Live data from Hacker News

Afroman found not liable in defamation case

nypost.com

701–710 of 798 posts

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#701

I 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…

Talk about shooting, how about shooting wearing a mask with no identifiable badge on then driving away in an unmarked car, and perhaps shooting more people who try to video you shooting people. Comparatively speaking there's nothing rotten in Denmark

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It significantly de-armed. Most importantly, Australia removed "self-defence" as a reason to own firearms. You have to be a farmer, hunter, or belong to a shooting club. While the number of guns increased, the number of gun owners dropped. And the new regulations enacted this year drop the number of guns one can own even more. There was a near-total ban on "military style" guns. See how the terrorists at the massacre…

> It significantly de-armed In the sense that there are more private registered guns than ever before in Australia, sure. > Most importantly, Australia removed "self-defence" as a reason to own firearms. More importantly, it unified gun laws - before the Port Arthur shooting, Queensland, Tasmania, the Northern Territory, probably the Australian Capital Territory were all unregulated. Unregulated states with no border…

> they serve no real purpose, the only activity that requires high fire rates and larger magazines ...

Did the Australian ban of "military style" rifles include a blanket clause that covers all semi-automatic fire? Or is it an almost entirely aesthetic category as it tends to be whenever such measures are proposed in the US?

When it comes to automatic fire there's a rather famous US case where someone was ultimately convicted for possessing a shoelace (IIRC) attached to some fastening hardware. As to larger magazines, those probably don't even meet the bar for an introductory level highschool shop project.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#703
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it was less about the legal merits and more about punishing (whether or not they won) through the lawsuit itself.

That was what I was thinking at first too, but if I was sitting on their side, my mind would still go for "Wait, if we sue him, won't this make the news and make things better for him?" immediately, rather than "Yeah, this will suck for him". I'm not sure how they thought this would be bad for him, legal costs?

I don't think this is "better" for him really. He didn't win any money afaik. He spent a lot of time defending himself against something that could have easily gone in a different direction given a different jury.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#704
post #444
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wasn’t a 1A case, it was a civil defamation suit. He won because they failed to prove defamation, NOT because the judge threw out the lawsuit because of a violation of constitutional rights. Separately: saying something shitty or unpopular that you disagree with isn’t someone abusing their rights to free expression. Expressing unpopular viewpoints that others consider abusive is exactly the point of such rights.…

> Germany sometimes bans entire political parties You make it sound like Germany bans political parties every other year. Germany formally only ever banned two parties: - Socialist Reich Party (SRP), 1952 - Communist Party of Germany (KPD), 1956 For context: The Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949. There are current discussions about banning - or evaluating a potential ban of - the Alternative für Deutsch…

That’s just an example. Germany’s censorship (a violation of human rights to peaceful free expression) doesn’t just stop at political parties.

The fact that they are even discussing a ban of AfD shows how ridiculously dangerous such powers are when held by the state. The AfD is disgusting but until and unless they take up arms, speech is speech. “First they came for the racists, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a racist. Then they came for the publishers of violent video games…”

There is no power that you can give to the state that they will not eventually abuse at their convenience. It positively astounds me that Germans do not understand this, given the nation’s history.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#705
post #436
post #337

> In one of the music videos, “Will You Help Me Repair My Door,” surveillance footage shows officers swinging open a gate, kicking down a door, and roaming armed around a living room and a kitchen. >The other, “Lemon Pound Cake,” shows one of the officers, gun in hand, pausing briefly in Mr. Foreman’s kitchen by a cake inside a glass cloche. “It made the sheriff want to put down his gun and cut him a slice,” Mr. Fore…

He's also a savvy businessman, this will be great for his career

Unfortunately that might be all he gets out of it. He apparently lost the civil suit for damages to his house and the stolen property.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#706
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wasn’t a 1A case, it was a civil defamation suit. He won because they failed to prove defamation, NOT because the judge threw out the lawsuit because of a violation of constitutional rights. Separately: saying something shitty or unpopular that you disagree with isn’t someone abusing their rights to free expression. Expressing unpopular viewpoints that others consider abusive is exactly the point of such rights.…

Perhaps interesting here is that some of the things he said were definitely not defensible via "truth is an affirmative defense." But it's ultimately up to the jury, and they can also find him innocent because a reasonable person wouldn't be offended by outlandish accusations. (Ultimately, though, they can find him innocent for any reason. If they decided he should walk because you can't legally offend cops, that's f…

“walk” refers to criminal prosecution where the alternative is going to prison. This was a civil trial, he was not being prosecuted. The police, despite raiding his house, never charged him with a crime. He was not “found innocent” in a civil suit. He was innocent the whole time even if he lost this trial, it’s just a matter of monetary damage.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but I also doubt you could get anywhere near the population needed to vote for strict gun control to start with. And if it was passed anyways I don't think enough people would accept it and give up their guns even if they had to hide or fight to keep them. I personally don't trust the US government enough to willingly vote to give them a monopoly on violence even if I otherwise don't shoot guns very often.

This is all such a strange take. What do you think would happen, what's the expectation? Everybody goes out and starts shooting down their local police force? The military? I just don't get how people think this would work and if the government would be intimidated by that. I think they'd just shoot first and ask questions later and that's it.

I would say the same thing about the opposite. What do you think people are going to do, take time out of their way to go turn in thousands of dollars worth of guns and ammo for nothing in return? Do you think cops are going to go door-to-door seizing guns and that nobody is going to ever fight back despite being fed the fear of the government barging in and taking citizen's guns by force for their entire life?

I don't believe gun control is effective unless nearly the entire population is accepting it willfully, and if people wanted to do it willfully it would be easy to gain a large majority of votes for that cause. But even the democratic party in some of the densest cities struggle to gain a simple majority from voters on the issue.

I also don't think the government has the power to take peoples guns by force even if they wanted, it would collapse the US if even a tiny portion of people fought back and defeat the entire purpose of trying. Would the US military lose battles against citizens? No, there wouldn't even be very many. But they still wouldn't win the war when some random hillbilly takes a few pot shots at a sub station from 2 miles out and takes down the power for potentially millions of people and all the work and value they produce. Factories don't work without power, essential munitions don't get produced if they can't secure material inputs from across the nation or the world, and if financial institutions takes a dive in response to destruction and chaos there goes US trade power. And you can bet your ass that all the countries the US has been taking a dump on for nearly the last century are going to take advantage of a weakened US.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It significantly de-armed In the sense that there are more private registered guns than ever before in Australia, sure. > Most importantly, Australia removed "self-defence" as a reason to own firearms. More importantly, it unified gun laws - before the Port Arthur shooting, Queensland, Tasmania, the Northern Territory, probably the Australian Capital Territory were all unregulated. Unregulated states with no border…

> they serve no real purpose, the only activity that requires high fire rates and larger magazines ... Did the Australian ban of "military style" rifles include a blanket clause that covers all semi-automatic fire? Or is it an almost entirely aesthetic category as it tends to be whenever such measures are proposed in the US? When it comes to automatic fire there's a rather famous US case where someone was ultimately…

From what I understand most semi-auto guns are banned in Australia, but of course they never had a ton of those to start with. But there are still plenty of pump action, lever action, bolt action, etc guns which aren't meaningfully less capable. Shooting twice as fast doesn't mean you can kill twice as fast because you can't aim twice as fast. Like the majority of guns Afgan insurgents had were 60 year old bolt-actions which were quite obviously still capable enough to be deadly even to the top military in the world.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#709

I 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…

because we have 500m guns in the country.. you can’t expect european style policing

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#710

Earlier 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."

That should be immediately disqualifying for an law enforcement officer. Saying that on the record should end their career immediately. Alas, we don't live in a just world and they will likely be continuously promoted.

So what happens to all the other cops that believe that but don't say it?
Post reply on HN