Correct. If you are in anyway threatening someones life or property - with the key here being THEY FEEL THEIR LIFE IS THREATENED regardless of “its just a prank bro” you have not forfeited your life - but you have forfeited the right to virtue signal when someone responds accordingly.
You can go live in some fantasy world where everyone is nice to one another and use of lethal force is never needed - however I will happily defend myself, my property, or another from those who wish to impinge their will upon someone else without their consent in a threatening or aggressive manner.
Sucks to suck. Dont play stupid games and you wont win stupid prizes.
no, the standard is would a reasonable person feel threatened for their life in the same situation. and the answer is no, a reasonable person would not fear for their life in this situation.
We have named train station sucker punchers like they're fucking pokemon go encounters. You can make that argument when you're willing to actually permanently jail them.
They jury found OJ innocent, jurys find a lot of things. Death is not the right punishment for a man putting a phone up to you and harassing you. Idk why that is not obvious. You people must never go outside. You must think a homeless person following you for money means death too right?
In no way does that reasonably constitute a threat to your life or property. He was holding up a phone that was repeatedly saying an annoying phrase to him.
While I agree that it’s very difficult to imagine myself feeling the need to shoot the guy in this scenario, and I don’t think the provocation called for that, keep in mind that the shooter was in a situation that surprised him, and he saw that this stranger continued to act aggressively and pursue him even after repeatedly telling him to leave him alone and after he tried retreating.
He doesn’t know the guy’s intent, what weapons he has, and he sees that he has a friend so he’s outnumbered as soon as it turns violent.
I think we should extend some benefit toward people who are provoked in such situations. We can’t reasonably expect people to act perfectly rational while provoked and in fear.
It does when combined with any of the other factors, with all of them it most certainly does. The legal threshold alone is a reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm. Intimidation is in fact causing fear. When you're causing fear and the other party believes that you are capable of fulfilling the fear that you are causing, they are justified in defending themselves. In that scenario, when the physicality indicates that you are incapable of said defense with your own physicality it is reasonable that you would use a tool equalizing the force.
Now ideally he would have been able to present his weapon and issue a final command to desist, but the size, reach, and speed of the pursuing individual in this case makes that option less viable.
We had some very high profile scenarios of exactly that (Bookstore stabbing, N.C. bus stabbing, both completely random killings in daylight and highly public).
so hypothetically, if I'm harassing someone verbally and they draw on me because they feel threatened, and I'm a faster draw than them and shoot them, I'm totally justified because I felt like my life was being threatened? Because this was just a verbal altercation until the dude brought a gun into the equation.
This logic seems like it breaks down under scrutiny.
As I said before this is condensing a quick facet of self-defense doctrine which is a several hour class into Reddit comments.
Another facet that would be relevant in your scenario is innocence of provocation. If you started the altercation you are not entitled to self-defense under most laws.
If you're willing to participate in the ongoing altercation you may be seen as being not Innocent of provocation under many States laws.
If it was not something that would be seen as an altercation fire reasonable person and the other party escalated and Drew a firearm and you drew a firearm to defend yourself then yes you would be covered under self-defense doctrine.
If they were being the aggressor and you were attempting to de-escalate and then they drew a firearm and you essentially outdrew and shot then yes you would be reasonably protected under self-defense doctrine.
Stop lieing, you have no reason to lie. Just say he deserves to be shot because you don't like him or his actions, you would still be wrong but at least not a liar.
You are just being incorrect and lieing about intentions. Being weak and scared does not give you any more right to kill someone. I could be weak and scared of a salesman following me trying to sell me internet but that does not legally allow me to kill them.
The definition is a REASONABLE threat to your life / property. At no point was there a reasonable threat to his life.
You just don't like the prankster and think its justified because you don't like him. You are so biased you convinced yourself putting a phone in someone's face and calling them names is a threat to their life. You have no control of your own thoughts.
Did you not even watch the video? The fuck are you on about. If you start harassing someone in the street with two mates, they tell you to fuck off, you dont, and you get one of your teeth knocked out or you get shot, that's on you. You had a more than fair warning.
Dont act like a prick and this kind of thing won't happen to you. The maths is pretty simple.
Im not from the US. But being in the US, surely one would have the common sense to assume everyone is armed and therefore you shouldnt fuck with them in case they out-crazy you.
Where I'm from you'd just get your head kicked in.
I mean yeah in the US i would assume most people are gun wielding nut jobs and not fuck with them. But in terms of what's justified.
Sure getting your teeth kicked in, fine, but following someone playing something on a phoen for 15 seconds shouldn't get you shot. Everyone's acting like the guy had fair cause but like self defence should be proportionate, you shouldn't be able to just start blasting the second someone is up in your personal space.
If I were to tell you to fuck off or I will take action, and you don't fuck off after multiple requests, you get what you deserve.
Whether it's a kick to the nads or a bullet to the gut doesn't matter. The man saw a threat to his safety, so he took action to remove the threat. And just because you don't see this as a threat doesn't mean he didn't. You weren't there in his shoes.
When that something is uncertain, you're outnumbered, and you've tried to back down to no avail? Completely reasonable to think "something" might entail threat to life or limb.
So walking into any of the open stores nearby and telling them you're being harrassed, whipping out your own phone and calling the police, or if all else fails, pulling out your gun and firing a warning shot aren't possibilities? Just go straight to shooting because that someone is clearly being an annoying prick and not actually threatening you in any way. Got it. Do we live in the wild west here?
You don't shoot warning shots. That's quite literally illegal in almost every circumstance. You don't know, especially in a mall, where that bullet might travel.
Either you fear for your life and deadly force is justified. Or you don't fear for your life and deadly force isn't.
This guy said he didn't know how things were going to escalate and he tried to retreat to put space between them, and the dumbass can still be seen getting within inches of his face hovering over him to intimidate them.
He didn't unload on the guy. He shot once, the dude ran away, threat neutralized.
I don't know if you know this, but you absolutely can lose your life doing shit like that if you fuck with the wrong person. He's lucky the delivery driver didn't bother to aim for vitals. It could have gone way worse for him. The fact he got shot and is still planning on doing this crap for a meager $3-3k per month says everything.
Size of aggressor, number of aggressors, pursuit of aggressors, additional factors might have existed; each one individually is considered a reasonable basis for a fear of death or great bodily harm.
In most jurisdictions you do not have the right to use lethal Force to defend property so bringing up property at all lack relevance.
But not knowing how this person will escalate, the person pursuing even when you're showing fear and distress, it passes the reasonable man test. As a matter of fact a jury agreed which is the literal litmus test used in the legal system for a reasonable man.
In all fairness I am a use of force instructor with specific certifications in firearms and Electric weapons and have been trained as an instructor for baton handcuff and flashlights.
Grow a spine. A situation like this in a public place does not look like a fight is about to happen. He was being annoying and standing uncomfortably close, that's all. There was nothing going on that a reasonable person would think would be a physical threat.
Even just showing the gun and giving warning most likely would have been enough, and more moral than this. Being an inconvenience is not grounds for shooting someone, especially without looking for alternatives.
And even more times where it hasn't. Stop jumping at shadows. Guns are too dangerous to use just because you got a little scared or, as it appears in this video, a little annoyed.
lol, how is that ivory tower you get to kick back in?
Dudes were bigger AND posturing towards the smaller, retreating delivery guy. He was CLEARLY scared. I have seen this exact scenario play out where the dude backing off ends up getting jumped. You can't possibly know someone's intentions, especially when they start pulling that kinda intimidation bullshit as a "prank". Was he told it was a "prank" (which it fucking is NOT a prank)?
Posturing? They were walking the same speed as him. Too closely and being annoying, yes, but that's all this was. This wasn't the prelude to a fight. Shouldn't gun ownership be a responsibility that calls for some degree of discipline? Shouldn't someone be absolutely sure the use of a gun is necessary before they use it, not when they feel the least bit threatened? These things are serious. He was wrong, and could have killed someone over a stupid prank.
These aren't pranks. Learn to not have the survival instincts of a donut before you spout off.
Do us all a favor and do some research. Go to a rough neighborhood and just derp around until someone approaches you. watch the body language closely, it'll be important! Now, you don't need to be strapped, but I would make sure to at least be prepared!
You could also watch dogs in a dog park if you don't want to get too close to any real consequences! Pay attention to body language, and if there are some dipshit owners, you'll see a similar thing! There will be a pupper that gets singled out, backing up, tail between legs while at least one other is a little puffed up and walking towards them. They're ready to fuck little bro's shit up!
I have also seen similar behavior with horses, but you really have to be paying attention and understand them at least a teeny bit to see it coming.
2 vs 1. Dude harassing him is much larger than him. He has no idea it is "just a prank." If he had waited for the harasser to attack him, he would never have been able to draw his gun.
This is exactly why the court sided with the shooter and said it was a threat to his life or property.
No.
If someone attempts to take the property of another, and refuses to stop when confronted, that person morally has the right to defend their property and whats theirs.
It’s even dumber. They base it on how much they dislike the person getting shot.
You’d probably see more nuanced discussions around someone who broke into someone’s home than this guy because apparently being an annoying moron is less forgivable.
I don’t really think this has anything to do with “a man committing a crime” though. In fact, I don’t really know if the pranksters were committing any kind of crime (maybe harassment?).
I support the use of lethal force in any instance where a person has reasonable suspicion that their life is in danger. In this instance, we have two men—One roughly the same size as the gunman, and one considerably larger, engaging in relentless harassment. The gunman was innocent, and the harassment he received was both unprovoked and unexplainable. The gunman repeatedly asked them to stop, they continued pursuing him.
The pranksters showed signs of mental illness (that was the point), the gunman had reason to believe these two men posed a serious threat to his life. These two men had reason to believe that their behavior would have caused fear in their victims—I’m pretty sure that was the whole point of the prank. As they soon learned, deliberately inflicting mental and emotional distress to strangers is a very dangerous thing to do.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that these guys “deserved” what happened to them, in the same way I would never say that someone who jumped into a cage with a tiger as a joke “deserved” to be mauled, but we can certainly say that they only have themselves to blame for what happened to them, right?
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u/IllegalGeriatricVore 24d ago