Wednesday, November 10

In America, you can't use Deadly Force to protect property....

 So leave your unlawfully purchased AK rifles at home, boys/minors/underaged. That's a mighty powerful weapon to be patrolling and protecting property with.  If you're young and twitchy, and the gun is too much for you, why you just might freak out! if you get separated from your platoon, and attacked with non- lethal force... like a skateboard. Or a bag.

Shooting unarmed people chasing you because you're scared isn't self defense.

More and more, America is holding responsible those gun owners who make bad choices, and kill unarmed civilians. Even police!  Hold your fire until you know your target and are justified in responding to a deadly threat with deadly force.

Kyle Rittenhouse is a nightmare for lawful gun owners who play by the rules.  Too young to buy that weapon lawfully, he's the reason everybody goes through background checks, to weed immature potential gun owners out.  Too young to be on the streets past curfew, he got scared after dark, panicked and killed two unarmed men.

He wanted to play being a protective grown-up with a gun, lied about his background training and put himself in an unenviable position that he just did not have the judgment skills to distinguish between protecting property and life, or to determine if his life was endangered so that he could justify using deadly force, or if he just couldn't take a skateboard wallop and a physical fight with an unarmed man.  Kyle didn't have the training of professionals to protect his weapon, and feared it would be stripped from him and his powers gone.

A lot has changed in America since the acquittal in the the Trayvon Martin trial.  We are much less tolerant of men who introduce guns into non-lethal disagreements, and then cry victim when the situation gets out of control, and they fear the lethality they chose to bring along for protection, intimidation and force.

Remember the close of Gran Torino? The unarmed man won because he was shot dead, by his own intention, by somebody who relied too much on the gun for persuasion purposes and overreacted.

If Americans want to keep their Second Amendment freedoms alive, they'd stop cheering the unlawful gun buyer who makes them look bad: a boy from a broken home trying to use an AK rifle to be a man who chose to bring that weapon out to defend property not his own and got himself into a situation he could not handle himself without shooting two unarmed others.

Smart gun owners should want to see Mr. Rittenhouse convicted and sentenced to prison for his crimes.  Bozo boys like that who will not and cannot play by the rules that adult gun owners must abide by are the reasons that all gun owners risk losing Second Amendment freedoms.

He shouldn't get life, of course, but he unlawfully took two innocent lives.  A decade in prison, completing his nursing training and helping other imprisoned men convicted of murders with guns, will find him a decade more mature from the shared company of other criminals serving their time too.

Deterrence and rehabilitation, it fits white criminals too. We don't want more like that on our streets. Let the boys play video games sure, but the minute they take an AK rifle unlawfully onto our streets, they are responsible for any loss of civilian life like every other gun-carrying adult.  No "I freaked out!" excuses, boys and girls...

--------------

Btw, mark your calendars, court-watching pundits: the Brooklyn Park, MN police officer who mistook her gun for her Taser and shot dead a fleeing teen will have her trial televised, a judge recently ruled.  The uptick in Minnesota Co-vid cases means courtroom space for spectators could not be secured to accommodate spacing and seating, so the judge reversed herself and will be letting cameras into that courtroom.  

More and more, America is demanding accountability for those who pull the trigger in haste and take a life due to their own errors, negligence and misjudgments.  Responsible gun owners, like responsible cops, should welcome this development.  Might save a lot of lives, and protect freedoms in the long run, if as a country we demand stronger gun justice and don't lump responsible users in with those who want a pass when they unlawfully kill others...

For the record? I'm not a gun owner. Never felt the fear to own or shoot others. We cripple our boys today, I think, when they are forbidden to fight fairly, armed only with words -- not weapons -- and fists.  That's how you get a doughboy like Rittenhouse, who doesn't have appeared to mature past his baby fat into an adult man's body (sad to think he might have taken two lives before even losing his virginity... ) who thinks an AK rifle is how you respond to being hit, with a skateboard or a bag.  He didn't have confidence in his own bodily strength, it seems, in meeting non-lethal force with non-lethal force.  And he scares easily.