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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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If you "jokingly" say you're going to attack someone with a [pot of boiling water] and then you actually do it then you clearly weren't joking.

That's not true and I'm not sure why you think it would be? If I pretend to stab at someone with a fork (a deadly weapon) then they go crazy (like the police officer) pull a gun on me and in a panic I actually do stab at them, it doesn't indicate that I originally indicated to stab them with a fork, because the circumstances has changed.

Did she act rationally? No, but I don't think that acting rationally when threatened with a gun should be a requirement of not being shot by police officers, who could have left the situation without meaningful consequences. If police officers can't be trusted to handle situations like that in a rational way, maybe they shouldn't have guns?