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Arbery case vs Rittenhouse case

11/24/2021

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I'm gonna do a quick compare/contrast of the case of Arbery's killers vs. Rittenhouse, just because I don't think I'm going to see a better example of a bullshit self-defense claim vs. a legit self-defense claim in my lifetime. So here we go.

Down in a chunk of bumblefuck Georgia, three guys, a father-son pair named Travis and Gregory McMichael and a neighbor named Roddie Bryan, found Ahmaud Arbery running in their neighborhood. The McMichaels, both armed, got in one truck while Bryan got in another and chased down Arbery. They cornered Arbery. In the confrontation, Travis McMichael shot and killed Arbery. Bryan filmed most of the chase and fight on his phone.


The three men claimed to police on scene that they were attempting to make a citizen's arrest of Arbery, who they thought had burglarized homes and cars in the area. When Arbery refused to stop, the three claimed Arbery tried to take the shotgun from Travis, who killed Arbery in self defense.


If that sounds fucked up now, wait, it gets worse.


The older McMichael, Gregory, was a retired cop in the area.


The Brunswick judicial circuit DA, Jackie Johnson, ordered the local PD not to make arrests at the time. A few days later, she recused herself from the case.


The case was transferred to a neighboring district, where Arbery's autopsy had taken place. But the DA there, George Barnhill, had already written a memorandum claiming there was no cause to arrest the three. Neither DA mentioned this, and it took over a month for the case to be transferred to yet another district.


How much of this is thin blue corruption cover and how much is typical paper-pushing stupid, nobody knows.


At the beginning of May, a lawyer consulted but not retained by the three released Bryan's video to a radio station. The video went viral, and Gov. Kemp stepped in, offering the GBI to take over the investigation. The GBI found cause to charge all three with murder within 36hrs.


This is where most of us, including us in the self-defense community, noticed the case.


While not set in stone (and varying between jurisdictions), self defense is usually considered legit if the person one is defending from and their actions pass the Ability, opportunity, Jeopardy claim.

Ability: are they physically able to cause death and/or grievous bodily harm(GBH), whether by themselves or with a weapon?
Opportunity: Are they close enough for their weapons to have you in range?
Jeopardy: Would a reasonable person assume they are trying to kill/harm you? I.e. are they screaming "I'm gonna kill you!" or are they screwing around on their phone?

Added into that is a somewhat more vague concept: are you minding your own business or are you willingly engaging in conflict?


This is where it gets fuzzy and where a lot of people lose their shit in a haze of "I have a right to do what I want!"


But on the whole, your behavior has to deescalate or at least stay neutral in order to be actually defending yourself.


For a good example of willingly engaging in a conflict then "defending" oneself, see Samuel L Jackson's story about the confederate's son in the Hateful 8.


The three claimed they were minding their own business while making a citizen's arrest.


The claim was based on a civil war era citizen's arrest law (which has since been rescinded). That law claimed that a crime must be committed within the citizen's "immediate knowledge" or there must be "reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion" for a felony crime.


It smelled funny to most of us to begin with and fell apart as the trial went on and the three admitted that they'd only seen videos of Arbery wandering through a construction site and not taking anything, then took the chance to catch him when they saw him jogging.


Dude, if three assholes came chasing after me in trucks with shotguns, I'd run and fight back too.


Anyways, today all three were found guilty. Former DA Johnson lost reelection and has been indicted for obstruction of justice and violation of oath of office. Dunno if anyone's charged Barnhill with anything.


So, if those guys' claims are bullshit, what makes Rittenhouse and his claim legit?

Ability: all three of those he shot were capable of killing him.
Opportunity: all three got close enough to kill and/or harm him.
Jeopardy: All three acted in ways consistent with trying to kill him. Two tried to take Rittenhouse's weapon. One openly threatened to kill him. One drew a pistol on him.

And did Rittenhouse escalate?


The Jury didn't believe so. Despite being armed, he was retreating in every single case, only raising his muzzle when attacked and only firing when it was reasonable to believe he was facing deadly force himself.


Some have argued that he was escalating merely by being there, or by being visibly armed. These arguments are uncomfortably close to "just look at what she was wearing" arguments.


They're also hypocritical, given that Rosenbaum was openly threatening to kill him and several members of his group. Also in that Grossenkrutz had presumably carried concealed at several protests, despite having an expired carry permit and an arrest for carrying while intoxicated on his record.


In either case, neither held any sway with the jury.


That said, as I've pointed out more than once, there's a difference between a legal act and a good idea.


The three in Georgia decided that thefts in their neighborhood not only warranted a citizen's arrest, but an armed vehicular chase. At no point did the idea of getting a positive ID or even calling the police occur to them. Instead, they chased an innocent man down and shot him dead when they fought back.

The jury echoed pretty much the entire self defense community in calling their SD claim bullshit.


Rittenhouse, on the other hand, made the choice to go off on his own to douse a fire and found himself ambushed. Once there, he defended himself as best he could and surrendered to the first cop that would actually book him.


As a side note, one thing I do think would have changed his life for the better was the leader of his group insisting that nobody be alone that night for any reason. Particularly since one of Rosenbaum's more direct threats was to kill anyone he caught alone that night. A threat he tried and failed to make good against Rittenhouse.


Anyways, hope that made sense. I've been a little ragged the last week or so. But the holiday kicked off with some justice, and I'm grateful for it.


Take care of yourselves out there.

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Might as well get this in while people are in a fighting mood.

11/19/2021

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Either self-defense is a right everyone has, or it's a privilege for the few.

Personally, I refuse to believe the latter.


Anything that moves it towards becoming the latter, however well intentioned, is not a good idea.

While better than any other country I can think of, America's self defense law is still unfortunately predicated around a moneyed landowning white dude with no criminal record defending themselves against an attack from a stranger.

If we want the law to effectively provide justice, we need to be able to swap out every single distinguishing trait off that list and still have it apply.


Make no mistake, that's a hard fucking road to travel even if we're all on the same page as a country, which we're not.


The easy way, on the other hand, is to try and restrict everyone, which will only fuck the disadvantaged harder.


There's two big forces that make the road we want to take harder.


One is the state. Like any state, it wishes it had a monopoly on violence and jealously guards what exceptions it will allow. There are prosecutors around the country who think legal self-defense doesn't exist.


This is exacerbated by the fact that self-defense is claimed a lot when it doesn't exist. When SODDI (Some Other Dude Did It) isn't a viable defense for murder, self-defense is the next best thing. This contributes to selection bias when legitimate self-defense cases crop up.


The second is our own biases in search of the perfect defender. We can articulate what is justified legally in various ways. But those don't match up with what we consider just because the law and justice are two different things, and the law is always playing catch up.


In this case, it's compounded by our current societal divisions and media outlets exacerbating that.


This has been happening since Zimmerman at least. Take the Alexander case. Alexander keeps being held up as an example of a black woman defending herself against an abuser and doing 20 years anyway.


What doesn't get mentioned is that she'd already escaped and came back for a fight (which negates self defense) fired a warning shot (tactically a bad idea) and got hit with a 3 strikes law (which is irrelevant).

But the drum that keeps getting beaten is that a black woman defended herself from her abuser and got 20 years anyway. In the same state where Zimmerman was acquitted.

To a lot of people on the left, Rittenhouse became of symbol of the right's resistance to what they saw as justified protests which had become lethal live in a stream. To the movers and shakers on the left, he was a nightmare: a good man with a gun and every reason to fight back against the riots.


In their eyes, such a thing could not stand.


A lot of disinformation was thrown around the trial. I found it interesting that NBC, the same network that was caught doctoring the Zimmerman 911 call, was caught sending a freelancer to follow jurors home.


Make no mistake, the right had it's share of unfounded rumors and accusations. Binger may have shitty weapons handling, but he wasn't aiming at the jury. Two of the jurors might have confessed to a marshal about worry of retribution, but it's never been confirmed that I've seen.


Nonetheless, a huge disinformation campaign and a laundry list of prosecutorial misconduct was used here.


Had it prevailed, it would have been worse for everyone in the future. The next POC DV victim who killed her abuser would have suffered as a result of Rittenhouse being railroaded.


If the system is willing to be this blatantly unconstitutional to a white dude with the whole world watching, what the fuck do you think it's capable of doing to a POC when the cameras are off?


I said a while back I understood why a lot of people wanted to see Rittenhouse nailed to a wall. But if we want to stay civilized, let alone just, we need to make sure that judgement and possible punishments happen for the right reasons. Instead of the perverse notion that if we commit enough injustices against oppressors that the scales somehow balance.

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Posted elsewhere, expanded here re: Rust

11/9/2021

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Even now I'm withholding my own judgement. All I know is what the press has given, and I normally trust journalists about as far as I can throw them. Even less so when firearms are involved. It doesn't help that we're well into the blame game on all sides.
That said, I'm a former armorer for reasons. And because I've had three years now to think about the conditions this set was on, my own thoughts are coloring distinctly.
Ordinarily, I would agree that the buck stops with the armorer. That's how I did the job.
That said, I've also taught my acting students that there are several people on set who are supposed to be responsible for safety in one capacity or another. But the grim reality of the industry is that their real job is to get their next job. That nobody cares more about their own safety than they do.
I've also been a hungry armorer. An armorer with no idea where their next gig was coming from.
An armorer who had to get in a 1st AD's face over a safety issue.
I still did it. Because that's the way I did the job.
But I was hungry when I did it.
I was scared when I did it.
And more and more, I'm thinking I shouldn't have had to be in that position in the first place.
At the end of the day, the armorer had the responsibility.
But the producer and the AD had the power.
That's fucked up.
It's a recipe for disaster.
She had the responsibility but they had the power.
(It's also why the side-eye slut shaming of the armorer at the hands of guntry club fudds, tactibros, and Joe Rogan wannabes is particularly pissing me off.)
And what's even more fucked up is that it took Hutchins' death to hammer that home to me of all fucking people.
One of the articles going around that points out that armorers are almost entirely unregulated.
They're that way because Hollywood doesn't want to think about them.
No more than they want to think about the multitude of A-listers with felony records flouting federal law by handling firearms on screen without so much as a raised eyebrow.
Because those laws are for little people.
(Remember a few years ago, when NY rammed yet another stupid gun law through so fast they didn't put in exceptions for cops, let alone anyone else? Chunks of the theater and film communities were screaming bloody murder that they'd be as badly restricted as the hoi polloi.)
Armory procedures are a pain in the ass all around the world; ask any grunt that's ever had to be up at o-dark-ridiculous to do a weapons draw in the cold. Makes it easy to forget that following them is what puts much less blood on the walls.
Hollywood wants armorers to do their jobs and then scuttle back into the darkness like the filthy peasants they think they are when they're not waiting for the cameras to roll.
That's why they have no power but all the responsibility.
They're highly skilled, heavily disrespected, and ultimately expendable.
And that's what makes Baldwin's statements and the asinine no-more-guns-on-set crowd as insulting as they are pathetic.
Because God forbid the filthy serf showing you how to hold a disgusting gun have any sort of power over the artists.
That's the core problem.
And it's going to remain a problem as long as it goes unaddressed.
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That time of year again

11/8/2021

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Thursday is Veteran's day. Since WWI, it's been a holiday about those who served and came back.
The big difference between this and Memorial day is that Veteran's day focuses on the living, while Memorial day focuses on the dead, both in combat and in the years since.
There's nothing in particular you have to do on Veteran's Day, so don't worry overmuch.
Since 2007, the VA has been encouraging veterans to wear their awards on military holidays, including Veteran's Day. So don't be surprised if you see people wearing ribbons or medals on ordinary clothes.
(I've seen everything from mini medals on tuxedos to a biker who arrived at a friend's memorial ceremony at the last minute with a ribbon stack on his kutte.)
Several businesses offer discounts and freebies to Veterans on November 11th.
Feel free to do so as well if you wish.
If you want to extend that to active duty, military families, first responders, whatever. It's your business.
The only people who complain about the scope of thanks are the kinds of fuckknuckles who spend the day bouncing from free pancakes to free entree while leaving lousy tips. Fuck those clowns.
Don't worry about stolen valor. Just use your everyday discretion before offering thanks, discounts, alcohol, sexual favors, or related actions.
Bonus round:
The day before Veteran's Day is the Marine Corps Birthday.
You may encounter formal events featuring mobs of energetic drunks in their finest dress blues.
Or you may encounter random gagglefucks grunting unintelligibly while performing a strange ritual involving a cake and a sword in the middle of a bar.
Do not panic. Simply avoid sudden movements, refrain from taking the seats with their backs to a wall, and give an occasional "Happy Birthday" in the direction of the scariest-looking ones.
Take care of yourselves out there.
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The Braves surprised everyone who knew sports history.

11/3/2021

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Virginia surprised anyone who wasn't paying attention.
By and large, the Dems responded to their victories in last year with the arrogance of, "well, now that the grownups are back in charge, hopefully for all time hereafter, you can get a good start on doing as you're told."
Then their brains divided by zero when they started being told to go fuck themselves. Sometimes with illustrated directions.
In a normal year, having a progressive wing champing at the bit to start making these peasants do what's good for them fighting a moderate wing that points out there might in fact be a baby somewhere in all this bathwater would be a less than efficient setup.
In a pandemic, it's only showing up worse.
Blaming Trump, which occasionally is even correct, becomes less effective with every day he's been muzzled by both traditional and social media outlets.
But the real screwup of the pandemic has been the effect on schools. All schools everywhere, not just Virginia. Gaining no additional funding (and when they did, it was months late and thousands short) but plenty of new rules to follow, administrators gave the marching orders of the day no matter how nonsensical while teachers overclocked themselves, all too often out of the profession.
On top of that, lockdowns meant that parents were there and actively watching, seeing the system bungling and their kids being left with the short end of the stick.
Doubling down, parents were just as divided as the rest of the country. So no matter what a given school did, at least a third of the parents were going to be pissed off about it.
About the only winner in the entire mess was homeschooling, which had a spike in popularity for predictable reasons.
And it's in this mess that the Virginia elections kicked in.
Younkin being helped by the fact that he was the only one willing to talk to Trumpers without having to actually interact with Trump himself.
Meanwhile, the progressives doubled down on their patronizing dismissal of anyone who didn't follow their party line. Not the brightest move to make in a state where over a third of voters are still independent.
But more than anything else, it was the Loudoun county incident that cinched it.
Every single revelation just looked worse.
The district tried to cover up a sexual assault in their school.
Then tried to spin it as a transgender bathroom issue.
Then in June, the angry father of the victim confronted a school board meeting only to be beaten bloody, cuffed, and charged with obstruction of justice.
Then Garland decides to call the father a domestic terrorist.
It put the complete authoritarian attitude of the progressives in sharp focus:
Dare defy us, and we will make your life a hell, declare you the aggressor; all of our violence against you justified and all of your violence against us condemned, and walk away from your misery with a clean conscience.
Ever since June, the Dems made it abundantly clear what the future with them in power looked like.
And they thought the one in three Virginia voters who consider themselves independents was cool with that.
And that is why the election played out the way it did.
Today the progressives are STILL not getting the point.
If they keep going like that, watch 2022 double down on this across the country.
Take care of yourselves out there.
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    Jay Peterson

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