Isn’t this pretty much the same defense Zimmerman used? Worked for him.
Nothing new for those of the bottom classes/races.
Heyo,
It is so hard to keep these posts short, but I am really trying (this means however I am writing in an extremely general way)
So, self defense. Most states use a self-defense standard that requires a reasonable belief of danger (I have no idea what Florida uses I am afraid, but it is probably the same standard). Basically this means that if a person has a subjectively held belief, which is also objectively reasonable, that they are in imminent danger of attack (or to use deadly force in self-defense, in imminent danger of death of great bodily injury), then they may utilize self-defense. This sort of makes sense in a general way, which I will illustrate using the following example. Party A is sitting in the bench, when party B approaches with a drawn gun and says “I am going to shoot you”. Party A would almost certainly have a reasonable belief of impending death or serious bodily injury and so would be able to utilize self-defense style self help. Society doesn’t want to make a person wait until the gun is actually fired by party A before allowing party B to defend himself.
So, all that seemed to have happened here (from very briefly reading the reported facts, which may be missing some or a lot of important points, as is often the case when you read about this kind of stuff in the paper) is that counsel is arguing that the defendant had a reasonable belief that an attack was imminent. Counsel then ostensibly went on to suggest that the government did the same thing with drone strikes or whatever. Whether this is ill advised or not I couldn’t guess without knowing more about the case, but it seems to really be more of a goofy illustration of a sound legal theory than a whole new/ridiculous legal theory of self-defense.
Hasn’t Munchkin been SJG’s bread and butter for a while now? Not that popularity == quality, but before the Ogre box kickstarter I think it accounted for the bulk of their income.
The lawn where I live (not in the US) only allows for the use of appropriate force. So if the other party is not actually attacking me with a gun then I can’t shoot them. If they are attacking me with a knife then I might be able to use a gun, but there is no certainty about that.
The article doesn’t say that the BBQing neighbours had access to a gun, or actually threatened to shoot Mr Woodward
In his defence the government has been laying the groundwork for preemptive-strike precedent for years.
What’s good for the goose…
Or for governments.
Legal bits aside, this is a perfect example of why preemptive military action is wrong. Our government is responding to imminent danger in the same manner as Florida trash.
for all those who are interested , there is a video of what occurred captured by this guys own camera
Watch and you decide - I say premeditated murder !
One article said he was a combat veteran in Iraq, so it’s not too far-fetched to imagine that he might have had some passing familiarity with the government’s definition of an imminent threat.
Still, that doesn’t rule out mental illness, or just plain cussedness, as far as I can tell.
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Yeah… you can’t really defend yourself pre-emptively.
If he was truly being harassed he should have documented, documented, documented, and took out a restraining order. Make it clear to the others not to come near him. If they then decided to follow up on their threat and “get him”, they would be the aggressors and he would be within his rights to defend himself.
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