… is a man with a gun. Apparently.
Curtis Reeves is a retired police captain. He’s 71 years old, but still quite fit and muscular — he looks like he could probably bench-press *me*, penguin belly and all. His victim, Chad Olsen, on the other hand, was fairly average in size (see the pics). But apparently Curtis Reeves going to say he was in fear of his life because the person he was arguing with threw “an unknown object” at him. An unknown object identified by eyewitnesses as… popcorn.
Popcorn.
He feared for his life because of… popcorn.
Forgive me while I laugh a long and sadly hysterical laugh. Somehow I doubt this will have as much success as the infamous Twinkie defense. But it’s Florida. So who knows.
Florida. It’s where the crazy goes to die.
– Badtux the Too-sane Penguin
But, hey, he was old. Everyone knows geezers are frail. Popcorn may be harmless when tossed at younger people, but once you hit the golden years, it doesn’t take much to fracture a hip. I’m being sarcastic, but at least one news article has raised that point in an attempt to show that Reeves could have been in fear for his life.
The gun nuts have a lot to answer for. They’re turning us into a nation where people who start arguments now feel justified in ending the fights they begin by shooting someone. Even worse, every time one of these senseless shootings occurs, there’s always a whole crowd of idiots who come crawling out of the woodwork spouting stupidity about why it was perfectly fine for the shooter to do what he or she did.
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If you really want to get depressed, read the comments at the links in your post. About half the commenters support Reeves and blame Olsen for his own death. Some have also piled on the wife, saying she was shot in trying to hold back her husband, not in trying to stop the shot.
The law on “stand your ground”/self defense is far too lax. If someone with a gun *feels* threatened, even if no such threat actually exists, the gunman can shoot and kill. I think of Yoshiro Hatori, the Japanese exchange student shot for going to the wrong house on Halloween, Jonathan Ferrell shot while looking for help after a car accident, Renisha McBride shot through a door, also after a car accident, and so many others. In each case, no actual threat existed, except from the person with the gun. But hey, they *felt* threatened, so that makes everything right.
Now I must puke.
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I suppose I can blame liberals for making us a nation so touchy-feely. Or maybe I’ll blame Obama. Sigh. The crazy just makes me… crazy… somedays. What about you?
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Florida should change its execution method to thrown popcorn from now on.
Leo, if I understand that law correctly, it’s technically legal to shoot any cop that approaches you: Cops have been known to murder. A cop approaches you. He has a weapon. Magical, legally significant things happen inside your head… bingo. Legal to gun him down.
The same goes with all Florida politicians. (You can assume they are armed because they are Florida politicians, who can easily be blamed for the law, therefore will sensibly be armed to defend against citizens using this particular exploit.)
But that’s not what the law was intended to do.
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Y’know, I have always thought of myself as a great argument against the Second Amendment. I’m a cranky old white guy with a hair-trigger temper and a low tolerance for other humans.
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been cut off on the highway/been in a theatre with a chatting audience/flipped off by someone and instantly flared up with “You FUCKER..!”. If I’d have been armed shots would probably have been fired and – given my qualification scores on the pistol range back in the day – three innocent bystanders, a parked car and two windows in the building down the block would have been ventilated.
So. All of this – me, this idiot, all of these “good guy with a gun” fuckups just remind us that the bottom line for any civil society is a fundamental level of disarmament. You pretty much have to feel confident that some small encounter with assholes like me won’t get you shot at at best and dead at worst, or you have to take Nangleator’s suggestion; assume EVERYONE is an asshole like me and shoot first.
And, clearly, that way madness lies. Why it seems impossible to get any sort of agreement on this speaks volumes to me about the ridiculous starting point of any “discussion” on this issue.
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Now you know why I didn’t carry a gun even when I lived in a state (Arizona) where that was possible legally.
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Florida. It’s where the crazy goes to die.
Actually, crazy is a live and well in Florida.
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Based on its most (in)famous application to date, Zimmerman/Martin, that damned law must require no exercise of judgment whatsoever on the part of the armed person “standing [his/her] ground.” I don’t text in theaters, but please remind me if you ever see me heading for the movies in Florida to value my life more highly than that. The people who passed that law and the people who implement it are just plain fucking nuts!
BTW, did you see the MUSCLES on that guy? Jeebus… why is he ever afraid of anybody?
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But Steve, he’s old, and therefore fragile…
Reminds me of my grandmother when she was around that age, when she and her skinny little friend LulaBell would go out and plow the garden. The mule had died decades before, of course. But there was no need for a mule with my grandmother there. She just slipped into the harness and pulled that plow behind her as if it were nothing, while her little friend LulaBell steered and hung on for dear life. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it.
It’s been ten years since my grandmother died. I miss her. She was a righteous soul. But she lived a long life and slipped away quietly so… I guess that is all one can hope for, in the end.
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Whether by nature or training, a lot of cops react to any challenge with heavy-handed intimidation if not actual violence. It often seems that current police culture may select for bullies rather than screen them out. I wonder if it has occurred to anyone else that the rationale behind “stand your ground” is a logical extension of what has become standard cop behaviour, i.e. reacting with force against any “perceived” threat.
In fiction at least, our media idolizes rogue cops. Talk about having it both ways — you get to be a rebel and an authority figure both at the same time. Got to be an appealing fantasy for a lot of people, including some people with badges. Zimmerman was of course a cop wanna-be.
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Yah, see my twitter feed (on the sidebar) where I mention how the NYPD treated an 84 year old jaywalker who was likely a bit addled in the head. They interpreted his inability to understand and comply with their directives as intransigence, and beat the shit out of him.
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Then there’s this — cops who beat to death a homeless man named Kelly Thomas are found innocent.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-war-on-mentally-ill-escalates.html
The raw video of this that digby links to should be broadcast 24/7 on all channels until something changes in this country. Watch all 33 minutes of it and judge for yourself.
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