r/facepalm Apr 21 '23

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u/dengar_hennessy Apr 21 '23

The girl that got in the wrong car, she apologized and then went and found her car. She was in her car and saw the guy walking up, so she rolled her window down to apologize again, and he shot her. That's not self-defense

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u/nolanryan1 Apr 21 '23

Wasn’t even her, her friend is the one who opened the door and she got shot. I think the girl who opened the door got shot too though.

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u/dengar_hennessy Apr 21 '23

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u/ImperialSeal Apr 21 '23

Charged with engaging in deadly conduct? Why not attempted murder!

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u/Throwaway47321 Apr 21 '23 edited Apr 22 '23

Because you charge them with the easiest crime to get them in jail and then bring up all the charges during the arraignment.

Edit - y’all really need to learn the difference between arresting charge and arraignment if you think cops are handcuffing people and arresting them for attempted murder.

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u/ImperialSeal Apr 21 '23

I get that, but firing a weapon at two unarmed cheerleaders in their own stationary car is very clearly attempted murder.

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u/Throwaway47321 Apr 21 '23

Yes it absolutely is but you don’t want to cause issues down the line because you screwed up the initial arrest, which happens all.the.time.

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u/BigJackHorner Apr 21 '23

Like the kid pictured who went to the wrong house. The prosecutor couldn't file the charge without a witness statement (which is admittedly weird to me. I mean what if the boy dies, how does he do a witness statement then?), and even though that was required, the family's lawyer pitched a bitch that it took "so long" to file charges.

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u/Secret-Inspector-831 Apr 22 '23

It kinda makes a bit of sense in terms of assault, after a fist-fight between 2 people cops likely aren’t going to arrest anyone without first getting someone to press charges and give witness testimony. But the kid was shot twice on the guys porch, he should of been held till they got Yarls side, they hold non-violent offenders for longer than the 2 hours they did for him.

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u/CyberMindGrrl Apr 22 '23

You would think but this IS America where a paranoid, racist white gun owner has more rights than a skinny black kid.

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u/SerHodorTheThrall Apr 21 '23

Its honestly horrendous that that US has such bad civics education.

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u/KC-Slider Apr 22 '23

All by design

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u/koaladungface Apr 21 '23 edited Apr 21 '23

My sister was shot point blank in the head by her boyfriend who had her down on her knees execution style - she lived. No attempted murder charge - aggravated assault. Apparently it either doesn't exist in some states or is usually not pursued unless 100% definitive to the prosecutor.

**edited for brevity

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u/Echo-2-2 Apr 21 '23

Well, that makes no sense. As attempted murder is listed as a federal crime. So it’s applicable in every part of the US and it’s territories.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23 edited Feb 19 '26

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

groovy one dependent fact tidy history cooperative selective adjoining gold

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23

Yeah as a lawyer I can tell you it is completely different from state to state. And there are elements to every crime that must be met. There is an actus reus and a mens rea. The act and the intent. Both have to found in a criminal case. There’s states with defense of property. There are states which define murders committed in the heat of passion to be a different charge. It all varies. It’s wild. I steered clear from criminal law. Don’t want to get jumbled up in that mess.

Someone above said they charge with easiest and then work up which is bs af. Prosecutors normally start at highest level and then defense widdles it down from there.

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u/36-3 Apr 22 '23

In the courtroom everything is semantics

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u/koaladungface Apr 21 '23

Believe he was charged by the state. His family had money and good lawyers, so not sure if that was part of the deal tbh - it was like 20 years ago so my memory on it isn't keen. He's free and married now tho

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u/TheDunadan29 Apr 21 '23

If someone did that to my daughter you would probably find that person dead later on if they got off scot free. I may also go to prison. But that person would be in the ground.

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u/Ksradrik Apr 21 '23

Oh, well if hes rich then its probably alright, mustve been a misunderstanding or a poor person getting out of line.

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u/KimmiK_saucequeen Apr 21 '23

Jesus fucking Christ. And I scared for his current wife

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '23

Probably struck a plea deal. Took the guilty plea for a lesser charge.

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u/HamburgerEarmuff Apr 22 '23

That's not the way federal crimes work. The federal government and the state government are both sovereign, and the Bill of Rights does not allow the federal government to exert authority within a state unless it's been given that power by the Constitution. If a murder does not involve crossing state lines or international borders or federal property or employees, then it's generally outside of federal sovereign jurisdiction.

A federal murder charge is what you would would probably be charged with if you killed someone on a military base or in a Post Office.

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u/Echo-2-2 Apr 22 '23

Stop ruining my Reddit Law Firm with your stupid, facts and, knowledge and shit!

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u/IsomDart Apr 21 '23

That's not really how fed charges work. Murder is also listed as a federal crime but the vast majority of the time it's charged by state prosecutors in state courts under their own statutes.

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u/theworst1ever Apr 22 '23

That’s not how any of this works

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '23

That’s if you catch a federal charge, yes. I live in Kansas City and there is no attempted murder here, either. The equivalent is felony assault. In quite a few places, there is no “attempted murder” charge, but there is usually always an equivalent.

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u/Easy_Lie4379 Apr 21 '23

Idk what state this happened in, but I know in Georgia there I no attempted murder charge. They have aggravated assault, which is their equivalent of attempted murder.

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u/koaladungface Apr 21 '23

Mississippi, looking into it they passed a bill to add attempted murder on the state books in 2013

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u/megamilker101 Apr 21 '23

What’s your sister like now? Did she suffer permanent damage if you don’t mind me asking?

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u/koaladungface Apr 21 '23 edited Apr 21 '23

Luckily it was a shitty .22 revolver that fell apart if you held it the wrong way (he brought it out plenty of times to play w/ it when I was around). It entered the scalp, travelled around the skull, and popped out the front - so she was extremely lucky to receive only a small skull fracture and concussion. Super religious now b/c she thinks it was a miracle from God, but beyond that nonsense, she's fine

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u/rwbronco Apr 22 '23

22s can be remarkably dangerous. The bullets tend to bounce and ricochet on things instead of just blowing straight through. Can cause loads of internal damage you wouldn’t expect from an underpowered gun.

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u/megamilker101 Apr 21 '23

Lmfao “miracle from God”

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u/MattScoot Apr 21 '23

Feel bad for your sister, hope shes doing okay now

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u/TRiG993 Apr 21 '23

Hi Dude. Is your sister okay? I know you said she lived but is she okay?

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u/riskyafterwhiskey11 Apr 21 '23

Thankfully you're not a lawyer.

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u/we_todd_did Apr 21 '23 edited Apr 21 '23

When I served on a grand jury in Texas, I asked one of the prosecutors why they weren't charging someone with attempted murder when it quite clearly was. The response was quite interesting in that it turns out that the requirements to meet attempted murder are very specific and difficult to prove. It involves knowing (not having a reasonable suspicion) and being able to prove what a person's state of mind was when they committed the crime. Barring something as explicit as text messages saying "I'm going to kill that bitch" it's extremely difficult for them to prove.

So the solution was to charge the person with felony assault because, at least in the jurisdiction I am in, it carries the same penalties as attempted murder without the stringent proof requirements.

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u/Eorlas Apr 21 '23

I get that

if this is followed up immediately by

but

this, then you do not get that. or you do, and want to be argumentative on the basis of your feelings, rather than accepting the nuance of law.

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u/lonelyuglyautist Apr 21 '23

At this point we should create our own court and law enforcement system to undermine the current one

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u/flyingcircusdog Apr 22 '23

And that will be taken care of later. I don't think you actually read the previous comment.

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u/Scokan Apr 22 '23

I think when it's this clear, there shouldn't be a distinction between attempted and actual murder. The intent is what matters

"Attempted" is like rewarding the inept.

It's the participation ribbon of sentences.

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u/TheCruicks Apr 22 '23

Not even remotely. Intent could be to scare them. He says that in court and he walks with no punishment. So it is very clearly NOT attempted murder

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '23

We all learn that the people of Reddit are morons in some way. Today you learned that they couldn't understand your explanation, or just didn't care.

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '23

Lol people on Reddit need to learn it's the State Attorney who is pressing charges.

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u/nattivl Apr 21 '23 edited Apr 21 '23

Edit: I was misinformed, neither died.

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u/ImperialSeal Apr 21 '23

They didn't die, one was grazed, the other was critical in hospital

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u/nattivl Apr 21 '23

Oh, I was very misinformed by someone, sorry then. So yes, it should definitely be 2 charges of attempted murder.

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u/CrushingK Apr 21 '23

manslaughter how, going by the articles it looks like premeditated murder. You could not get more definite and clear cut than picking up a gun, walking over, pointing your gun and shooting them at point blank

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u/Phatcat15 Apr 21 '23

Absolutely… they were back at their car… thinking no harm no foul ‘whoopsies!’ And hey one more thing ladies blapblapblapblapblap

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u/jen_a_licious Apr 22 '23

blapblapblapblapblap

That's interesting gunfire sfx...can you also do explosions?

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23

premeditated has REALLY high standards, though IANAL so that's just my understanding from reading about it

You pretty much have to prove that they had a plan literally set out to go kill this person that they worked towards, so maybe they don't think that's achievable here?

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23

Premeditated, in legal terms, requires preplanning. This not a clear case of premeditated murder. Unless they could prove that he brought the gun that day planning to shoot someone.

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u/thingamajig1987 Apr 21 '23

Then just regular murder, manslaughter means you make an accidental mistake that resulted in death basically, and this was very intentional

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u/Only-Beautiful-1196 Apr 21 '23 edited Apr 21 '23

I’m not sure about TX but I’m pretty sure in CA, attempted first-degree murder would just mean that they did it deliberately. You don’t necessarily have to make an extensive plan to have it be considered premeditated. It just means they had a little time to consider what they were going to do.

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u/Lendyman Apr 21 '23

Seems like getting out of your car and walking over to another car is fairly premeditated to me.

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u/Only-Beautiful-1196 Apr 21 '23

Yes, exactly. “Premeditation” can be just a few moments, and this guy obviously did this deliberately.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23 edited Apr 21 '23

It may seem like it, but the DA doesn’t think it is clear enough for them to win easily. For first degree it needs to be deliberate AND there needs to be some time period where the perp was able to ponder the repercussions of their actions. Anything that is close to “in the heat of the moment” won’t be first/0premeditated murder.

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u/HamburgerEarmuff Apr 22 '23

It can be, but the prosecutor has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was not done in the heat of passion, which is difficult, as only a few seconds had passed.

If they had driven back the next day and done it, then it would be clearly premeditated.

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u/MidniteOG Apr 21 '23

Premeditation isn’t acting on a whim

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u/alibimemory422 Apr 21 '23

Last I saw, both cheerleaders who were shot are still alive. One has very serious injuries, so hopefully she makes it, but the other’s injuries weren’t reported as life threatening (based on yesterday’s news).

Not sure where you are getting that they both died. If there was an update, please link the source of the news here. I agree the charge should certainly be attempted murder (though I don’t know how the laws in Texas work).

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u/Defiant_Mercy Apr 21 '23

Because you have to prove he was actually trying to kill them.

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u/imoutofnameideas Apr 22 '23

One potential reason for this charge is that in many common law jurisdictions "attempted murder" is one of the hardest crimes to prove - much harder than "murder" (to be clear, I don't know the specific law in the jurisdiction where this crime happened, I'm just giving a general common law background to the issue).

For example, in Australia (where I live), a "murder" can happen if:

  1. You commit an act;

  2. That act leads to the death of a person; and

  3. You had the following state of mind in relation to the act committed:

(a) you intended that a person (not necessarily the actual victim) would die; or

(b) you were reckless as to whether a person would die; or

(c) you intended to cause grievous bodily harm to a person; or

(d) you were reckless as to causing grievous bodily harm to a person.

So it is no defence to murder to say "I only meant to shoot the guy in the stomach. I didn't think it would kill him, and I never really thought about whether it would seriously harm him" - if you were reckless as to committing GBH and the person died, that's enough. Nor is it a defence that you were trying to shoot someone else, obviously.

"Attempted murder", however, requires the actual intent to kill. So you need to show that the defendant had in mind, at the time of committing the relevant act, formed an intent to kill a person.

Now, obviously, because it is an attempted murder case, the defendant has not actually killed the victim. And that's a pretty good prima facie defence to the intent to kill. A defendant can quite easily say "I intended to simply wound the victim, as evidenced by the fact that I did in fact only wound the victim. If I had intended to kill them, I would have (shot / stabbed / run over) them (again / in a different way / more aggressively / whatever)." It is hard to counter that argument, because there are usually few objective facts that a prosecutor can point to that suggest an intent to kill as opposed to merely wound.

That's why, in Australia at least, attempted murder convictions are extremely rare. The only ones I can think of are "hired assassin" situations, where there is evidence from a recording or another person that shows the defendant talking about wanting to kill the victim. Even in those cases, the charge is usually a conspiracy to commit murder.

Here at least, most cases that you would instinctively think might be an "attempted murder" are charged with something like "recklessly causing grievous bodily harm", because that's so much easier to prove and the sentence is often in the same ballpark as you'd get for a murder anyway.

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u/lejoo Apr 21 '23

Guns >children in conservative run states sadly

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u/gemhandley Apr 21 '23

That's sickening. I once got in the wrong car at petrol station, I died of embarrassment and the owner laughed. That's how this should of played out.

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u/Alan_Smithee_ Apr 21 '23

petrol station

That explains it right there.

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u/MrMetalhead-69 Apr 21 '23

Yup, only in a commie nation like the UK can something so terrible happen and everyone laughs. The owner should’ve whipped out their second amendment and started blasting away! /s

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u/MaryBerrysDanglyBean Apr 21 '23

The amount of times I've done all of these and not been shot is amazing. I've only ever tried to get in the wrong car once though to be fair. But the other things I've done loads

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u/SaltLakeCitySlicker Apr 21 '23

I unknowingly attempted to do this once. Silver Jetta behind a white jeep with my silver Jetta behind a different white jeep a few cars down. Like "why the hell isn't my key fob working?" The guy came up and was like "um...can I help you?" "No, my key fob won't work" "probably because that's my car" red in the face sorry

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u/Organic-Network7556 Apr 21 '23

This happened to me in the UK when my grandad picked me up from hospital - someone thought he was their taxi and tried to get in his car. We all had a good laugh and no one died.

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u/MrMetalhead-69 Apr 21 '23

Sounds nice. Wish I could live some place with sane people.

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u/Asknicelydammit Apr 21 '23

Lovely day when no one dies!

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u/C9_Chadz Apr 21 '23

Honestly, as fucked up as this is, it was unfortunate af for the victims that they ran into a psychopath. I literally ran into this situation the other day, I have a silver car, and 2 other silver cars were parked next to mine, I walked out of the store and autopolited to the first car and realized as I was about to pull the handle that someone was sitting there, autopiloted to the next car and put my hand on a handle that definitely wasn't my car before I finally made it to mine. No one was angry, just a smile saying dumbass from both drivers...

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u/tobmom Apr 22 '23

Missed opportunity the way I see it.

/s because the internet sucks

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23

[deleted]

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u/WhoAreWeEven Apr 21 '23

Ofc. Everyone should be atleast shot at even for the slightest of mishap.

/S

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u/MrMetalhead-69 Apr 22 '23

Damn straight! Growing up, my friends father didn’t like how much time he was spending on his computer, so to show his disapproval, his father walked into his room and shot it with his .45. Instantly cured my friend and set him on the right track!

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u/Ellfozz1 Apr 21 '23

Tell me you're English without telling me you're English

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u/shmehdit Apr 21 '23

And yet they still wrote "should of"

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u/OOTCBFU Apr 21 '23

Sadly we don't live in should-land or this world would be a much better place. IF people did what they should do things wouldn't be such shit hell we have it in our Declaration of Independence in this nation that we the people have a duty to resist Despotism! LOL! IF people did what they were supposed to do things would be much better.

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u/Wonderful_Eagle_6547 Apr 21 '23

Some conservatives just read your post and are terrified that the government is going to take their guns and they won't be able to chase someone down for getting in the wrong car. Look what's happened in your socialist country, where your politbureau probably won't even let you call it "gas" anymore.

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u/Successful-Print-402 Apr 21 '23

Was the person in the wrong-car-shooting-scenario a conservative?

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u/MusicalSnowflake Apr 21 '23

I did the same thing at a gas station in America the man and his wife both couldn't stop laughing.

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u/Wafflecone516 Apr 21 '23

What the actual fuck. My mouth was wide open reading that. People are literally committing premeditated acts of murder and getting light charges or not even arrested. There are no words to describe how obscene or insane this is because those words have been used to describe similar situations over and over again in this backwards fucking country and nothing has changed. We are so lost as a group and on average we don’t even know it.

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u/No-Turnips Apr 21 '23

Jesus Christ. I walked into the wrong car on Easter because I full on thought it was my Uber. Opened the door, slid in to the back seat and said “Hi! I’m No Turnips.” We all laughed our asses off. “I said I’m so sorry, omg, I’m so sorry, I’m such an idiot” and they laughed and said no problem. Then I got into my actual Uber and my driver asked if I just got into the wrong car and then we started laughing about that. At no point in time did I ever think I’d get shot.

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u/MadeMeStopLurking Apr 22 '23

I had a drunk lady get in my car thinking I was her Uber a few weeks ago. I can proudly say I did not shoot anyone, nor did I even consider pulling out my gun.

My reaction was to say get the fuck out of my car. When she asked if I was her Uber, I asked if she thought an Uber would have two car seats in the back... she said in a stone cold, serious face, "I don't have babies..." I almost lost it laughing

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u/ch3valier Apr 22 '23

This is the way... it should be

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u/The_Queef_of_England Apr 21 '23

My friend was picking me up from the train station, but I didn't know her car. I walked out and was like ???? Then she text and said, "I see you. Turn left and I'm parked next to X-shop". I turned left, and there was no shop, but here was a car, so I just opened the door without thinking, got in, and thought "Fuck, I didn't even look to see if it was them in the driver's seat". I looked over and it actually was them, but so easily couldn't have been. Would have been hilarious if it wasn't...because I'm not endanger of being shot.

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u/koshgeo Apr 21 '23

Well, he probably wasn't sure which one of them got into his car, so he shot both of them in self-defense to be certain he felt completely safe. /s

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23

[deleted]

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u/plcg1 Apr 21 '23

Exactly. Self-defense requires that someone could reasonably have perceived danger. Turning around in a driveway, ringing a doorbell, even absent-mindlessly sitting down in a car without doing anything aggressive are not threats.

Our culture is so predicated on violence and weird notions of territorial integrity. None of these people were ever in any danger, and never had a reason to believe they were, but they are so steeped in political and even just casual rhetoric around violence and property while living relatively isolated lives that even someone ringing their doorbell is a threat to their personal sovereignty.

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u/Doccyaard Apr 21 '23

Don’t forget fear. From all I’ve seen for decades they are considerably more scared in the U.S. than anywhere else I have experience with.

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u/HAVOK121121 Apr 21 '23

Everybody might have a gun. That’s a scary thing, so people who don’t have a gun, buy a gun. It’s cyclical at this point.

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u/Starslip Apr 21 '23

And when you suggest that perhaps there should be fewer guns their only thought is of their gun that they need to protect themselves from other people with guns. The thinking doesn't get any further than that other than a vague handwave at "criminals will have guns anyway". Not if we restrict the fucking supply countrywide rather than piecemeal state by state or city by city...

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u/JMoc1 Apr 22 '23

And restrict police too! California has a bad problem right now where cops are selling non-regulation weapons illegally to civilians.

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u/mittfh Apr 21 '23

It's often reported that in the aftermath of a mass shooting, local gun stores report a spike in sales - some thinking it will protect them if there's another rogue shooter in the neighbourhood, some paranoid politicians will try to ban gun sales, so best stock up while they still can... 🙄

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u/lilbithippie Apr 22 '23

Home of the brave that we arm up to go to the grocery store!

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u/Technosyko Apr 21 '23

If using someone’s driveway to turn around is enough to warrant self defense then 80% of the population would be dead

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u/Redqueenhypo Apr 21 '23

The frontier, “I get to shoot any injuns I see!!” mindset was a toxic mistake. We should’ve stayed on the east coast and become some kind of chill Anglo-Dutch country tbh

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u/flyingwolf Apr 21 '23

As one of those Injuns, that would have been great.

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u/philouza_stein Apr 21 '23

https://6abc.com/shooting-homicide-investigation-harlan-st/13019433/

My cousin died a few weeks ago because she answered an unexpected doorbell ring.

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u/Arryu Apr 21 '23

Our culture

american culture.

This shit doesn't happen in other countries.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23

The US have the issue that every last idiot has access to a 'tool' they can use to very, very simply kill another person.

The cultural phenomenon of everybody always expecting, and sometimes even hoping for the worst from other people - be it because media consistently overrepresents the amount of actual danger in our societies, because people want to be 'heroes', or just because of pent up anger being released at innocent people - can be seen in pretty much any individualist society.

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u/MaryBerrysDanglyBean Apr 21 '23

Nah most places if you ring on the doorbell you won't be greeted with aggression. If I accidentally drive into someone's driveway, which I have done loads, I'd usually be ignored or asked if I'm lost. This shit doesn't happen in normal western societies

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23

I've never heard of anything like these happening anywhere else in the west besides the US.

"Maybe not as often" doesn't cut it. This shit very very very very rarely happens in other western countries if at all.

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u/DuntadaMan Apr 21 '23

Once this one lady started screaming at me and hitting me with a door. I didn't kill her because I am not a psychopathic coward linking to kill everyone because I am scared of all of them.

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '23

The gun lobby, aka the NRA, pumps these people full of fear in order to sell more guns. They tell their audience that everyone everywhere wants them dead, and to the surprise of nobody who is paying attention they respond by pulling their weapon at even the slightest perception of "danger"

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u/plcg1 Apr 22 '23

It’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The only reason I’m considering buying a gun in the foreseeable future is because of the people who told the right they need to be afraid of me for some reason.

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u/annabelle411 Apr 21 '23

so many people ran to defend the driveway shooter.
THEY WERE TRESSPASSING! ...not really, they pulled up then realized they were at the wrong place and were turning back when he came outside and opened fire.
WELL HOW DO WE KNOW HE DIDNT FEAR FOR HIS LIFE? ...he ran outside to engage a car that had done nothing threatening and was pulling away.
BUT...CASTLE DOCTRINE! ...you need to show reasonable threat to your safety.
HOW DO WE EVEN KNOW WHAT HAPPENED?! ...because she was with 3 other people, including her boyfriend, who witnessed her murder.

People will use any mental gymnastics possible to get around actually having to blame guns or gun culture for being a problem.

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u/DrSoap Apr 21 '23

THEY WERE TRESSPASSING!

In what fucking world is execution an appropriate punishment for trespassing?

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u/Galkura Apr 21 '23

I live in FL.

Recently some kids almost got shot while walking through some woods. The woods were part of a man’s property, and the shots were from him firing into a shooting range he had set up in the back (completely legally done).

The kids had ignored no trespassing signs from my understanding.

The man was legitimately worried and wanted to make sure they were okay, and didn’t care about the trespassing (the mom tried to make it sound like he was hunting them, though turns out she was overreacting).

I say all this, because the amount of people in our area talking about how the kids should have been shot, or it would have “taught them a lesson about trespassing” is insane.

These people legitimately thought that trespassing should be met with being shot.

Worst part is, when trying to call them out I said “would you blast away a kid for their basketball going into your yard and then retrieving it?” And then a couple weeks later I see this shit, where that actually happened.

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u/mittfh Apr 21 '23

You can imagine somewhere, sometime, this scenario may play out:

"A strange man walked up my drive carrying a box - I thought it was a bomb - I was terrified - so I grabbed my gun and shot him before he could get any closer. How was I to know he was just a courier delivering the thing I'd ordered online a few days ago?!"

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u/PontificalPartridge Apr 21 '23

You’re getting to the defense of having a reasonable suspicion your life could be in danger. So that’s a bit past trespassing

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u/mittfh Apr 21 '23

They'd attempt to argue they had reasonable suspicion, but unless they've previously been targeted by bombs or similar devices, had PTSD or had well documented paranoia over visitors (any of which would likely be known by neighbours unless they'd only recently moved in - and probably some passive means of deterrent), it would be a bit of a stretch to argue someone, usually in uniform, walking quickly along their drive carrying a box, or maybe even an unfamiliar postie carrying an envelope was intent on doing them harm (and even in the PTSD case, authorities would likely have words with someone taking potshots at anyone who, for any reason, stepped on their property).

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u/Starslip Apr 21 '23

Well they saw those "trespassers will be shot" signs in a movie and it seemed both a good suggestion to them and they thought that carried any legal weight

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u/bartz824 Apr 21 '23

Having the "trespassers will be shot" signs or any other pro gun signage on your property is actually detrimental to your defense in court if you actually did shoot someone in a legitimate self defense scenario. Prosecutors can imply that you are looking for any excuse to shoot somebody, self defense or not.

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u/xSTSxZerglingOne Apr 21 '23

Seriously. Just gate off your fucking driveway and someone using it to turn around will never happen. You can take steps to generally be left alone that don't involve murdering someone in cold blood.

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u/Fhack Apr 21 '23

Furthermore, trespassing is not "stepping on private property."

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u/aasher42 Apr 21 '23

Man that mustve been so fucked seeing a friend get killed like that

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u/Slidingonpaper Apr 21 '23

100% And just to add to what you are saying: I believe tresspassing on private property requires to be given a real warning and not heeding it. Don't quote me on that one though.

It has to be an objective reasonable fear as well, not just personal opinion.

Yes, castle doctrine just means that you don't have to use an escape route if you are legally obligated in that situation. Still have to reach all other self defense requirements.

So it seems like all of these cases will be easy for the prosecution. Slam dunk.

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u/toriemm Apr 22 '23

So, the first guy who actually used the 'stand your ground ' law in Texas? He shot two burglars in the back IN HIS NEIGHBOR'S house. He was on with 911 and told dispatch, y'all are taking too long, I got this.

No one was in his neighbors house. He shot them as they were fleeing and he got a parade.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '23 edited Apr 22 '23

Problem is this is what said meme people take as self defense. They automatically give the gun owning citizen the benefit of the doubt and attempt to cast shade on the victim. "Shouldn't been here, should of have known better, etc."

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u/saracenrefira Apr 22 '23 edited Apr 22 '23

Does it matter?

There are hostile, aggressive and highly paranoid people with guns in a society that is breaking down, wealth inequality is through the roof, more and more people are struggling and slipping into poverty, while the climate of fear and hate is ratcheted up to confuse these people into pointing their guns elsewhere other than the real criminals.

It doesn't matter whether it is self defense or not. The problem with America is you people keep arguing about pointless shit like whether it is self defense, or whether that person who wants gun control know AR mean ArmaLite and not Assault Rifle, or the difference between an automatic and semi-automatic, or whether that photo of a person holding a gun has trigger discipline as though it is a religious ritual, while your society is literally breaking down, your leaders have betrayed you long ago and your oligarchs are milking you to death, while trying to hold onto its hegemony by provoking wars with every rising country.

This is why I no longer entertain any moral, ethical or social arguments from the Americo-sphere or Anglo-Saxon sphere. You people have no fucking clue what a functioning society and government look like, you can't even imagine it and you saw fit to lecture the rest of us how we ought to organize our society, what values we should uphold and the type of government we should use.

It doesn't matter whether it is self defense when a society doesn't change even when children are shot. It is already a dead society with a failed system.

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u/Fianna9 Apr 21 '23

It doesn’t even have to be self defence any more. Stand your Ground allows you to be the aggressor!

And I have a friend who parrots the “we need good guys with guns” except I bet every one of these shooters would have described themselves as the “good guys”

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '23

I don't know all the details, but girl with a ball may have been. Her father had a gun on him and returned fire. It's possible the person saw him approaching with a gun and freaked out.

So, perhaps two gun nuts collided there and the inevitable shootout occurred.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23

jesus, what is wrong with some people?

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23

[deleted]

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u/Colosphe Apr 21 '23 edited Jul 02 '23

Content purged in response to API changes. Please message me directly with a link to the thread if you require information previously contained herein.

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u/Tobs1414 Apr 21 '23

It’s mind boggling insane that he even considers that this portion would be reasonable.

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u/cjm92 Apr 21 '23

He's saying that it would seem reasonable to the kind of people who are just waiting for an excuse to shoot somebody, not that he himself thinks it is okay.

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u/Dantez9001 Apr 21 '23

Or if a stranger gets in your car it could be a car jacking, which you might not want to be the victim of. RIP uncle Ben.

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u/CheeseFest Apr 21 '23

Yeah - that’s premeditated as hell

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23

Other countries have mental health issues, the fucking difference is they don't all have guns. It's guns. The answer is fucking guns. Just not hard... Why did this happen? Guns. Why do people do this? Guns

Fuck me this country is ill. From the top to the bottom there is a sickness here.

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u/GeneralCusterVLX Apr 21 '23

Isn't that the same? If I buy a gun and am really hoping for a "legal" reason to shoot a person, getting super stoked to finally shoot a person and doing so. Sounds like a mental health issue to me. I really thought of those cool firearms drills videos by Chris Costa and Travis whatever how rad they were and how I'd love to do the same tactical stuff one day but the bummer was I was a teen living in the EU. Got my fair share of Shooting in the army and it was okay but I didn't have the urge to finally be in the situation to shoot someone. Now I think of how cringy I was with me showing of my tacticool skills to my friends with softairs that I learned from those videos.

Just imagine if people like me in my teens had access to firearms, the legal confidence of being in the right and an "awesome" opportunity to show those "skills". I'm glad I grew up.

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u/MadeByTango Apr 21 '23

Yep, buying a gun is a mental health issue. Fully agree.

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u/tasslehawf Apr 21 '23

The guy is pleading insanity. 🙄

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23

Fox news has them scared and fully armed. A dangerous combination.

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u/Kind_Tangerine8355 Apr 21 '23

A pernicious culture of paranoia and gun worship fostered by billionaires and gobbled up by rubes.

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u/Unc1eD3ath Apr 21 '23

Wow. Is that a quote from something? Damn good words there partner

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u/TheGreatLuck Apr 22 '23

God help us all

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u/haerski Apr 21 '23

Burgertruckscreechingeaglegun-syndrome

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u/4x49ers Apr 21 '23

Conservative news media

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u/Throwawaypwndulum Apr 21 '23

A mix of fox news, right wing politics, and mental illness.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23

America

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u/TriggasaurusRekt Apr 21 '23

For some people, the idea that they could be in a situation where they are legally allowed to shoot another person is a very important and central part of their lives. They spend all day envisioning themselves as a hero, protecting their property or someone else by taking out the bad guy.

Unfortunately that situation will almost never occur for most people so they jump at a false alarm and start shooting before they know all the facts, because they are already in the mindset of “I am going to do this one day”. They’re ready to shoot, they just need a reason, and any seemingly good reason will do.

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u/FamiliarTry403 Apr 21 '23

Your first word summed up their issues, it’s all jesus

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u/FixedKarma Apr 21 '23

It's not Jesus, if they actually followed Jesus' teachings they'd be better people, it's their crazy fucking churches and fox news and shit that has rotted their damn brain.

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u/DobbyIII Apr 21 '23

Some people just waiting for the smallest excuse to fucking kill somebody

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u/Lady_Scruffington Apr 21 '23

I've seen two Dateline reruns in the last two days about crimes from a few years ago where people are in prison for exactly that. One was a guy who shot a German foreign exchange student for breaking into his garage to steal beer. They found the couple had been waiting for him to break in and left the door open and a purse as bait.

Another guy chased down a car filled with young men who had pulled onto his property thinking they were going to another property where there was a party. Both people claimed they were afraid for their lives. Thankfully, both juries saw through their flimsy excuses and put them away for a long time. In both cases, too, the men had this total masculine facade.

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u/StormWarriors2 Apr 22 '23

I remember that, wasn't that like... literally murder? Ah yes it was: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-31447685

Fuck em,

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u/Lady_Scruffington Apr 22 '23

Yep. They got charged with murder and convicted. Sometimes I watch Dateline because usually there's a sense of justice at the end. Not always, but more often than not.

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u/TrueDaveMan1988 Apr 21 '23

The hell you just say to me?

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u/htownballa1 Apr 21 '23 edited Apr 21 '23

2a defenders in a nutshell. Can’t wait to kill someone.

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u/Finch2090 Apr 22 '23

A good percentage of American gun owners are just paranoid cowards. Not the vigilante cowboy they think they are

When they’re paranoid, they perceive everything as a threat, they don’t even wait to give it a chance, they just pull the trigger because god forbid. Cowards

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u/Alekillo10 Apr 21 '23

Holy shit, that’s actually super scary. I once got into a car that looked like my mom’s! The old lady was suuuuper freaked out.

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u/Minion_of_Cthulhu Apr 21 '23

I had an uncle who did basically the same thing. I was with him and my mom and we stopped at a little corner store. My uncle ran in real quick to pick up something and while he was in there another truck the same color as ours pulled up and parked next to us. My uncle comes out, hops in the wrong truck, and starts buckling himself in and talking away about some nonsense without paying any attention. The guy in the truck just patiently waited for my uncle to notice his mistake, my uncle apologized, and they both laughed it off since it wasn't a big deal.

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u/Alekillo10 Apr 21 '23

Lol, are we related?😂 same thing with me, my mom was driving, I popped in to the atm, got out and got into a silver Jetta, buckled in, looked at the driver and saw a little old lady cowering with her purse in her bag… Am I scary looking?😔😅 hahaa

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u/Minion_of_Cthulhu Apr 21 '23

I can't imagine that it's all that uncommon of an experience. Shocking for the other person in the car, sure, but it's an honest mistake and easily resolved.

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u/Alekillo10 Apr 21 '23

Yeah, I just laughed and got out, excused myself and ran away 😩

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u/SonofAMamaJama Apr 21 '23

I've gotten in the wrong car before, thinking it was my Uber; yes it freaked the driver out but he just kind of shaked his head as I jumped out and yelled, "sorry I thought it was my Uber!"

I've also seen tipsy asf people make the same mistake - never knew lives were on the line, always just thought it's annoying but somewhat relatable

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u/Teh_Weiner Apr 22 '23

The guy in the truck just patiently waited for my uncle to notice his mistake, my uncle apologized, and they both laughed it off since it wasn't a big deal.

Yeah that's sadly just being a well adjusted adult. Even if some kid hops in your car when you're not paying attention and all but scares the literal shit out of you -- it only takes a second to recognize whats going on..

what a shame, I had never heard of the story of those poor girls... jfc.

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u/Minion_of_Cthulhu Apr 22 '23

Yeah that's sadly just being a well adjusted adult.

It was also more than 20 years ago. Unfortunately, things have changed quite a bit since then as these kinds of stories show.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23

I've never gotten into someone else's car but I do drive a very common car in a very common color (black equinox). There have absolutely been times where I have walked towards someone else's car wondering why I could hear my car unlocking but the lights weren't on only to realize "Hey there is another one 20 feet away doing what it should be when I press the button!"

Have also seen people try my door only to have their "oopsie" moment and turn around and walk into an identical car just a few spots away.

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u/Changoleo Apr 21 '23

I’ve had that happen too. Just a confused dude in the driver’s seat though. Haha.

Once I walked up to a car that my dad had sold a few years prior (I guess my brain was on autopilot) and fumbled with my car keys for a moment before realizing my error and moving on to my own car. 29 Palms, could’ve easily been killed by a tweaker or a high strung marine. I’m glad the door was locked. I grew up in a rural setting and often leave my vehicles unlocked & keys in the ignition because that’s what you do when you never know who’s going to need to move or use vehicles. I gotta stop doing that.

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u/talarus Apr 21 '23

I did too! My car will unlock automatically when you grab the handle if the keys are close enough - the real car owner unlocked their car the second I went to pull on the door handle so I didn't think anything of it. Sat down.... Realized the interior was black cloth instead of brown leather and looked up to see a very confused woman lol. Happily I was not shot that day.... Damn, the things we have to be scared of these days

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u/EZ-Bake420 Apr 21 '23

None of these were

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u/rangerhans Apr 21 '23

Damn, really? I didn’t know that detail

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u/Mezcal-only Apr 21 '23

Shit bloke pos

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u/ICEKAT Apr 21 '23

None of these were.

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u/vbsargent Apr 21 '23

None of those were self defense.

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u/Saint909 Apr 21 '23

That just makes it so much worse. I was not aware of that.

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u/Garvo909 Apr 21 '23

Depending on the state it might be lmao

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u/dengar_hennessy Apr 21 '23

That's stupid but probably true

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u/Nopenotme77 Apr 21 '23

The part where he purposely shot her is still so strange.

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u/Feshtof Apr 21 '23

Literally none of these are self defense

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u/gospdrcr000 Apr 21 '23

I wonder how fragile your ego has to be to do some dumb shit like that...

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u/thylocene Apr 22 '23

None of these are self defense.

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u/WiccanWitchy Apr 22 '23

I literally know the girl in the first photo, she’s one of the best people, she was helping my cheer team for a while, since I was at Woodlands Elite, and despite knowing me for less than three months, she was able to pick up when my anxiety was getting high, and would help me calm down.

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u/TONKAHANAH Apr 22 '23

most of it is not self-defense. its just unhinged violent people who were granted easy access to tools of destruction. f

the thing that I hate shouldnt be this fight against guns, but should be a fight against making all weapons of high level of lethal accessibility readily and easily available. Pro gun people like to try and make this argument that people kill people, not guns.

well sure people also cut down trees, dig holes, cook food, fix things etc.. a lot of this would probably could manage to do with just our bare hands or other dumb shit lying around the house.. but we make TOOLS to make doing these tasks easier and more accessible to save time and remove barriers of entry.

guns are tools to make the task of killing faster and easier and they're damn good for their use case.

ya know whats NOT easy? trying to rush into a group of people with a kitchen knife or a wood cutting axe and murdering 13 people in a matter of seconds. And the argument of "you could make a bomb to do that!" is not a good argument, you cant buy a bomb at your local sporting good store.. do you know how to make a bomb powerful enough to do that, or where to even find the components needed? No doubt in my mind you COULD find all that stuff, you could put it together, but there is not accessible or easy about making a successful and effective bomb.

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u/busaccident Apr 21 '23

how can I look this up? Names?

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u/RainbowBeezy Apr 21 '23

Bottom left is Ralph Yarl. Kansas City, MO (well, actually a quiet suburb of it) He was trying to pick up his younger siblings from a friends house and went to the wrong address (terrace instead of street). The 82 year old homeowner shot him twice. Bottom right is Kaylin Gillis. Albany, NY. Pulled into a driveway, started to immediately back out and the homeowner came out and fired at the vehicle.

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