No, I’m saying that he made the police nervous and they treated that as if it were a crime - even though it isn’t - and trumped up some charges, as they do in those circumstances when the person hasn’t actually committed any actual crimes.
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Where is Sister Prima Facie when you need her ??
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If your IoT microwave is broken, you may need to call Obama /s
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[quote=“Brainspore, post:58, topic:97694”]
“why didn’t any of the dozens of people who saw him walking down the street this way alert the authorities about an obviously armed and unhinged-looking man?”
[/quote]
“why didn’t any of the dozens of people who saw him walking down the street this way alert the authorities about an obviously armed and unhinged-looking man?”
[/quote]
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Your grandma and I would get along famously.
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Hindsight is golden. Why they didn’t alert police was that they weren’t doing anything illegal at the time. I think that when crimes are legitimately prevented, it was because the person was found committing yet another crime. Such as speeding to a bank robbery. The notion of stopping any random person because you don’t like the look of them is a fantasy that many police entertain. But there is a real question of causing more potential harm by paying armed people to confront others who are minding their own business. Looking weird, or scary, or unhinged aren’t crimes. And they are a hell of a lot more subjective than actual statutes.
I suppose it comes down to the fact that if I don’t even trust police or citizens to know the actual laws which are codified for them, then I certainly don’t trust them to improvise upon their own judgement and then use law to rationalize their decisions.
It’s a type of concern which I agree is reasonable. But the uncomfortable truth I think is that acting upon that concern is almost never reasonable, in terms of perceived risk versus created risk. Watching somebody, sure. But as soon as you send people with guns to intercept a person, to stop and put their hands upon them, you are actually creating an armed conflict.
How would the police have known to watch this guy and come to a reasonable assessment of his likeliness to cause harm to others if nobody had called them in the first place?
The actual arrest may have been legally dubious, but if a cop sees someone dressed as a fictional serial killer and walking around in public with a lethal weapon I think it’s perfectly reasonable for them to strike up a conversation with the individual in question, if only to gauge the situation.
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If police used such self-restraint, then yes, I agree that it would be safer to simply watch or strike up a conversation. Of course if that’s all that is going to happen, anybody could do it.
Personally, I never carry a weapon, nor wear masks or makeup - at least not heavy makeup of the obscuring clown sort. And I have had police tackle me, drive into me with their cars, put their guns to my head, drag me into allies, etc. While I was not doing anything illegal, and all of this in the enlightened liberal oasis of the NY/NE area. All probably because somebody didn’t like the look of me. If I was a bit darker, and/or further south, there’s a good chance that I wouldn’t still be alive.
So, based upon what cops do, and what they say they’d like to do - I am rather strict in limiting them to only law enforcement, of actual existing laws. If they could be trusted would be a different story. Even though it would be great to be able to prevent crimes, I am definitely not paying those people to be fortune tellers or even use good discretion. I have seen many different kinds of people with guns in various places, yet the only people to ever pull a gun and threaten me with it have been police. And they looked quite normal while doing it.
Do you have a citation or something on that?
The Court has held that “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding,” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 582 (2008), and that this “Second Amendment right is fully applicable to the States,” McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 750 (2010). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/14-10078_aplc.pdf
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Yeah any woman could easily wear 3x that amount of makeup in public without it being remarked on. There’s a reason it takes my daughter two hours to get ready to go out.
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Yeah. A felony?? Sheesh!
Yeah, and those states probably have similar open carry laws for knives. (I can’t make a definite statement because state laws wildly vary, and some of the open carry gun laws are very recent.)
I see way more fixed blade knives in sheaths in the wild than guns. Especially in rural areas where people use them way more often. I have my Kabar strapped to my Camel Back for yard work back when I had a yard, and would wear it to Home Depot or where ever, no problems.
75 posts so far and none of these until now?
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