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[Shinra]

Still, no wounds. From a woman who had firearms training.

I feel like this discussion has pretty much run his course and all I can do is repeat the same things while you call me racist, so I'm going to respond to this and then step away from the discussion:

1. Oh, good, no wounds. So I guess we can all just walk around firing our guns at things and as long as we don't hit anybody, that's A-OK

2. The fact that she did what she did is proof that whatever she learned from a firearms course did not stick in her brain. Here's how guns work: When you fire a gun, you should always, 100% of the time be aiming at and firing at your target, and you should be aiming to hit your target. In a self defense course they tell you to aim at center of mass. In a hunting safety course they tell you to not fire unless you are reasonably sure you can hit your target and are 100% sure you're not aiming at something you don't intend to kill, and that your shot won't hit something you don't intend to kill. Neither course accounts for 'firing to scare somebody/something or to make a point'. Because, as Rico pointed out, a bullet is a flying death missle that will cut through walls like they're paper and hit a fleshy target with a great deal of force.

We've already went over why she was convicted, we already went over why it was a reasonable conviction, but you have convinced yourself that this case is a product of institutionalized racism and that there is simply no other explaination. I think at this point there's nothing any of us can say to you that's going to get you to look at the facts of the case, and at that point there's simply no reason to even bother trying to debate you on this subject.

[Rico]

I don't think it has much to do with relooking at the facts of the case so much as Classic has come right out and said he doesn't really understand self-defense/use of force legally and doesn't know much about firearms either.

[Classic]

I feel like this discussion has pretty much run his course and all I can do is repeat the same things while you call me racist

I have not once in this conversation called you racist. I've made a point of it, because I have to assume you're not a racist to remain even vaguely civil. So don't accuse me of something I haven't done.

I also seem to have read more about the facts of this case than you have, although probably not about the surrounding case law, I expect we're both close to nil. So it'd be super if you stopped making giant-ass holes in your glass house.

We've already went over why she was convicted

There's not a "we" that includes you here, because the first of two things I'm trying to point out are that you seem to be inferring motive from facts irrelevant to that motive. I am not trying to convince you to do anything but look at the case more closely and not leap on a conclusion because you want or need SYG to be not inherently racist.

The second is this case, unlike the Trayvon Martin one, had an investigation and charges given like you'd imagine such things would occur in a society without institutionalized racism. Yet, we only got Zimmerman charges after a huge grassroots shitstorm. You've conceded that this is an example of institutionalized racism at work and that it's terrible.

The major things that we have not either agreed on or agreed to disagree on are: What alternatives did Marissa actually have (because according to her, she was trapped in her garage); Whether or not SYG is inherently racist or classist (which is what we were originally talking about); How long you will persist in making insulting strawmen like this one

1. Oh, good, no wounds. So I guess we can all just walk around firing our guns at things and as long as we don't hit anybody, that's A-OK

and this one

If somebody pulls a knife on me, and I run away, I don't get to run to the pawn shop, buy a firearm, come back and shoot them

Seriously?

[Rico]

I went back and reread the beginning of this whole thing and, Classic, whatever points you're trying to make about the fairness or unfairness of Marissa's conviction are just really, really muddled because you don't understand self-defense laws, you don't seem to understand the major reason she was convicted (hint: Won't someone please think of the children), and the problems with minimum sentencing, NONE of which are applicable to the Zimmerman/Martin case.

I'm not really blaming you for any of this. The media reporting on both cases is shit awful, there's no real analysis available that's not just racially inflamed talking points on either side. But, honestly, it's probably better to give up on pushing the Alexander case or start another thread on it where you get off to a better start.

[Shinra]

I know i said I was done, but:

(because according to her, she was trapped in her garage);

Garage doors can be opened with a pully or a button. She didn't have her car keys, her husband didn't follow her in the garage, he wasn't waiting on the other side of the garage door. It's a bullshit argument. She has feet. She can walk. She has neighbors. There is a good chance they have telephones. Stop fucking saying she was trapped! It's like saying the fat lady can't shop at the wa-wa if all the scooters have already been taken!

[Rico]

Her claim is that the garage door was stuck. There's no real way to get more information on that, including whether the jury found it credible and included it in their deliberations, so both of you really ought to just ignore it entirely. I don't think her ability to retreat through the garage is that important; she deliberately armed herself and immediately returned.

[Classic]

Shrina.
Just... Here's an article. Please read it.
From HuffPo

She fled into the garage to escape but was trapped behind a jammed door, she stated in court documents

Do you have any articles you want me to read about this case or Florida case law, while we're at it?

I don't think her ability to retreat through the garage is that important; she deliberately armed herself and immediately returned.

I feel like I've made clear the source and the "iffiness" of her testimony. Though I haven't read how quickly she returned.
If we take her at her word that legitimate flight isn't an option, it seems like her viable choices were hide in the garage until the situation changed or enter the house and be at least threatened with additional violence.
And we really can't ignore it, because what her options actually were should be at the core of whether or not you consider this a SYG applicable scenario.

Classic, whatever points you're trying to make about the fairness or unfairness of Marissa's conviction

In spite of being really muddled, you picked up exactly what I thought was weird about her conviction. As in, why was establishing a different, equally severe crime, so important to establishing the invalidity of the SYG defense?

Alexander case or start another thread on it where you get off to a better start

The Marissa case was put here because it is most revealing as a comparison to the Zimmerman case. That Shinra and I have goaded each other into talking specifics isn't really what I had in mind. It seems like our major point of disagreement on the proceedings is that Shinra assumes the fairness and empathy of judge and jury across race and gender until shown otherwise. Where I consider, in light of evident institutionalized racism, not stopping to consider the what effects in terms of racial or gender bias are or might be is a tacit contribution to the problem, however small.

Since Shinra believes that justice has and is going to be served (at least regarding the assignment of guilt, not punishment), maybe he feels the two cases don't really merit the close comparison are getting at least in regards to how they highlight institutional racism. I think the differences between the process of making charges is already interesting and even with the media scrutiny for the Zimmerman proceedings I think it's going to continue to be interesting to contrast the two cases.

I wonder if the Zimmerman case is going to proceed as swiftly now that charges have actually been made. Although the defense teams have opposite goals in terms of how long they want the proceedings to take.

[Rico]

As in, why was establishing a different, equally severe crime, so important to establishing the invalidity of the SYG defense?

Because to be justified in using deadly force "she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm". Someone with firearms training choosing to draw just doesn't fire a warning shot if they feel under IMMINENT threat of death or great bodily harm.

[Thad]

Wow, this thread sure blew up.

Sticking to just page 5 for now; may catch up with the others later.  Sorry if any of this is redundant.

I don't disagree, but the fact remains that more minority offenders are arrested and convicted for violent crime.

Okay, but that's not what you SAID.

A United States Department of Justice report which surveyed homicide statistics between 1974 and 2004 stated that of the crimes surveyed, 52.2% of the offenders were Black, 45.8% were White, and 2% were Other Races. Of the victims in those same crimes, 50.9% were White, 46.9% were Black, and 2.1% were Other Races. The report further stated that "most murders are intraracial" with 86% of White murders committed by Whites, and 94% of Black murders committed by Blacks.[21] However, the document does not provide any details concerning what races or ethnicities are included in the designations "White", "Black", or "Other Races".

Okay, those are good stats for what they are, and they do indeed support "most" rather than merely "a disproportionate number".  Thanks for the link.

But what you ORIGINALLY said was indeed "commit", not "are arrested and convicted for".  The stats are not necessarily indicative of actual commission of crimes, for reasons TA has pointed out and the Wikipedia article itself points out.

I'm not saying the law does not set up situations like these, I am saying the law is not (as you are implying) inherently racist and is not directly furthering the pervasive racism in our society.

Well, I disagree utterly.

The definition of "threatening" is so vague that it must, perforce, take the ground-standerer's own biases into account.

I will not deny that, as a symptom of other factors, it has managed to for lack of a better term, put a racial group in it's sights. Get rid of SYG because it let an idiot like George Zimmerman with extremely poor judgement murder a child, not because of some perception that it's making racism worse in this country.

I maintain that if he had murdered a white child, the police would not have let him go free.

I grant that this is a hypothetical, but do you know of any examples of SYG being successfully employed in a minority-on-white killing, against an unarmed victim?  Let alone a minor?

I'm not assuming that they're comprehensive, but I'm also not buying the opposite assumption that Whites are committing enough crimes to equalize the table but they're just not being tried for any of them.

I don't see why not.

Per your quoted section, the gap between black and white perps, on murder alone, is about 6 points.

Now, that "white" statistic includes Hispanics (because Hispanic is not a race).  It's not immediately clear to me how it breaks down on Anglo/Hispanic lines.

That said, if you broaden from murder alone to "violent crime" in general?  Yeah, I think Anglos could cross that 50% threshold.

Can we agree that a greater amount of crime is committed by persons at, just above, and below the poverty line?

Can we agree that a greater percentage of persons at, above and below that line are minorities, mostly due to institutionalized racism as I've already discussed?

Depends what you mean by "a greater percentage" and how far "above" you draw that line.  Are you claiming that there are merely a disproportionate number of minorities around the poverty line than in the general population, or are you claiming that a MAJORITY -- ie, more than 50% -- of people living in poverty are minorities?

Because the former is correct, and the 2010 census data you linked seems to imply that the latter is -- at least in the case of children, and where you don't consider anything above the poverty line at all.

A couple demographic caveats: it's not juveniles who are committing the majority of those crimes; poor people statistically have more children; Latinos in particular are likely to come from a culture that encourages larger families.  So all those things could be skewing the (fairly dramatic) results in that "Children Under 18 Living in Poverty" chart.

And that's before we tackle the "above that line" phrase.  How far above?  The farther you get, obviously, the closer you get to the median income.  What do the numbers look like, say at $1000/year above the poverty line?  $5000?  $10000?

SYG is not racist, it's classist.

Weeeeell, it's both.

I would tend to agree that a racial minority in a suit and tie is less likely to pass the vague definition of "threatening" than a white guy in a wife-beater.  BUT I would hypothesize that, if we were to do a Brown v Board doll test (note: Fredric Wertham was not all bad!), a member of a racial minority would be classified as "threatening" more frequently than a white person with an identical build and outfit.

(And that's without even beginning to get into cases where clothing can denote both "rich" AND "thuggish" -- which begins to take us into the subject of organized crime, which is a whole other can of worms.)

[Classic]

Someone with firearms training choosing to draw just doesn't fire a warning shot if they feel under IMMINENT threat of death or great bodily harm.

But then you're saying she'd have a better claim to a SYG defense if she had shot him. Aren't you?

Where is the possibility that she did not want to inflict death or great bodily harm on her spouse even though she'd just finished being beaten and is afraid for her life?

[Rico]

Yes, that's probably correct. It's also certainly possible that she didn't want to kill him, but then she shouldn't have used deadly force nor tried to claim self-defense when she did so.

(My kingdom for a court transcript)

[Brentai]

The sad truth in this case is that she would have been in a MUCH better position if she had just murdered the man, because she would not have endangered any children (directly) and could make a much better argument of it being a spur of the moment, fear-based thing.

The bead I'm getting on SYG is that Florida's implementation of it (and not necessarily how it's written) uses intent as something of a backwards litmus test: If you DIDN'T fully intend to kill the victim, you clearly weren't scared enough, and therefore can't claim protection under Stand Your Ground.

Given everything I know about conservatives this makes perfect sense.

[Doom]

Yup. The true madness of SYG is that it encourages you to shoot to kill because corpses can't tell their side.

I can't remember it off-hand and I'll try to come back later tonight with it, but two big cases were one where a man is talking to a 911 operator about two minorities stealing a TV, talks himself into murdering them, heads out and does it, and walks free. I think the name was Horner something, but again I'll be back a bit later with it.

The other was a guy who chases down a guy stealing stereos, stabs him to death, takes the stereos and pawns them, and then claims self-defense. And walks free on that. Yup.

[Brentai]

It also encourages you to shoot to kill because you know the other person will.

...this isn't quite how I imagined Florida erupting into a massive open shooutout in the streets.

[Rico]

You shouldn't shoot or even pull a gun if you're not intending to shoot to kill. This doesn't have anything to do with any particular law. That it does work as a backwards litmus test for whether you felt like you were in imminent danger of death is just kind of a happy accident for prosecuting attorneys.

[Brentai]

Well, good point, but in normal circumstances that would only determine whether you should be charged with gross misconduct with a firearm.

Also, "shoot to hit" is probably a more apt term.  And yes I know that any bullet wound is potentially fatal.

[Classic]

You shouldn't... even pull a gun if you're not intending to shoot to kill.

I've never really understood the rationale behind this. I get that firearms are deadly by design and that it's generally more difficult to maim than to slay.

Is it a prisoner's dilemma type scenario where the game-theory strategy is to only draw with intent to kill?
Or is it that statistically speaking adding a weapon to the mix tends to escalate violence rather than calm it down?

EDIT:
To quote selection to make inquiry more clear.

[Brentai]

Partly escalation, partly that stray bullets are to be avoided at all costs for the exact reasons demonstrated in this scenario.  This is not something that does not get mentioned when you're first handed a pistol.

[Brentai]

I mean, okay.  I've skipped most of this current conversation but I think we're all in agreement that the woman needed to go to jail for SOMETHING.  Throwing out SYG on the aggravated assault charge is still wrong, though.  The idea that you can't arm yourself before entering a dangerous situation basically invalidates the entire argument behind personal carry; when a conversation in your own home turns into a honest death threat, SYG basically says that drawing and firing is what you're SUPPOSED to do, regardless of the situation.  You can nail her on illegal use of firearms, personal and child endangerment, and a couple other things, but none of those are aggravated assault with a minimum 20 year sentence.  It's the greedy attack of a prosecutor who thinks "justice is served" means bending the law and jury opinion as much as he has to to get someone in jail as long as he can, regardless of appropriateness.  It's just about scoring points, really.  Fuck you.

[Rico]

Child endangerment in this case IS aggravated assault, though, due to Florida law escalating any situation with a gun being drawn.