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[da_nang]

The owner of the lot has testified under oath that he did not, in fact, ask Rittenhouse to guard the car lot, and in fact explicitly told him not to.

The owners (well, the brothers) also claimed that they didn't have any contact with the armed men, yet photo evidence and text messages disagree. It's very likely that they perjured themselves. Word on the street is that there was some fishy insurance fraud going on.

[voliol]

I'm wondering about the sense in allowing lethal force to be used in self-defence. The point of self-defence is to lessen the hurt, so you aren't supposed to cruelly over-react and hurt your assailant more than needed to get out of there, that's a crime (at least that's how the law works here, I for sure hope that's the idea in the US as well). But if you respond with lethal force, then that's taking it immediately to the highest level of violence, meaning you better be sure you are about to be murdered or it is over-violence, and in case there are misunderstandings and that's not something that can be reversed or even compensated - Plus it's really convenient to claim posthaste as the other party can't testify otherwise, you know, being dead.

Of course, a gun is always a lethal weapon for a civilian in a stressed out situation, anything else can't be expected.

[Bumber]

There aren't many non-lethal weapons that can really stop someone if they're determined to hurt you. A net, maybe?

Pretty much anything can be a lethal weapon if used in the right/wrong way (e.g., your foot, a tazer.) What guns do is give lethal force to everyone regardless of body strength, and lethal force will stop anyone.

[Starver]

That's as much their problem as anything else. But that's an old argument that'll never overcome some basic limitations in the Ameripol scenario, so... jus' sayin'.

[voliol]

There aren't many non-lethal weapons that can really stop someone if they're determined to hurt you. A net, maybe?

Pretty much anything can be a lethal weapon if used in the right/wrong way (e.g., your foot, a tazer.) What guns do is give lethal force to everyone regardless of body strength, and lethal force will stop anyone.

Punching people in the nose or eyes, or kicking them in the groin for half the population. The difference between a foot and a gun is that a gun can barely be used non-lethally, while a foot can, easily. In situations where people are punched or kicked to death it isn't by people using their right of self-defence to get out of there. You shouldn't use a tazer for self-defense for the same reason.

Granted, the efficacy of temporarily crippling your assailant depends on their (non-)ability to outrun you, and it is complicated by others having long-range instruments of death. Still, bringing a gun for self-defense instead of, say, pepper spray (still dangerous, but not gun-level) makes you a paranoid asshat at best, and a wanton abuser of the law for the sake of your own bloodlust at worst.

[Lord Shonus]

I'm an asthmatic who can't run more than ten to twenty feet without having to stop to gasp for air. If I have another person who decides my face would look better on the inside of my head, there is no flight - either my door holds again (if it happens when I'm at home) or I manage to fight the guy off. And I'm lucky enough to be possibly capable of doing that. The rest of my family is older (and thus frailer), much younger, or have significant physical handicaps. The last time I wound up in a self-defense situation, it was a six-foot redneck so full of something he broke his hand on my door without noticing. If the cops hadn't shown up before the door failed, and I was armed with anything except a gun, it would have taken him all of three seconds to cave in my skull.


Keep in mind that if you look at official crime statistics, the second most common murder weapon is "fists and feet".

[voliol]

I'm sorry to hear that Lord Shonus, I was too harsh on my words.
I was mostly trying to get at the Rittenhouse case, but it is true when you make general statements that doesn't just cover what you had in mind, and the difficulties lie therein. If it can be concluded either way with lethal violence in a one-to-one scenario (which I'm not sure it can), then what if you're trying to protect others from dying, is lethal force allowed then? At what point are your concerns founded for, when acting as judge, jury, and executioner?
Though living in a relatively safe part of the world, I might also be blind to the danger of living in the US. Break-in murders (if that was what your situation was at risk of becoming, you do not need to disclose anything if you don't want to) are not something I've heard of happening over here, and I have hard a imagining someone having that kind of violent intent for me. Beating me up, yes, but not murdering me. If I'm being inconsiderate I am sorry for that, though I also think it is hard to avoid when discussing the limits to the rights of self-defense (which maybe I am the only one who was). It is touchy :/

The stats for murder weapons are not applicable here, they say nothing of the proportions to use of said weapons in general.

[Lord Shonus]

I was doing my dishes, a drunk redneck screamed at me through the window that he wanted to cut through my yard, and my refusal angered him so much he tried to force my door down screaming about how he was going to beat me to death for the insult.


Pepper spray doesn't stop somebody like that. Tasers often don't. Had he gotten through the door, or been smart enough to try a window, it would have been a "one of us is going to walk away from this, and the other's going in a body bag" situation.  If that happens again, I'm much more comfortable with a gun or three feet of steel than I am anything else.

[Schmaven]

I was doing my dishes, a drunk redneck screamed at me through the window that he wanted to cut through my yard, and my refusal angered him so much he tried to force my door down screaming about how he was going to beat me to death for the insult.


Pepper spray doesn't stop somebody like that. Tasers often don't. Had he gotten through the door, or been smart enough to try a window, it would have been a "one of us is going to walk away from this, and the other's going in a body bag" situation.  If that happens again, I'm much more comfortable with a gun or three feet of steel than I am anything else.

I think a lot of people attribute much more effectiveness to the groin kick than it deserves in reality (if someone is truly hell-bent on killing you) to stop someone from their attack.  Just think, if you were trying to save the person you loved most: would you let a groin kick stop you?  Or would you fight through the pain?  Now flip that to some crazy asshole who is hell-bent on fuckin9 you up, and it becomes clear that not every human assailant is stopped by mere pain...

[MrRoboto75]

Never mind the downside of the groin kick, you have to be in groin kick range.

[Schmaven]

Never mind the downside of the groin kick, you have to be in groin kick range.

Plus you have to land it.  They can block/dodge

[Eschar]

Using a rifle against someone (Rosenbaum) who is attacking you with a bag of socks is not proportionate force

[Max™]

Plus uh, an AR-15 was designed exclusively to kill people effectively from a good distance if necessary, and up close when needed. It was designed to leave horrific wound channels that would usually need a much larger caliber round to produce. Except if you get there by just hurling a smaller round ever so much faster, you can pack many more of them in your mags, and you can fire bursts with much greater accuracy.

It came into being because the old 30-06 chambered semi-auto weapons were good at turning men into meat but kicked like a mule and it was a bit much to try to carry more than 10 or 15 in a magazine attached to the hunk of wood and steel you're running around with all the time.

Yet it is somehow ok for a minor to carry a "hunting rifle" which would reasonably mean something bolt action--or semi-auto at best, needing no more than 5 or 6 rounds because otherwise you really shouldn't be fucking hunting--but instead is based on shit like barrel length so it's totally cool for him to run around with a Baby's-First-Mass-Murder-Kit on his chest, but a fucking pistol is out of the question because hey he might be looking for deer in the middle of a town during a protest right?

Who thinks he'd be as eager to jump into a situation like that one if he could only carry a bolt action .22? Hell give him a fucking M1 Garand and the piggy little fucker still isn't going to be so likely to fuck around hoping he can make someone else find out, but instead he's got ezmode point-and-click murder itching to be used on his chest.

I've only fired three guns:
a 10 round box mag .22 semi-auto
a .38 old school lookin' ass cowboy style 6 shooter
a .357 more modern revolver

The .22 felt like a cheat code, clickclickclickclick *poppoppoppop* *laugh at stuff falling over down range* and way too easy.
The .38 was neat but not as comfortable as the more modern grip ones, gave a hearty kick, big violent roar, was scary at first.
The .357 wanted to punch my shoulder blade out when I used the regular rounds, the discovery that one of the double-loaded rounds had been missed left me certain the damn thing had just blown up in my hand. Jets of flame shooting several feet to either side, painfully violent kick, and a blast that hurt through the ear protection made me realize the little .38 rounds weren't scary at all.

Someone shoots at you with a PELLET GUN you're gonna wince and freak out a little.
You get capped with a .22 pistol you're not going to be eager to keep fucking around.
A fucking .38 or .357 slug roars past you and you're wondering if you can violently become a pacifist.
One slams home in your body, yeah, fights out of you unless you're like, a goddamn bath salt junkie or terrifying ass grizzled old vet or some shit.

So, who the fuck needs a murdermachine like an AR-15 for self defense?

Oh yeah, cunts like Kyle do.

[da_nang]

Using a rifle against someone (Rosenbaum) who is attacking you with a bag of socks is not proportionate force

Rosenbaum wasn't shot for throwing a bag of socks. He was shot for trying to grab the rifle.

[nenjin]

Which, if the person with the gun were considered a menace, we'd be applauding trying to take it from them barehanded as an act of heroism rather than as a justification for blowing them away.

Context. What gets completely ruined in the middle of a riot.

Here's a spookier thought. For how maligned Rittenhouse and his motives have been, imagine someone that actually went there to kill people under the cover a riot. Like an actual psychopath exploiting the chaos of the situation.