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Waco Panty Raid posted:"Recklessly exercising your property rights" aparently covers a lot of ground. Including, apparently, rights one no longer has. Huh, it's almost like the people arguing with you are suggesting there's a middle ground and that a reasonable person doesn't go Yosemite Sam at the first hint of trouble. The relationship is in both cases the accused took a "shoot first, ask later" policy and immediately escalated to gunfire. Both cases were a reaction to a perceived threat invading their property. The only significant difference between the two scenarios is in one the victim was a methhead and the other was not. There's no problem with a person defending their home. These are not that scenario. If you plan to use a deadly weapon in defense of your home, be prepared to answer some hard questions if someone ends up dead.
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Jun 2, 2015 19:26
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Raerlynn posted:The relationship is in both cases the accused took a "shoot first, ask later" policy and immediately escalated to gunfire. Both cases were a reaction to a perceived threat invading their property. The only significant difference between the two scenarios is in one the victim was a methhead and the other was not. twodot fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Jun 2, 2015 |
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Jun 2, 2015 19:30
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twodot posted:The difference where one of them at least claimed to fear for his life, and where one of them just claimed to be shooting robbers at a distance seems significant. The point where the Nevada killer chose to enter the building, and the point where the West Virginia killer chose to pull the trigger is the focal point. The Nevada killer was reckless in going in to confront the squatters because he knew, or should have known, that his action was likely to endanger others' lives. Edit: this is being charitable, assuming that the Nevada killer was only going in being ready to shoot, instead of for the express purpose of shooting
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Jun 2, 2015 19:34
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Devor posted:The point where the Nevada killer chose to enter the building, and the point where the West Virginia killer chose to pull the trigger is the focal point. quote:The Nevada killer was reckless in going in to confront the squatters because he knew, or should have known, that his action was likely to endanger others' lives.
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Jun 2, 2015 19:44
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Devor posted:The West Virginia killer was protecting perceived property rights by shooting people going into what he thought was his shed. People are calling the Nevada shooter reckless because they believe by entering the property he was unjustifiably risking a confrontation that could turn deadly. Once the confrontation occurred he was acting with intent (I don't think he claimed to be firing blindly). The West Virginia shooter was just mistaken (and frankly even if he wasn't his actions don't strike me as justifiable)- recklessness doesn't factor into what he did at all. The difference in the cases is that it is extremely unlikely the WV shooter had any justification to act. The debate here with the Nevada shooter is if he had the right to enter his property, after which he defended himself. Raerlynn posted:Huh, it's almost like the people arguing with you are suggesting there's a middle ground and that a reasonable person doesn't go Yosemite Sam at the first hint of trouble. I have no problem with an investigation after any shooting.
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Jun 2, 2015 19:47
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twodot posted:Ok and these are very different sorts of actions. Are we just agreeing with each other here?
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Jun 2, 2015 19:50
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Devor posted:The Nevada killer was reckless in going in to confront the squatters because he knew, or should have known, that his action was likely to endanger others' lives. This. He didn't live there. It was abandoned. There's nothing stopping him from calling the police, or returning with them during the day. He chose, knowing full well that there were squatters there, to enter the building at night, alone, and armed with a deadly weapon. That's not a defensive action.
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Jun 2, 2015 19:52
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twodot posted:So this seems like a fact thing rather than an opinion thing. Breaking and entering a building you assumed was abandoned definitely has some risk of being killed, I'm not sure how that risk compares to other things like driving or such, but regardless of that "You should be cautious when breaking and entering, yes." seems like good advice. What's the alternative? "Be incautious when breaking and entering"? The alternative viewpoint is that ignorance is not a death sentence. They clearly thought they weren't in danger, turns out they were, so now they're dead.
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Jun 2, 2015 19:53
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Waco Panty Raid posted:I would dispute the Nevada shooter was being legally reckless. I don't think entering one's property should be on the same ground as, say, setting fire to a home that unknown to the arsonist had people sleeping inside. There are intetvening acts by the squatters that turned the confrontation deadly.
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Jun 2, 2015 19:56
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sugar free jazz posted:After reading your posts I'm really comfortable with the government making that decision. Effectronica posted:When you consider how hunting, pest control in rural areas, etc. are never advanced as valid reasons to own a gun (the only time I've even seen them mentioned was some guy in GBS ranting about how hunters can't be trusted and would sell the real gunowners out), and that the primary reasoning is about killing people (or rather "self-defense", which is very likely to be lethal when you shoot someone), there seems to be an ulterior motive at play here. SurgicalOntologist posted:C'mon, the counterfactual still holds if the squatter is stone-cold sober, and in fact, "a reasonable person" is not on meth. The squatters clearly have a right to self-defense in this situation, if the owner enters in the middle of the night with guns drawn. Indeed, any reasonable person would expect them to react with violence if approached in that manner. The owner obviously expected violence to occur. flakeloaf posted:I'm explaining how others might come to the conclusion that, generally, shooting someone for being in an abandoned house might not be in line with the morals of everyone in this thread. ABCA judges are more articulate than I am. ElCondemn posted:So you think it's reasonable to expect to be killed for breaking and entering a building you assumed was abandoned. What if your child went exploring and found and abandoned building, when they're shot for entering an abandoned property illegally you'll just tell your wife "that's the consequence of ignorance"? Is that what a reasonable person will think when that happens? Dead Reckoning fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Jun 2, 2015 |
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Jun 2, 2015 20:00
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ElCondemn posted:So you think it's reasonable to expect to be killed for breaking and entering a building you assumed was abandoned. What if your child went exploring and found and abandoned building, when they're shot for entering an abandoned property illegally you'll just tell your wife "that's the consequence of ignorance"? Is that what a reasonable person will think when that happens? It's not reasonable to expect, but you should certainly realize your risk is a lot higher than say, not breaking into what you think to be an abandoned building. It's also very difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was not justified self defense, particularly when the person who survived admitted to an action that could easily interpreted as life-threatening. I also don't think these edge cases are relevant to the point of the thread at all, the justice system is supposed to make it so it's hard to convict someone. The issue is if minorities are not given this benefit, not that we want the justice system to be harsher for everyone. There's a lot of crab mentality here, along with picking and choosing when to be 'tough on crime' or not. twodot posted:You can be reckless and not commit a crime. When he (totally legally) entered his building to confront the squatters, he was aware of a substantial risk that they might violently object (thus the guns), and ignored that risk. You are conflating legal and dictionary definitions, you can't recklessly enter your property by definition.
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Jun 2, 2015 20:11
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Dead Reckoning posted:The part you and others are missing is that the defendant never claimed he killed them for being on his property. No one in this thread has said that you should be allowed to kill people for simply being on your property, yet you keep saying that the killings were over a trespass. Initially I had, but by the time I made the post you quoted I had come around to the understanding that he shot them in response to perceived aggression after he'd challenged them. The guy allegedly made a sudden move for what turned out to be a flashlight, and he got shot. quote:Now, you may think the defendant was lying, and the prosecution also put forward that theory, but they failed to prove it. The evidence didn’t support a guilty verdict under the law. If you think the law should be different, I think it’s reasonable to ask what should be changed, and then explore the possible consequences of those changes. Should preparing yourself in the face of potential danger be considered premeditation? Should a person have to wait until a threat is immanent to arm themselves? Should property owners not have the right to confront intruders on their property? If someone is squatting in your back yard, are you obliged to avoid doing anything that might provoke a conflict with them while you wait for the police? Should the burden of proof in self-defense cases be on the accused to prove that there were absolutely no alternatives? How far back is their decisionmaking open to scrutiny? Minutes? Hours? Years? You can't change the law to fix this situation because the old man had property rights. As morally questionable as his decision was to exercise them right then, gun in hand, knowing he was likely to soon be in mortal peril that he could then leverage as an excuse to shoot some filthy bums (per the prosecution), legally he had the right to do everything that he did. Pulling the shotgun out from under your pillow when you hear an intruder downstairs and piling a bunch of pistols into your truck to drive down the road to your other property are two very different ideas, and I think that second one is a bad one, but I can't think of a legal solution that doesn't involve relieving someone of their property rights. "Absolutely" no alternatives is not a very good test; better would be to say what a reasonable person might have done in that situation. I believe a reasonable person would have contacted the police for help in removing some people who were currently occupying a property far enough from where the complainant was a) currently standing and b) actually living that they posed no threat to anyone. Instead, he chose to get close enough to them that they could make him fear for his life, then use that fear to bootstrap a justification to kill two folks what didn't need killin'. But again, there's really no way you can frame that without making someone appear to be legally at fault for exercising their rights to be at a place they own. Just because you may do something doesn't mean you really ought to. tsa posted:It's not reasonable to expect, but you should certainly realize your risk is a lot higher than say, not breaking into what you think to be an abandoned building. It's also very difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was not justified self defense, particularly when the person who survived admitted to an action that could easily interpreted as life-threatening. This part's important too. Old guy is entitled to the benefit of the doubt, and regardless of how he came to be in that basement and what thoughts were going around in his head and whether or not he had already formed the intent to kill them both before he'd even gone inside, the version of the story that the court accepted holds that the guy he actually killed did make a sudden move first. Justified murder is not murder. flakeloaf fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Jun 2, 2015 |
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Jun 2, 2015 20:14
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Effectronica posted:When you consider how hunting, pest control in rural areas, etc. are never advanced as valid reasons to own a gun, and that the primary reasoning is about killing people Do you have any gun owning friends? Family? Because these are reasons I hear all the time. Of course I have other interactions with humans besides the internet.
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Jun 2, 2015 20:16
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flakeloaf posted:Just because you may do something doesn't mean you really ought to. Conversely just because you ought not to do something doesn't mean it should be criminal (not arguing with you)
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Jun 2, 2015 20:33
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Dead Reckoning posted:See above about property rights vs self-defense. Also, I think you’ll find that establishing you had reasonable fear of a small child is a lot harder than establishing reasonable fear of two adults half your age, so your comparison is dumb on two levels. Just because it's legal to kill people on your property doesn't mean it's right, there are lots of things people do that are terrible that don't land them in jail. Also I was envisioning a teenager, maybe 17 or 18, perfectly reasonable to expect them to be ignorant and not deserve to be killed. I can't believe you think "I was spooked" is justification enough to kill someone. tsa posted:It's not reasonable to expect, but you should certainly realize your risk is a lot higher than say, not breaking into what you think to be an abandoned building. It's also very difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was not justified self defense, particularly when the person who survived admitted to an action that could easily interpreted as life-threatening. Being stupid is not justification for a death sentence, it's not illegal or wrong to be stupid. Also it doesn't matter if the shooter felt threatened, the end result is what's important, isn't it? Two people who did not deserve to die are dead, so maybe we should discuss how to prevent that from happening instead of trying to justify it? Though I guess the argument being thrown around is that they deserved to be killed, so I guess there's no point in trying to argue against sociopaths.
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Jun 2, 2015 20:40
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tsa posted:... you can't recklessly enter your property by definition. Sure you can. "Conduct whereby the actor does not desire harmful consequence but...foresees the possibility and consciously takes the risk," I own an abandoned property. I've had vandalism problems from squatters. I visit the property one night, and I see a faint light in a window. I'm an old man, so I know that any confrontation is dangerous to me. Thus I have my gun drawn when I decide to go into the property to confront whoever is in there. I clearly foresaw the risk of harmful consequences (hence the gun at the ready), but took the risk anyway.
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Jun 2, 2015 20:41
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Dead Reckoning posted:Should property owners not have the right to confront intruders on their property? If someone is squatting in your back yard, are you obliged to avoid doing anything that might provoke a conflict with them while you wait for the police? Yes? To me the spirit of self-defense laws is to indemnify the defender from prosecution if lethal force is necessary and used to protect life and limb, not to act as a legal safety net for vigilantism if things go pear-shaped. If you're an armed citizen and someone is squatting in your yard or intruding on your property but not presenting an immediate threat to life and limb, the reasonable course of action is to call the police and keep an eye on him, with your weapon nearby if you feel he may become an immediate threat. His presence shouldn't be used as an excuse to start an armed confrontation just because you may be legally in the right for doing so. Edit: speaking in a moral and not necessarily legal sense in case it wasn't obvious. Rhesus Pieces fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Jun 2, 2015 |
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Jun 2, 2015 20:42
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flakeloaf posted:Are you a stranger to this phenomenon, Radbot? I don't know what a tumblrification is, perhaps you could explain it to me? Preferably without using any three letter acronyms.
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Jun 2, 2015 20:43
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The fact that store owners can't shoot shoplifts who have been banned from the store if they trespass by entering the store again is a good thing. But yet, its a bridge too far to hold abandoned property owners to the same bar.
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Jun 2, 2015 20:53
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Trabisnikof posted:The fact that store owners can't shoot shoplifts who have been banned from the store if they trespass by entering the store again is a good thing. But that's wrong. Shoplifters have no special legal protections.
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Jun 2, 2015 21:32
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pacmania90 posted:But that's wrong. Shoplifters have no special legal protections. And yet shop owners can't shoot them for walking in the door even if they're trespassing because they're banned. Even if they're 100% that dude is going to steal some M&Ms again. Its almost as if vigilante murders are always illegal and someone doesn't need special legal protections to get a right to life.
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Jun 2, 2015 21:34
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Trabisnikof posted:And yet shop owners can't shoot them for walking in the door even if they're trespassing because they're banned. Even if they're 100% that dude is going to steal some M&Ms again. I agree completely. What does your example have to do with the case in Nevada, though?
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Jun 2, 2015 21:39
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tsa posted:You are conflating legal and dictionary definitions, you can't recklessly enter your property by definition. Sure you can, I can think some ways just off the top of my head that I could enter my property in a reckless manner. I could put on a ski mask and break down the door in the middle of the night while my roommates are sleeping. I could know there is a gas leak and go in anyway, puffing on my cigarette. I could know about some other dangerous situation and ignore the risk. I could suspect there is a property crime being committed with no threat to anyone's life, and grab my pistol and charge in like John Wayne, firing at the first thing that makes me jumpy. There's all sorts of ways to be reckless on your own property.
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Jun 2, 2015 22:28
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ElCondemn posted:I was envisioning a teenager, maybe 17 or 18, perfectly reasonable to expect them to be ignorant and not deserve to be killed. 17 and 18 year olds kill people all the time. Yes, they might be stupid. Yes, they might be perfectly harmless. But how do you find that out in an instant? There's a security video on youtube of a man kicking a small child in mcdonolds. A split second after the man kicks the child the father knocks him out with a haymaker to the face. Turns out the man who kicked the child is mentally retarded. There are people castigating the father and saying he should have found out why the man was attacking his child and not have punched a mentally retarded man. It seems like you're agreeing with that kind of sentiment? Split second decisions can turn out to be wrong, but what side would you fall on if you felt your life (or heck your child's safety) was on the line?
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Jun 2, 2015 23:36
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spacetoaster posted:17 and 18 year olds kill people all the time. So it's cool to kill them? I don't see what this has to do with anything, I was just making a hypothetical situation where you would be personally affected and your ideals would be tested. No sane person would say "Our stupid son should have known better than to instigate the abandoned building owner, he deserved to die honey". spacetoaster posted:Yes, they might be stupid. Yes, they might be perfectly harmless. But how do you find that out in an instant? I don't believe it's possible to assess a threat in the dark with literally no information other than movement. We don't live in wild times, cougars aren't lurking in the darkness waiting to pounce. Most humans aren't violent killers and most human interactions (even spooky ones) are not likely to result in violence or death... unless the spooked party has a gun. So what do you think my position is? That we should just accept that some people will be killed because the world is a scary place and you can't be sure you're safe? spacetoaster posted:There's a security video on youtube of a man kicking a small child in mcdonolds. A split second after the man kicks the child the father knocks him out with a haymaker to the face. Turns out the man who kicked the child is mentally retarded. There are people castigating the father and saying he should have found out why the man was attacking his child and not have punched a mentally retarded man. It seems like you're agreeing with that kind of sentiment? Instead of trying to classify violence as deserved or undeserved would it make more sense to attempt to reduce violence in general? Of course I would probably react the same way if someone hit my child, but I don't see how that makes either violent action justified. It's unfortunate, this is human nature, to react violently in the face of danger. The solution isn't to justify that violence, it's to create situations where the impact of that violence can be lessened. For instance, if you don't want to kill people don't be prepared to kill people.
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Jun 3, 2015 00:22
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pacmania90 posted:I agree completely. What does your example have to do with the case in Nevada, though? People are arguing that if a shop owner said "well, his arm looked like a gun" before shooting the unarmed person criminally trespassing then the kill is completely justified and shouldn't be second guessed. I don't think the magic words "I felt threatened" should be sufficient to legitimize the killing of unarmed people regardless of if the killer has a badge or not.
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Jun 3, 2015 00:23
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ElCondemn posted:I don't believe it's possible to assess a threat in the dark with literally no information other than movement. We don't live in wild times, cougars aren't lurking in the darkness waiting to pounce. Most humans aren't violent killers and most human interactions (even spooky ones) are not likely to result in violence or death... unless the spooked party has a gun. So what do you think my position is? That we should just accept that some people will be killed because the world is a scary place and you can't be sure you're safe? In countries where private handgun ownership is a given, that is a realistic belief. I might have a gun, so therefore you must have a gun, and since I know you must have one then I must have one, and since you know I must have one then you must shoot first. It's insane but it's logically sound.
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Jun 3, 2015 01:30
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Trabisnikof posted:People are arguing that if a shop owner said "well, his arm looked like a gun" before shooting the unarmed person criminally trespassing then the kill is completely justified and shouldn't be second guessed. It was second guessed though. That's why the case went to trial. We know now that the squatters were unarmed, but that's only with the benefit of hindsight. You can't hold Burgarello accountable for being wrong in his judgement of the situation.
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Jun 3, 2015 01:32
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pacmania90 posted:You can't hold Burgarello accountable for being wrong in his judgement of the situation.
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Jun 3, 2015 01:39
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ElCondemn posted:So it's cool to kill them? lol, hyperbole is just a word to you isn't it? You were using the age 17/18 as evidence for your argument. I was just pointing out that being 18 doesn't infer any special non-violent status on a person. ElCondemn posted:
Cool, but self defense laws aren't about what you believe. They're about what the person "defending themselves" believes. Absent mind reading powers (or glaring evidence to the contrary) you can't really prove what is going on in someone else's mind. ElCondemn posted:Of course I would probably react the same way if someone hit my child, but I don't see how that makes either violent action justified. Wait, what?  You don't think defending your own child from harm by violent means could EVER be justified? Even though you just said that you would do it?And I do believe that a lot of (heck, most if they needed to be)humans are inherently violent murder machines. But you probably haven't witnessed very much of that ,so you don't really think it's true.
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Jun 3, 2015 01:51
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spacetoaster posted:They're about what the person "defending themselves" believes.
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Jun 3, 2015 02:25
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Rent-A-Cop posted:You can certainly hold him accountable for initiating a confrontation in which one person died and another was seriously wounded. He was perfectly within his rights to initiate the confrontation, regardless of the ultimate outcome. Additionally, the squatters escalated the situation, so they're also responsible for getting shot.
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Jun 3, 2015 02:33
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The squatters didn't escalate anything. They were prone and unarmed. Bursting in on sleeping people when it's too dark for him to tell a weapon from a flashlight and firing, and it's the unarmed sleepers who escalated things to violence somehow?
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Jun 3, 2015 02:54
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The squatters didn't escalate anything. The male squatter moved suddenly while at gunpoint and may have had a flashlight in his hand, giving the property owner a reasonable (but mistaken) belief that the guy had a weapon of his own, which led to his reasonable fear of death, which prompted him to shoot.
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Jun 3, 2015 02:57
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VitalSigns posted:The squatters didn't escalate anything. They were prone and unarmed. Bursting in on sleeping people when it's too dark for him to tell a weapon from a flashlight and firing, and it's the unarmed sleepers who escalated things to violence somehow? The squatters did escalate the situation. The male squatter brandished something that might as well have been a gun at Burgarello.
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Jun 3, 2015 03:08
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This goes back to "you're not reasonably acting in self-defense if you instigate a confrontation when it's too dark to make out a weapon".
VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Jun 3, 2015 |
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Jun 3, 2015 03:09
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ElCondemn posted:Just because it's legal to kill people on your property doesn't mean it's right, there are lots of things people do that are terrible that don't land them in jail. Also I was envisioning a teenager, maybe 17 or 18, perfectly reasonable to expect them to be ignorant and not deserve to be killed. I can't believe you think "I was spooked" is justification enough to kill someone. Lol, aren't 17-18 year olds literally the most statistically likely to kill you?
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Jun 3, 2015 03:34
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VitalSigns posted:This goes back to "you're not reasonably acting in self-defense if you instigate a confrontation when it's too dark to make out a weapon". You could argue that the squatters were actually the ones who instigated the confrontation in the first place by tresspassing.
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Jun 3, 2015 03:34
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I like how we can't go back five minutes and say "this guy had every opportunity to retreat from a situation he knew could become violent and discarded every single one", but we can totally go back years and say "hey, if you couldn't be 100% sure that one day the owner of the abandoned building you've been squatting for three years is going to show up out of the blue and shoot you, maybe you should have just frozen on the street the last few winters".
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Jun 3, 2015 03:40
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There are intruders on your property. If you have the option to not confront them, but you choose to confront them in the dark anyway, and that confrontation results in your killing them, I can't accept that being self-defense under a reasonable set of laws. Yes, you have a right to go where you please on your property, but there are a lot of dangerous things you have a right to do that become crimes when they result in someone's death. Prudence and judgement are a pretty important part of life in a civilization. Maybe only confront intruders if you either feel they're not dangerous. If you think they're dangerous but want to confront them anyway so you bring a gun, you should realize that you're creating a kill-or-be-killed situation, and you should accept that the consequences of that are your responsibility.
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Jun 3, 2015 03:43
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