Yay! YEEHAW, it's Shootin' Time

[detrius]

Dropping this here because I don't believe it deserves its own thread.

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/white-house-gun-shots-north-lawn/

Yadda-yadda ballroom, RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Dog shoots woman with a shotgun at Nebraska convenience store

A police investigation revealed a canine accidentally fired a gun at a convenience store in Nebraska.

www.themirror.com

 

[detrius]

Dog shoots woman with a shotgun at Nebraska convenience store

A police investigation revealed a canine accidentally fired a gun at a convenience store in Nebraska.

www.themirror.com

Was Kristi Noem the woman who got shot?


ETA: also, that news article drifts off to report about at least two different stories that have noting to do with this incident. Who greenlit this?

 

[Casey Pelous]

Was Kristi Noem the woman who got shot?


ETA: also, that news article drifts off to report about at least two different stories that have noting to do with this incident. Who greenlit this?

Considering the weird, bass-ackward phrase, "The incident took place in the Scottsbluff town of Nebraska", I'm guessing "Hazel Gandhi" is an LLM. So is "her" editor.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Considering the weird, bass-ackward phrase, "The incident took place in the Scottsbluff town of Nebraska", I'm guessing "Hazel Gandhi" is an LLM. So is "her" editor.

Sorry for the necropost, but it apparently happened -- the US Mirror presumably don't bother with copy editors.

Scottsbluff police respond to gunfire at convenience store after dog accidentally shoots person with a shotgun

The Scottsbluff Police Department was called to a convenience store on Saturday after a dog accidentally shot a person with a shotgun.

www.knopnews2.com

The Guardian picked it up, too: Dog shoots woman with shotgun at Nebraska convenience store

 

[Free]

I'm still bugged by the use of "accidentally." Do they know what was going on in the head of the dog?

 

[Casey Pelous]

Sorry for the necropost, but it apparently happened -- the US Mirror presumably don't bother with copy editors.

Scottsbluff police respond to gunfire at convenience store after dog accidentally shoots person with a shotgun

The Scottsbluff Police Department was called to a convenience store on Saturday after a dog accidentally shot a person with a shotgun.

www.knopnews2.com

The Guardian picked it up, too: Dog shoots woman with shotgun at Nebraska convenience store

I didn't doubt that it happened --- hell, my ability to doubt any sort of weird stuff happening has evaporated. The phrase stood out as a classic AI goof --- Scottsbluff is in Nebraska, not vice versa, so any English speaker with even a passing knowledge of US state names would say, "The Nebraska town of Scottsbluff."

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

I didn't doubt that it happened --- hell, my ability to doubt any sort of weird stuff happening has evaporated. The phrase stood out as a classic AI goof --- Scottsbluff is in Nebraska, not vice versa, so any English speaker with even a passing knowledge of US state names would say, "The Nebraska town of Scottsbluff."

It's an easy enough typo to make if you are working fast and not at all proof reading. But yes.... we hold professional word smiths up to higher standards for their actual paid work.

I'm still bugged by the use of "accidentally." Do they know what was going on in the head of the dog?

Very true! The idea that our cats want to kill us is mostly a distraction pushed by dogs who don't want us to know the REAL truth of the greater dog conspiracy!

...but seriously, your comment made me laugh out loud.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

This is kind of interesting. Japanese feudal matchlock:

https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/mAC7jv0AIE

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

My dog keeps trying to kill me by tripping me up. And she's fearless, I would absolutely do more damage to her by falling on her.

This is kind of interesting. Japanese feudal matchlock:

https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/mAC7jv0AIE

Love the Nausicaa music.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Several US schools to install pepper-spraying drones to respond to school shootings

Several schools across the US are set to install pepper-spraying drones as part of a new effort to respond to school shooting attacks – a Ukraine war-inspired approach that is bound to put off those who would prefer leaders focus on preventing the violence in the first place.

Campus Guardian Angel of Austin, Texas, which describes itself as a response capability company, is providing the drones in question to multiple schools across the country, including at least four schools in Georgia, three in Florida and one in Colorado.

According to the company, which manufactures its own aircraft and firmware, the drones launch into action after an alert that a school is under attack and once its response team has confirmed the threat is credible.

They can be flown from thousands of miles away and support two-way communication through an embedded speakerphone, allowing the company’s response team to “engage verbally with a threat, or communicate to teachers and school staff”, Campus Guardian Angel’s website stated.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Several US schools to install pepper-spraying drones to respond to school shootings

Only in America have school campuses become militarized battlefields. All because of our worship of the Almighty Guns.

 

[detrius]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Georgia police officer put on leave after family’s pet donkey killed during search

A police officer in the US state of Georgia was placed on leave after a family’s pet baby donkey was shot and killed during an early-morning search on their property.

The animal’s owner, Hannah Israel, said officers were at her pasture without notification or permission at about 12.45am on Sunday, reportedly looking for a missing person when they encountered the small male donkey named HeeHaw.


According to a Facebook post by Israel, HeeHaw emerged braying at the presence of strangers at Elsberry farm in Rockmart – and was shot dead by an officer who claimed he felt under threat.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

..and was shot dead by an officer who claimed he felt under threat.

The USA is in really desperate need of more clarification on when it is NOT appropriate to claim self defense. It's seriously an epidemic. I'm 100% convinced that if you want to get away with murder over here, fabricating a reason for "self defense" is probably a thousand times easier than trying to cover up evidence.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The USA is in really desperate need of more clarification on when it is NOT appropriate to claim self defense. It's seriously an epidemic. I'm 100% convinced that if you want to get away with murder over here, fabricating a reason for "self defense" is probably a thousand times easier than trying to cover up evidence.

As I understand it, the law in many US states on lawful self-defence is not dissimilar to that in England -- that is, you're allowed to use reasonable force to defend yourself against what you understand the threat to be at the time, even though your understanding may be mistaken, or even unreasonable.

This, combined with the requirement that the prosecution prove their case to the normal criminal standard by making the jury sure that the force used was unreasonable given the defendant's understanding of the circumstances (or that his understanding of the circumstances was not what he says it was), and the regular judicial advice to the jury, where appropriate, that they must remember the defendant was making a split second decision in highly charged and fast moving circumstances, generally makes it difficult to obtain a conviction, though the matter will generally come to trial if a police officer is involved simply because it's considered in the public interest to maintain confidence in the criminal justice system by letting a jury decide in police-related shootings.

The police in many US jurisdictions, though, appear to enjoy several additional protections from prosecution that are not available to the ordinary citizen, which is an area I just don't understand.

One big difference, of course, is that guns are far less widely available in the UK than in the US, so British police officers are far less likely to fear suspects will pull a gun on them, and because the police generally don't carry firearms, situations in which guns are involved, or likely to be involved, will normally be dealt with by specialist firearms officers who are trained in trying to subdue the suspect peacefully and whenever possible, only to use their weapons as a last resort.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

As I understand it, the law in many US states on lawful self-defence is not dissimilar to that in England -- that is, you're allowed to use reasonable force to defend yourself against what you understand the threat to be at the time, even though your understanding may be mistaken, or even unreasonable.

This, combined with the requirement that the prosecution prove their case to the normal criminal standard by making the jury sure that the force used was unreasonable given the defendant's understanding of the circumstances (or that his understanding of the circumstances was not what he says it was), and the regular judicial advice to the jury, where appropriate, that they must remember the defendant was making a split second decision in highly charged and fast moving circumstances, generally makes it difficult to obtain a conviction, though the matter will generally come to trial if a police officer is involved simply because it's considered in the public interest to maintain confidence in the criminal justice system by letting a jury decide in police-related shootings.

The police in many US jurisdictions, though, appear to enjoy several additional protections from prosecution that are not available to the ordinary citizen, which is an area I just don't understand.

One big difference, of course, is that guns are far less widely available in the UK than in the US, so British police officers are far less likely to fear suspects will pull a gun on them, and because the police generally don't carry firearms, situations in which guns are involved, or likely to be involved, will normally be dealt with by specialist firearms officers who are trained in trying to subdue the suspect peacefully and whenever possible, only to use their weapons as a last resort.

I'm certainly not an expert on the actual law... but think this is worth starting a conversation with one of my actual US lawyer friends about. I do want to point out a couple things that I'm pretty sure of:

The law on paper versus what a jury will actually do based on their own cultural biases can of course be REALLY different. Texas is kind of notorious for thinking very murder is self-defense if the victim is not a perfect victim. If they were up to anything at all shady at the time of the killing, it just might be good enough to warent death to the jury!

I am also pretty confident that the law generally places a huge emphasis on what happened in the heat of the moment. In my view, this is maybe a little out dated and ignores a lot of complexities. For example, there are cases where a battered person finally snaps and shoots their spouse after years of abuse. ...but it's ruled not to be self defense because they weren't clearly in danger in that moment. Alternatively, Kyle Rittenhouse was judged to be self defense because it appeared that way in that moment, even though he did a lot to put himself into that situation where it was a lot more likely something like that could happen.

What I'm getting at is that I think our self-defense laws probably need to be more aware of the circumstances leading up to the killing. ...we'd probably also benefit a lot from some more public education around some common cases that are just not generally self defense at all. ...such as seeing someone knock on your door or walk down the street.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I'm certainly not an expert on the actual law... but think this is worth starting a conversation with one of my actual US lawyer friends about. I do want to point out a couple things that I'm pretty sure of:

The law on paper versus what a jury will actually do based on their own cultural biases can of course be REALLY different. Texas is kind of notorious for thinking very murder is self-defense if the victim is not a perfect victim. If they were up to anything at all shady at the time of the killing, it just might be good enough to warent death to the jury!

I am also pretty confident that the law generally places a huge emphasis on what happened in the heat of the moment. In my view, this is maybe a little out dated and ignores a lot of complexities. For example, there are cases where a battered person finally snaps and shoots their spouse after years of abuse. ...but it's ruled not to be self defense because they weren't clearly in danger in that moment. Alternatively, Kyle Rittenhouse was judged to be self defense because it appeared that way in that moment, even though he did a lot to put himself into that situation where it was a lot more likely something like that could happen.

What I'm getting at is that I think our self-defense laws probably need to be more aware of the circumstances leading up to the killing. ...we'd probably also benefit a lot from some more public education around some common cases that are just not generally self defense at all. ...such as seeing someone knock on your door or walk down the street.

I'm unwilling on principle to criticise juries' verdicts in this kind of case, simply because they heard all the evidence and arguments, and I didn't. As I recall, though, I thought at the time that the prosecution should have pressed him more closely about what was going through his mind at the time. It seemed to me that he'd deliberately placed himself in a potentially dangerous situation and then panicked, with fatal results. The defence is, or is in the UK, "I used what seemed to me reasonable force to defend myself because this is what at the time I thought was happening" rather than simply "I felt frightenend so I started shooting."

The question of the battered spouse, it seems to me, is slightly different. It would depend on the circumstances, of course, but self-defence has to be in response to what the defendant believes at the time to be the situation in which they find themselves. If, on the basis of frequent abuse in the past, they believe they're about to subjected to a violent and possibly lethal attack and are defending themselves against it, then that may well be self-defence. If, however, their defence is that simply that, after years of abuse and provocation, they lost control and lashed out at their tormentor, that sounds more like manslaughter.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

I'm unwilling on principle to criticise juries' verdicts in this kind of case, simply because they heard all the evidence and arguments, and I didn't. As I recall, though, I thought at the time that the prosecution should have pressed him more closely about what was going through his mind at the time. It seemed to me that he'd deliberately placed himself in a potentially dangerous situation and then panicked, with fatal results. The defence is, or is in the UK, "I used what seemed to me reasonable force to defend myself because this is what at the time I thought was happening" rather than simply "I felt frightenend so I started shooting."

The question of the battered spouse, it seems to me, is slightly different. It would depend on the circumstances, of course, but self-defence has to be in response to what the defendant believes at the time to be the situation in which they find themselves. If, on the basis of frequent abuse in the past, they believe they're about to subjected to a violent and possibly lethal attack and are defending themselves against it, then that may well be self-defence. If, however, their defence is that simply that, after years of abuse and provocation, they lost control and lashed out at their tormentor, that sounds more like manslaughter.

I largely agree. I was of course making broader points than any one case. I follow this kind of stuff a lot but admittedly, am not a lawyer.

I'm unwilling on principle to criticise juries' verdicts in this kind of case, simply because they heard all the evidence and arguments, and I didn't.

I get the sentiment. And there are certainly cases where it is clear that not all the evidence is covered on the news. I think it it rational to defer to the trial's outcome on cases like that.

...but we also know there are some cases where the whole thing was on video or a few key details were known that make the verdict a bit strange. For example, I've heard of a few cases in Texas in particular where someone steals something, and then gets shot in the back while fleeing the scene. The victim was a thief, but it clearly wasn't self defense.