This story should not be on HN. Shame on you folks.
Afroman found not liable in defamation case
631–640 of 798 posts
Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#632Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally I’ve had encounters with LE and have not had a gun drawn yet, so it’s obviously not the default. But I disagree, I think brandishing a knife is already extreme behavior, I don’t think it’s logical to think “because he has a weapon he probably doesn’t have another!”. And why would someone threatening people with a knife deserve benefit of the doubt?
Personally as a teenager I’ve been met with a group of cops all pointing guns at me when I was just walking around at night with no weapons whatsoever. They got a call from a paranoid homeowner nearby. They’re trained to shoot first and ask questions later.
Actually same happened to me - small group of friends maybe ~14 years old walking around late at night through our middle-class very safe neighborhood.
Two cops in a car rolled up and jumped out of the car with guns drawn and screamed at us to put our hands up because we “looked suspicious”.
They then asked us what we were doing, we said “walking home”, and they put their guns away and said “be safe out there, we didn’t realize you were kids”.
Absolutely no idea why it warranted guns pointed at us
Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#633Earlier quoted context omitted.
The one thing I'll say in defense of American cops is that they are police a population that's vastly more likely to have their own guns, too. Of course it's not like American cops have recognized the danger that poses and politically aligned themselves with reducing or restricting access to guns, so they lose a lot of credit there, but they are genuinely facing a better armed and therefore more dangerous population.
Canada has the same rates of gun ownership as America and you don't see cops come up with guns blazing like they do here
If Canada is like New Zealand, which also has a similarly high rate of gun ownership - it's largely different types of guns - that is, guns for hunting, not for killing people - very hard to conceal a rifle or shotgun compared to a pistol.
Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#634I have a potentially silly question, and obviously naive - but why so many drawn guns? Fun music videos aside, what was the background here? Were they coming in on a Massive gang fortress? Or are all the stereotypes of American police forces true and they just come guns a-blazing all the time? I mean, that wasn't even police officers with hand guns, they have army-like guys with massive automatic rifles, and they see…
I'm amazed at the number of people who are answering "this is just the way that it is in America". I don't live in Adams County, but they are our direct neighbors here in rural southwest Ohio. We like Afroman over here. :) I think the answer to your question is the warrant that they were serving involved kidnapping and an alleged torture dungeon along with drug trafficking charges. Yes, it may sound ridiculous on the…
Sounds like swatting.
Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#635Earlier quoted context omitted.
Youre aware that the rest of the planet have stricter gun laws and the American problems are fairly unique? This is even after controlling for things that exacerbate crime like high economic inequality. For instance, Brazil [1] (a much poorer and more unequal country than the USA) has lower murder rate than a lot of cities now than the USA. The murder rate of Rio seems to be about on the level of Houston (17/100k), o…
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A map over poor people would likely look the same.
Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#636Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's a country with a lot of guns. Police do regularly get shot at when raiding. Call me naive, but I think this could be solved by stricter gun laws. Yes, bad guys might have guns, but that's the case everywhere around the world. But being afraid that everybody could have a gun and use it against you while doing your work must clearly change something in your behaviour as a police officer... Why not calm down the…
You can hardly make stricter gun laws; we have a right to them in this country. It's hard to limit the guns without infringing on the right of the people.
> You can hardly make stricter gun laws; we have a right to them in this country. It's hard to limit the guns without infringing on the right of the people.
What an odd take. Gun rights weren't dictated by a burning bush. A group of 39 guys decided for everyone else that that right should exist a quarter of a millenium ago. A completely undemocratic system. Every citizen should have a say and if they will it, anything in the constitution can be amended or struck off.
Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#637Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Going on the stand and stating that you "don't know" whether the allegedly defamatory statements you are suing over are true or not is a... bold legal strategy. if the statement is true, that's a defense against defamation. if the statement is not believable, that is also a defense against defamation. it actually was legal strategy designed to dance around the legal strategy behind those questions being asked, taki…
I think comment was alleging perjury. They do know the statement is true (and this is provable). Pretending like they "don't know" is a lie under oath.
That wasn't actually what I was implying. Just that if the plaintiff isn't even willing to assert that the statements were false, what are you wasting the court's time for?
> He falsely claimed my wife is cheating on me!
> So you assert that your wife didn't cheat on you?
> No.
> ???Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#638Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_the_Warrior_Cop Watch the short clip in https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/rcgkis/u... - American cops get shown Scottish cops' deescalation procedures, and they scoff at it. "When you say preservation of life, it is… everybody's life. Ours has a pecking order. I'm just being honest."
I mean the key point there I think is the one where they point out that Brits simply wouldn’t accept police regularly shooting people. Policing for the people by the people.* * and pretend Northern Ireland doesn’t exist, or course
Have you ever been to inner city America? Honestly curious. I couldn't imagine policing it without using a gun sometime.
Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#639https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oponIfu5L3Y This is the video in question, police again falling trap to the Streisand effect.
It's worth it for a spin at millionaire roulette.
Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
#640Earlier quoted context omitted.
Youre aware that the rest of the planet have stricter gun laws and the American problems are fairly unique? This is even after controlling for things that exacerbate crime like high economic inequality. For instance, Brazil [1] (a much poorer and more unequal country than the USA) has lower murder rate than a lot of cities now than the USA. The murder rate of Rio seems to be about on the level of Houston (17/100k), o…
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Ah, some egregious misuse of statistics!
Murder is a byproduct of crime. Crime is, largely, downstream of economic conditions with some obvious caveats.
New Hampshire has the 2nd lowest crime rate of the USA states. You could make the same argument for, say, Switzerland (high gun ownership but no crime/murder). But no one would be surprised if you had high gun ownership in Monaco.
Similarly for the ethnic argument you're trying to make: Majority black neighbourhoods in the USA tend to be poor. They also tend to be near more affluent places. Unlike poor white neighbourhoods, which are on average more rural in the USA.
Being poor, and being next to rich people, and being excluded from legal increases of becoming rich, will increase crime.
This should be obvious. Brazil has famously Favelas right next to wealthy areas and has a persistent crime problem for example.
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In short, it's really incredible how far some Americans will go to deny the obvious truth: *gun prevalence increases deadly crime*.
Sure, some cultural factors will increase crime/violence on the margin. But the reason y'all have a bunch of shootings is that you have a bunch of guns to do shootings with. That simple.