I, and the guy across the street, also have such things as a bow saw, a chain saw, a shovel, gasoline, a machete, plastic tarps... Clearly we should all be suspected of being serial killers.
Every time someone says that completely different objects with clear different uses belong to the same category as fire arms, I become more convinced that they cannot be trusted with the latter.
So gun safety is unimportant in handling a gun? It's important to keep track of these things. @Paladin has already said that in order to be allowed to shoot someone, he only needs a credible threat, which makes him jury, judge, executioner when he shoots -- just as he defended in the Trayvon Martin case. Adding your insistence that gun handlers don't have to know that guns are more dangerous than other tools, we are getting a nice three-dimensional picture of just what kind of an armed citizen your interpretation of the Second Amendment entails.
Really? I've read this whole thread and I don't see @Paladin making that argument anywhere. You seem to be conflating "use of a gun" with "shooting someone". Something that @Paladin's words testify against. It seems to me that he was saying that "brandishment" in the face of a "credible threat" was justified.
Let me be clear, lest my opinion be misrepresented. One may use deadly force against another provided one has a reasonable belief that the other person is a credible, imminent threat to one's own or another's life. That does not make one "judge, jury, and executioner;" it is the only reasonable standard for self-defense. If the standard were higher, a person might have to wait to be killed (or for another to be killed) before the threshold of justifiable self-defense was reached. Also, "brandishing" has a specific legal meaning. Pulling a weapon in the face of a threat--and running the threat off without firing--does not constitute brandishment.
No sweat. People often confuse the common meaning of "brandish" (which can mean simply to hold or exhibit something) with the legal meaning (displaying a weapon for purposes of threatening). If someone is beating you up, you pull a gun, and they run away, you will not be charged with brandishing a weapon.
So in your interpretation, that means he wouldn't shoot if brandishing the weapon didn't suffice to remove the credible threat? Because if the answer is no, then my point stands.
Sure it does. YOU get to decide, not a judge, not a jury, not any other executioner than you. That's what 'judge, jury and executioner' means.
I get to decide when I feel threatened enough to defend myself. So long as my feeling is reasonable, there's no problem. "The woman was being beaten and raped, but then she grabbed a gun and--gasp!--acted as judge, jury, and executioner against her assailant by shooting him." Absurd.
Upon further reflection, I actually take exception with your phrase "only needs a credible threat". What, in your mind, is "only" about "credible threat"?
It's 'only' in 'it only has to appear so to ONE person'. As opposed to having, guess what, a judge and a jury and an executioner. As in, only George Zimmerman, no other persons involved.
So, basically, I can only conclude one of the following two things: 1. You don't understand "self-defense" in any way at all as a concept. *** OR *** 2. You understand "self-defense" as a concept, but don't really believe it should ever be practiced. If there is a third option, please enlighten me.
Of course there is a third option, and you practice it every day. The right to self-defence does not mean you have the right to shoot anyone whom you plausibly believe to be a threat. Remember the thread we had on the Nazis marching through the streets a while back? Nobody in their right mind who understands what a Nazi is can ever deny that they are a credible threat. That doesn't mean you run up to them and shoot them. No. You only get to shoot them when you think that they pose an immediate threat of the kind that can ONLY be countered by killing or severely wounding them. And even then, you are mortified by the possibility that you made the wrong choice. So you make the standard for inflicting harm on others as high as humanly possible. This is necessary -- because when you lower that standard, you lower it for the other guy as well, which means that now it has become credible that he will shoot you in mistaken self-defence even at a slighter indication of you posing a threat. That way, you end up exactly where you are now: Where you understand that even police officers shoot at the first indication of a possible threat, because they have to assume that the other guy is very likely to shoot them. And you have already turned that screw yet another time: Now, armed BLM supporters rightly, credibly, shoot first when they feel that they are facing a credible threat because a police officer is approaching. That way lies madness. Which is why you want to do whatever you can to defuse dangerous situations, which starts by reducing both guns and the credible expectation that the other guy has a gun.
One always has an option. One could lie down in a fetal position and hope that the bad people go away. When you're threatened--genuinely threatened--you know it. If you make it too high, self-defense becomes impossible. If I pose a reasonable threat to someone, I should expect to be shot. The key word that I think you keep missing is "reasonable." It isn't sufficient that I'm afraid for my life; I have to be reasonably so. In other words, reasonable people should agree that my fear for my life was justified by the circumstances, that any reasonable person in similar circumstances would feel threatened. People interact with the police millions of times a day without shots being fired. I grant you that the police are sometimes heavy-handed in applying force--and very occasionally apply it in an absolutely unjustifiable manner--but the vast, vast, vast majority of interactions with the police don't escalate to violence of any kind, and in those that do, the responsibility is very often with the person the police are dealing with. That defense won't hold up in court because it's not reasonable. The mere approach of a police officer cannot reasonably be construed as a credible threat. Whatever one's problems with authorities and institutions are, self-defense still involves using force against an individual, and that cannot be undertaken unless that individual is a credible, imminent threat. "Take your beating for the good of society. Maybe you'll get lucky and he'll let you live."
Thank you. That clearly expresses, better than I could, the metaphysical quality of the belief you need in order to defend your position. Sometimes, you just know. Mistakes don't happen. Every bad shooting is deliberate. Insane. And look where that insanity leads you: What an amazingly low standard for a civilised society. 'The police don't always kill citizens, and some of those they do kill had it coming.' Every innocent person shot by police disagrees. But I guess we just need to accept that we might get shot. Because: Yeah. Don't forget that that is your position.
Never said that. Never said that. Never said that. Let me rephrase that to more accurately reflect my position: The police seldom kill citizens, and in the vast majority of cases they do, it is justified. So, if I was shot by a black guy once, is my fear of an approaching black guy sufficient to justify lethal force? Behave properly and you won't. When it's a 300 pound 19-year-old thug versus a 90 pound 70-year-old woman, and there are no guns involved? That's her position.
You just did. I've bolded it for you. Yes you did. You rejected the notion that it was possible to make the wrong choice by mistake. If you can know with certainty whether or not you're threatened, then every shooting in apparent self-defence is either justified or deliberately unjustified. You repeated this here: No, but when you understand and support a standard of behaviour that means that the next guy, and the next guy, and the next one after that will have reasonable grounds to shoot you, then you should fear each of them.
Your method of discussion is interesting. Someone says something, and you pull a left-field response out of your ass that has nothing to do with anything.
In the aggregate (yeah, I'm probably using that word incorrectly but I like it) guns on premises or in possession probably DO NOT prevent crimes. People will naturally argue that lots of gun injuries and deaths are suicides but that's not really an argument. Suicide is a crime like any other and should be counted. But the argument that "guns prevent crimes" is just like "guns prevent tyranny by the government". It is a "feel good argument" that simply makes people arguing in favor of guns feel like their position has more gravitas than "guns are fun".
Facepalm? Really? Pulling a weapon just escalated a situation from wherever it was to "life and death". If you're "brandishing" the weapon, but aren't ready to use it, what good will come of it? If the other party doesn't shit their pants and/or flee you are well on the way toward getting yourself killed.
I have a brother who was in the Army and had to do live fire exercises. You have to be trained to keep your thoughts straight in those situations. We’re not wired to handle that and it takes constant training and retraining to be able to deal in those situations. I seriously doubt the average gun owner would be able to handle themselves in a shootout. Especially one with unarmed people running for cover. Most likely they’ll kill themselves or someone other than the shooter. Pretending a gun is for defense is a fantasy. Best case scenario you scare an intruder just by holding one. But taking out an active shooter is a delusion. I’m not saying people shouldn’t be able to own guns. But a lot of gun owners live in a cowboy fantasy.
speaking of people who seen to have not been in many fights in their life... you really think you're going to have a chance after the fighting starts to get any sort of weapon out?
Speaking of people who don't understand how armed self-defense works... Why do you presume that fighting has to have begun for a threat to be present? It doesn't. Anyway, by the time fighting is actually happening, it's usually too late. The attacker has the initiative. However, there was a very prominent example of a person being attacked and the attacker having the upper hand, and the victim still managing to draw his gun and defend himself: the Martin/Zimmerman incident.
