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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?"
Short of like an active assault or murder attempt I can't really imagine trying to film a low-grade violation with any pathway to reporting it to anybody.
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"Officer, these kids were waving around what looked like sharp weapons, and threatening me directly. I don't want to have to kick them in the face, so can you please make them stop this bullshit?"
Who ever said Britain was not statist?
Hell, which state on Earth isn't statist?
Man I don't even like reporting people on the motte. The amount of self loathing I would need to swallow to 1. Get in the altercation and end up in such a tizzy I decide I have to film it. 2. Watch the video back so I can be sure I didn't shoot four minutes of my thumb. 3. Drive down to the police station rehearsing how I'm going to ask people - people probably smaller and more female than me - to protect me from little girls. No, the little girls can call me a pedo and waggle their weapons at me, I'm capable of moving past it alone thanks.
As for statism, @Hoffmeister25 implies it isn't statist, if it was those little kids wouldn't be bothering productive adults like this guy.
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Have you been to the planet Earth? Is he sending this through to 911 via telepathy, or somehow this police officer is standing near enough to watch the video and yet not already intervening?
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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.
Yes, I specified older than a toddler and actively threatening people.
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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?
Yes, no, yes.
All it takes is 1 bad swing or stab. Any bladed weapon at all is a huge equalizer.
You might say your odds of not dying are overall quite high as compared to a knife wielding adult man. Sure, but the difference in potential damage is not that significant, as differences in strength are more than made up for by weapons.
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Yes, no, yes. Agree or disagree: a 12 year old can inflict a fatal axe wound in 1 swing on an adult. If the adult wasn't aware or stood still and did nothing, and the 12 year old is truly murderous, this seems entirely plausible to me. Agree or disagree?
Extrapolating from there, even if the adult is actively engaged in the confrontation, any confrontation where one bad swing at your neck after you stumble on a rock or whatever will kill you is not where you want to be, even if your odds are overall quite good. Hence why I call the potential damage significant. I see very little difference in the potential damage that can be inflicted.
Having any bladed weapon at all is the real equalizer here
Yes, if the adult behaves like a passive slab of meat, then I suppose the potential damage is similar.
A win for semantics.
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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?
The magic of "they are not going to have a world of shit come down on them for laying a finger on a 12 year old girl".
You simultaneously admit that UK is statist (and bemoan it) and still pretend that "intruding on the monopoly on even minor violence" is an option in a statist country.
There's this thing called "anarcho-tyranny", or "two tier policing" as the Brits would have it.
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I think this is a terrible recommendation for someone who is bothered by this behaviour.
Regardless of whether the police are more armed than you or not, I think it should be fairly self explanatory why there are both legal and practical reasons why it's preferable for the police to deal with this situation, again, assuming it bothers you. They have legal authority, there may be multiple of them, and the assailant will likely respond differently to them than a random stranger.
You haven't actually explained, why "should you" deal with it yourself? You open yourself up to legal liability. You invite the risk of being harmed in an escalation of the conflict. The only benefit I can see is that you can potentially dearm the assailant faster than the authorities can get there and do so. But if they're so minor of a threat anyway in your eyes, then that doesn't matter very much. So what is the upside?
Also, you are equivocating between the damage a 12 year old can do against an adult man who is already facing and confronting her vs the absolute damage they can do. If this person is waving an axe around people in public threatening them, I think it's totally reasonable to have a valid concern they might hurt someone more vulnerable.
I also think that while you're probably right in a lot of situations it only ever takes one or two unlucky swings/stumbles for the underdog to win. I don't agree that the threat is so minimal as to be essentially ignored
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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.
While I appreciate that you make your point fairly reasonably, this still seems like a bit of a ludicrous reaction to me. I agree that in the majority of situations, a kid waving an axe or a hammer around is not very likely to murder someone. but as a stranger and not the responsible parent of this child, it is not my job to assess how serious they are about harming me with an axe and I think it is not a realistic proposition to expect any other sane adult stranger to waive their safety in the face of someone threatening them because it's not LIKELY to turn out with them murdered. I do not have the skills to categorically determine which type of axe waving person is in front of me.
From personal experience, while a normal kid might wave a hammer around, no kid that I associated with to my knowledge ever actively threatened someone with a tool like that once they were anywhere close to their teens. This is not 'normal' behaviour to be gently course corrected imo. I think it's kinda serious.
Pulling out a phone and recording is a bit of a weird move in most situations I agree, but I could see a situation where it might seem reasonable in the moment if they started threatening to accuse you of things and you thought you had a chance to "prove" otherwise in the heat of the moment.
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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?
Rex asks frantically as he throws blunt papers and bongs out of his car.
...in his mind, before suddenly snaps back to reality and realizes he's still parked in front of the Circle-K and hasn't even put the keys in the ignition yet. Whoa. Shit... wait, where are the keys...?
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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
I'm not a libertarian, and when libertarians act as if libertarianism means you must tolerate fists being swung within 1cm of your nose as long as they don't hit you, I am further repulsed by it.
"Displaying an ax in one's possession" == "swinging fists"; got it.
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I am not a libertarian and think it's perfectly reasonable for holding a weapon in your hand to be a serious crime.
I would classify a small knife and a hatchet as tools rather than weapons. If she had a gun then sure, call the police. A hatchet, though? Where do you draw the line? Can she have a butter knife? Can she have a mallet? Can she have a stick? What if it's a sharp stick?
At some point you have a long and pointless list of banned items, and yet anyone who wants a "deadly weapon" of equal effectiveness to anything on that list can easily get one by just hammering nails into a baseball bat. What have you accomplished?
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Really? You interact with hundreds of people holding much more dangerous weapons than that ax in their hand(s) everytime you drive somewhere -- does that specific girl really seem like a threat to you?
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At no point in my life have I ever been a libertarian.
OK -- I'm curious your opinion of the UK's blade bans then, actually -- ID to buy kitchen utensils, yea or nay?
Because that's pretty much already at the cartoonish authoritarianism that libertarians would have put at the bottom of the slippery slope 20-odd years ago -- if you think that's fine, is there any line you'd draw on state power?
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