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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   25250 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 27, 2025

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Oh, this story is horseshit.

A retired Las Vegas police officer walked free after fatally shooting a retired computer network engineer during a dispute over who had the right of way in a Walmart parking lot. Both men got out of their vehicles. Both were armed. The ex-officer said the retired engineer pointed a gun at him first.

“Only two people know what happened,” said Kathleen Hoy, the dead man’s widow. “Unfortunately, my husband is dead.”

  1. Cops, even retired cops, always get the benefit of the doubt and then some in court. In all states. I don't like it but it's not going to change.

  2. Self defense, once raised by presenting a fairly minimal amount of evidence, has to be disproven beyond a reasonable doubt (again, in all states). If only one person alive knows what happened (i.e. there's no evidence otherwise), the defense should succeed. What the widow, and the Journal, are implicitly demanding is that if one guy pulls a gun on another and the second guy then fatally shoots him, the killer should go to jail if there's no physical or other testimonial evidence.

The next example is even "better" -- a methed-up guy carrying a chainsaw and approaching an armed neighbor who is ordering him to leave. Uh, yeah, play stupid games, win stupid prizes. This has the extra twist that due to a surveying error the neighbor was on his own property, but neither man knew that at the time, so it's not really relevant. Other sources also add the detail that the dead man's son (who was with him) testified that the dead man said "I’ll cut your head off with this chainsaw." Uh, yeah.

Then we get to the Reno shootout. Woman decides to intervene in some quarrel between a man and a woman. Man starts yelling at woman. Husband of woman intervenes. Man goes back to truck, gets gun, shoots husband. No, this wasn't what was deemed justified -- things continue. Woman pulls out her gun, shoots man. Man shoots woman (and some bystander) too. Then another bystander fatally shoots the man, thinking he's going to kill the woman. The dead man turned out to boozed up, coked up, and high on pot too. If the WSJ writer had his way, presumably the bystander who killed him would be imprisoned for it. Or not shot him and maybe the woman dies instead. How would that improve things?

If you claim there are too many "justified" shootings, there's two things you might mean. One, that too many people are doing things that justify them being shot. Two, that too many people are being shot and having it deemed "justified" when it isn't. The article is saying that it's the second, but the examples say it's the first.

Then we get to the Reno shootout. Woman decides to intervene in some quarrel between a man and a woman. Man starts yelling at woman. Husband of woman intervenes. Man goes back to truck, gets gun, shoots husband. No, this wasn't what was deemed justified -- things continue. Woman pulls out her gun, shoots man. Man shoots woman (and some bystander) too. Then another bystander fatally shoots the man, thinking he's going to kill the woman. The dead man turned out to boozed up, coked up, and high on pot too. If the WSJ writer had his way, presumably the bystander who killed him would be imprisoned for it. Or not shot him and maybe the woman dies instead. How would that improve things?

I assume that if the WSJ writer had his way, nobody here, including the first guy, would have had a gun. Unfortunately, there is no policy that would have realistically disarmed the first shooter without people screeching that it aims to disarm the second one. Any efforts towards a general crackdown on lethal self-defence should also be understood through the lens of this environment - encumbering any reasonable use of guns is just a means to the end that only unreasonable uses remain, which would make a total ban politically more attainable.

Then we get to the Reno shootout. Woman decides to intervene in some quarrel between a man and a woman. Man starts yelling at woman. Husband of woman intervenes. Man goes back to truck, gets gun, shoots husband. No, this wasn't what was deemed justified -- things continue. Woman pulls out her gun, shoots man. Man shoots woman (and some bystander) too. Then another bystander fatally shoots the man, thinking he's going to kill the woman. The dead man turned out to boozed up, coked up, and high on pot too. If the WSJ writer had his way, presumably the bystander who killed him would be imprisoned for it. Or not shot him and maybe the woman dies instead. How would that improve things?

Its presence in the article is clearly because the journalists needed more meat to try and push his point that stand-your-ground laws are bad, but he knows the facts aren't aligning with that so he just says it's an example of how guns and alcool don't mix.

But then, the story has this important tidbit:

Instead, Wilson retrieved a handgun from his truck

So it's not like the guy who turned this incident deadly had a snap lapse in judgement and the presence of the gun is what turned a likely fistfight into a shootout. The gun was not present, he had to go get it, which means we're dealing with an asshole whose brain was so fried he had murderous intent for several seconds to minutes.

Also

Instead, Wilson retrieved a handgun from his truck and shot Reichert’s husband at arm’s-length.

So why are we focusing on the gun here? He could have just as well stabbed him with a knife, with a broken bottle, concussed him with a baseball bat or tire iron, etc... Would it have been less deadly then? I'm not sure at all; what if the fact he wasn't using a gun made Reichert and the bystander less willing to pull out a gun in self-defense out of fear they'll be convicted of homicide? Would they have been able to stop Wilson before he murdered Reichert and her husband? We don't know and can't know.

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