them and killing them is a-ok”.

6774

Stand Your Ground has some history in common law but was really pushed by the NRA as another brick in the wall of normalizing mass gun ownership across society.

6775

It helps inform my conclusion to convict based on a different premise and perspective you might not be familiar with. *shrug*

This all feels eerily familiar. Heh.

6776

Especially the part where you ignore the content of the argument. Shrug.

6777

I fear that soon I’ll be pestered to disprove a random statement unrelated to what I was originally talking about. Maybe I should stop now before that happens.

6778

That or, you know, drop the ‘few bad apples’ excuse. I can be easily annoyed, and annoying, yet I’ve never killed anyone. I’m guessing the lack of ready means has at least something to do with that, as it does for most other human beings.

6779

since surveillance camera showed that what he claimed did not happen you probably shouldn’t repeat that like its fact.

6780

If that didn’t happen then it’s even more reason to convict. Seems pretty straightforward.