Watch this video when you’re sitting down but not eating. At first, it looks like a typical chick-fight: slapping, hair pulling, minor kicking, nothing major. Certainly no reason to suspect the victim is in danger of Great Bodily Harm. Keep watching until you get to the 2:00 mark, then STOP it<\/strong>. Seriously, don’t watch the ending yet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nHere’s the video:<\/p>\n
<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\nRemember – STOP THE VIDEO at the 2:00 mark. \u00a0Don’t peek.<\/p>\n
If the victim in this video had been a pistol permit holder who resisted the assault by brandishing the pistol, would she have been justified?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Should she have run away, out the door into the parking lot where the attackers were waiting? Where else could she have retreated to, the bathroom where the attack started? The kitchen where the staff stood around watching but not helping? Was she legally obligated to flee McDonalds? How? Where?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
What if the third time the attackers returned, the victim felt she was too weak and battered to safely flee so she drew her permitted pistol and opened fire? Would that use of force have been justified as self-defense?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In Minnesota? \u00a0Currently? \u00a0A county attorney, sitting in a warm office with a cup of Starbucks on her desk and a Sheriff’s deputy guarding the building will decide that according to whatever abstruse legal theory she thinks applies, and whatever political priorities her superiors have committed to.<\/p>\n
Now, turn the video back on.<\/p>\n
The problem with present self-defense law is that up until the minute of that video, any reasonable observer would have said no, deadly force is not justified, it’s just some chicks acting stupidly. There’s no danger of serious harm so no right of self-defense. But watch the ending again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That’s the danger of allowing the prosecutor and jury, sitting two years after the fact, with six months to spend analyzing the evidence from every angle while experts debate the proper course of action. The last few seconds of that encounter changed lives forever. Should the victim have been legally obligated to endure it? Or should she have had the right to prevent it?<\/p>\n
Should she have been able to Stand Her Ground, using deadly force if necessary?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Gotta smash some eggs for a better society, right?<\/p>\n
Right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes from Como Park writes (with occasional emphasis added): Watch this video when you’re sitting down but not eating. At first, it looks like a typical chick-fight: slapping, hair pulling, minor kicking, nothing major. Certainly no reason to suspect the victim is in danger of Great Bodily Harm. Keep watching until you get to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,24,30,18,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-and-punishment","category-culture-war","category-liberty","category-pc","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19669"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19671,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19669\/revisions\/19671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}