A cop doesn't fit in your pocket yet, but I assume they're working on it.
Even if we all had a personal cop to ride along with us and make sure the law was obeyed around us at all times, I would not be willing to surrender my right of self defense to him.
I'm not going to make assumptions either way about the good guy shooter. Perhaps he just didn't want to get Zimmermaned, perhaps he was drinking (big no-no for CCW holder). We just don't know yet. Perhaps he knew the perps from other illegal business (are we sure it was a robbery and not a hit?). Just too much unknown. I'll keep my judgments limited to "good deed" and "boldly done" until we learn more.
Interesting that the robbers apparently only got off three rounds while themselves being burned. That's gun control by the customer.
Raven: the cynic in me has to consider the possibility that the robbery was a cover; the four were after the customer, who'd both reneged on some illegal deal and was prepared for their appearance. That a bar customer is as sober as implied here at a bar's closing time isn't unheard of, but surely it's uncommon. It sounds like a pre-arranged meeting, the deal gone bad notwithstanding.
His departure after the shootout could be pursuant to his role in that illegal deal. As Hot Air noted, [t]here may be more to the story of the customer...than meets the eye....
There's a perfectly good reason he might have left that doesn't require any wrongdoing: there's no outcome from staying that's as good as the outcome from successfully leaving. At minimum, staying means spending the rest of the night with the police, likely being arrested and fingerprinted, and undergoing the scrutiny of the state for days, weeks, months... years, possibly, if you got an aggressive prosecutor trying to make a name for himself.
It's a huge risk to take compared with just walking away. The only reason you'd stay is that you respect the claim of your fellow citizens to deserve a full explanation of your use of force, and also believe that the government locally will fill that function as faithful representatives of the people. That's a fragile thing that not every government has lately merited.
There's another good reason for departing the area after the successful defense of the other's property. The defender has just made himself a vengeance target.
OK, two reasons: in today's world, the defender has exposed himself to, at least, the expense of defending himself against wrongful death and wrongful injury lawsuits.
If you had a cop, the place would be shot up and 10% of the bullets would have reached the intended target.
The fact that Texas doesn't allow guns in bars and that the single lone ranger was shooting at 4 people, and some of them returned fire, and got enough shots that 2 of them bled out before they got to the hospital, is a sign of either extreme paranoia or extreme training and skill.
The former inevitably leads to the second, given enough time and resources.
Could be! We had a DA who charged a guy with felony murder for punching another man in the face, who fell down and hit his head on the curb and died. Now felony murder requires murder in the commission of a felony, so what was the felony? Aggravated assault, the DA said. Well, OK, assault, but what was the aggravation? Assault with a deadly weapon, the DA said. What weapon? The guy hit him empty-handed.
But he died, didn't he? So the weapon must have been deadly. QED.
So he could likely be charged with aggravated murder?
Most likely, just a weapons beef. Houston isn't in Travis County. And this guy, if he were to hold out for a jury trial, would have an excellent chance of winning.
Yeah, but that's the point of a dramatic overcharge like the one I was describing. The DA charged him with felony murder because it was a capital crime, and she could get a death qualified jury. Then she held it over his head that he could go to the chair if he didn't happen to draw a jury that sided with him.
He ended up pleading to Aggravated Assault -- itself a wild overcharge for a single punch by an unarmed man -- and did ten years.
Not worth waiting for the police, if that's the way they'll treat you.
I didn't say it wasn't in his best interest to leave. I said I was unprepared to ascribe motive to it nor assume he was a paladin on a charger or dastardly villain. I think it is wrong to make one's mind up before the facts are truly known, if for no other reason than to avoid having to eat crow later.
The most memorable incident that comes to mind for me is when SC Governor Sanford went "missing" several years back. At the time, I made posts about how the press coverage was overwrought and inflamatory (they were saying he was "AWOL", and "abandoned his post") when all that we actually knew at the time was he had said he was "going on vacation" but only left some vague message about going on the Appalachian Trail. I wrote about how I didn't feel that the Governor had any responsibility to tell me where or when he was going on vacation, and how it frankly was none of my concern. And then it ended up that he had gone to Argentina to hook up with his mistress on the taxpayers dime, and suddenly I looked very foolish. I tried to learn from that experience.
He ended up pleading to Aggravated Assault -- itself a wild overcharge for a single punch by an unarmed man -- and did ten years.
He knew he had to obey Authority or else.
Interrogation setups are designed first and foremost to make the person talk, by breaking their resistance to authority and ability to keep silent. It does not accomplish the higher tier goal of brainwashing or memory reconfiguration, that requires reconstructing loyalty. No, authority is designated by the strength of its influence and its proximity to the person. In a chamber, the closest authority is the one in their face.
By additionally bringing in Society's moral imprimatur and monopoly on force/punishment, the prosecution can "convince" normal Americans that they'd better obey or else.
This has the effect of increasing the power and fame of the prosecution, thereby increasing the fees and prestige of the lawyer unions. Which inevitably increases the power and reach of the Leftist alliance.
raven, check Janet Reno's wiki page of her prosecutions and Hillary Clinton's history of cross examinations on rape victims.
This isn't a new tactic of theirs, although over charging for plea bargaining can be said to be a refinement over what they used before. Which was basically a form of psychological torture several degrees stronger than waterboarding.
21 comments:
A cop doesn't fit in your pocket yet, but I assume they're working on it.
Even if we all had a personal cop to ride along with us and make sure the law was obeyed around us at all times, I would not be willing to surrender my right of self defense to him.
The defender ran away- in a legitimate case of self defense- odds are high he just did not want to get zimmermaned.
I'm not going to make assumptions either way about the good guy shooter. Perhaps he just didn't want to get Zimmermaned, perhaps he was drinking (big no-no for CCW holder). We just don't know yet. Perhaps he knew the perps from other illegal business (are we sure it was a robbery and not a hit?). Just too much unknown. I'll keep my judgments limited to "good deed" and "boldly done" until we learn more.
Interesting that the robbers apparently only got off three rounds while themselves being burned. That's gun control by the customer.
Raven: the cynic in me has to consider the possibility that the robbery was a cover; the four were after the customer, who'd both reneged on some illegal deal and was prepared for their appearance. That a bar customer is as sober as implied here at a bar's closing time isn't unheard of, but surely it's uncommon. It sounds like a pre-arranged meeting, the deal gone bad notwithstanding.
His departure after the shootout could be pursuant to his role in that illegal deal. As Hot Air noted, [t]here may be more to the story of the customer...than meets the eye....
Eric Hines
There's a perfectly good reason he might have left that doesn't require any wrongdoing: there's no outcome from staying that's as good as the outcome from successfully leaving. At minimum, staying means spending the rest of the night with the police, likely being arrested and fingerprinted, and undergoing the scrutiny of the state for days, weeks, months... years, possibly, if you got an aggressive prosecutor trying to make a name for himself.
It's a huge risk to take compared with just walking away. The only reason you'd stay is that you respect the claim of your fellow citizens to deserve a full explanation of your use of force, and also believe that the government locally will fill that function as faithful representatives of the people. That's a fragile thing that not every government has lately merited.
There's another good reason for departing the area after the successful defense of the other's property. The defender has just made himself a vengeance target.
OK, two reasons: in today's world, the defender has exposed himself to, at least, the expense of defending himself against wrongful death and wrongful injury lawsuits.
Eric Hines
IIRC, in Texas, it's not legal to carry in a bar, regardless of whether one is drinking.
If you had a cop, the place would be shot up and 10% of the bullets would have reached the intended target.
The fact that Texas doesn't allow guns in bars and that the single lone ranger was shooting at 4 people, and some of them returned fire, and got enough shots that 2 of them bled out before they got to the hospital, is a sign of either extreme paranoia or extreme training and skill.
The former inevitably leads to the second, given enough time and resources.
According to the video at Ymar's link, it's a felony in Texas to carry a gun into a bar. So yeah, that's probably why he left.
Might want to revisit that law, those of you who are Texas residents.
So he could likely be charged with
aggravated murder? Killing someone while committing another felony?
Could be! We had a DA who charged a guy with felony murder for punching another man in the face, who fell down and hit his head on the curb and died. Now felony murder requires murder in the commission of a felony, so what was the felony? Aggravated assault, the DA said. Well, OK, assault, but what was the aggravation? Assault with a deadly weapon, the DA said. What weapon? The guy hit him empty-handed.
But he died, didn't he? So the weapon must have been deadly. QED.
So he could likely be charged with aggravated murder?
Most likely, just a weapons beef. Houston isn't in Travis County. And this guy, if he were to hold out for a jury trial, would have an excellent chance of winning.
Eric Hines
Yeah, but that's the point of a dramatic overcharge like the one I was describing. The DA charged him with felony murder because it was a capital crime, and she could get a death qualified jury. Then she held it over his head that he could go to the chair if he didn't happen to draw a jury that sided with him.
He ended up pleading to Aggravated Assault -- itself a wild overcharge for a single punch by an unarmed man -- and did ten years.
Not worth waiting for the police, if that's the way they'll treat you.
Wild overcharging seems to be a standard technique to force a plea bargain.
I didn't say it wasn't in his best interest to leave. I said I was unprepared to ascribe motive to it nor assume he was a paladin on a charger or dastardly villain. I think it is wrong to make one's mind up before the facts are truly known, if for no other reason than to avoid having to eat crow later.
The most memorable incident that comes to mind for me is when SC Governor Sanford went "missing" several years back. At the time, I made posts about how the press coverage was overwrought and inflamatory (they were saying he was "AWOL", and "abandoned his post") when all that we actually knew at the time was he had said he was "going on vacation" but only left some vague message about going on the Appalachian Trail. I wrote about how I didn't feel that the Governor had any responsibility to tell me where or when he was going on vacation, and how it frankly was none of my concern. And then it ended up that he had gone to Argentina to hook up with his mistress on the taxpayers dime, and suddenly I looked very foolish. I tried to learn from that experience.
Fair enough, Mike.
Assault with a deadly weapon, the DA said. What weapon? The guy hit him empty-handed.
The ground. Concrete. The Planet. I can use the planet to kill humans, and so can they.
What, they didn't know? It's not a weapon? Okay, that makes things convenient.
Empty handed can't be a weapon and it isn't lethal? Okay, that's even more convenient.
This society is ridiculous.
He ended up pleading to Aggravated Assault -- itself a wild overcharge for a single punch by an unarmed man -- and did ten years.
He knew he had to obey Authority or else.
Interrogation setups are designed first and foremost to make the person talk, by breaking their resistance to authority and ability to keep silent. It does not accomplish the higher tier goal of brainwashing or memory reconfiguration, that requires reconstructing loyalty. No, authority is designated by the strength of its influence and its proximity to the person. In a chamber, the closest authority is the one in their face.
By additionally bringing in Society's moral imprimatur and monopoly on force/punishment, the prosecution can "convince" normal Americans that they'd better obey or else.
This has the effect of increasing the power and fame of the prosecution, thereby increasing the fees and prestige of the lawyer unions. Which inevitably increases the power and reach of the Leftist alliance.
It is all of one piece.
raven, check Janet Reno's wiki page of her prosecutions and Hillary Clinton's history of cross examinations on rape victims.
This isn't a new tactic of theirs, although over charging for plea bargaining can be said to be a refinement over what they used before. Which was basically a form of psychological torture several degrees stronger than waterboarding.
ymar, can I use a stick to turn the pages? I don't want to get any on me.
Internet's germ free. Shaking hands with Hussein, though, may be dangerous for a photo shoot.
Post a Comment