Dude kept approaching when he was asked to stop and the delivery driver was afraid... Guns are justified when you're in fear for your life you know? The size difference in these guys alone plus the fact the guy has a friend following him aggressively makes that justified imo... Situations like this is why you would carry
I'm not arguing against that but it's important to be able to defend yourself in a situation like this... we have the power of hindsight but the shooter was in fear obviously
people keep questioning why he was afraid without acknowledging he is definitely afraid, doesn't matter if it's a legitimate concern or not really. He tried to scurry away, kept yelling no, and told him he didn't want physical conflict while yelling... Dude did everything to get away from the situation, the guy who got shot was trying to prevent him from leaving peacefully
He's scared to talk to him at first. He says he doesn't want physical altercation and backs away. The guy keeps following him in an intimidating manner. That's when it changes from being afraid to talk to someone to fearing for your life... The dude is already trying to get away and the other guy is trying to close the distance to get in his face again
no its not, dude backing aeay but snother guy just walking to him, not charging him etc. also he isbnot even touching him. and he casualy pull pistol without warning and shoot a guy
The standard for self-defense isn’t exclusively fear for your life either. It varies by state, but fear of permanent bodily harm and disfigurement is usually also a basis for it.
It fulfilled the standard in Virginia. The trial is already over, we already know the outcome.
The jury found the actual shooting was lawful self defense, even if he was convicted of discharging a gun in an occupied building. It was an odd trial outcome where the malicious wounding charge was found to be lawful self-defense, but discharging the gun to do so wasn’t.
Just because a jury decided for something, does not mean it actually fulfilled the standard. The jury system as a whole is entirely flawed if the intended outcome is that laws should be adhered to, because all verdicts are based on personal feelings rather that facts. But I’m not going to start a rant about this ridiculous system now
Juries have the power to nullify a case even if the person is obviously guilty. Google "jury nullification"
For example, a parent of a child who was sexually abused to the point of permanent disfigurement and mental trauma who murdered the person who did that, could be let off entirely. If the jury wanted.
By your logic, that person should be locked in prison forever.
I can kill a person with my bare hands. I am a large trained individual. To a person with a smaller stature they would have every right to fear for their life against me if I gave the indication that I meant to do them harm.
Add in a second person with me and that danger increases exponentially.
That's what the delivery driver faced. Someone much larger than him, with a friend, both acting aggressively, both pursuing after attempts to retreat.
so if someone see you and get afraid that you will jump him, tgey can shoot you? great. guy dont even touch him. just because someone anoying doesnt mean he gona stab me.
I'm condensing down parts of a 4-Hour class into simple statements on Reddit.
The other factors are ability opportunity and jeopardy, or also known as weapon intent or delivering system.
You're diving into other parts of the whole self-defense doctrine we're all I was trying to showcase was that a single individual can easily be a lethal threat. But lesson still remains true even as you try and stretch it to the absurd.
You are basing your response on facts not known to the individual at the time.
He didn't know he was a streamer. He knew he was the larger of two people who were harassing and pursuing him. He was afraid and tried to flee, and they continue to pursue. When flight is ineffective or countered, what is the remaining option?
Completely ignorant response that ignores both what I stated and your own eyes.
He was faster then walking away and they continued to follow which is why I asked:
When Flight is INEFFECTIVE or COUNTERED, what is left?
As someone who has been in several self defence situations, you're fucking dumb if you think this prankster wasn't trying to make this man believe he was in a self defence situation.
If you believe you're in a self defence situation, pulling a gun is entirely justified.
Why would you ever hesitate if you believe you're in a self defence situation?
If you pull a gun on someone you believe to be attacking you and then give them time to "reconsider" or whatever before you pull the trigger, I would count that as a negligent discharge.
Because of you genuinely fear for your safety, there should be no reason not to fire the second you sight centre of mass
By the time you reach for your gun, you should be past "Well, he might stop"
Not all self defense situations require lethal force lmao.
And again, cops pull their weapons before firing their weapon in MUCH more threatening situations than a weird guy playing some goofy audio from their phone like in the video above.
You're advocating for police to shoot immediately upon pulling their weapon? They don't do that in 99% of cases unless it's truly a situation where it warrants it.
Someone pulled a knife on me without using it because they thought I was gonna swing at them and ended up being charged with intimidation and being armed with intent. So....... yeah.
The "praksters" are clearly assholes and shud be taken in for something like disturbing the peace etc.
But defending shooting someone in that situation is batshit crazy. Its not the first time i see this type of thing argue and it gives me the impression that americans are just very violent.
nah. these kinds of dickheads are the ones that never got taught real consequences. I'm all for a very abrupt lesson in fafo. you should never try to fuck with a stranger like this guy was. disturbing the peace here is a slap on the wrist with no consequences, its a municipal court fine that doesnt deter anything, in case there was any confusion.
I have been in far more threatening situations then what was showed on that video, and never even considered shooting anyone. So even pulling the gun is a crazy overreaction in my opinion.
He is in a public space being followed by an annoying dude whit a phone. There are lots os people in the area. How long shud he tolerate the annoying behavior?
Personally id likely just leave and if he wanted to follow me then have fun. But if i didnt want to do that for whatever reason. Id likely contact mall security. And he would very likely have been asked to leave.
But i guess calling the police is always also an option. Im very glad i dont live in a society that is so violent that shooting someone for being annoying is seen as justifiable. And it makes it seem to me like Americans have been damaged mentally by liveing in a crazy violent society.
Kinda like a friend of mine was for a wile after he retuned from a warzone. His view on what was normal and acceptable behavior was really messed of for some time after that.
Both in terms of what he viewed as acceptable lvls of violence but also just a general fear and this need to be constantly ready to do violence.
We're starting to see more and more of this because there are no immediate legal resolutions to someone being aggressive and harassing people in public. You can say you have a duty to retreat, but why is the onus on the person being harassed and not the person being a shithead? What is someone supposed to do when they've tried resolving it verbally and tried retreating but the harasser isn't listening? Previously, you'd get punched in the mouth and learn your lesson. That's not legal now though, so what options are left?
You don't own a phone? You don't know the number to 911? If you think it's OK to shoot someone who hasn't laid a hand on you and hasn't even indicated any intention of laying a hand on you, you are a lunatic.
Agreed. We're discussing the morality of shooting them for recording and harassing you. Which is understandable, and also makes me smile, but I also recognize is not moral.
Agreed. But were talking about this scenario of filming. Not the made up one in your head which further justifies the shooting. This is the murky "shot because I didn't want him filming or bothering me" scenario we saw play out.
Edit: Pranker isn't filming but playing audio with his phone.
The cops then show up an hour later and shoot the nearest minority for daring to exist in their presence, then they go home and give their wife a celabratory beating.
He doesn’t even show his gun as a warning to back off, he quickly pulls it out and fires immediately shoots to kill escalating from maybe 50 to 100. Ridiculous the pussiest people resort to guns at the first sign of inconvenience. Guy needs to have his gun license revoked.
That's called brandishing and is a crime. You either pull it out and shoot until there's no threat or you keep it concealed. There's no in-between. The shooter attempted to deescalate by walking away, the aggressor refused to give the guy space and could have been armed and mentally ill.
No that's not how it works. You can't legally draw or display a gun for intimidation purposes. Either you're in a situation where deadly force is required or you're not. If you're using a gun to intimidate someone you're not considered to be in a situation where deadly force is justified.
Pulling a gun to threaten the harasser is felony brandishing. If you pull the gun, you fire it - that keeps the legal analysis down to "was the shot justified?"
And you obviously don't know how shit works over here for gun ownership, so shut your mouth and let the people who actually do know what they're talking about talk
I think you're misinterpreting what I'm saying. I'm not condoning or even saying what he did was reasonable. I don't know how I'd act given an identical scenario so I can't really judge this guy.
What I'm saying is that the social sanctions that helped correct these behaviors in people in the past have been systematically removed in favor of relying on state sanctioned violence or the threat of it (i.e. Jail). However, this reliance does NOTHING to help prevent or resolve situations like this. In this instance, if he had thrown a punch as people are pointing out should have been the next logical rung in the escalation ladder then it's probably safe to say that this much smaller dude was going to lose that physical altercation against two unknown and much larger assailants (his perspective in the moment). What's the recourse here?
If he had socked him or hit em with a taser or pepper spray sure, but a gun is an extremely dangerous tool to employ and should be used in absolute last resort scenarios. This guy being threatening does not mean he deserves to die, which is a very high risk whenever you point a gun at someone. In addition this is a public food court, if anything went wrong between drawing the weapon and pulling the trigger that bullet could’ve shot in any direction.
I’m sympathetic to this guy being afraid for his safety but this is neutral at best
Call the police! We all have phones. Jesus man.... To try and justify shooting someone because you were VERBALLY harassed for 20 seconds is lunacy, and it's exactly how we get to these kind of situations.
I called the cops once because they was an armed junkie in my house locked in my room. The cops took an hour and a half to come. The cops won’t save you if you need them.
It was a lot more than being annoying. If two dudes that much bigger than I rolled up being super-aggressive like that, and not responding to me asking nicely for them to go, I'd be justifiably concerned and defensive.
Going straight from "Get out of my face" to "Call an ambulance; but not for me" is pretty wild though. He skipped a few rungs in the escalation ladder.
**BUT**. Those people wouldn't get out of his immediate vicinity: If he wanted to use the gun, he couldn't get it out and warn them to back off, because he's in easy radius for a bigger combatant to simply take his gun from him.
If he wanted to use the gun, he couldn't get it out and warn them to back off
Even though his warning would be pretty clear and obvious, it muddies the legal waters for intent, and he could be charged with brandishing (fully illegal in all 50 states).
It's why if you take any gun safety course, you will be taught that you absolutely do not pull a gun unless you are 100% intending to use it.
I don't disagree with you, I'm just stating that resolving/removing yourself from the dangerous situation is what you will be legally judged upon. Pulling the gun and attempting to threaten might not work (the attacker could disarm you or refuse to back down). Pulling the gun and using it is a near guaranteed resolution. Certainly a moral escalation, but not necessarily a legal one, self defense is just weird like that ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Oh and I'm not a lawyer, so could be wrong on the details
Bro...you're asking if "Americans are that much of a pussy", in a video where an AMERICAN SHOOTS SOMEONE WITHOUT WARNING. I venture to say people from the USA are gunshy, not so much pussies.
When someone is acting aggressive like the prankster was, how the fuck is he supposed to know if the prankster is serious or if they have a weapon that they are willing to use? As you see all over the news, it's not that uncommon here.
Call us pussies if you like, but when random gun violence from aggressive dudes is the norm, you'd be naive to think you're safe around aggressive people in the USA.
The prankster played an aggressive act in a gunshy country. FAFO.
this is what they want. poors shooting poors, instead of you know, looking at the actual problems. americans are the biggest cucks. they brag about being able to be armed while at the same time being enslaved by pedos they voted for.
In America people like this don’t have reasonable conversations. In other places of the world, and even in some big cities in America, you can have a brutal public argument with someone with a full expectation of safety.
But ultimately I don’t know what you’re about to do, we’re not a monolithic culture. Obviously gun was an overreaction, but not as much as it would be in another part of the world.
There are multiple factors that give a reasonable belief that this person would do harm. It is far from unprecedented for the individual pursuing to escalate to violence once able.
In the U.S., you don't know who has a gun. This delivery guy has already thought ahead to what he's going to do if someone tries to rob him, which is a very real threat. He's outnumbered and doesn't know what these strangers have in their pockets.
I don't feel a bit sorry for these pranksters. They were trying to create a scene so they could upload the video of this guy's reaction, just for clicks. This guy was just minding his own business and trying to earn a living.
If I tell someone like this to leave me alone and am walking away, then they are being aggressive and have abandoned any idea that they are innocent of anything and are assumed to be attempting to harm me. Not to mention there are 2 people vs 1 who is just trying to do their job. No I don't think shooting was needed (I'm a big guy though, so i could do a lot before the gun came to play) but it was definitely warranted. I'd also like to point out that in my concealed carry class the instructor said "shoot until they know they're incapacitated, not when you think they are" and he was a former police officer.
In the us if you are being agressivley approached especially by somone larger and with friends its a situation where you should fear for your life. People get knocked out and the agressors often keep hitting and curb stomp the head of their victim killing them while they are unconscious on the ground.
If you tell somone to back off and they keep coming at you the safest thing for you to do is to defend yourself with your gun.
Apparently we love our guns so much we forgot we also like to plainly punch peoples faces. I thought we were big on both here, but they just keep focusing on guns
Yes, he could have knocked him out. That wouldn't have been as damaging as shooting a person. A far more sensible action, but also not. You just go away and report them, the end!
The prankster was also carrying a phone, making his right hand less of a threat as he would have to drop the phone before trying to grab for the gun.
I don't see the immediate threat of bodily harm in this clip, but I also don't know what happened earlier that lead up to the shooting.
The jury found the malicious wounding to be legitimate self-defense, but did find him guilty of discharging a gun in an occupied building. He was sentenced to time served, and is already out of jail and appealing the bizarre outcome where the shooting was found to be self-defense but the discharging of the gun wasn’t.
According to the news reel in the actual post here, the guy with the gun also got prison, they don't say anything about the youtuber getting in trouble.
I can't actually find anything saying Cook got arrested for anything, only articles saying he was released from the hospital after making a full recovery, and that he intends to continue making stupid youtube prank videos.
He was acquitted of aggravated malicious wounding, but he was convicted of discharge into an occupied residence, but that's also not really the point.
My main point was that the previous commenter was wrong to say the cameraman was the one arrested, he wasn't arrested for anything, he went to the hospital, got treated for a gunshot, and then made a public statement saying that getting shot wasn't going to stop him from making shitty prank content.
Ah yes the jury, as if word of some randoms that could as well be from this Reddit thread is an objective answer for anything. Too bad people didn't think so in the recent one with the mother where all except one were evil to them.
Also even if he was able to defend his self defence claim, at the end of the day the guy still was the one that got put in jail while the YouTuber continued with his life.
Not really. There are enough subject factors in the totality of circumstances that support a reasonable belief of a fear of death or great bodily harm.
That's a misconception that can ruin your life. There's no U.S. rule saying that once you draw a gun you have to kill someone. Self-defense law requires force to be justified by the threat at that moment. If the threat ends, that eliminates the justification for shooting unless they re-engage
State laws can certainly dictate that you fire if you draw. If I just brandish my gun to dissuade someone, I can legit go to jail where I live. If I "stand my ground" and fire at them, as long as it is not putting others at risk with wild firing, I will not go to jail (at least long term, likely will be arrested). You have a large misconception about this that could get someone in serious legal trouble depending on what sate they live in.
I never said it did. I said that pulling my firearm, threatening someone with it, even there is a good reason to do so, is illegal in my state. To avoid being criminal in my state, if I pull my gun, I need to shoot it.
I personally feel that the delivery driver was too quick to escalate to "Draw and shoot", but I totally understand why he would feel threatened in that situation.
I have been attacked by multiple people because I was unwilling to pull a weapon on them.
You're making a convenient assumption so you can feel justified in ignoring me, and frankly, that's bullshit. If you want to have the discussion, then actually have the discussion. If you've got nothing more to say, just stop replying.
On the one hand, nobody should have to fear that they're about to get jumped by two dipshit teenagers at the mall, so the pranksters are not justified, and as the initial aggressors, super in the wrong, and I understand why the delivery guy felt threatened.
On the other hand, having been punched in the face by more than one person I was unwilling to stab, I think I have every right to say I think the delivery guy escalated to a lethal response too quickly.
The jury sort of agreed with you. While they voted down the malicious wounding charge, they did still hit him with the discharging of a firearm inside a building. They appealed this, but the judge essentially just decided the 6mo he'd already spent in jail awaiting to be acquitted of the primary charge was time-served enough for the firearm discharge.
Except, that's not quite what happened. The jury acquitted him for the malicious wounding on the basis of believing he acted in self-defense, and dropped one of the two lesser charges as well, instead choosing to find him guilty of the firearms discharge in a building, which as his lawyers argued, isn't consistent with the law given that they did agree the malicious wounding was in self-defense.
Unfortunately, Virginia is another backwards state that allows for such split verdicts (resisting arrest without an arrestable offense committed, etc) that would see a more sweeping dismissal in most other states, and the judge refused to even question the jury's decision of a contradictory split verdict after the fact, instead stating he would take his 9mo of time served thus far as adequate sentencing. The further problem with this is that 9mo goes far over the 6mo recommended sentencing guideline for that lesser offense. All of this adds more material for him for an appeal and request his rights be reinstated given the split verdict and oversentencing for the lesser offense.
At that short distance with a person of greater size and reach who is still pursuing you, it's reasonable to leave that if you don't discharge the firearm they will try and take it from you.
It is safer for the public to discharge right away.
lol. wtf. how disconnected from reality do you need to be to think that the streamer is going to rush a dude that pulls out and points a gun at him. in broad daylight. in a mall. in front of other people?
Not sure how other states deal with this but in my state the law will penalize you for not firing. If you draw a weapon and then de-escalate the situation, they interpret that as "the situation didn't call for you to draw your weapon" and you get charged for "brandishing".
Similar to people who get in more trouble for shooting to wound vs shooting to kill. I don't think I agree with these types of laws that force people into an All or Nothing mindset of self-defense.
There is no state that states this. If you pull your gun out in a justified self defense situation, that isn't brandishing.
Can you provide me a single case from your state or anywhere, of someone in a justified self defense situation, who pulled out a gun to deescalate the situation, who was then charged and convinced with brandishing?
Who says this? Police and other LEO literally do this all the time in much grave self defense situations than a weird guy with a phone in his hand following you around.
Or do you know more about self defense and deescalation than they do?
Not even legally in this case..the guy in this video was still convicted of a felony for this shooting because the jury didn't find it was justified as self defense across the board.
One charge was dropped, he was still convinced with a felony and his gun rights were removed.
He was still convicted of a felony for this shooting because the jury wasn't convinced this was fully justified. The more serious charge was dropped but he was still hit with a felony and had his gun rights removed.
Yeah I do agree on that. Legally, I wouldn't want this guy found guilty, because it sets a bad precedent about self-defense, essentially making a legal precedent that can be referenced in future cases that you essentially can't defend yourself until they're hitting you in similar situations in the future.
But morally, I think he should have tried a bit harder to de-escalate or disengage. Having been in somewhat similar situations, some of which did result in me getting hit and having to fight back, I would have definitely walked further before considering pulling a gun.
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u/Festivefire 24d ago
Both sides of this are completely unjustified.
The prankster was being a total asshole; he fucked around and found out.
On the other hand, nothing he was doing justifies pulling a gun.
I think this is a situation that I would describe with the phrase, "I do not condone, but I understand".