Excellent discussion of the McCloskey firearm prosecution in St Louis

[Fat Cat]

Are you, tough guy that you are, telling me that you wouldn't feel some sense of alarm and fear if a mob of angry zealots burst in on you and your family eating dinner?

Of course. The crowd, while just marching and chanting, are on private property and would definitely be alarming. Call the cops and get the rifle just in case.

I would not go outside with it and start yelling, because that would be dangerous and stupid. I think anybody who wants to gun up should get trained, and no trainer would say, "So then you take the AR outside, point it at your wife, and start yelling at people. Make sure you're being recorded by 20 cell phone cameras being real stupid-like."

What's dangerous and stupid is imagining that you are capable of Monday morning quarterbacking people with completely different lives than your own, placed in a harrowing position, and judging them when any miscalculations they have made are downstream of 10,000 acts of racist aggression by BLM Red Guard mobs. You are, quite literally, blaming the victims for their assault, under the spell of your mass-media overlords.

People have a right to go about their days blissfully not giving one single fuck about black lives or being subject to the demands and abuse of radical narcissist mobs. In the perfect union that our ancestors envisioned, McCloskey would/could/should have started squeezing on those apes until his finger got tired and pinned their scalps to his lintel.

[DrDonkeyLove...]

The mob breaking down their sturdy gate and displaying multiple "threats" to the McCloskey's was definitely a threat display.
Back and forth threat displays are the way of the animal kingdom that can intensify or minimize conflict. Humans are no different than our other animal brethren.

My question is when is it OK for the non-aggressor make a significant threat display? The McCloskey's pranced about and showed their teeth but did nothing to escalate. Perhaps they were foolish but maybe it was the exact right call to show the mob that violence would be met with violence.

In my state I think I'd be arrested for what the McC's did. One's gat must only be used in the most dire situations.

[Sangoma]

I am not defending the mob and the way they entered the property. They broke the law, no discussion here. I am puzzled by the behaviour of MCCloskeys. I believe you should draw a firearm only if you intend to shoot someone. Not wave it around, shake it, "look what I've got if you don't leave me alone!" etc. If the threat is real you get the gun and shoot the attacker, without giving him a chance to prepare or call others.

As far as South Africa is concerned, the reason for violence lies in the preceding hundred years. You can't lock people in a ghetto, treat them like animals, apply different justice to them, for decades, and then expect them to behave like gentlemen. The forgotten fact is the majority of victims of crime in Africa are black, whites are just more visible to the news outlet and and make more noise.

There are, of course, larger forces at play than a bunch of left wing activists, both in South Africa during the transition of power and in USA today. The top dogs fight for power and the mob gets carried away with the rhetoric, each with its own side. At the end nothing changes for the Proles.

[Grandpa's Spells]

Are you, tough guy that you are, telling me that you wouldn't feel some sense of alarm and fear if a mob of angry zealots burst in on you and your family eating dinner?

Of course. The crowd, while just marching and chanting, are on private property and would definitely be alarming. Call the cops and get the rifle just in case.

I would not go outside with it and start yelling, because that would be dangerous and stupid. I think anybody who wants to gun up should get trained, and no trainer would say, "So then you take the AR outside, point it at your wife, and start yelling at people. Make sure you're being recorded by 20 cell phone cameras being real stupid-like."

What's dangerous and stupid is imagining that you are capable of Monday morning quarterbacking people with completely different lives than your own,

I literally lived five blocks from this place for years.

placed in a harrowing position, and judging them when any miscalculations they have made are downstream of 10,000 acts of racist aggression by BLM Red Guard mobs. You are, quite literally, blaming the victims for their assault, under the spell of your mass-media overlords.

You are being silly and constructing arguments you don't believe. These people were not victims or even afraid. Everybody pretty much instinctively know what somebody confronted by violence and making bad decisions looks like. They came outside to posture. The protestors are also not afraid. Nobody afraid of imminently being shot takes out a cell phone camera. The problem lies in bringing guns out to carelessly posture is incredibly dangerous and increases the risk to the people "defending" themselves.

They can signal to the rubes about how afraid they were for their lives, but you can clearly see by their posture and behavior that they're angry and posturing, but aren't the least bit expecting actual violence, and the crowd acts accordingly. So, since they're not panicking, and they're not afraid, judging them for being stupid and combative, which subsequent reporting shows as being their default M.O. throughout life, is appropriate.

In the perfect union that our ancestors envisioned, McCloskey would/could/should have started squeezing on those apes until his finger got tired and pinned their scalps to his lintel.

The Trumpy conditioning for violence porn once confined to Stormfornt and other white supremacist losertowns to mainstream upscale web destinations like IGx is depressing.

[Bennyonesix1]

You are being silly and constructing arguments you don't believe. These people were not victims or even afraid. Everybody pretty much instinctively know what somebody confronted by violence and making bad decisions looks like. They came outside to posture. The protestors are also not afraid. Nobody afraid of imminently being shot takes out a cell phone camera. The problem lies in bringing guns out to carelessly posture is incredibly dangerous and increases the risk to the people "defending" themselves.

You clearly have zero experience with blacks in groups or mobs.

[Grandpa's Spells]

You are being silly and constructing arguments you don't believe. These people were not victims or even afraid. Everybody pretty much instinctively know what somebody confronted by violence and making bad decisions looks like. They came outside to posture. The protestors are also not afraid. Nobody afraid of imminently being shot takes out a cell phone camera. The problem lies in bringing guns out to carelessly posture is incredibly dangerous and increases the risk to the people "defending" themselves.

You clearly have zero experience with blacks in groups or mobs.

Oh please do share your extensive life experiences in this area.

[Bennyonesix1]

Yeah. I knew you didn't.

[Grandpa's Spells]

[Schlegel]

I think they were tactically unsound but the general public is going to be more and more sympathetic to the McCloskey's if current trends continue.

Exhibit A: https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/09/13/ ... wn-orders/

"AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) – A CBS4 investigation has found Aurora police officers twice walked away from arresting a 47-year-old man who was terrorizing residents of an apartment complex, even after the man allegedly exposed himself to kids, threw a rock through one resident’s sliding glass door, was delusional, was tasered by police and forced the rescue of two other residents from a second floor room in an apartment he had ransacked."

They flat out admit it was because they were afraid they might have to use lethal force.

[Fat Cat]

Are you, tough guy that you are, telling me that you wouldn't feel some sense of alarm and fear if a mob of angry zealots burst in on you and your family eating dinner?

Of course. The crowd, while just marching and chanting, are on private property and would definitely be alarming. Call the cops and get the rifle just in case.

I would not go outside with it and start yelling, because that would be dangerous and stupid. I think anybody who wants to gun up should get trained, and no trainer would say, "So then you take the AR outside, point it at your wife, and start yelling at people. Make sure you're being recorded by 20 cell phone cameras being real stupid-like."

What's dangerous and stupid is imagining that you are capable of Monday morning quarterbacking people with completely different lives than your own,

I literally lived five blocks from this place for years.

placed in a harrowing position, and judging them when any miscalculations they have made are downstream of 10,000 acts of racist aggression by BLM Red Guard mobs. You are, quite literally, blaming the victims for their assault, under the spell of your mass-media overlords.

You are being silly and constructing arguments you don't believe. These people were not victims or even afraid. Everybody pretty much instinctively know what somebody confronted by violence and making bad decisions looks like. They came outside to posture. The protestors are also not afraid. Nobody afraid of imminently being shot takes out a cell phone camera. The problem lies in bringing guns out to carelessly posture is incredibly dangerous and increases the risk to the people "defending" themselves.

They can signal to the rubes about how afraid they were for their lives, but you can clearly see by their posture and behavior that they're angry and posturing, but aren't the least bit expecting actual violence, and the crowd acts accordingly. So, since they're not panicking, and they're not afraid, judging them for being stupid and combative, which subsequent reporting shows as being their default M.O. throughout life, is appropriate.

In the perfect union that our ancestors envisioned, McCloskey would/could/should have started squeezing on those apes until his finger got tired and pinned their scalps to his lintel.

The Trumpy conditioning for violence porn once confined to Stormfornt and other white supremacist losertowns to mainstream upscale web destinations like IGx is depressing.

No. By your own admission the protesters were trespassing and engaging in criminal property damage. Thus, the McCloskeys were the victims and had every right to defend themselves. Everything else you wrote is puerile bullshit. Insinuating that I'm a white supremacist while you sit in your snow white suburb is laughable, go wash your effete Midwestern vulva.

[newguy]

I think they were tactically unsound but the general public is going to be more and more sympathetic to the McCloskey's if current trends continue.

Exhibit A: https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/09/13/ ... wn-orders/

"AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) – A CBS4 investigation has found Aurora police officers twice walked away from arresting a 47-year-old man who was terrorizing residents of an apartment complex, even after the man allegedly exposed himself to kids, threw a rock through one resident’s sliding glass door, was delusional, was tasered by police and forced the rescue of two other residents from a second floor room in an apartment he had ransacked."

They flat out admit it was because they were afraid they might have to use lethal force.

I have a suspicion this is by design, not accident.


And LOL at "fear of using lethal force"......

[Bennyonesix1]

I think they were tactically unsound but the general public is going to be more and more sympathetic to the McCloskey's if current trends continue.

Exhibit A: https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/09/13/ ... wn-orders/

"AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) – A CBS4 investigation has found Aurora police officers twice walked away from arresting a 47-year-old man who was terrorizing residents of an apartment complex, even after the man allegedly exposed himself to kids, threw a rock through one resident’s sliding glass door, was delusional, was tasered by police and forced the rescue of two other residents from a second floor room in an apartment he had ransacked."

They flat out admit it was because they were afraid they might have to use lethal force.

I have a suspicion this is by design, not accident.


And LOL at "fear of using lethal force"......

True or not they're going to use the riots as an excuse to do less traditional policing of blacks. Which is what the rioters and protestors are explicitly advocating for.

Deputy Chief Parker said Aurora police would have acted the same way if the same incident had occurred in a more upscale area of Aurora. Asked if he thought the outcome of the Elijah McClain case impacted police strategy, Parker said, “I don’t think it would be inaccurate to say officers are thinking about how they’re handling situations now … what could happen in a situation, and I got to tell you I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Learning from situations that happened in the past whether it’s our agency or others is not a bad thing.”

[Bennyonesix1]

There's a weird meme on the conservative circuit about "police are REALLY there to protect criminals from citizens". Lame. I don't get it. Is this what conservatives believe?

Police exist for multiple reasons. They started for fine collecting to increase revenue. No one has ever cared about protecting criminals.

[nafod]

"Police your own" is why I despise Republicans now. Voted with them and generally aligned with them, not the libs. It's worse to watch people you respected become what they've become. There's no policing of our own. Just "look, Hillary's email"

The protestors need to do some own policing of the dumb fuck minority of violent protestors, or they are going to get Trump reelected.

[Fat Cat]

There's a weird meme on the conservative circuit about "police are REALLY there to protect criminals from citizens". Lame. I don't get it. Is this what conservatives believe?

Police exist for multiple reasons. They started for fine collecting to increase revenue. No one has ever cared about protecting criminals.

Police exist to prevent vendettas. That's the basic purpose of third person law enforcement.

[Schlegel]

There's a weird meme on the conservative circuit about "police are REALLY there to protect criminals from citizens". Lame. I don't get it. Is this what conservatives believe?

Police exist for multiple reasons. They started for fine collecting to increase revenue. No one has ever cared about protecting criminals.

In the sense that the existence of police reduces instant "justice" and vigilantism, it is true.

[Bennyonesix1]

That seems completely ahistorical to me. And I had honestly never heard that before.

I know Christianity was a big proponent of ending the blood feud and the payment of "blood price" and using the Crusades to ameliorate the knigthly class murdering each other.

But I have honestly never heard of this.

[Fat Cat]

That seems completely ahistorical to me. And I had honestly never heard that before.

I know Christianity was a big proponent of ending the blood feud and the payment of "blood price" and using the Crusades to ameliorate the knigthly class murdering each other.

But I have honestly never heard of this.

It's not a Christian thing. All organized states have some form of law enforcement for this very reason. People, in fact all primates, have a biological compass for "fairness" and when that sense of equitability is threatened, they will act out. The only way that people can reliably be counted on not to act out is if there is an even more effective and (potentially) forceful third party that will predictably bring about justice on their behalf. Without it, things descend into a cycle of mimetic violence and anarchy pretty quickly (c.f. Somalia).

[nafod]

things descend into a cycle of mimetic violence and anarchy pretty quickly (c.f. Somalia).

When I was in the terrorist hunting business, we broke the world into three categories. Those with the Rule of War (e.g., Iraq), those with the Rule of Law (modern countries), and the Wild, Wild, West (Somalia, AfPak border, Mexican drug areas). The WWW is where the terrorists loved to hang out.

[Fat Cat]

things descend into a cycle of mimetic violence and anarchy pretty quickly (c.f. Somalia).

When I was in the terrorist hunting business, we broke the world into three categories. Those with the Rule of War (e.g., Iraq), those with the Rule of Law (modern countries), and the Wild, Wild, West (Somalia, AfPak border, Mexican drug areas). The WWW is where the terrorists loved to hang out.

Agreed. Which is why I hope we also agree that effective and impartial law enforcement is a non-negotiable part of being civilized and the "defun' da po-leese" types can get fucked.

[Schlegel]

It is this larger necessity for the rule of law, and the consequences if the state will not act to maintain it that is behind comments like that, Benny. The state seeking and punishing lawbreakers being better than the uncertain but almost always harsher personal vengeance is a realization of civilizations long predating our police.

[Schlegel]

And the reason I say the state is less harsh is pretty pragmatic. Individuals lack the resources to use imprisonment as a punishment, and so historically have just 3 options. Take the other's property, maim them, or kill them. What if the offender owns nothing? Sorry, two options only.

[Fat Cat]

And the reason I say the state is less harsh is pretty pragmatic. Individuals lack the resources to use imprisonment as a punishment, and so historically have just 3 options. Take the other's property, maim them, or kill them. What if the offender owns nothing? Sorry, two options only.

Obvious fourth choice: enslave them.

[Bennyonesix1]

I am pretty sure I understand the argument. And I understand the concept of weregild and the related Wolfshead and outlaw status. And how cultures sought to defuse escalation of violence. Njall's Saga is explicitly about this and it is one of my favorite books.

I've just honestly never seen anything anywhere about protecting the criminal from the victims or the general society as the root of Law or the police.

This is obviously something many people believe. But swear to god it is new to me.

[Bennyonesix1]

It's really just the framing of the issue as one of "protecting the criminal from the victims" that is new to me.

I've seen protecting society from escalating violence and protecting the innocent from harm and generally reducing immoral behavior and collecting fines etc etc.

But "protecting the criminal"? Honestly never seen that.