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Notes -
Turning to some good news:
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This is a WSJ article about the rise in justified homicides in the US in recent years. Much of it is about "Stand Your Ground Laws." I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of the more lawyer-brained Mottizens on those kind of laws and their proliferation over the past decade or so.
On the culture war angle, this article is maybe the starkest example of "erosion of trust in society" that I've come across. A few of the anecdotes are pretty hair raising. They're cherry picked, I know, but the idea that a kid loses his father over an argument about a a fence and a property line made me sad. The "road range" incident they cover in detail seems like it was unfortunate but when one guy levels a gun at another, there's only one reasonable reaction.
Violence must be tightly controlled for a society to function. This is something that's bone deep in humans. We've developed methods of conflict resolution that fall short of violence for our entire existence as a species. Even within the context of violence, there are various ways of controlling it. Duels and so forth. Even informal ones; basic Bro code dictates that when one guy falls down in a fight, the other one backs off.
But this article hints at the idea that people are zooming past any of that to full lethality. It's impossible to compile the stats to determine if that's actually the case or not, but the larger point remains; in a society with plunging basic trust, you're going to see levels of interpersonal violence spike. How should state laws governing violence respond to this? Stand Your Ground is something I generally still support, but my mind could be changed if simple Bad Neigbor fights end up with more orphans.
So self defense claims are based on five pillars:
All the state/prosecution needs to do is show the person is guilty of breaking ONE of those pillars to knock out a self defense claim - even if the other four are met.
Did the jury think you started the deadly force fight? Guilty.
Did the jury think you escalated the fight into deadly force? Guilty.
Did the jury think there no imminent threat? Guilty.
Did the jury think you were not being reasonable with your evaluation of a deadly force threat? Guilty.
Did the jury think you could have run away in the heat of the encounter? Guilty.
News and politicians frequently don't understand (or actively lie) about how self defense is determined in the law - not understanding that Stand Your Ground only removes the requirement of avoidance, but not the other four pillars. It isn't a pass for you to not be innocent, respond to non-deadly force with deadly force, react before the threat is imminent, or have your decisions not be reasonable.
If the news or politicians blame people saying "they feared for their life" on Stand Your Ground, that is arguing reasonableness, not avoidance - Stand Your Ground only deals with avoidance. This is an example of either not understanding self defense law or lying. If the jury felt the fearing for their life wasn't reasonable (or the person is lying about fearing for their life), Stand Your Ground wouldn't matter, as they'd fail the reasonableness pillar and be guilty.
Zimmerman was a classic example of Stand Your Ground being blamed - but the defense never argued it and didn't need to. When Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin, he was pinned to the ground and being pummeled - there was nowhere to run to - so there was no need to argue he didn't need to run away (pillar five, avoidance), he physically couldn't.
What people are upset about is they feel stand your ground lets people go "looking for trouble" - Zimmerman should have minded his own business and not go looking for Martin - but that is just something that would be impossible to regulate in the real world. It also puts the cart before the horse: the attacker shouldn't have started a deadly force fight.
Are there situations where things are "awful but lawful"? Of course! If someone who couldn't walk without crutches attacks someone with a knife in a stand your ground state, instead of running to safety it allows you to stab them / shoot them legally, even if you could have easily escaped.
There are also the reverse cases wherein what should be an innocent person who used self-defense correctly only to be convicted because a good prosecutor can have the jury "Monday Morning Quarterbacking" the decision the person who used self defense made in the split second they had in a life or death fight that maybe they could have gotten away (even if the person being attacked didn't actually see a valid avenue of escape, so long as the jury felt they had one)
I'd suggest the vast majority of self defense cases never actually invoke stand your ground in a trial and it is just a boogeyman being used by people to explain increasing violence, but can't regulate a "mind your own business" ethic when something bad happens to a person who is a part of a class that gets special considerations from certain ideologies.
The primary publicly visible impact of SYG in many cases is that the perp isn't immediately arrested after the shooting, and is instead allowed to live their lives during the investigation. People get up in arms about this in the meantime, because they are under the impression from watching TV that the process of a crime goes on a two week timeline of Crime>>Arrested immediately>>On Trial within a week>>Goes right to prison. Where in reality, if someone isn't a flight risk, it's very common for the police to make an arrest much later. The public sees an accused murderer walking free and assumes that means nothing is being done or going to be done, they're just free to go, when that isn't the case.
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I think that the proportion requirement is also disputable.
Basically, I think that an innocent should not be expected to offer a fair fight to an aggressor. If there is an advantage to be gained by moving a step up on the escalation ladder, then stepping up on the escalation ladder should be fine. Probably not that many steps, though.
Here in Germany, there is no balancing of the legal interests of the attacker and the attacked, with only an exemption for a massive disproportion of the act of self defense. If you need to kill a criminal to stop the theft of valuable property (like a car), German law is generally a-ok with it. Of course, you are still taking your chances with DAs and judges which generally do not like that.
Personally, I have an intense dislike for non-consensual violence. In my opinion, when an adult makes the decision to assault another person, they are taking their life into their own hands. If it ends with the aggressor bleeding to death on the sidewalk, that is sad, but not upsetting. It is not that the attacker deserved to die, but we do live in a world where people can make bad decisions which will cost them their lives. If someone drives 300km/h on the highway while drunk and ends their life in a crash, that is similar -- sad, but not upsetting. Upsetting would be if they killed someone else with their stunt.
But how violent is violent? If (as I once saw) a man refuses to get off a bus because he can't pay for the ticket, and makes it clear that he's willing to stay there for hours if need be, is it violent to physically remove him so the bus can leave? If yes, is it okay for him to resist this violence with lethal force?
"Yes" and "no" respectively. These are not hard questions, and the fact that we agonize over them is how we end up in a world where a prosecutor -- a representative of the state -- is arguing that a law-abiding citizen sometimes just has to take a beating (or the state will ensure he takes many beatings in the future)
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Do you have any insight on the case of the german girl who was charged for self defense in the course of getting raped?
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"Deadly force" is such a badly defined concept, especially in the gray area between slapping someone and shooting them with a gun. And there are all kinds of unacceptable injuries that don't have a >10% risk of causing death.
It's a shame the law never does something as sensible as refer to actuarial tables, I suppose it's all up to the juries.
IMO it'd be nicer to just agree not to hit each other at all rather than arguing over how much is too much.
That "agreement" has already been made on our behalf by the sovereign. The argument here is what to do when someone breaks the agreement. The "pro-civilization" side says you take your beating and then let the sovereign deal with it. The "barbarians" think you ought to be able to engage in self-help.
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I see two main issues. One, is that actually a fair characterization of all SYG laws, that they only narrowly remove avoidance? I remember seeing it strongly argued that #1 was often directly undermined or made irrelevant by such laws, though I’m not sure about the truth of that. Related, and you see this a bit in the thread, is that SYG sort of “begs the question” in a sense where the very presence of a gun re-interprets a fight as lethal disfavorably to a would be assailant quite often. I realize sympathy for assailants is low around here, but common law does usually support the idea that e.g. a fistfight or an unarmed mugging is usually not a fight to the death (of course intentionality matters). The presence of a gun obviously changes the calculus. But who assumes this extra risk, is the operative question? I appreciate what SYG laws are trying to do but I do wonder if the matter is quite as clear cut as you say. As an example, should a conscious decision to bring a gun to an otherwise nonlethal dispute have any bearing on the legal responsibility, and do SYG laws impact that kind of finding?
I try to avoid absolutes, but I haven't seen any SYG law that did anything except remove avoidance - which isn't to say a judge or jury somewhere misunderstood it in a case - so if I could be pointed to a bad SYG law that removes more than avoidance, I'd love to see it.
In this case, the defender with the gun isn't legally allowed to use it in a non-lethal confrontation - it would break the proportion pillar, just having the gun doesn't permit one to use it. SYG also doesn't do anything here as if the "defender" goes for the gun, they are not acting in legal self defense with or without SYG.
Theoretically, and I am confident this has happens fairly often, two people who are both armed (guns holstered) and get into a shoving match without anything else happening. In this example, if one of them reaches for their gun, they have elevated a non-lethal confrontation into a lethal one, and the other person is now legally allowed to go for their gun. If no one reaches for their gun, it is a non-lethal confrontation regardless of guns being present - same as if they each had a sheathed knife or sword.
To give you your due, however, the presence of guns (or any other lethal weapon) does heighten tensions as actions in the heat of a confrontation can be misinterpreted and someone quickly lowering their hand to their side can look just like reaching for the gun. That is an incredibly unfortunate example, though, again, this isn't an issue caused by SYG or remedied by removing SYG - with or without SYG a confrontation where lethal weapons are around (even when holstered) is much more likely to escalate to legal self defense due to misinterpretation of actions.
In a weird way, guns essentially remove the avoidance pillar in most self defense cases to begin with (making SYG redundant), as as Nybbler put it: you can't outrun a bullet. It would be a very unusual self defense case where the prosecution could reasonably suggest a person can safely run from a lethal confrontation with an attacker with a gun.
Where SYG would most likely apply is when the "attacker" has a melee weapon of some sort and the "defender" has a gun - but is also confident they could safely remove themselves from the situation yet still decide to use the gun instead. I would be surprised if the number of cases which fit this fact pattern or similar to this is incredibly small - making SYG a boogeyman. I'm not even really defending SYG laws as much as I am pointing out it is probably used effectively in a handful of cases annually and is being smeared by people who either have no idea how self defense law works or are lying for political/legislative ends.
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If you don't have an example you're just spreading FUD.
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You don't need SYG to not flee from a drawn firearm (you can't outrun a bullet), nor from a man with a chainsaw who is much larger and faster than you (the shooter was elderly and had osteoporosis), nor to defend a person who cannot flee (the woman who had been shot). SYG made things easier, but they likely could have won the cases without it.
Anti-self-defense advocates often rely on a rather twisted version of the "innocence" pillar. Zimmerman "shouldn't have been there". The elderly man shouldn't have confronted his known-violent neighbor cutting branches with a chainsaw on the wrong side of the fence. The woman shouldn't have confronted the man who was arguing with the other woman. And I could agree with this, except the meaning of "shouldn't" is subtly different. All those things are imprudent, but they are not immoral and they certainly shouldn't be considered somehow "provocation" for legal purposes.
My favorite variation on the meaning of shouldn't, that I haven't been able to use for a while since the trial ended and it has fallen out of popular consciousness somewhat, relates to the Kyle Rittenhouse shooting. Leftists say he shouldn't have been there (implying the immoral sense) and I would respond with "Yes, he shouldn't have been there because the adults (and police etc.) in that community should have been there taking out the trash instead of letting the responsibility fall on the shoulders of a kid."
Failure of the adults to step up didn’t give him a responsibility. Not any more than a police shooting creates a responsibility for BLM to come to town, or seeing a homeless man gives you a responsibility to go volunteer at a shelter.
I say this despite thinking Rittenhouse was justified. He had a right to be there, not a responsibility.
I believe that men have a moral responsibility to protect their homes and communities, and they also have a moral responsibility to step in when the state is unable (or unwilling) to do so. The police (and politicians in charge of them) abdicated their responsibility to protect their community (moral responsibility, I know they are not actually legally required to serve and protect anyone) when they refused to stop the riots, so it fell upon the men of the community to step in.
There is no similar moral responsibility for BLM to protest police shootings or for people to volunteer at a shelter if they see a hobo.
That’s the sticking point; it’s the crux of the “shouldn’t have been there” argument. His home would be one thing, his neighborhood, his town, and so on…but he was out guarding a random car dealership in the next town over. Zero personal connection.
Which is why I brought up the BLM comparison. When people show up to the next town over because they heard its police were crooked, can they use their “community” as an excuse?
Again, I think Rittenhouse had a right to be there. But a right is not a responsibility.
His father lives there, and he works there, IIRC.
Half credit, then.
I don’t believe it becomes a responsibility until he’s actually defending his family or friends.
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Rittenhouse worked in Kenosha, and his father and several extended family members lived there. He lived 30 minutes away from there (which is actually closer than any of the three assholes he shot lived from Kenosha). It absolutely was his community and fell under the same umbrella of responsibility to be protected by its members.
My previous job (before I started telecommuting full time) was a 30 minute commute for me, and my wife's family lived (and still lives) there, and I would absolutely consider it my moral responsibility to drive down with a rifle and patrol with my father-in-law and brothers-in-law if rioters were burning down their neighborhood. And to blast any and all fuckers that threatened death or serious bodily harm against me or my family.
And I’m telling you that the same reasoning is going to apply to half the protestors at Kenosha. They’re going to say they had a responsibility to protect their not-quite-neighbors from those nasty racist cops. Peacefully, natch, but if someone just so happens to threaten death or serious bodily harm…
If you don’t buy it from them, you shouldn’t buy it from Rittenhouse. He was justified in self-defense, not because he had some responsibility to stand guard.
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However, the modern world has too many men.
This is why, when one actually does exercise the male role, we make sure to treat it as a crime.
Men (as in, people specialized in dealing with this responsibility- they're usually male, but not always) are in significant oversupply in Western society, and as such instinct dictates that it is a moral imperative that they human-wave attack into the "enemy" and get killed until there are no longer too many men.
If they're not willing to do that for whatever reason, we'll just marginalize them more and more- make them pay for the worst men there are- until they snap and a group of them stand up to fight; at that point our forces can conduct the purge (or we lose and our enemy, more worthy than us, takes us over).
This is good for me if I'm Blue and my outgroup is domestic; waging a civil war on Red, if I win, will destroy my enemy and solve my excess-men-in-society problem in one fell swoop, much like it solved it for my ancestors in 2000 BC when they had this problem, which is after all why my instincts point me in this direction.
[This doesn't necessarily need to be military; it can be done through politics if the problem isn't bad enough, as that's just war by other means.]
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What do you mean? They were there taking out the trash (the police were there supervising)- they were incinerating it, salvaging useful materials, and forcefully removing those who would prefer the trash.
A child, Rittenhouse, proceeded to shoot three garbage men in the course of their lawful adult duties. He should have stayed home, out of their affairs, but instead he was tried in the state he crossed into when he pulled that trigger (i.e. as an adult).
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Reading the article implied the fence issue may have been more complicated. Essentially the article claimed that the property had been miss surveyed when the fence was built, so I think the fence issue might have been a part of another longstanding argument which resulted in some stupid and unnecessary violence.
It does not appear either party knew about the fence being mis-surveyed at the time. If indeed it was; the only claims I can find are this article citing "county records" and the decedent's mother. There was a longstanding argument, but the people who cared about the tree issue were the shooter's wife and the decedents mother.
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Good contribution to the discussion,
but the neighbor with a chainsaw story from the article is difficult.1. He wasn't just wandering around with a chainsaw. The intent to cut branches was clear based on the shooter's wife's own testimony.2. He had his eight year old son with him.3. There seems to have been some level of pre-existing dispute over the property line.The death is avoided easily by telling the guy "get off my lawn or I'm calling the cops." The article states that chainsaw man then walked toward the elderly shooter (who, by the way, retrieved his firearm before going outside to confront chainsaw man).I don't know, we can quibble over facts and I'm not even saying that the elderly shooter should have lost his self-defense case. This just seems like an infinitely avoidable lethal interaction.Edit: comment down thread did some digging. I now find this case to be cut and dry.
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Exactly.
SYG is being completely mischaracterized or misunderstood to be allowing things it just flat out doesn't cover. It only removes the requirement of fleeing from a deadly encounter if it is possible (and you listed several examples of it not being possible).
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