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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   32971 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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As far as I'm aware, entrapment has a much more narrow scope that I think you believe it does. Entrapment is meant to encompass actions where the police convince someone to do a crime when they would otherwise not. For example:

  1. Masked men show up to your house and take your spouse hostage, and threaten to shoot her unless you rob a bank - if the masked men are undercover cops, this is a very straightforward example of entrapment.
  2. You walk by a store, and see something you very much want in the window, but continue by. An undercover officer asks you why you don't get it, and you go back and steal the item - definitely not entrapment, as the officer did not suggest the illegal activity, even though you wouldn't have committed the crime without the suggestion (I believe in some jurisdictions it wouldn't be entrapment even if the officer had suggested it - usually the standard for entrapment is that the officer put an unfair amount of effort into convincing you).
  3. You join a club to complain about how badly your state is run, and part of the grousing is people wishing death on your governor. If the undercover cops are the sole individuals responsible for planning an assassination attempt against said governor, it's entrapment - however, if someone else was actually planning to assassinate the governor, and they merely assisted them, then it isn't.

Presenting an opportunity to do a crime is definitely not entrapment; otherwise, hitting someone crossing the street would not be a crime (as they presented you with the opportunity to commit vehicular assault).

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