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that is worth noting, but it's also worth noting that their fundraiser was allowed to operate, in contrast to those of, for example, Gardner and Rittenhouse. This is a concrete way in which our society observably treats red-tribe lawful self-defense as strictly worse than blue-tribe lawless murder.
It's really not that concrete at all. In the rittenhouse case, rittenhouse claimed to be provoked into acting in self defense (credibly) but his opposition claims (also credibly) that he deliberately created a situation such that that provocation would happen and he would have an excuse to commit violence. In this case, the stabber also claims that he was acting in self-defense (unknown credibleness), but no one (so far) claims that he was looking for an excuse. Plus there's the additional matter of him using a knife, rather than a gun, and killing one person instead of many. The situations at hand are neither symmetric nor complementary.
Personally speaking, I do martial arts, and I would consider pulling a knife on someone who wants to throw hands a reasonable, proportionate act. There are far too many ways to get permanently injured or killed from blunt trauma. I would not consider it reasonable to then attack them with that knife if they backed off-- but maybe the football player saw the knife, assumed there was going to be some stabbing, grabbed for it-- and as a consequence, got Rittenhouse'd. Is that what happened? I don't know. But I'm content to say, "stabbing people is bad" and let the rest sort itself out through the legal system.
(I don't know anything about the gardener case. When I look up "gardener murder" I get a convict who committed a bunch of rapes and murders.)
What? What martial arts do you do where it's acceptable or proportionate to pull a knife? Kali?
I think I could beat up the "average" person (inclusive of women, I'm not good enough that I can confidently claim I would beat up the average guy.) But if I got into a heated argument with someone weaker than me, it would be ridiculous to expect them to just concede to my physical prowess. Therefore, I would consider it a proportional act for them to pull a knife on me. Similarly, if I'm in a reversed situation, where I'm facing a black belt or prizefighter in their prime, I would rather pull a knife than let them give me brain damage. In full space of hypotheticals, I think the fight would de-escalate from there the vast majority of the time-- few martial artists are stupid enough to actually fight someone who'd afraid and has a knife, including myself, but I can't strictly exclude the chance of conflict.
I do not know of any place on Earth where a woman or a weaker guy pulling a knife in response to someone bigger "unconsciously clenching their fists" would be seen as anything but an unstable psycho as opposed to "acting proportionally". It is not in fact ridiculous to expect people to prefer being slightly intimidated rather than go for mortal threats.
It would be a context-dependent response, and I'm not convinced that it was the right context in this exact case, even if the defendant's claims of bullying were true. But it's really not that hard to imagine scenarios were even motivationally innocent behavior from a physically threatening individual can be reasonably perceived as a threat.
Human imagination is a wellspring that flows eternal. Can you point to actual cases of knife use against bullies, even non-fatally, where the knife-wielder was considered in the right?
https://dcwitness.org/jury-acquits-fatal-stabbing-defendant-claiming-self-defense/
Luckily there's a fuller article of what actually happened
https://dcwitness.org/prosecutors-call-defendant-a-clever-story-teller-in-homicide-trial/
'“I’m thinking I’m about to be shot…I know this man to be this type of person,” recounted Ruffin. Ruffin testified he punched Lee and then stabbed him with his pocket knife. '
The entire case here was that he was being intimidated by the stabbed party, believed that the stabbed party was armed with a firearm based on a series of previous encounters where the stabbed party had a gun on him.
'During closing arguments, Irving argued that Ruffin’s testimony only added additional details, not differences in his story. Irving asserted that Lee’s hand behind his back was a deadly threat of violence, and even if appearances were false, it was still self-defense because Ruffin believed Lee had a gun. “It doesn’t matter how many times he stabbed him, he did what he had to do to keep that gun from coming out,” said Irving.
The prosecution argued in closing that Ruffin did not act in self-defense because he was the initial aggressor. They added that there is no evidence that Lee had a gun and it is pure speculation by the defense. '
The only reason it was even somewhat possible to claim self defense in this situation was the presumption of a gun being involved. That was what the entire defense rested on, the tenet that the knife wielder was matching lethal force instead of massively escalating stakes for no reason.
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