Stand Your Ground: Now You Can Shoot The Handicapped!

[Jaden]

I was just responding to you, buddy. Check it:

So it happened at the drive thru at a fast food place.

From what I read, the driver didn't "almost hit someone!!!!111!!". Adkins "Almost got his ass hit because he's hanging out in the drivethru lane on foot."

That was the leadoff and pretty much your entire basis for the defense of the shooter - the mentally challenged man was in a strange place, hence how he could've "not known where he was" and scared the poor defenseless little driver with his SUV and gun. Seriously, dude, don't act like that wasn't what you were going for.

[Rapscallion]

And that's not at all it. You're not an idiot, so I know you don't really think that.

It's what I got from your post. It's what I still get.

Just because mental disability is mentioned doesn't mean that the person is a psycho. The vast majority of people with mental maladjustments aren't pscychos. The classic psycho wouldn't be out by themselves, and they would be more likely coming at you with whatever weapon they could find - not walking their dog. Dangerous people of the sort you're thinking of are accompanied when out in public, or at least they are over here.

However, you gave a broad brush image of all people with mental maladjustments as being murderous and thus it was fine to shoot them. That's my impression.

Rapscallion

[DrFaroohk]

Then I think we need to work on our comprehension abilities. Perhaps posting something in response to what I actually said instead of inventing all kinds of stuff to fit your view of how the argument should go?

[Andara Bledin]

Then I think we need to work on our comprehension abilities.

Let's review:

You said something.

Several different people took the same general thing from what you said.

You claim that the several different people have comprehensions issues.

Occam's Razor would suggest that it's not the several different people who need to work on anything.

^-.-^

[Duelist925]

Then I think we need to work on our comprehension abilities. Perhaps posting something in response to what I actually said instead of inventing all kinds of stuff to fit your view of how the argument should go?

Perhaps we should work on the clarity of our writing abilities, instead, rather than thinking several people all coming tot he same conclusion about what we wrote comes down to their comprehension.

[Seifer]

Then I think we need to work on our comprehension abilities. Perhaps posting something in response to what I actually said instead of inventing all kinds of stuff to fit your view of how the argument should go?

Let's clear this up. This is the original post that started the whole mess:

So it happened at the drive thru at a fast food place.

From what I read, the driver didn't "almost hit someone!!!!111!!". Adkins "Almost got his ass hit because he's hanging out in the drivethru lane on foot."

If the shooter's side of the story is true, can you imagine just being at mcdonalds and some psycho who was standing in the road suddenly starts yelling at you? I can, because it's happened, and it's fucking scary. I hate to be "that guy" here, but when it's someone with a mental disability you have NO FUCKING CLUE what he might do next!!!! Maybe he forgot where he is. He's in the middle of 'nam and you're charlie! oh shit! Or suddenly he's a ninja turtle and you're the shredder! You just never know.

The only real problem I have with the shooter is it doesn't seem like he really gave the guy a good warning. Like "Get out of my way or I shoot you". Something like that to let the guy know he was about to be shot dead.

By reading your original post, people seem to have gotten the following impressions:

1. People got the impression that you blame the victim for getting himself shot.
2. People got the impression that you were calling the victim a "psycho" even though he is only mentally handicapped and is not actually in need of a psych ward.
3. People got the impression that you agree that using a gun in this situation was acceptable, but believe that the shooter should have given some type of warning before whipping out his gun and actually shooting.

If you weren't implying the above points, just understand that that's what people seem to have gotten from your post. (And it's why they responded the way they did.)

First point: People inferred that you placed almost all of the blame on the victim, because he was "hanging out in the drivethru lane on foot." While walking through a drive-thru is not a good idea, no one here is 100% sure where exactly the victim was walking in the drive-thru. Was he at the window? Was he merely crossing the drive-thru lane in order to get into the building (and following all designated crosswalks and signs while doing so)? Was the driver of the SUV speeding? Talking to his fiance? Talking on the phone? Just not paying attention?

There are a lot more factors to take into account other than, "the crazy dude was in the drive-thru lane!"

Second point: the "psycho" didn't "suddenly start yelling" at the SUV driver. The SUV driver apparently almost hit him with his car (either by not paying attention, driving too quickly, etc) which, unsurprisingly, caused the victim to become irate and yell at the driver to watch where he's going. The article doesn't say that the victim ran up to the driver-side window and started screaming, it just said he was "waving his arms" and yelling - something a lot of people do when they're pissed off or trying to get a point across.

Just because someone is yelling and flailing their arms at you doesn't mean it's okay to shoot them. If they're far away from you (and you're in a CAR), you're not in any immediate danger.

Third point: Pulling a gun and using it was not okay in this situation - warning or not. As I said in an earlier post, if someone's first instinct is to use a gun to fix a situation, that person shouldn't own a gun. There are always other, less deadly options that can be used in these kinds of situations.