Charlie Kirk shot in Utah

[Derec]

It’s a recognition of an international consensus.

It's a recognition of a poor word choice by an international body.

Yes, it is a quibble. Despite all of your deflection, children are not adults and should not be treated as such.

Sigh. It's not a quibble. Minor teenagers are not adults. But they are not children either, and should not be treated as such.

We have a perfectly good word for <18 - "minor". If you insist of using child for all minors, then what would you call actual children?

That simple obvious notion does not mean or even imply the your ridiculously idiotic straw man that it means treating 5 and 15 year olds the same.

It's not an "idiotic straw man" - it's the distillation of Toni's position. Look at her unhinged reaction to my observation that the numbers and causes of gun violence among minors vary greatly with age, with teenagers having patterns of gun violence that are much more like young adults than like children.

 

[Derec]

Why do you think we call it "Down Under"?

Because the women glow and men plunder?
Because the beer does flow and the men chunder?
I am not sure.

 

[Bomb#20]

 District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
...
The ruling overturned longstanding precedent. Seems to me that a fundamental constitutional right would not need to overturn a longstanding precedent, because such a fundamental right would have been understood.

Brown v Board of Education and Loving v Virginia overturned longstanding precedents*. Do you consider equal protection of the law to be a nonfundamental constitutional right?

(* The longstanding precedents that had upheld segregation and prohibition of interracial marriage.)

Furthermore, it seems to me that if a longstanding precedent (which might be viewed as a fundamental constitutional right) can be overturned, the resulting ruling could also be overturned in the future thereby creating another fundamental constitutional right.

Certainly. For instance, some future SCOTUS could rule that "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances" means a state government satisfies its obligations under the 1st Amendment provided it holds an annual invitation-only public meeting, wherein one state employee duly presents another state employee with whatever complaint about the government the state legislature voted to be "the people's grievance" for that year. This ruling would give elected officials the fundamental constitutional right to jail people for having non-permitted meetings and for complaining to them.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Re firearms … Someone clue me in - what is the objection to the Australian model? Not enough guns (for some noble purpose)?

Australians are free to do as they please; I take it you mean the objection to importing their model to the USA. And surely you're already quite familiar with the whole rule-of-law issue -- confiscating the guns is constitutional in Australia and unconstitutional here -- so I take it you just don't mind when your rulers act lawlessly as long as they're doing your will. So setting legality aside...

The Australian model, to sum up, is "After a horrific mass shooting, the government orders most Australians to turn in their guns, and almost all of them comply." So the obvious objection to importing that model is it's impossible to import it. If our government ordered most Americans to turn in their guns, a huge fraction of us would cop a "when you pry it from my cold dead fingers" attitude. There'd be about a hundred million resisters filing lawsuits or simply hiding their guns, and reporting them stolen if they were registered. Americans on average aren't as obedient as Australians. Our self-appointed betters can't even make us give up our pounds, gallons and miles.

Guns tell Americans - obey us, and Americans obey, as they are conditioned to obey. That is why they have the pledge and flag worship, all part of the conditioning. People of other nations do not have this conditioning to obey. You think if your government ordered you to to give up your guns you would resist - not based on current conduct of Americans who are cowering to governments at all levels.
RE: the two bolded sentences - they contradict each other; this is because the second one isn't true.
Do you think that during the Vietnam draft, that those who obeyed and became soldiers were lesser, and those that didn't were better? Do you just like Trump think soldiers are losers?
The italicized bit above is not meant to be taken literally BTW.

 

[Elixir]

I take it you just don't mind when your rulers act lawlessly as long as they're doing your will.

I have long admired the US Constitution for its adaptability. If our lawmakers used it properly, accommodations could be made within it to reduce the proliferation of firearms by law.
It’s our collective unwillingness that is perpetuating the bloodbath, not some supposed sanctity of private armories that must be preserved. We require a collective willingness to stem the tide.
Like, you know -Australia.
I take it you would object to “well regulated militias” excluding gangs of violent trumpsuckers thugs riding around brandishing rifles in lifted trucks like the Taliban?
I call that a failure of imagination.

Aside; my father kept guns. A hunting rifle, a shotgun, a couple of pistols … but became irate if we kids referred to any of them as “guns”.
As a WWI - WWII naval officer, “guns” referred to the monstrosities on the decks of destroyers and battleships. Not anything that could legally be used by civilians.

 

[ZiprHead]

Yes, Z followed Trayvon, but there is no evidence that he chased him or cornered him.

There's that lie again.

Evidence shows Trayvon initiated the physical confrontation.

And again.

 

[ZiprHead]

 District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
...
The ruling overturned longstanding precedent. Seems to me that a fundamental constitutional right would not need to overturn a longstanding precedent, because such a fundamental right would have been understood.

Brown v Board of Education and Loving v Virginia overturned longstanding precedents*. Do you consider equal protection of the law to be a nonfundamental constitutional right?

(* The longstanding precedents that had upheld segregation and prohibition of interracial marriage.)

Apples vs oranges.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Zimmerman was breathing heavy while he was on the phone with the police to report Trayvon and state he was following him. If he wasn't running, maybe he's a pervert.

 

[Toni]

Tamir Rice was a little bit—oh, physically big for his age

He was more than a "big a little bit". If I recall correctly, he was off the charts, literally.

but by all reports, slow and not very mature. At age 12, some girls can be taken for adults unless you talk to them. A 12 year old boy can look 8 or 15 but again, talking to him, it’s extremely obvious that they are kids. And less mature—with less ability to understand the consequences of their actions or to understand how others may perceive them.

Indeed. It was a big tragedy. He should not have removed the orange tip and waved the pellet gun around, and the cops should not have pulled up that close and shot that quickly.
They should not be police officers anywhere again, but it was not murder.

Yeah, it actually was murder.

I watched the video, as sickening as it was. I saw the body language of the boy who was obviously attempting to comply with the police orders. He looked like any young child who realized an adult was angry with him. And then he was dead.

He was killed for something kids my age did all the time: run around with toy guns, pointing it at people and things, pretending to shoot. Every boy I grew up with could make realistic ( to me) machine gun sounds.

You are blaming a child for not knowing how others might perceive him.

 

[laughing dog]

It’s a recognition of an international consensus.

It's a recognition of a poor word choice by an international body.

It is a clear understandable statement of a widely held position. Other than contradicting your personal beliefs, what makes it a poor word choice?

Yes, it is a quibble. Despite all of your deflection, children are not adults and should not be treated as such.

Sigh. It's not a quibble. Minor teenagers are not adults. But they are not children either, and should not be treated as such.

We have a perfectly good word for <18 - "minor". If you insist of using child for all minors, then what would you call actual children?

Children, duh.

That simple obvious notion does not mean or even imply the your ridiculously idiotic straw man that it means treating 5 and 15 year olds the same.

It's not an "idiotic straw man" - it's the distillation of Toni's position. Look at her unhinged reaction to my observation that the numbers and causes of gun violence among minors vary greatly with age, with teenagers having patterns of gun violence that are much more like young adults than like children.

It is an idiotic straw man - no one said such a thing.

 

[Toni]

It’s a recognition of an international consensus.

It's a recognition of a poor word choice by an international body.

Yes, it is a quibble. Despite all of your deflection, children are not adults and should not be treated as such.

Sigh. It's not a quibble. Minor teenagers are not adults. But they are not children either, and should not be treated as such.

We have a perfectly good word for <18 - "minor". If you insist of using child for all minors, then what would you call actual children?

That simple obvious notion does not mean or even imply the your ridiculously idiotic straw man that it means treating 5 and 15 year olds the same.

It's not an "idiotic straw man" - it's the distillation of Toni's position. Look at her unhinged reaction to my observation that the numbers and causes of gun violence among minors vary greatly with age, with teenagers having patterns of gun violence that are much more like young adults than like children.

Unhinged? I believe I posted a link.

What is ‘unhinged’ is your seeming belief that deaths from gun violence only count if you, personally, feel some sympathy for the victim and that childhood ends on a sliding scale, depending on the color of the kids’ skin.

 

[Elixir]

What is ‘unhinged’ is your seeming belief that deaths from gun violence only count if you, personally, feel some sympathy for the victim and that childhood ends on a sliding scale, depending on the color of the kids’ skin.

QFT!
It's amazing how often such "seeming beliefs" are offered with a straight face under disrespectfully transparent guise.
Very common among the Good Old Boys. But no less unhinged for its frequency.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Re firearms … Someone clue me in - what is the objection to the Australian model? Not enough guns (for some noble purpose)?

Australians are free to do as they please; I take it you mean the objection to importing their model to the USA. And surely you're already quite familiar with the whole rule-of-law issue -- confiscating the guns is constitutional in Australia and unconstitutional here -- so I take it you just don't mind when your rulers act lawlessly as long as they're doing your will. So setting legality aside...

The Australian model, to sum up, is "After a horrific mass shooting, the government orders most Australians to turn in their guns, and almost all of them comply." So the obvious objection to importing that model is it's impossible to import it. If our government ordered most Americans to turn in their guns, a huge fraction of us would cop a "when you pry it from my cold dead fingers" attitude. There'd be about a hundred million resisters filing lawsuits or simply hiding their guns, and reporting them stolen if they were registered. Americans on average aren't as obedient as Australians. Our self-appointed betters can't even make us give up our pounds, gallons and miles.

Guns tell Americans - obey us, and Americans obey, as they are conditioned to obey. That is why they have the pledge and flag worship, all part of the conditioning. People of other nations do not have this conditioning to obey. You think if your government ordered you to to give up your guns you would resist - not based on current conduct of Americans who are cowering to governments at all levels.
RE: the two bolded sentences - they contradict each other; this is because the second one isn't true.
Do you think that during the Vietnam draft, that those who obeyed and became soldiers were lesser, and those that didn't were better? Do you just like Trump think soldiers are losers?
The italicized bit above is not meant to be taken literally BTW.

I wanted to edit my response above, but the option wasn't available to me. I am adding this next section.
You are treating disobedience as a virtue - the disobedient child, the disobedient rioters, the POTUS who disobeys the Constitution and court judges, etcetera.
Australians and Europeans love freedom and obedience. Americans are disobedient slaves.
Many people such as service people make oaths of obedience. Pilots obey Air Traffic Controllers. Law abiding citizens obey traffic laws, and so on.
So obedience like honour, duty, loyalty honesty, is a virtue. So, I will change my previous answer to say yeah we are more obedient and more anti-authoritarian than Americans, whilst Americans are disobedient and pro-authoritarian.

 

[Elixir]

Yes, Z followed Trayvon, but there is no evidence that he chased him or cornered him.

There's that lie again.

Evidence shows Trayvon initiated the physical confrontation.

And again.

When repetition becomes “evidence” bad things happen.

 

[Bomb#20]

 District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
...
The ruling overturned longstanding precedent. Seems to me that a fundamental constitutional right would not need to overturn a longstanding precedent, because such a fundamental right would have been understood.

Brown v Board of Education and Loving v Virginia overturned longstanding precedents*. Do you consider equal protection of the law to be a nonfundamental constitutional right?

(* The longstanding precedents that had upheld segregation and prohibition of interracial marriage.)

Apples vs oranges.

No doubt, but what of it? "Apples vs oranges" isn't a get-out-of-logic-free card. Do you consider equal protection of the law to be a nonfundamental constitutional right?

 

[laughing dog]

 District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
...
The ruling overturned longstanding precedent. Seems to me that a fundamental constitutional right would not need to overturn a longstanding precedent, because such a fundamental right would have been understood.

Brown v Board of Education and Loving v Virginia overturned longstanding precedents*. Do you consider equal protection of the law to be a nonfundamental constitutional right?

Yes. Regulation of firearms dates back to the Bill of Rights (if not earlier).

Neither if your examples comes close to that longevity. Loving v Virginia hadn’t been in effect for 50 years when it was overturned.

 

[Arctish]

^This is why the comparison to Trayvon Martin is so informative.

It is not, no matter how hard you are trying to draw parallels.

A grown-ass adult with a gun got out of his car

Pretty much the only thing that is true.

to chase Martin, cornered him, and physically attacked him, but Derec is either incapable or unwilling to give Martin the same consideration he gives Rittenhouse.

That's because there is zero evidence of any of this. Yes, Z followed Trayvon, but there is no evidence that he chased him or cornered him. I know you are using that language to draw a parallel to what Rosenbaum did, but that dog won't hunt.

The fact he admitted in the recorded call to police dispatch that he was pursuing Martin is the evidence he chased him.

The fact he was overheard challenging Martin by neighbors and by Rachel Jeantel, who was on the phone with him at the time, and the sound of running footsteps and the start of the physical fight overheard by both Jeantel and another earwitness, is evidence he cornered Martin.

There is other evidence which was discussed at length in the Dying for Skittles thread.

Here is a link to the recorded call to in case anyone missed it.

As far as "physically attacked him" - the physical evidence shows the opposite, that Trayvon attacked Z. I already shared links showing that Z sustained injuries to his head, while Trayvon had abrasions on his knuckles. I.e. he was beating on Z, not the other way around.

And I have asked you many times to identify who started the fistfight between my old coworkers based on the injuries they sustained, and you have ducked, dodged, and weaseled out of giving an answer every time. I suspect it's because you know you can't tell who started a fight based on who got which injuries but you want to maintain the illusion that the guy who got out of his car to chase an unarmed teenager and then shot him dead was the innocent victim.

Instead, Derec used the words of a witness about "whoop ass" as a smear on the character of the teenager fighting for his life who did nothing to provoke the attack on his person,

I am not smearing anybody.

Here is a good summation of what you are doing. Only you can say why you are doing it but TBH it looks like racism and your usual defense of white wanna-be authority figures.

 

[Arctish]

while handwaving away all the dumb shit Rittenhouse did and championing his right to use lethal force to defend himself from people trying to stop him so he wouldn't kill even more of them.

The only reason any of them got show is because they attacked Ritt. Had Huber and Grosskreutz minded their own business, they would not have been shot, and neither would anybody else.

"Minded their own business" when someone was shot, people were shouting "OMG he shot him!" and pointing to the guy with an AR-15 hustling from the scene?

You're right, they would not have been shot. That doesn't mean indifference would have been a better choice.

Ritt wasn't a maniac shooting randomly at people, but he was attacked by a maniac.

Some folks here have been noting that Rittenhouse, like Martin, was a minor while Rosenbaum, like Zimmerman, was an adult. To some of us, the difference in maturity and life experiences makes a difference in how we view the confrontation and how we measure culpablility.

Except that Ritt is viewed as public enemy #1, while for Trayvon Martin the media used photos of him from when he was 13 years old or so to make him look more innocent.

Bullshit squared.

Rittenhouse is not seen as public enemy #1. That's classic propaganda, an appeal to emotion intended to inflame the listener, not inform them.

Rittenhouse is seen as a teenager who did something utterly irresponsible due to his immaturity and cluelessness and people died as a result of it.

Martin was innocent. He was also younger than Rittenhouse.

Meanwhile, Derec saying 12 year old Tamir Rice should have known how intimidated people felt seeing him pointing a pellet gun at distant passersby while giving 17 year old Rittenhouse a free pass for pointing an even more dangerous weapon at people much closer to him, and actually shooting at 4 of them, gets *crickets* and Huber and Grosskreutz trying to disarm an active shooter gets villification and contempt.

All of these cases are different and need to be analyzed individually. Yes, Tamir Rice should have known that removing the orange tip made his pellet gun look like a firearm. No, there is no evidence Ritt was not acting in self defense. And Huber and Grosskreutz should not have assumed that the kid they chased and attacked was "an active shooter" and not somebody who defended himself. They did not even witness the shooting itself.

That is incorrect.

Huber and Grosskreutz witnessed Rittenhouse firing two shots that missed at the man in light colored pants. Grosskreutz then witnessed Rittenhouse shooting Huber.

They both saw Rittenhouse shoot at people after hearing gunshots and the shout of "OMG he shot him" and saw people pointing at Rittenhouse who was carrying a long gun and running from the scene.

Rittenhouse was an active shooter. He didn't intend to be one. He was a scared teenager who got into a situation he didn't know how else to get out of, so he fired off 8 rounds at 4 different people (at least). He was dangerous because he was a panicky teenager, not in spite of it.

 

[ZiprHead]

 

[Arctish]

Yes, Z followed Trayvon, but there is no evidence that he chased him or cornered him.

There's that lie again.

Evidence shows Trayvon initiated the physical confrontation.

And again.

When repetition becomes “evidence” bad things happen.

How liars create the ‘illusion of truth’

“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels. Among psychologists something like this known as the "illusion of truth" effect.