This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The defense has to be proportional to the threat; deadly force can only be used if the perpetrator has a reasonable threat of death or serious bodily injury (serious usually meaning permanent disability, not a black eye). Based on the information available, if he hadn't been shot and were arrested instead, the charge would have probably been something like misdemeanor battery, which wouldn't usually even merit jail time. If the facts come out that the guy were being wailed on, he may have a good defense, but if it's a mere scuffle as described in the article, it's a long shot that should get pled down. This may seem unfair, but for public policy reasons the state prefers that scuffles don't escalate to shootings.
I think the threat posed by an attacker doesn't just mean the attack that has already happened, but what a reasonable person might believe will happen imminently if the attacker is not subdued. This is especially relevant when the ability to change the situation may decrease significantly.
For example, choking someone with a noose or a garrote for a minute or so will not produce any serious lasting injury but continue on another two minutes and it's irreversible brain damage. So I think the question is, if someone has you in a garrote, is it reasonable to perceive this as a threat of serious injury even if, as yet, they haven't crossed that line? And again, especially relevant given that the victim doesn't have a ton of time to wait and see before it's gonna solely be the aggressor's choice whether to stop before or after the line.
I don't know the intricacies of self defense law, but I think it's more than merely unfair if the law demands victims put themselves at the mercy of an attacker.
The standard is only concerned with what is reasonably likely to happen, not with worst case scenarios. The likelihood of an attack with fists or tackling isn't reasonably likely to result in death or serious injury, absent some aggravating factor that isn't present here. That's pretty much black letter law in any jurisdiction.
I didn't watch the video, so this is more of a general question: Doesn't the guy having a gun change this? If a guy tackles you and there isn't a huge skill/strength disparity it'll probably take him at least a minute to beat you to death. If you have a visible gun, it takes him seconds to take it and kill you. At the very least you need to secure your gun (taking away from your ability to defend against strikes) at which point he reacts to you reaching for your gun and the two of you are fighting for control of a gun. What am I missing?
No, not really. As I said in another comment, the legal standard is whether there's a reasonable likelihood of death or serious bodily injury, not the worst-case scenario. If the person is carrying a concealed weapon, and there's no evidence that the attacker either knows or has reason to know that his victim is armed, there's no way the victim could form a reasonable belief that the attacker is going to take his weapon and shoot him with it. Especially consider that the vast majority of fights, even one sided fights, don't result in death or permanent disability.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
That does not seem factually true or we are not talking about the same thing.
A person tackled on the ground then pummeled with fists while defenseless is likely to get a concussion or worse.Every single punch to the head is a spin of the roulette wheel.
Sorry, I was on mobile yesterday and while I was trying to give the general principle I wasn't sufficiently clear as to the details. It's highly fact dependent. The general principle is that you're allowed to defend yourself, but the degree of force has to be proportionate to the threat. So if someone attacks with fists, I'm allowed to respond with fists. In the scenario you describe, where someone is being pummeled with fists while defenseless, then yes, I do believe that a self-defense justification would be appropriate. But that's not most attacks or scuffles, and it's not what happened here.
Exactly. Remember, the standard isn't that death or serious bodily injury is a mere possibility, but a reasonable likelihood. A roulette spin is not a good analogy for something that is reasonably likely to happen. Getting shot or stabbed is not a mere "spin of the roulette wheel" as to whether you could die or be seriously injured.
Right, this I understand.
Either I don't understand this or it is inconsistent with the previous sentence. A person could be attacking me with fists but threatening me with a noose or threatening to throw me in a van.
The lower bound for the severity of the threat is what the attacker has already done, but a reasonable person might believe the threat is significantly higher based on the circumstances.
I think the issue here is that by the time that happens, the opportunity for self defense has already passed. A reasonable person does not wait until they are already on their back getting their head smashed into the concrete before escalating because they know that at that point successful self defense is unlikely.
Of course, one has to have formed a belief that the attacker is imminently likely to use serious force and that belief has to be reasonable under the usual tests. But there is no requirement that I can discern that requires actually waiting until that happens.
A quick flip through the caselaw doesn't seem so clear either. A jury did acquit Bernhard Goetz (except on the carrying without a permit charge) despite none of the attackers even punching him, with the notion that when a group of strangers says "give me $5", they are implicitly threatening serious bodily harm. And there's a few more less prominent cases of deadly force in response to unarmed attacker(s) that I found that seem to imply that reasonable beliefs about imminent threats that are not yet materialized count.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Are you sure tackling isn’t reasonably likely to result in serious injury where concrete is concerned?
Context also matters. I am reminded of Bernie G. The miscreants were menacing and the implied next step was reasonable to infer. Same here where a dude decides to run through traffic and tackle you. There isn’t a ref blowing the whistle.
If you had statistics suggesting that tackling onto concrete presented a risk of serious bodily injury or death comparable to being shot or stabbed, then you could call someone like an epidemiologist at trial to testify to that effect. And it would be a fairly strong defense, if tempered by the fact that the prosecution would call their own expert reaching the opposite conclusion. That's not relevant here, though, because Hayes shot the guy after he was tackled. You're only privileged to defend yourself out of apprehension of an imminent threat, not out of a response to a past threat. Once Hayes was on the ground he wasn't getting tackled again, and any argument about the supposed dangers of being tackled on concrete is moot.
The point is that anyone crazy enough to run through traffic and tackle someone onto concrete is someone who while the scuffle is on going is crazy enough to do a whole sort of things. That is shooting someone seconds after that happens is reasonable self defense.
Go ahead and make that point at trial... and prepare to get destroyed on closing. Seriously, if I'm the prosecutor in this case, I can pretty much ignore whatever other arguments you've made (or just hit on them briefly) and run that point to the end of its tether. "Is someone acting crazy? Who knows what they're crazy enough to do; better shoot them before anything bad happens. The defendant wants to convince you that this is a reasonable course of action." I'd then go on to describe a series of examples of "crazy" behavior and suggest that your argument would require them to view any shooting or the perpetrator as justifiable self-defense, and the examples would get progressively more absurd. I'd characterize the entire defense as "people should be able to shoot anyone who looks suspicious", and by the end there's the possibility that the jury would forget that the defendant had even been attacked. If this is "the point", then it's not a very good one.
This is just blatantly strawmanning. The person just wasn’t looking suspicious. The person just wasn’t acting crazy. The person committed a physical attack after engaging in a pretty crazy (ie out of the ordinary) prelude to the physical attack (ie this wasn’t a situation where two guys were squaring off — a guy ran a cross a street to tackle another guy).
If you are worried about slippery slopes suffice to say we can cut the slope pretty earlier. Don’t engage in crazy attacks and self defense then would not be credible.
Oh, it's totally strawmanning. But in court I'm not giving you the benefit of the doubt in any argument; if you say something, I'm going to run with it. Unfortunately you won't get to point out my illogic to the jury because you've already taken your turn, and I doubt your client will take too much comfort in the fact that his guilty verdict may rest on a fallacious argument.
It seems to me that you're simply arguing a policy position; namely, that lethal force is an appropriate response to any attack. And while that's a perfectly fine position to take from a policy perspective, it doesn't get around the fact that the state criminal statutes are pretty clear that this isn't the case — lethal force is an appropriate response to some attacks but not to others. If you don't like this then what you're looking for is a political solution, not jury nullification.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Goetz mostly got off because he had a Gotham City jury who knew exactly what was up. I think according to the law he should have been toast.
They still destroyed him with the 43 million dollar judgement that a judge then ruled was nondischargeable.
As far as I know he never paid any of it. But he's a glutton for punishment; he still lives in New York City and in 2013 they actually set up a sting to get him for pot. (A pot sting in 2013? Can you be more obvious) He managed to beat that one on speedy trial grounds.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
From the video it does look like it ends as a mere scuffle. The video also shows the initial aggressor start in a shouting match from across the street. Then, the aggressor decides to charge, sprinting through traffic to cross the street, and tackles the shooter in 2.5-ish seconds. After he tackles the shooter, the aggressor is in a position on top of the shooter with his right arm around the shooter's head behind his neck. The aggressors left arm and hand are not in frame. Seems like there is at least one cut in the video.
We can't see exactly what is going on from the angle, but roughly 1 second after sprinting across the street, tackling the shooter, and assaulting him a firearm goes off. It is possible the pistol was being drawn while the aggressor was sprinting, while they were on the ground, or it is possible the aggressor crossed the street in response to a pistol being drawn. The aggressor may have struggled over the firearm. He did not retreat to the presence of a firearm, nor react to being shot. He still had to be dragged off and restrained by bystanders after being shot once in the gut.
I imagine the state does prefer fistfights not escalate to shootings. I also imagine most people that don't want to sit, take a beating, and trust that the person assaulting them has the wherewithal to not do something stupid like kill them-- such as bash their head into the ground, draw a weapon when in a position of dominance, and so on.
Like the state, I also prefer fistfights not escalate to shootings. Unlike this state, I don't think it is reasonable to sprint across traffic to tackle a man 20 years your senior with legal protection. That victims should just trust you bro and in the 3-4 seconds that an altercation occurs you are expected to allow a stranger to wail on you a bit, because he probably is not going to kill you.
A different setting and I may agree with you outright. Two guys getting hammered at a bar and one of them escalating to homicide is pretty generally wrong. Here, we have a middle aged guy at a protest doing protest things, like being loud. Is it reasonable to assume that protestors that assault you won't do you serious bodily harm? Statistically, like all physical altercations, of course, but the state has nothing close to a reasonable assurance that you won't be the fellow whose head hits the pavement too hard, a protestor is particularly deranged with nothing to lose, or he has a knife in his back pocket he's been waiting to pull that you can't see.
If we're arguing about something as strangers and you cover 30ft, across traffic, at a full sprint to tackle me it sounds reasonable for me to assume you may very well aim to to do me severe bodily harm. It is unreasonable to sprint across roads to assault strangers with the protection and backing of the state. If you put me on the ground while I am carrying a firearm, doubly so. This is not the modal fist fight.
Now he's in Mass, so he's probably fucked. Unfortunately, I think providing aid to the assailant will be used against him. Only firing one shot to stop the threat might have been a prudent, measured defense of his self, or it might be argued it means he didn't really consider the threat was all too great.
Some twitter people have been saying this, but it is very unlikely. We see the pistol, holstered, at 0:21 after the guy is first tackled. So for it to be true (and there's no evidence it is), Hayes would have had to draw the pistol, then re-holster it before being tackled.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There's video. The pro-Palestinian guy hit the shooter with a flying tackle and then while they were on the ground had his arm around his neck. I realize that Massachusetts law means that a person must take a beating from a criminal in order to uphold "civilization", but that doesn't make it reasonable.
If you read my recent post on the South Side, you'd remember that I mentioned a spare of shootings in 2021 and 2022. I didn't get into it then, but almost everyone they arrested pled self defense. These were all groups of black kids who got into altercations outside of nightclubs, and their claims of self defense were much stronger than this guy's. Sometimes they were the result of scuffles similar to the one described here. By your logic, these shooters weren't threats to public safety, but a legitimate response to dangerous situations.
"Threat to public safety" is what you're going for now? A man is at some sort of political rally when a guy from the opposing side runs across the street to tackle him. First guy shoots him while they're both on the ground, and that makes him the "threat to public safety"? Pull the other one, it's got bells on; he's not the one who started the physical altercation.
More options
Context Copy link
You aren’t responding to anyone’s specific claims. Would an objective person reasonably fear serious bodily injury when a guy runs through traffic to tackle them? That’s such aggressive odd behavior to start with that I would say in the seconds afterwards (especially given there is a delay of a second or two to draw your gun and shoot) a reasonable person would fear serious bodily injury.
Bringing up unrelated cases with zero background (outside of telling us the shooters are black) just seems like an attempt to say “you wouldn’t support the black kids so you can’t support this guy without being a bigot.” Maybe I would support the black kids. Maybe I also don’t think you are reasonable about what reasonable.
More options
Context Copy link
Can you expand on that? I'm having a hard time imagining how someone leaving a bar at closing time would have a better self-defense case than someone exercising their constitutionally-protected right to free speech. At minimum, their judgment would be in question after a night of heavy drinking.
One example: A guy and two women attempted to enter a bar but were denied admission because the guy had an expired ID. As they were walking away the man was approached by a man who had been in a relationship with one of the women several years earlier. The other man started yelling at the first man and cornered him in a doorway. The first man claims that the other man threatened to kill him and it looked like he was carrying a concealed weapon in his sweatshirt. So the first man shot him with a licensed gun that he was carrying legally. It seems like a fairly anodyne story when told that way, but when the news starts out with a story like "23-year-old Javonte Diggs was arrested outside the Pause nightclub after an apparent dispute with 22-year-old Martavius Allen", the online right doesn't start making the guy a martyr of self-defense and concealed carry.
I wouldn't rate that as stronger, but maybe I'm missing some relevant aspects. Specifically:
How do you judge the strength of a case? It's clearly not the same as I do if you're using that example.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link