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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   33103 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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their claims of self defense were much stronger than this guy's.

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:

  • Fighting words and threats are less of a justification for force than tackling and grappling
  • "looking like" he had a gun is a weak standard to base your actions on
  • A lack of video evidence makes everything wishy-washy (granted, that does favor the defense in criminal trials).

How do you judge the strength of a case? It's clearly not the same as I do if you're using that example.

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