1. #23821
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Ottawa, ON
    Posts
    78,909
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    Honestly, the issue of the Second Amendment when it comes to policing period raises a lot of questions. Since we've seen instances like when Philando Castile, who had a legal firearm in his vehicle and told the police officer about its presence beforehand during a traffic stop, was killed essentially for having said legal gun. Or how often, "We thought he had a gun." is used when police shoot a suspect, usually of color, because guns are so commonplace and easy to get in the US even in places with more strict gun laws. That shit won't fly in many other developed, western countries since suspects are not so often armed, and consequently police aren't as heavily armed either.

    But that's not a discussion that anyone ever really seems to want to have, because it's an uncomfortable one.
    Honestly, it's a massive 2nd Amendment loophole that's begging for a case to be made.

    If you have a legal right to bear arms, and you're walking around armed with a legal weapon, the police should be be permitted to take issue with that. They literally should not be allowed to factor that into their assessment as to whether you pose a threat. Because you have the right to have that weapon.

    Any officer taking a hostile stance at spotting or being told about a weapon thus poses an immediate and lethal threat to the gun owner, who has done nothing to warrant the officer's reaction, and that should permit them to use deadly force against that officer to defend themselves. Legally.

    And if that goes to court, the police department is gonna end up paying for pain and suffering for the shooter, who's not done anything objectionable.

    Does that make sense to people? Because that's what the 2nd Amendment should mean. It can't be a "right" if the police can straight up kill you for making use of it.


  2. #23822
    Pandaren Monk wunksta's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    Austin, TX
    Posts
    1,953
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    https://www.minneapolismn.gov/reside...lved-shooting/

    Minnesota cops execute a no-knock warrant, wake up a sleeping man who has a licensed and legal gun with him, immediately shoot and kill him as he's woken up at just before 7AM in the morning without hesitation.

    Bonus points: Amir Locke, the innocent man murdered by these police officers, was not named in the original warrant and police can't even confirm if he's connected to the investigation that prompted the no-knock warrant.
    So MPD insisted on the no-knock raid while St. Paul PD didn't and the judge who signed off on it was likely the same judge that presided over the Chauvin case.

  3. #23823
    So Daunte Wright's killer got her sentence. So how much is murder through incompetence worth these days? Turns out it's just 2 years.
    “There you stand, the good man doing nothing. And while evil triumphs, and your rigid pacifism crumbles to blood stained dust, the only victory afforded to you is that you stuck true to your guns.”

  4. #23824
    Quote Originally Posted by Mekh View Post
    So Daunte Wright's killer got her sentence. So how much is murder through incompetence worth these days? Turns out it's just 2 years.
    https://apnews.com/article/a43a48970...85adfeae79ddf0

    Because the charge was manslaughter, which was the best case the prosecution could prove with evidence. We can lament that this might not be severe enough, but that we're seeing any justice and consequences is a big step forward at the end of the day.

  5. #23825
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    https://apnews.com/article/a43a48970...85adfeae79ddf0

    Because the charge was manslaughter, which was the best case the prosecution could prove with evidence. We can lament that this might not be severe enough, but that we're seeing any justice and consequences is a big step forward at the end of the day.
    Manslaughter can also be 15 years. 2 is a joke.

    She's also very proud of her new fanclub.

    Last edited by Mekh; 2022-02-18 at 06:24 PM.
    “There you stand, the good man doing nothing. And while evil triumphs, and your rigid pacifism crumbles to blood stained dust, the only victory afforded to you is that you stuck true to your guns.”

  6. #23826
    Not entirely sure why you think it was not manslaughter... Yes, 2 years is too little, imo.
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadoowpunk View Post
    Take that haters.
    IF IM STUPID, so is Donald Trump.

  7. #23827
    Quote Originally Posted by Easo View Post
    Not entirely sure why you think it was not manslaughter... Yes, 2 years is too little, imo.
    Short version: if you're so eager to pull -some- weapon from your belt and hurt somebody for a traffic violation, you don't care to check if it's the bang-bang or the bzz-bzz, that exceeds manslaughter in my book.
    “There you stand, the good man doing nothing. And while evil triumphs, and your rigid pacifism crumbles to blood stained dust, the only victory afforded to you is that you stuck true to your guns.”

  8. #23828
    Over 9000! PhaelixWW's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Location
    Washington (né California)
    Posts
    9,029
    Quote Originally Posted by Mekh View Post
    Short version: if you're so eager to pull -some- weapon from your belt and hurt somebody for a traffic violation, you don't care to check if it's the bang-bang or the bzz-bzz, that exceeds manslaughter in my book.
    Then your book doesn't resemble reality, sorry. The delineation between manslaughter and murder is clear.


    "The difference between stupidity
    and genius is that genius has its limits."

    --Alexandre Dumas-fils

  9. #23829
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Ottawa, ON
    Posts
    78,909
    Quote Originally Posted by PhaelixWW View Post
    Then your book doesn't resemble reality, sorry. The delineation between manslaughter and murder is clear.
    It is.

    The problem with the case largely revolves around two points;

    1> She definitely intended to fire her weapon at the target, this is not disputed.
    2> Her police training makes her claim that she accidentally drew the wrong weapon to largely not be a credible claim.

    There's no way to verify her thoughts in that moment, but there are grounds for considering it completely unreasonable that a police officer would mistake their sidearm and their taser.

    She should have been charged with at least second-degree murder, if not first-degree, alongside the manslaughter charges. Maybe the jury wouldn't be convinced on those particular counts and only choose to convict on the lesser charges, maybe they would. That should have been the jury's decision, if there was even a possibility that said charge could be prosecuted.

    Instead, she didn't get murder charges at all even as an option, and her sentence was basically a slap on the wrist.

    The delineation between manslaughter and murder boils down to whether it's reasonable to believe she could have "accidentally" pulled her gun. I find that claim not credible in the least.


  10. #23830
    Over 9000! PhaelixWW's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Location
    Washington (né California)
    Posts
    9,029
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    The delineation between manslaughter and murder boils down to whether it's reasonable to believe she could have "accidentally" pulled her gun. I find that claim not credible in the least.
    That just says more about your predisposition to judgment.


    "The difference between stupidity
    and genius is that genius has its limits."

    --Alexandre Dumas-fils

  11. #23831
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    It is.

    The problem with the case largely revolves around two points;

    1> She definitely intended to fire her weapon at the target, this is not disputed.
    2> Her police training makes her claim that she accidentally drew the wrong weapon to largely not be a credible claim.

    There's no way to verify her thoughts in that moment, but there are grounds for considering it completely unreasonable that a police officer would mistake their sidearm and their taser.

    She should have been charged with at least second-degree murder, if not first-degree, alongside the manslaughter charges. Maybe the jury wouldn't be convinced on those particular counts and only choose to convict on the lesser charges, maybe they would. That should have been the jury's decision, if there was even a possibility that said charge could be prosecuted.

    Instead, she didn't get murder charges at all even as an option, and her sentence was basically a slap on the wrist.

    The delineation between manslaughter and murder boils down to whether it's reasonable to believe she could have "accidentally" pulled her gun. I find that claim not credible in the least.
    I mean, I find the alternative claim to be much harder to believe - "hey, today I'm going to deliberately shoot a random black guy on camera, even though I know it will end my career and I'll go to jail for it."

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Easo View Post
    Not entirely sure why you think it was not manslaughter... Yes, 2 years is too little, imo.
    Why? Say it were 15 years, what difference would it make? Why is that better?

  12. #23832
    Over 9000! PhaelixWW's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Location
    Washington (né California)
    Posts
    9,029
    Quote Originally Posted by Coniferous View Post
    Why? Say it were 15 years, what difference would it make? Why is that better?
    Let's not go down this "cops should always get the minimum sentence" path again.


    "The difference between stupidity
    and genius is that genius has its limits."

    --Alexandre Dumas-fils

  13. #23833
    Quote Originally Posted by PhaelixWW View Post
    Let's not go down this "cops should always get the minimum sentence" path again.
    It's not specific to cops. I see a lot of these types of arguments where people argue for the merits of longer sentences online, and I usually don't understand why. The thread about Henry Ruggs was full of people arguing that he needed a really long sentence (I believe someone said 40 years), and to me that seems wasteful. And no one ever seems to be able to give a reason.

  14. #23834
    Over 9000! PhaelixWW's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Location
    Washington (né California)
    Posts
    9,029
    Quote Originally Posted by Coniferous View Post
    It's not specific to cops. I see a lot of these types of arguments where people argue for the merits of longer sentences online, and I usually don't understand why.
    It's already been litigated in the court of MMO-C, though. We don't need to plummet down that rabbit hole again. Nobody's going to be convinced to change their mind, I'm fairly sure.

    And the last time around, reasons were given; you (at least I think it was you) just didn't agree with those reasons.


    "The difference between stupidity
    and genius is that genius has its limits."

    --Alexandre Dumas-fils

  15. #23835
    Quote Originally Posted by PhaelixWW View Post
    It's already been litigated in the court of MMO-C, though. We don't need to plummet down that rabbit hole again. Nobody's going to be convinced to change their mind, I'm fairly sure.

    And the last time around, reasons were given; you (at least I think it was you) just didn't agree with those reasons.
    I don't think it's crazy to ask for a reason behind an opinion. Eh, maybe I'll make a separate thread about it.

  16. #23836
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Ottawa, ON
    Posts
    78,909
    Quote Originally Posted by Coniferous View Post
    It's not specific to cops. I see a lot of these types of arguments where people argue for the merits of longer sentences online, and I usually don't understand why. The thread about Henry Ruggs was full of people arguing that he needed a really long sentence (I believe someone said 40 years), and to me that seems wasteful. And no one ever seems to be able to give a reason.
    When it comes to criminal police specifically, higher sentences (rather than lower) should be the standard for the same reasons that committing a hate crime exacerbates sentencing; it's a greater offense. For criminal police, that increased offense comes from the betrayal of the public trust their crime represents, over and above the crime itself.

    Worse violation, longer sentence. The calculus isn't that complicated.


  17. #23837
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    When it comes to criminal police specifically, higher sentences (rather than lower) should be the standard for the same reasons that committing a hate crime exacerbates sentencing; it's a greater offense. For criminal police, that increased offense comes from the betrayal of the public trust their crime represents, over and above the crime itself.

    Worse violation, longer sentence. The calculus isn't that complicated.
    Yeah I reject the idea of proportional justice in favor of utilitarianism. I can't see anything that's an obvious benefit to a longer prison sentence other than satisfying the public's bloodthirst, which is dumb. I looked it up on wikipedia, and it states:

    "Some purposes of official retribution include to channel the retributive sentiments of the public into the political and legal systems. The intent is to deter people from resorting to lynchings, blood feuds, and other forms of vigilante self-help.
    to promote social solidarity through participation in the act of punishing, under the theory that "the society that slays together stays together."
    to prevent a situation in which a citizen who would have preferred to obey the law as part of his civic responsibility decides that he would be a fool to not violate it, when so many others are getting away with lawlessness that the point of his obedience is mostly defeated."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retributive_justice

    The first two arguments, satisfying bloodthirst, I reject. The third argument doesn't apply here... clearly she was a fool to violate the law. In a world where most people agree that prisons are overcrowded and sentences are too long, I think we need to be addressing the problem (people are too bloodthirsty) by focusing on what the punishment accomplishes, instead of just satisfying the bloodthirst.

  18. #23838
    Over 9000! PhaelixWW's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Location
    Washington (né California)
    Posts
    9,029
    Quote Originally Posted by Coniferous View Post
    Yeah I reject the idea of proportional justice in favor of utilitarianism. I can't see anything that's an obvious benefit to a longer prison sentence...
    Yes, you don't see it. People have expressed those reasons, and you've ignored or handwaved them.

    There's no arguing with willful blindness.


    "The difference between stupidity
    and genius is that genius has its limits."

    --Alexandre Dumas-fils

  19. #23839
    Quote Originally Posted by PhaelixWW View Post
    Yes, you don't see it. People have expressed those reasons, and you've ignored or handwaved them.

    There's no arguing with willful blindness.
    I mean the only thing i got was an incomplete argument - betrayal of the public trust means = longer sentence. Why? What does it accomplish? Things should have a purpose!

    It's ironic that you're accusing me of handwaving, by the way... pretty sure I'm trying to make an argument and you're not responding... complete with ignoring the actual content of my post by cutting off the quote!
    Last edited by Coniferous; 2022-02-19 at 04:30 AM.

  20. #23840
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Ottawa, ON
    Posts
    78,909
    Quote Originally Posted by Coniferous View Post
    Yeah I reject the idea of proportional justice in favor of utilitarianism.
    I mean, utilitarianism is an ethical philosophy that would justify slavery, so long as more people are made happy by enslaving others than are made unhappy by being enslaved. It isn't concerned with concepts like "justice" or "fairness", at all. It goes beyond simple evaluations of picking the least-harmful option, to encouraging actively harmful options if they maximize "happiness" overall.

    I understand its philosophical underpinnings, but it falls to a lot of basic criticisms.

    I can't see anything that's an obvious benefit to a longer prison sentence other than satisfying the public's bloodthirst, which is dumb. I looked it up on wikipedia, and it states:

    "Some purposes of official retribution include to channel the retributive sentiments of the public into the political and legal systems. The intent is to deter people from resorting to lynchings, blood feuds, and other forms of vigilante self-help.
    to promote social solidarity through participation in the act of punishing, under the theory that "the society that slays together stays together."
    to prevent a situation in which a citizen who would have preferred to obey the law as part of his civic responsibility decides that he would be a fool to not violate it, when so many others are getting away with lawlessness that the point of his obedience is mostly defeated."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retributive_justice

    The first two arguments, satisfying bloodthirst, I reject.
    Without any single argument?

    Then your "rejection" is utterly meaningless and vapid, and thus doesn't bear any consideration.

    The third argument doesn't apply here... clearly she was a fool to violate the law.
    The third is precisely why there's such an endemic of unjustifiable police bigotry and violence in the USA.

    Because those actions go unchecked, and become standard practice, and then people who want to engage in such acts seek out policing as a career precisely to have those opportunities.

    In a world where most people agree that prisons are overcrowded and sentences are too long, I think we need to be addressing the problem (people are too bloodthirsty) by focusing on what the punishment accomplishes, instead of just satisfying the bloodthirst.
    That's a completely different discussion you're deflecting to. Also, the issues people have with the prison systems in the USA are that they are intentionally revolving-door systems meant to encourage re-offense, to maximize profits, and that many of the crimes prosecuted are societally meaningless (like penalizing casual drug use of substances like marijuana). Not that "sentences are too long".

    Nor is "bloodthirst" a thing. It isn't in the Wiki you cited. You're just inserting that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Coniferous View Post
    I mean the only thing i got was an incomplete argument - betrayal of the public trust means = longer sentence. Why? What does it accomplish? Things should have a purpose!
    Appeasing people's sense of justice being done, that wrong and harmful acts are punished.

    If you're going to tell me you don't understand what a sense of justice is, I'm going to propose that you're being dishonest. Even Capuchin monkeys can understand justice to a degree; experiments have been done where Monkey A gets rewarded with a grape for a task, and Monkey B gets rewarded with something they don't want, and Monkey B throws a fit because even a monkey can recognize that this was unfair, unjust.

    You've also made absolutely no counterargument, other than bringing up utilitarian ethics, which actually works against you, as utilitarianism would tell you that it doesn't matter if the officer is guilty, she should be imprisoned if it makes more people happy than unhappy, regardless of the facts or what she actually did, and her sentence should be as long as makes most people happy, even if that's the rest of her life. Hell, utilitarianism would support actively torturing that officer, if that's what the people want to see.


Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •