You missed my point - "reasonable force" is all over the map and you know it. It's not cut-and-dried. What you do to defend yourself in one state might mean you aren't even charged at all. Another state and you're going to trial and it just might go south for you. Once it gets physical anything might happen and you throw politics into the mix and you might be fucked like chuck.
about that neck keeling death. I'm not a cop, so maybe Elwood (or even Zombie) can weigh in here on the effectiveness and tactical advantage of kneeling on somebody's neck after they are handcuffed. For one the neck is an unstable surface. It's like balancing on a rolling log. The only way to pin it down is to apply more weight or use more than one point of contact from different angles on that neck. The guy is handcuffed and prone. It's not rocket science! Why not just "chicken wing" him with your arms, wrap your legs around him and keep your full weight on him? It would take one cop in decent shape about three seconds to do this. He can't grab a weapon, he can't roll over, and he can't head butt you if you keep tight to him and don't give him any space and leverage, and keep your center of gravity low. But he can breath all day long! Meanwhile the rest of the cops on the scene can get tasers or pepper spray or whatever they might end up needing if the guy has superhuman PCP strength or whatever. But he DOESN'T have super skillz because he's already cuffed and on the ground! How much more of an advantage do you need? Jesus what kind of fighting/physical confrontation training and conditioning did these cops get? Seriously, this crew of cops is either lazy or stupid. This whole situation is fucking pathetic. Realistically speaking cops in general are already hated by minorities and us whites aren't too far behind them. I heard the head cop (I guess) of Minneapolis on the radio saying "we need to do better". NO SHIT SHERLOCK? Better would imply you're at least functional, but there is room for improvement. You suck! You need to hire better cops, and train their asses better for basic entry-level cop stuff. Being a cop isn't easy - and shit like this makes it even harder for the rest of the cops. Thus you need to man up and get your shit together. Get your hiring standards raised and your training evaluated (get outside help or it's the blind leading the blind) and make the changes before the National Guard has to come in and do your fucking jobs for you.
COVID may have put a huge dent in mass shootings, but it will probably escalate white cops killing black suspects while "detaining" them. Now that the only thing white people have to do is stare out their window and watch all the people who come by their houses I bet there is a rise in emergency calls because there are black people on the street. It is a good way to get people of color killed and white racists are well aware of that. Some white people are really terrible people.
The only thing I say about reasonable force is that you should have to run it by a jury of your peers and not some cop who may have good praxis scores,
I said it is not necessarily an automatic license to kill. You said it "kind of" is. Is there really enough difference there to argue about?
You actually said "not automatic" and I said it was if it happened under certain circumstances. But, no, I don't care to argue it any further.
When you have to use two conditional qualifiers in order to make something true, you have more or less proven the point that it is not "automatic". It is conditional. IOW, you made Mike's point even clearer than it already was. I can see why you don't want to argue about it any more, since there is nothing to argue about -- you are in perfect agreement.
I just watched the whole 10-minute video and I am sick to my stomach. I'm revising my stance on the death penalty again. It should be an option, but only for any government official who commits murder. And that was murder.
The qualifiers are always necessary because someone here at WF will bring up an extreme corner case in an attempt to invalidate the idea. You should know that by now. The statement "if you attack someone, they can use deadly force against you" is true much, much more than it is false, and so my statement is, in general, true. Waits for "but what if a three-year-old attacks you?" and "what if a cop attacks you to stop you from committing a crime?"...
I don't disagree with that. And that's why Mike said it is not "automatically" so. Like I said, I see no disagreement between your two statements. Maybe if you would get down to particulars, you would find you are more likely to think you are justified in using deadly force than he is (and mabye you wouldn't), but the statements from each of you, as they stand, are perfectly compatible. So what's the problem?
It isn't a lynching. That's not to say it isn't a crime, but it isn't a lynching. The evidence is that the McMichaels were attempting an unlawful arrest. As such, they may be guilty of murder. But that still does not make it a lynching.
Please help us understand your definition of "lynching". Must a tree be involved? or is it intent? Not trying to be snarky, just trying to understand your POV.