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[feelotraveller]

If only there was a lack of wannabe cops. 

[martinuzz]

My thoughts go out to the dead and injured in Winconsin, and their families.

[Starver]

[...]Relative size/build, and disabilities leading a greater perceived risk is mentioned.

Edit: Basically you have to convince the jury you used reasonable force.

Worth keeping in mind that acquiring or carrying an object for the purposes of self defence is a crime in the UK. You can use objects as weapons, but there has to be an everyday reason for it to have been within reach.

There is a complication with that. Women in (arguably, and thus argued) spousal assault situations are far more likely to kill/injure their abusers with a knife (a household one), which is often taken as an aggrevating factor in any case even if determined to be a defensive/provoked act after years of physical/psychological abuse have come to a head. Overwhelmingly, a man who kills/injures a woman does this with just bare hands/etc and thus (even if the definite aggressor) may not suffer the same 'upgrade' of penalty when convicted.

There's talk at the moment of how this isn't quite right (hard to work out what's truly just without making 'metajudgements', every case is of course a special case and liable to interpretation[1] in getting to the truth of the matter) because physical bias begets an inequality of judicial treatment by way of the 'necessary' choice of weapon.

(And, no, this is not to bring us back to "but if everyone had a suitable gun, it's be equal again" argument.)

Obviously household knives (rather than 'zombie knives') are going to be accounted for as more everyday defensive objects, but it still holds a sway. And the answer is not "every woman can get away with stabbing any man, on basic principle", either, which (not just as a man myself, I hope) I think is rebalancing too far.


[1] A recent one had a long-term wife, in a marriage of good social standing, pleading psychological control and 'snapping', even/especially with an actual calm "I'm glad I stabbed him, in the heart he hasn't got" statement spoken to the bodycammed police as they arrived, which I presumed would end up being dealt at least leniently with from the reported claims, but the court (which I would trust to have a better grasp of all salient details) seem to have found her to be the instigator/aggressor in this case, and not in the bad-old-days way of "He was a respected member of the community, so she must be mad!" way. Possibly appeals/campaigns will follow. Possibly it was a travesty of justice, but right now the judgement is as it is, whatever the trend is in general on these rather complicated matters. So, right now, it seems that it was her that went 'straight to deadly' (over an argument involving a meal) rather than with another case with an oft-punched/strangled/etc girlfriend in a grossly unequal partnership who scrabbled for a kitchen knife as the violent boyfriend goads her and tells her she won't dare do it (or claimed/reported as such, of course) just before she finally did. (This latter case  being challenged, because the aggrevating knife seems to be the main reason it went into custodial territory, so from being trapped in a relationship to being trapped in a cell.)

[Starver]

My thoughts go out to the dead and injured in Winconsin, and their families.

And, as I just discovered, to note that this is something that happened just now and not (as I first thought) a reference the young acquitted gunman's victims, as already being discussed.

Initial reports seem to be criminal vehicular homocide whilst escaping another crime scene, not at all tit-or-tat/tat-for-tit response to the shootings/aquittal. But sketchiness is of course the dominent features of current reports.

Not a nice situation, however it happened. I'm sure there's enough on the newsfeeds to keep you informed without my going into more uninformed details.

[LordBaal]

In this case, yeah, no jail, self-defense, because the videos and he did not shoot at random people and all... BUT he went there armed and placed himself on a dangerous situation and people died at result.

I thinik is should be a minimum of a couple of years of mandatory therapy and like a few thousand community hours.

[MaxTheFox]

People in mortal danger should not be expected to care more about their attacker's life than their own.

Yeah pretty much. I'm the sort of person who panics easily in those situations anyways (and so are many others I suppose).

[LordBaal]

When my wife was pregant with pete and we still had the old ford K, one day a guy asking money on the traffic during the red light came to our car and told us he was going to shoot both of us on the head if we did not handed out our phones...

My wife was paralized and even when the guy had not a gun in his hand I sure wasnt going to check if he was joking or bluffing, my first reaction was to see if I had any space to move the car abruptaly, given this guy had his head inside the window frame if I could managed to accelerate the car hard enough maybe I could knock the guy in the head. I had the bad habit of sometimes waiting on traffic lights with the car in first gear and the clutch pressed and was doing it that time.

It was a very strefull situation and dunno why but after a couple of seconds the guy started to laugh and told us he was joking, then walked away. I'm just thankfull the guy backed off just in tim and I did not had to do anything rash. Most likely he was mental.

If the situation held for any longer I  migth have ended up injuring a crazy but otherwise innocent man, or a potential murderer. Dunno, but at any rate it would have been selfdefense.

[da_nang]

-snip-

Twitter (massive grain of salt) reports that WPD has stated that one of the suspects drove into the parade trying to "flee from a knife fight." In one of the videos, you can even hear gunfire from an unknown source.

I'm smelling possibly first-degree reckless homicide (up to 60 years), homicide by negligent operation of vehicle (up to 10 years), and first-degree reckless injury (up to 25 years). There's an utter disregard for human life since the driver didn't appear to do anything to prevent death. The driver didn't even bother to honk the horn to warn the mass of people ahead of him. That would have reduced it to second-degree reckless homicide (up to 25 years) and second-degree reckless injury (up to 12.5 years).

I wouldn't guess on any intentional homicides until more evidence comes out.

Interestingly, self-defense is not a defense to the reckless homicide or reckless injury of a third person in Wisconsin (939.48(3)). Those would have to be argued on recklessness and utter disregard of human life.

Needless to say, the suspect is going to need one hell of a lawyer.

[Starver]

Needless to say, the suspect is going to need one hell of a lawyer.

(Slightly worries me that my very first thought was "...well, there's one who has just finished defending someone else and might be available!")

I've not been checking the news (at all, not just for this) since the "16 minutes ago" Breaking News article that clued me in. I'm rather hoping that it gets clearer (without civil fallout) over the next few hours.

[None]

The gunfire's said to be from law enforcement shooting at the vehicle, not coming from the vehicle itself. I'll leave commentary about shooting at a vehicle that is embedded in a public spectacle for someone else.

As of last night, current opinion was that it wasn't politically motivated.

[LordBaal]

There are alredy rumors on the web the driver is a BLM member and that it was not an accident but a deliverated attack.

[None]

Of course there are- falsified outrage drives user engagement and the people who would believe that at face value are the type most susceptible to disinformation. All we can do is shut that down as it comes up until a motive is confirmed.

[scriver]

Yeah, why would a BLM activist attack a Christmas parade? Even if they were BLM associated and also directly targeting the parade it would be more likely that it was because of other ideologies or movements they could also be part of, not to mention mental issues and conditions.

[LordBaal]

Because aparently BLM is an islamic movement? Not my words, just some opinions I read, on twitter specially

[SOLDIER First]

That is because the enemies of BLM - namely racists - like to paint BLM as the same as themselves: rabid, self-serving bastards who consider their political opposites an enemy to be destroyed, literally.