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I was vague because I am not sure if the word deserve applies and think it's a tough situation - the rational and emotional parts of my brain are both split.
As a more immediate note - if you wear a gun in front of cops you have certainly behavioral responsibilities that he did not meet on multiple occasions.
He didn't walk around the bad part of town wearing a miniskirt, he did it while wearing a miniskirt and making racial slurs and daring people to assault him. This certainly doesn't ethically clear any rapists in full, but it alters the calculus quite a bit.
People need to have accountability for behavior, especially when what not to do is obvious, clearly understood, and impulse control does not apply.
Echoing my comment to @ThomasdelVasto:
Agreed. The cops are doing an necessary job, so there is a tradeoff between exercising your rights and obstructing them from their duties.
It doesn't ethically clear the rapists at all. Unlike LEOs, Criminals are not a necessary part of society, and no one is ever has "behavioural responsibilities" to avoid provoking them to commit crimes. Actually it would be especially important to make sure the rapists were prosectued to the full extent of the law, to make it clear to everyone that it is never okay to commit crimes, even if someone verbally offends you.
He would also be a guilty party for being hostile and antisocial (but his guilt would be dwarfed by the rapists')
My understanding is that the legal system draws a distinction between "move, I want that seat" and "hey nigger move your bitch ass or I'll rape your ugly retarded mother,"
Some behaviors have a clear, dangerous response. See: "fighting words."
The institutional loss of knowledge of these tensions is causing problems. Obviously wearing a miniskirt in public doesn't justify anything. Doing the same alone at a bar where date rapes happen and not monitoring your drink also doesn't justify anything, but it certainly is a sign of poor judgement.
Breaking into a private biker bar and shouting "rape me pussies." Yeah... that one is your fault.
Where to draw these lines is important and hard, but at some point people need to understand that their actions have consequences and they become part of the blame equation.
You've changed the hypothetical completely - originally it was someone being verbally offensive, and was talking about their own rape. Now your hypothetical person is trying to forcefully displace someone from their seat. Neither of these (not even the more banal "move, I want that seat") are okay to say - and I would be open to a self-defense argument there.
Sure. But I disagree that poor judgement in this case amounts to any level of guilt. Even though we live in an imperfect world where crime occurs, we should avoid blaming people for being victimised to avoid legitimising crime.
If you break into a private establishment, then yes, things become grayer. I am okay with actual lethal violence in that case, and might even overlook rape - just on the principle that once you trespass you essentially forfeit all your rights.
But again, this doesn't map to the original hypothetical, because "the bad part of town" is not private property (not even at night), and the public has a (pro-social) right to be there.
Only if those actions are inherently bad (like breaking and entering, obstructing the duties of law enforcement, etc), if they are good/neutral, then the only people to blame are the criminals who enforce these wholly illegitimate consequences.
My point is that some behaviors are sufficiently bad that they cause a known reaction and it is in part your fault for causing that reaction.
This is an important point that is lost in many domains, and as others have pointed out - one of those is bullying.
The stance of many here is that this guy (and good) fucked around and found out. They made mistakes that anyway with any clear thinking would not because they are known to be both avoidable and potentially deadly.
Don't fight the police while carrying a gun is like the most basic thing you can think of (not that "don't fight the police at all" isn't one of the biggest pieces of advice everyone gives their kids). While many on the left don't understand guns, this is mostly equivalent to saying "don't attack the police with a deadly weapon or you might get dead."
The idea that "he wasn't going to use it" is not tenable in a real life situation because everyone claims they weren't or aren't including people actively shooting you...... I.... I don't think most people on the left actually understand how the world works anymore.
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