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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Jun 30, 2020 12:16:30 GMT -5
That looks like an intact gate, alright. I suppose we have to balance the idea of them being in legitimate fear of harm, curtilage case law, and duty to retreat vs stand your ground (whatever applies in MO) against the fact that pink polo dude probably wouldn’t be living in that house if he wasn’t very, very good at stating his case in public. We shall see. Regardless, the crowd was legally in the wrong by veering onto/into private property; the homeowners could have probably made a more sound tactical decision...maybe; everyone is lucky that this didn’t go sideways.
The odds are that this is going to keep happening until something *does* go sideways, and that will be bad.
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Post by Russell Letson on Jun 30, 2020 12:30:41 GMT -5
Michael, it has already gone sideways, as a look at Lake Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis will illustrate.
What I take away from this is that "castle doctrine" and "stand your ground" laws need to be very carefully crafted and be well understood by ordinary citizens--and that mandatory firearms training would be one opportunity to deliver such an understanding. Not unlike the situation with police training, which I suspect actually does aspire to such specificity, however often it might seem to fail in the field.
Lay people--that is, people whose professional lives do not involve carrying and possibly using weapons--seem vulnerable to all manner of dumb notions. I regularly read posts on Nextdoor in which the response to anything from garage break-ins to spray-painting to simple trespass is to shoot the fuckers and claim self-defense. I don't want anybody who seriously believes in that kind of behavior to have the means to act on it. It is anything but well-regulated. On the other hand, it's probably just bloviating. But some bloviators are also armed.
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Post by millring on Jun 30, 2020 12:36:30 GMT -5
Still, I think I'd have more sense than to challenge a passing mob, even with a long gun in my hands. Well if the written story is accurate they were not not passing by. Broke his gate down and are in the yard at the front stoop, and like you said, this on the heels of nationally reported mass property destruction by protesters. There are people that would confront that situation with a gun and those that wouldn't. I see both sides. Since I've never been there I'm really not 100% sure what I would do in that situation but based on what I saw in the yard stepping out with a shotgun and saying "go away or else" is definitely on the list of things I might do. I'm just having a problem with what I perceive to be some spin in the story ridiculing this guy and his wife and his actions which seems to excuse the behavior that lead up to the confrontation. What the guy was wearing and how he held his gun shouldn't be the story. The story should be why is the behavior of assholes being excused because it's the liberal cause de jour? And why even the assumption that all he was doing was protecting his property? Why would anyone NOT assume he was protecting his life?
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Post by TKennedy on Jun 30, 2020 12:45:15 GMT -5
The fog of war eh? Guess even if you were there accounts can differ. Article on Fox said the guys with guns and body armor that harassed Him were white.
Good lesson on rushing to judgement at least for me.
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Post by aquaduct on Jun 30, 2020 13:00:07 GMT -5
The fog of war eh? Guess even if you were there accounts can differ. Article on Fox said the guys with guns and body armor that harassed Him were white. Good lesson on rushing to judgement at least for me. BLM is something like 6 to 1 white.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2020 13:06:51 GMT -5
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch account (out today) suggests that there was plenty of imprudence and stupid to go around. The protesters incorrectly thought that they were on a public street. The homeowners rashly thought that the sensible thing to do was to go outside with guns. And if they did indeed point the guns at people on that private street (who were not threatening their particular property), Missouri castle-doctrine law notwithstanding, they were really, really imprudent to go out and challenge them. Also, they clearly could use some firearm training. I can sympathize with anxiety about angry crowds--an acquaintance had his bookstores burned to the ground in Minneapolis last month, and we recently had several nights of misguided disturbances a few blocks from our house, with a gas station vandalized, a liquor store looted, and a dumpster fire less than 100 yards away. Still, I think I'd have more sense than to challenge a passing mob, even with a long gun in my hands. That's why I'd suggest staying inside. Stuff is just stuff, and if a mob breaks stuff on the outside and nobody dies, that's good.
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Post by Russell Letson on Jun 30, 2020 13:42:16 GMT -5
Terry, I'm reading McCloskey's interview and looking at the video, and they don't line up. Of course, a street map would help me to figure out some of it, such as where he was relative to the gate, what route protesters took, and such.
I have to say that his assertion that "Being inside that gate is like being in my living room" is, um, hyperbolic, even if "Everything inside the Portland Place gate is private property" is legally correct.
The video does not show the gate torn down or "broken in half and laying on the ground"--one half of it is being held open and protesters are entering that way. Nor does the video show people in body armor or armed, though that doesn't mean there weren't some there.
I absolutely do not doubt that he and his wife were terrified and that they acted as they did out of fear. But I also wonder how much of his account is going to match the doubtless many phone videos that must exist. And what the crowd would have done had they not stepped out and yelled at them. Sometimes what you're entitled to do and what you should do are not identical.
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Post by Marshall on Jun 30, 2020 15:29:08 GMT -5
Yeah - that couple did some stuff wrong but after thinking about it, reading an actual article, and watching that video, I'm pretty disheartened by the fact that THAT'S the takeaway from the encounter. I'll be deleting my previous quip comment. If you've got assets and wealth buckle up. I was mentally revisiting my lifelong resolution to never own a gun. In the abstract, the notion of saving my life by taking another was as easy to dismiss as it was to defend. There's nothing unjustifiable about it, but what most would refer to as my "religious" convictions, I had long since decided that I wouldn't go that route. In theory and by God's grace, I am ready to die. And by that same "religious" belief, I can't be as certain that my attacker is. But this time as I was mulling it over, I happened to look over at Dar. She deserves my defense. And with these Democrat riots being overwhelmingly justified and supported -- and the likes of me being seen as the enemy (I could, without any trouble at all, find at least three newscasts in which the journalists sided with the rioters attacking people in cars and framing the persons trapped in the cars as villainous for driving away). It's upside down now and I am contemplating arming myself. The Democrats have declared war and the rioters are their first attack. Have there been demonstrations and rioting in Warsaw? What I see of this is an urban problem. Sadly most of the nastiness occurs in neighborhoods that are depressed to begin with. Or near government buildings. If one lives in Montana, let's say, or some area like suburbia, the immediate danger is much much less an issue. Maybe you need to turn off your news feed. I would doubt (certainly hope so) that you and Dar are not realistically in probable danger from rioting and looting.
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Jul 1, 2020 12:53:06 GMT -5
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Post by Russell Letson on Jul 1, 2020 13:06:03 GMT -5
Now we have another Rule To Live By to add to Nelson Algren's classics*: Never do anything in public that can be turned into a meme--or a Lego.
* Never play poker with a guy called Doc. Never eat a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.
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Post by coachdoc on Jul 1, 2020 13:25:00 GMT -5
I can't play poker for shit. Wanna teach me a bit the next time we're at iJam?
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Post by Russell Letson on Jul 1, 2020 13:56:49 GMT -5
Don't look at me for card expertise. I pretty much gave up after one of the Manhattan Prep guys cleaned me out playing quarter-quarter-quarter pitch back in '63.
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Post by jdd2 on Jul 1, 2020 21:32:43 GMT -5
... even if you were there accounts can differ. ... Rashomon effect. Listening to that guy talk about what happened is a perfect illustration of it that should be part of all LE training.
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Post by james on Jul 1, 2020 22:26:12 GMT -5
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Jul 20, 2020 18:39:08 GMT -5
Breaking: DA charges the couple with felony charges over their weapon display; governor says that he will immediately pardon them if convicted. Political foosball starts in 3,2,1...
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Post by coachdoc on Jul 20, 2020 19:21:12 GMT -5
I don’t know shit about this so I will not pontificate. I was not there.
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Post by drlj on Jul 20, 2020 19:23:55 GMT -5
I don’t know shit about this so I will not pontificate. I was not there. That is one hell of a crazy attitude, Doc.
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Jul 20, 2020 20:04:35 GMT -5
Breaking: DA charges the couple with felony charges over their weapon display; governor says that he will immediately pardon them if convicted. Political foosball starts in 3,2,1... Folks, I was wrong. The lady doing the charging was the circuit attorney, the top dog in St. Louis. I know this because the actual MO AG just moved to have the charges dismissed. I can’t wait to see how this one turns out. (Yeah, I know it’s fox; but all the apropos talking points from both sides are present and accounted for) www.foxnews.com/us/missouri-ag-moves-to-dismiss-charges-against-couple-who-pointed-guns-at-crowd
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Jul 20, 2020 20:06:51 GMT -5
Cornflake, isn’t this pretty unusual, the state AG stepping in within minutes to dismiss charges filed by a sitting DA/CA/Whomever?
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Post by TKennedy on Jul 20, 2020 20:14:43 GMT -5
I can see a rosy future for them. Book deals, TV and movie offers, a White House visit, medal of freedom, and a matched set Eddie Bauer signature model assault rifle and pistol in a hand buffed Mahogany presentation box.
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