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Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

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Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#231
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Having watched the videos, it was plainly obvious that in each case, Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense. my understanding is that you can't claim self-defense if you initiated violence yourself. Threatening unarmed people with a gun, pointing it at them is a credible threat of violence that the people have the right to defend themselves from, and that is what they tried to do in particular by chasing that gun wi…

>Threatening unarmed people with a gun a) he never threatened anyone. In fact, he demonstrated better gun safety than, say, a Hollywood actor/producer 3 times his age. b) how can you claim the crowd was unarmed? Of the 3 people that stuck around to be searched, 2 of them had weapons. A skateboard used as a bludgeon. And a Glock pistol that was drawn from concealment and pointed at his head.

>In fact, he demonstrated better gun safety

Ah! so that is what responsible gun owner's gun safety looks like - 2 dead 1 wounded just because that stupid POS wanted to get off playing with a gun feeling all powerful. He didn't even bother to check on his victims and render first help (his skills he was so boasting about to journalists just 15 minutes before he killed his first victim), nor attempted to call for help for them. Kill-and-run. That is gun safety? Nope. That is total disregard for and reckless endangerment of the people lives which resulted in those cold blooded murders.

>Hollywood actor/producer 3 times his age

the person who was responsible for those guns on the set and handed the guns to the actor declaring them "Cool" (ie. not having real bullets) is 24 years old former model to whom it was only second time she worked as an armorer. From what i read it looks to me that she has about the same as Rittenhouse lack of understanding what guns aren't toys.

>b) how can you claim the crowd was unarmed?

i just watch those Kenosha videos and see that only those militia gun fetishists are having guns (and at one point police tells them something like "Tell your men to stop pointing guns at the people")

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#233
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This case is so weird from a european pov. Rittenhouse would be certainly convicted of murder in countries like germany. The self-defense argument would get you some laughs at the trial.

The German definition of self-defense (“Notwehr”) sounds quite comprehensive to me: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__32.html What makes you think the case would’ve been adjudicated differently in Germany? Edit: to be clear, certainly bringing a gun to a protest at all is illegal in Germany, so he could presumably be prosecuted for that, but it's not at all clear why he'd have been guilty of murder .

>What makes you think the case would’ve been adjudicated differently in Germany?

Angry people on twitter said so, and I cant be bothered to develop my own opinion.

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#234
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so if the shot down people can also make the case that they feared for their lives because you were carrying a weapon and that is why they pointed a weapon at you in the first place. There is a good reason why only highly trained government forces are allowed to carry a weapon let alone some teenager.

> Not so if the shot down people can also make the case that they feared for their lives Can you cite the specific German statute or case history that says this? Or is it just what you intuitively expect to be true? > There is a good reason why only highly trained government forces are allowed to carry a weapon let alone some teenager. For what it's worth, I wish that were the case in the US too. But whether carrying…

If you can read German, then search for the term Putativnotwehr - or Erlaubnistatbestandsirrtum which looks so much more German. It refers to an understandable, but wrong belief to be in a situation that justifies self defense.

It is a valid excuse in penal law, yet it does not apply to civil liabilities. You can still be sued for damages. An official prosecutor told me that you can use it once in your life to beat somebody up. After that, they will not believe you anymore.

However, I completely agree that it does not make sense to judge the Rittenhouse case by German law.

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#235
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is the main problem. A person can do the right thing even if they so far has done the wrong thing. The problem here was that he was part of a violent destructive crowd and went even further than the rest of the crowd in attacking an innocent (as judged by the court) guy with a gun.

If you are in a crowd, and an active shooter just killed one or two people in front of you, are you going to sit around and wait for a court to determine that they were legally innocent? Or would you be completely within your moral rights to defend yourself from the shooter, by any means at your disposal?

In case you weren't aware: Active shooter seems to have a defined meaning and the courts decided he was not. The rest of my comment assumes you were not aware of this and just meant someone who just shot someone else.

Now:

legally it seems in Wisconsin one doesn't have the right to follow after someone and pull a gun on them when they aren't threatening anyone. One does however has a right to shoot if someone attacks with deadly force. If this is a good law or not I'll not discuss - personally I'd prefer if police rounded up and judges handed out some generous penalties to the rioters.

morally, one guy had gone around helping put out fires in a poor neighbourhood targeted by riot tourism while also being friendly towards those as far as possible The others were violent rioters enjoying an opportunity to destroy innocent peoples livelihoods under the cover of supporting the very people they were attacking.

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#236
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK, aside from guns being highly regulated, taking the gun to a protest would be taken as a sign of intent to use it and the rest of the events would be interpreted in that light. Of course in the UK he'd be looking at multiple years in prison just for the gun offence, and it's also less likely someone else would be waving a gun around in his direction.

In the UK I assume that taking a gun anywhere would be illegal. So let's use a different analogy. If there was a protest in the UK and someone brought pepper spray, would that be interpreted as a sign to use it? If during that hypothetical protest, there were people jump kicking him and swinging skateboards at him, and he used the pepper spray, would he be charged with battery for bringing the pepper spray in the fir…

Bringing anything anywhere public with the intent of using it as a weapon, even the skateboard, is an offense in the UK. The discourse and social environment is just completely different; despite our own endemic violence issues the UK is simply a less deadly country.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/offensive-weapons-kniv...

“any article made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person or intended by the person having it with him for such use by him or by some other person”.

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#237
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Having watched the videos, it was plainly obvious that in each case, Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense. my understanding is that you can't claim self-defense if you initiated violence yourself. Threatening unarmed people with a gun, pointing it at them is a credible threat of violence that the people have the right to defend themselves from, and that is what they tried to do in particular by chasing that gun wi…

There are a lot more layers to the case than you would originally think. Like an obligation to flee if reasonable to do so etc. Legal Eagle on YT did a great breakdown of it all. It's not as simple as "can't claim self-defence if you initiated violence yourself".

>Like an obligation to flee if reasonable to do so etc.

If you're targeted personally i suppose. When the violence isn't targeted your running away wouldn't change the situation if there are other people around who can be shot. That reminds about that veteran who attacked the shooter several years ago at the Oregon college - he could have fled i guess, yet he didn't. Did he had an obligation to flee? I don't think anybody there entertained even for a moment such nonsense idea as the shooter's self-defense against the veteran who attacked him and got wounded in that fight. In Kenosha though the shooter shot the guys who tried to stop him (and from any point of view he was the active shooter to be stopped as he didn't stay with his first victim calling/waiting for police and rendering help to the victim as one would do in a true self-defense situation, and as an active shooter he was a threat to everybody, a threat that the people have the right to defend themselves from), and it somehow got successfully sold as self-defense on his part.

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#238
post #2

> Facebook said it would "still remove content that celebrates the death of the individuals killed in Kenosha". But "we will no longer remove content containing praise or support of Rittenhouse", a spokesperson said. To be clear, for a year, Facebook banned content that would have been consistent with what an impartial jury ultimately found about the case. Which would have corrected a misleading media narrative about…

I had followed the case since the beginning. Having watched the videos, it was plainly obvious that in each case, Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense. (Intriguingly, many pro-Rittenhouse voices were arguing that he was guilty of the gun charge, though some were a bit more eagle-eyed and read the statute the way the judge ultimately did when he dismissed it.) The interesting thing about Rittenhouse is that even des…

Rittenhouse shot and killed 2 people, and shot and injured a third.

Both of the men Rittenhouse killed were unarmed.

I accept that every shot Rittenhouse fired fell within the framework of self-defence under the law. I also accept that he did have a legal right to be in Kenosha.

Whether he had a legal right to be carrying the gun or not is a little more contentious. Although his possession of the gun was in line with the letter of the law, it seems likely from the wording that the exception was intended to apply to minors hunting and is poorly written, rather than an intentional decision to allow 17 year olds to carry AR-15s. Poorly worded laws are read in favour of the defence, which is why the gun charge was dropped. He likely would not have been allowed to buy or possess the gun in his home state.

But whatever the legality, I don't think it's right that a guy can go tooled up to another city, kill two unarmed people, and pose for celebratory photos with white supremacists afterwards.

The flow of information today is too fast to wait for definitive, legal judgements on every case, and balancing free speech, opinion, and commentary against spreading false news and inciting hatred is an incredibly challenging task. In the aftermath of the shooting, it seems Facebook implemented their 'mass shooting' playbook, which is, from my perspective, completely reasonable.

Facebook choosing not to allow praise or support for a killer is, in my opinion, sensible and logical. Once it became clear that the killings were not illegal, then Facebook removed these restrictions. I'm not exactly an ardent defender of Facebook's policies, but in this case, especially given that none of the facts are in contention, I think Facebook did the right thing.

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two wrongs etc. Taking the law into your own hands just breeds more violence.

> Taking the law into your own hands just breeds more violence. As a nice but nerdy kid who got in trouble at school for half a decade or while teachers turned a blind eye I'm not so sure. The problems immediately stopped once I stood up and used necessary force to make me a less attractive target. Even the bully in question seemed to get something valuable out of it. Edited to remove as many personal details as poss…

I'm going to assume you didn't kill anybody. I've lived through that exact same thing, but I definitely wouldn't have shot people or endangered their lives. That's beyond insane.

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#240
post #36
post #2

> Facebook said it would "still remove content that celebrates the death of the individuals killed in Kenosha". But "we will no longer remove content containing praise or support of Rittenhouse", a spokesperson said. To be clear, for a year, Facebook banned content that would have been consistent with what an impartial jury ultimately found about the case. Which would have corrected a misleading media narrative about…

This case is so weird from a european pov. Rittenhouse would be certainly convicted of murder in countries like germany. The self-defense argument would get you some laughs at the trial.

I'm pretty sure German law would find Rittenhouse acted in self defense, given the facts of the case. The people he killed were attacking him with weapons, one had threatened to kill him, he had a gun pointed at him, he was in reasonable fear for his own life, and he attempted to retreat before resorting to his gun. Remove all the media hoopla and it's not even a little bit unclear - put most people in that situation and they'd find it reasonable to use deadly force to defend yourself.
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