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Anyways, you know what else is not normal? Following 12 yo girls around the park taping them with your camera in order to report them to the police.
Even allowing your hypothesis that the girls are l.h.c. (likely) and had the weapons to impress their friends (rather than fend off rapists) -- how about just, like -- leave them alone?
I guess the current parlance would be "don't be a Karen" (particularly when you're in somebody else's country) -- but I prefer good old MYOB for pithyness and broad applicability to all of life's struggles.
If I am going to have a less than completely friendly interaction with 12 year old girls, I am going to be filming everything start to finish, out of simple common sense self-preservation. Moreover, if there are 12 year old rowdy girls loitering with axes in my neighbourhood, I will in fact be seeking an interaction to figure out what that is about (and potentially report them to the police, based on what that interaction reveals). To not do so seems irresponsible to me - what are they going to do with that axe? Break into someone's house? Threaten someone? Hurt themselves?
It seems to me that some people analysing this incident are operating off of a mental model of the UK as some sort of zombie apocalypse movie setting, where it is reasonable for children to carry scavenged weapons if they have to go outside in broad daylight to defend themselves from the hordes.
Do you actually think that's what was up? And anyways brings us back to MYOB -- if you actually truly believe that this girl is extremely dangerous, engaging with her and filming her is the last thing you should be doing, no?
It seems pretty clear from the video that the girl was in fact threatening somebody. The only question is whether he deserved it or not.
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I think the "wanted to impress friends" story from some parallel comments is the most likely, but the "break-in in the making" one is at least like 5%.
"Up to no good" does not imply "extremely dangerous". Without firearms in the picture, a 12 year old girl is not going to be dangerous enough to warrant unconditional avoidance. Note that even if your preferred response would indeed be as you say, it is enough if some people would think as I do (this is a situation where you should confront while filming) to reduce the probability of the scenario the culture warriors wish for ("this video depends a rape by brown immigrant being narrowly averted") precipitously.
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This is a terrible response to public disorder. These youths are able to get away with this stuff precisely because of the attitude of resigned acceptance with which they’re treated by passersby.
The British public has demanded and actively enforced that resigned acceptance through its laws and edicts.
It doesn't get to be upset when it gets what it asked for. The filming of this (and the actions of the filmer) are an expression of pure moralfaggotry and "getting chased off with an axe" is a healthy reaction to people like that.
Di you live in the UK? Because that certainly doesn't seem like a description of the situation. Not least necause you are eliding a very important consideration. Class. Britain does indeed enforce behavioral rules on underclass/lower class groups.
Case in point I am back home right now and a guy was yelling at a family event. No threats, just effing and blinding as my mum put it, and the cops just rolled up and dragged him off after being called.
Community norms require and often get community involvement. A Karen is just someone trying to enforce norms others don't agree with. Someone helping enforce popular norms is a good citizen.
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Get away with what stuff?
I suspect that the kids were walking about acting disorderly, yelling at people and/or waving weapons around.
This just sounds like a fun afternoon for me and the pals when I was a kid. What kind of statist nonsense is this, that you want to deprive kids of the right to yell and wave harmless "weapons"?
A cursory perusal of my output on this website will reveal that I’m a pretty hardcore statist. Kids should be doing way better things with their time than bothering productive adults in public, acting like shit-heads, and that means somebody is going to need to make them.
Adults doing productive things like filming little girls who ask them to go away?
It’s perfectly reasonable to film preteens in public if they’re acting like assholes, or if you get into a confrontation with them and they attempt to accuse you of trying to molest them.
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FWIW, and knowing not whether anything about this incident is remotely as it seems to anyone, I can absolutely imagine a scenario in which a perfectly well-adjusted adult films little girls doing stupid shit in order to gather evidence of their misbehavior to present to their parents or to the police. The adult in question repeatedly demanding "Show the knife!" would fit in with that.
I can't even imagine how I would explain having a video of little girls on my phone, let alone recording it, not even to the police, not even if they mugged me, so maybe I'm typical minding my misogyny.
I should have gone with my real objection, which was something like "how do you define statism if modern Britain doesn't count? Do they have to go full on nineteen eighty-four?"
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On 2)- any person waving an actual axe around and yelling at people is a police matter. In the US she would have been shot(and the shooter would walk free), assuming that this is indeed what happened.
I highly doubt that, especially in Scotland. If a gang of ten armed men covered in gang tattoos come after you with RPGs and AK-47s, and you use your ninja skills and your licensed bread knife to dispatch them all nonlethally, then maybe you'd avoid charges on the grounds of self-defense. But shooting a 12-year-old-girl who has a blunt piece of metal she probably found in a ditch? Believe it or not, straight to jail.
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Really? A twelve-year-old girl? I'm not saying it could never happen, but still, hardly business as usual. Now if we were talking about a boy, especially one with a couple of years on her - maybe. Hell, if she had a gun. But I don't think "tween girl is messing around with a hatchet" would inevitably, or even likely, end with a dead body. And if it did, I'm confident there would be a massive media circus, nor would I gamble on the shooter's odds of "walking free".
Oh itd be controversial, but the cop who shot a girl(and I suspect her US equivalent is black) for waving an axe around after yelling at her to put it down would not serve time.
For merely waving it? Questionable, IMO. The cop who shot Ma'Khia Bryant wasn't charged, but his body cam footage showed her actively trying to stab another young woman who appeared to be unarmed. If she'd just been standing there waving the knife and yelling, and he'd shot her, I think things would have gone rather differently for him.
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Well, you've turned the "shooter" from your first post into specifically a cop, which already changes the odds a bit. I do agree a cop who'd shot her would have better odds at the trial than a civilian who'd shot her in self-defense, which was where my mind initially went.
Still, I just don't think that that's realistically how it would go. Forget the legal risks - cop or not, nobody wants a twelve-year-old girl's death on his conscience. And, more cynically, nobody wants to be known for the rest of their life as the guy who killed a twelve-year-old girl at point blank range. Unless she's actually coming for your jugular right now, I just don't think you pull the trigger. Come to that, I'm pretty sure someone drawing a gun would be enough to make the girl drop the hatchet; we aren't dealing with a berserk druggie here.
tl;dr, it's not so much "the shooter would walk free" that strikes me as particularly implausible so much as the assertion that "in the US she would have been shot". It would certainly have been a more likely outcome than in the UK, but it doesn't scan as what would inevitably happen, not by a longshot.
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Yeah. Considering how unsympathetic the protagonists of 'unfair self defense/police violence' media circuses have been in the last few years I'd be shocked if a literal 12 year old girl didn't get the full weight of the media in her favor regardless of whatever she'd been up to prior.
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Yes, this is extremely typical of teenage troublemakers. The second the threat of consequences or being caught/embarrassed appears, their brash aggression is replaced by the performance of fear and vulnerability.
So it’s not a police matter, but also regular civilians are not supposed to intervene or even film? This is a recipe for utter chaos and disorder.
You will be surprised to learn that chaos did not reign in the years prior to widespread filming of public activities -- I guess if the guy wanted to take her toys away himself I'd be OK with that, but would recommend just ignoring her. Going to the cops is just weak -- do you record speeders with a dashcam and call them in?
You will be unsurprised to be reminded of the fact that the years prior to ubiquitous handheld cameras were also the years of greater ethnic homogeneity and stronger Leitkultur.
Would if I could! This is a law and order country, and everyone needs to do their part.
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At least in the UK, things were kept reasonably orderly in part because the police were usually local and knew everybody, and because they were freer to make assumptions about who was up to no good.
When you have to apply the laws completely equally and show no evidence of prejudice, the laws are going to have to get a lot more onerous and specific.
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Do you think the difference in the damage a 12 year old and an adult could potentially do with an axe is really so significant?That seems ludicrous to me. If I would call the police on anyone older than a toddler waving an axe and threatening people, I do it equally on a 12 year old, because they still have the strength to kill many members of society.
"Take her toys away himself". So it's not important enough for the police, but it's also somehow important enough to initiate a violent confrontation over? This doesn't make sense.
Uh, if I saw a toddler with an axe I’d 100% take it away before they take their own foot off.
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Absolutely so. Have you ever done any fighting, for play or for sport or for real? Have you ever, as an adult, tussled with a kid? Have you ever used a knife or an axe, in any capacity, against anything other than foodstuffs?
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Yes, it is extremely significant -- that guy is twice her weight, 1.5-2 feet taller (with corresponding reach advantage), and probably three times as strong. Taking an ax from that girl is literally candy from a baby.
See my previous comment; ftge.
Not what I said; I don't think it's important at all, but you should deal with it yourself if it bothers you so much. Cops in the UK have no guns either; what magic are they going to wield that makes it feasible for them to deal with this Very Serious Threat that you yourself do not possess?
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What she could do is one thing, what she's likely to do is another. A kid who's raided daddy's tool shed to look tough needs a stern talking-to from her parents or other authority figures, but frankly, as much because of the risk of injury to herself as anything else. It's not that much easier for a kid to kill or seriously injure someone with a hatchet of the type seen in the video relative to, say, an ordinary hammer. Would you call the cops on a young kid waving a hammer around a playground? I'd try to do something, if I felt civic-minded, and I might involve the police if I had to, but "record evidence in case this goes to court" would not by my first or even my third move. If it did get as far as A Police Matter™ I would feel I'd failed in my intervention; that I'd escalated the situation way beyond what should ideally happen.
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No, but I call in potheads behind the wheel. Granted, how much of this is due to concern for public safety and how much of it is because I hate pot I couldn't tell you.
Can you tell me more? How often? Do you see them smoking a bowl to know it’s pot? Or do you spot a hot box? Smell or sight?
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I, for one, wouldn't be surprised to learn that chaos did not reign in the years prior to widespread filming, because as far as I know those years largely overlapped with the years when children harassing random citizens could be beaten, and such applications of minor corrective violence were overlooked by law enforcement. Today are not such times. Neither is ignoring underage hooligans in the making a recipe for a pleasant society.
If someone speeds through a pedestrian crossing and nearly runs a crossing person over in a display of wanton negligence, I wholeheartedly support the right of that person to throw a brick through that car's window, and if there is no such right, I consider submitting video evidence to the police the next best thing.
Everybody be all libertarian 'till the tweens start a'yellin' I guess -- fuck this gay earth.
(you too @hydroacetylene)
ED: comment applies to you too, not fuck you too, lol
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