So it was Texas-style barbeque then.
BRB - I have a list of people I have to go preemptively shoot. You can’t be too safe, after all.
As dumb as it sounds, it’s Florida after all, so he’ll probably be acquitted.
Honestly not sure if this guy genuinely misunderstands self defense, or if it’s just a case of mental illness manifesting according to its context.
Or if his lawyer is just experimenting with a novel defense and the perpetrator hadn’t thought about it at all prior to the attack.
Egads, is he trying to munchkin the law?
Is that all the law is? A really bad role playing game with occasional poorly thought out supplements?
First off, I am not condoning what this guy did.
I think the main lesson here is to not antagonize the crazy neighbor by reportedly saying “we are going to get him and his family”.
This took longer to happen then expected.
What? You didn’t expect someone would use this same stupid argument?
Yeah, it’s good to know in advance not to reportedly say something. Prevents a lot of confusion! 
Yeah, the guys at the D&D Character Optimization forum would’ve powergamed this years ago, right?
How close are we to legalizing murder?
Very.
We did that years ago.
Apparently it’s totally cool for our government to murder people by the the thousands if they’re from somewhere funny-sounding.
The argument’s just now being used on our own citizens.
No . . . FIVE YEARS OF CONE OF SHAME! Interrupting a BBQ is plain unneighbourly, after all!
I know it’s wishful thinking but it sure would be nice if this example made it up the legal system until it applied to the government as no longer a valid excuse.
The nature of the original dispute (duct tape??) and the series of police interventions is still unclear. For whatever reason, the police and the courts were aware of the conflict and weren’t able to provide a remedy that de-escalated the situation. There doesn’t seem to be anything online about the court appearance(s). Very puzzling.
Wow there are a crazy number of clickthroughs to get to the source article:
- BB
- Lowering the Bar (blog)
- The Raw Story (aggregator)
- Florida Today (original source)
Pretty much.
Sorry to be OT here, but I just discovered another reason to say, “All Hail Dean!” Posts now display the full date – including year. Huzzah! As someone who carped about this a few months ago, figured I owed it to ya to express joy/thanx, So, thanks! (Now, how long has this been going on? Or, to rephrase, how long have I been asleep?)
On-topic: a very wat?-worthy story, but as someone who’s had to employ a lawyer or two over the years, I can certainly appreciate this mug’s attorney doing the whole zealous representation thing.
I remember as a kid reading an Andy Capp cartoon that ended with him explaining to the cop “I thought he was going to hit me so I hit him back first.”
http://www.cartoons.ac.uk/record/AC2135
