Shot in the Dark

Ground Stood

Citizen in Alabama shoots, kills man who was herding customers in a dollar store into a back room at gunpoint. 

It seems like a no-brainer, right? Man with a gun is herding innocent third parties into a back room like a bunch of cattle.

Well, in Alabama it is.  Alabama has a “stand your ground” law, which says a law-abiding citizen has no “duty to retreat” when facing a lethal threat. 

Minnesota, of course, has no such law.  If the same episode happened in Minnesota, what would happen? 

That would depend entirely on the vicissitudes of the county attorney.  In Pennington County, the county attorney would likely buy the citizen a drink.  In Dakota County, Jim Backstrom – who has a long history of lying about law-abiding citizens and their right to self defense – would likely find any excuse he could to file charges. 

What does it say about our legal system when a persons’ freedom, life, liberty and exercise of their Constitutional rights is governed entirely by the whims, prejudices and bigotries of partisan hacks living in sinecures?

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Mitch Berg

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14 responses to “Ground Stood”

  1. Dog Gone Avatar
    Dog Gone

    I lived in Dakota County, and I know, slightly, Jim Backstrom.

    He is an excellent county attorney, he has had the strong support of a number of conservatives, and he does not lie about law abiding citizens in any way.

    You are trying to propagandize and fear monger again.

    Tsk tsk tsk — gun culture is a failure, on the wrong side of history.

    A better question is how can we keep guns out of the hands of criminals, since every gun started out as a legal purchase (for the most part) and why are we so lax and sloppy with how we allow guns to be transferred between people? The notion that people are little cardboard cutouts that fit easily into the clear and absolute categories of good guys with guns and bad guys with guns is too ludicrous to take seriously by rational adults living in the real world.

  2. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    DG,

    Sorry, but you are utterly wrong about Backstrom. That warm fuzzy feeling you have about him based on…having lived in DakCo (?) is belied by the fact that he lied through his teeth about a couple of generations of gun law proposals.

    A good county attorney doesn’t strong-arm other criminal justice employees into giving him the information he wants. I would think the case I link here would infuriate you, since you fancy your self a “science”-driven “fact-checker”. Read the facts and get back to us.

    And he lied, not once but several times, directly and with malice, about the legal effects of “Stand your Ground” laws (which you’ve done yourself, but let’s strive for better, shall we?)

    Read both of those links, DG. Read them all the way through. I flensed any idea that Backstrom operates with any sense of integrity. He lied. There is no other word for it.

    If you continue to def3end him, it will be in spite of the fact that he’s a liar at best, or because you participate in the lie at worst.

    Please read, and get back to us with your response. Thanks.

  3. kel Avatar
    kel

    DG,
    The only people who believe there are “sides” to history are Marxists and history has shown them to be consistently wrong. Ask St Olaf for a refund you wasted your parents money.

  4. Bill C Avatar
    Bill C

    You are trying to propagandize and fear monger again.

    Berg’s Rule #7 in IMAX 3D.

  5. Troy Avatar
    Troy

    Judging from her output, what Dog Gone does best is ignoring facts, not checking them.

  6. Powhatan Mingo Avatar
    Powhatan Mingo

    ” . . . on the wrong side of history.”
    Whenever I hear a Lefty say this, I remember that the communists claimed to know who was on the right and wrong side of history. Indeed, at the core of their philosophy was the idea that history had sides, and that they had become the masters of human history. Most of their supporters in the West believed as they did.
    Yet they were utterly wrong on every major historical turning point. They believed that World War One was end-stage capitalism. They believed that the Great Depression was end-stage capitalism. They believed that World War Two was end-stage capitalism. Trotsky and Lenin believed that they could make peace with Germany and Austria on their terms after the October Revolution. Instead they had to give up a million square miles of the Russian Empire. Stalin believed the nazi’s wouldn’t attack him. They did. It was the deadliest conflict in human history. The Soviets, who believed they understood exactly how history worked, didn’t see it coming.
    You still hear the “end-stage capitalism” crap from “progressives” today. What a pitiful ideology. No wonder they act like spoiled children who haven’t gotten what they want.

  7. Seflores Avatar
    Seflores

    “You still hear the “end-stage capitalism” crap from “progressives” today. What a pitiful ideology.”
    This made me think back to the late 80’s when many of the best and brightest in the US were noting the superiority of the Soviet system. I remember Lester Thurow, then dean of the business school at MIT leading the eternally gullible Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes around some market in Moscow marveling at the goods and the many ‘lies’ Reagan told about the Soviet economy. Of course after the wall came down, we learned that their economy was retarded, corrupted and fundamentally broken.
    http://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/file/archives/pdf/1992_01_Imprimis.pdf

  8. swiftee Avatar
    swiftee

    “I lived in Dakota County, and I know, slightly, Jim Backstrom.”

    I’d bet my next paycheck that’s a goddamn lie.

  9. Powhatan Mingo Avatar
    Powhatan Mingo

    Dog Gone wrote:
    “I know, slightly, Jim Backstrom”
    And she knows that:
    “he does not lie about law abiding citizens in any way.”
    Because she slightly knows him.
    It’s an interesting sentence. I take that he does lie about citizens who do not abide by the law, and people who are not citizens. I wonder if he does it in court?

  10. MtkaMoose Avatar
    MtkaMoose

    Must not be a “white Hispanic” or otherwise plausibly majoritarian shooting an African-American or else we would be hearing about it non-stop.

    If the “victim” shot was black his behavior would probably be excused because he was just mad that they didn’t have any Skittles!

  11. kel Avatar
    kel

    DG opined that Jim Backstrom does not lie about law abiding citizens in any way.

    Neither did Kathleen Morris over in Scott County.

  12. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    Yes, it was an interesting sentence.

    Interesting because I completely debunked it. I showed, with links, two examples of cases where Backstrom lied about legislation, and about the people who would be covered by it.

    So yes – Backstrom did, in fact, lie about law-abiding citizens. Whether DG lived there and knew him slightly or not.

  13. Adrian Avatar
    Adrian

    20 hours since your reply Mitch…and crickets from DG. Should have been plenty of time for even the decidedly ignorant to digest the facts from your links. But DG typically engages in the usual smash-and-grab debate style we have grown to expect from lefties.

    And I expect that should DG even respond, it will likely be fodder for your next Avery/Mitch exchange.

  14. kel Avatar
    kel

    Do note that DG does not dispute that Backstrom would vigorously prosecute the law abiding citizen.

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