I said nothing about “burden”, although your choice of words is interesting. Since the “aggressor” in this case is the “victim” since he is the one no longer breathing.
I wish they had called the cops, and let them deal with the dude. ( still a good chance he’d wind up dead, though you could hope the professional might be better at dealing with him )
I have no doubt that if someone says they have a gun that they actually might. That’s kinda the whole issue, guns make it too easy for one emotional ape to kill another, and I think it would be best if no-one died.
Hitting the guy with your car probably carries with it more liability than shooting him. Like, legally the two might be the same (maybe?) but it practice I think it’s way more likely to get into serious trouble for running a guy over than for shooting him in Florida
Zimmerman aside, yes I completely agree she never should have been found guilty. I agree the original verdict was BS. It’s also BS she had to plead out for her retrial, but at least she is free vs still in prison.
Yeah, but we can do better in this country. It’s going to take us putting pressure on all of our public officials for that to happen. I’m glad she’s out, I’m pissed she had to plead out.
I don’t fault the driver for this. Yes, it turns out the aggressor didn’t have a gun, but when someone has forced you off the road in the dark, has announced they have a pistol and is walking towards your vehicle with something in their hand… Sitting in my well-lit office drinking coffee on a Friday morning it’s easy to say he should have done something different, but in the moment, I get it.
But I still don’t see this as a win for the “the right to carry is important to self-defense” crowd. The Uber driver had just finished training as a police officer. I haven’t gone through police training but I assume (I hope) it involves training to deal with situations just like this. Most people don’t have that training. The average joe who just bought a handgun at Wal-Mart and has undergone no training is still probably more likely to shoot themselves in the leg then kill the bad guy.
Preach, sister! Describing a deranged, threatening stalker as a ‘goofball’ is… problematic, to say the least. The fact the stalker was shot dead shows his behaviour went far beyond ‘goofball’, which suggests to me a ‘ha ha he’s a little weird’ kind of person, not a ‘force another driver to pull over then get out and approach threateningly’ kind of situation.
Boek was being a stalker-asshole and not very smart, either. He still didn’t need to be dead.
If this was a police officer killing a civilian with a cell phone, most of the posters on this thread would be blaming the officer (as it should be - this situation needed a lot more de-escalation). But because it was a private citizen, it’s being celebrated? What nonsense. This is a perfect example of the problem of the “good guy with a gun” fallacy, and why it’s so toxic.
Perhaps some would. Others would say the extremely aggressive actions with a deadly weapon (the truck), a direct threat of a firearm which seems to confirm what was in his hands was a gun - that the shooting would be justified.
And that is the word I would use. Justified, not celebrated.
I think he just sounds Southern. Sure, sure, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. But in the local vernacular, he sounded concerned and emphatic.
While I cringe at the casualness of calling this guy Goofball, I do like the idea of using goofy nicknames for premeditated killers, as suggested by Rod Cockerham:
Most of these goofballs would much rather be known as a thug or otherwise scary person. I imagine that most cops who do unjustified shootings would also rather be thought of as a badass than a goofball.
ETA: What is boing boing’s problem with moisture? Seems like a goofball word to auto censor (in quote above)
