Summary
At a Lafayette, Indiana anti-Trump rally Saturday, a man pulled an assault-style rifle after clashing with protesters who blocked his truck at a Third Street intersection.
Video shows the man in a MAGA hat yelling at protesters, prompting another man—angered by the confrontation with women—to intervene.
The two exchanged shouts before the protester headbutted the man. He returned to his truck, retrieved a rifle, and reentered the crowd.
Police detained but released him, citing self-defense. The “Hands Off!” rally drew nearly 1,000 people and ended early amid safety concerns.
Self-defense requires there to be an ongoing threat to your or someone else’s immediate safety. If he was able to leave the altercation, head to his truck to retrieve his rifle, and then return to the situation that’s not self-defense, its premeditation.
I fucking love you guys. Like your head in a book being like awksuelly…
Reality is that guy could have killed that protestor and charges would be dropped. If not, trump would pardon him. There are no consequences
Stop trying to be correct. Just fucking win for a change. Being correct is not a win in today’s world. Way too many people that are wrong who keep winning.
It’s self defense, because the cops are on the same side as the guy…
Same reason you never see Miley Cyrus and Hanna Montana in the same room at the same time.
He’s probably white and identifies as CIS male. In today’s reality, that qualifies as self-defense to police.
always has
Stand your ground laws have completely wrecked the premise surrounding threats and threat avoidance. Now it’s people being assholes and escalating the assholery until someone gets pissed and throws a punch and then the shooting starts. Doesn’t matter if it’s road rage or fighting over a parking space. No consideration that anyone involved could have walked away at any point before things got bad.
The duty to retreat and use a firearm as a last resort is dying a quick death in most red states. Even in NY where shooting someone in self defense was often a trip straight to jail now ends up with people not being charged.
Basically, you need to Han Solo the thing most times these days. Shoot first and you’re not guilty.
So Indiana is a “stand your ground” state. That generally removes any duty to retreat. I’d be curious how they rule when he clearly retreated to his vehicle already, and only then retrieved a weapon, brandished it, and reentered a crowd. If they allow self defense, how far is someone allowed to retreat in order to retrieve a weapon and re-engage? Can I go all the way back to my house and get a gun to defend myself?
Of course this will only be litigated if the public can pressure the prosecutor to press charges. If not it’ll be easy for the cops to disproportionately apply that defense to like minded miscreants.
It removes your duty to retreat if you are in a life-threatening situation, whether on private or public property. It essentially extends the castle doctrine to include your personal space at all times.
If after being headbutted, he pulled a CCW, or even had the AR on his person, I think he could make a reasonable claim of self defense. If the protestor followed him back to his truck, he could make a claim of self defense, but if you have the time and security to go back to your truck, get your gun, and the return to confront someone, I think you’ve gone outside the realm of being in a life-threatening situation, and therefore self-defense no longer applies.
And I’d agree with that. But if it’s not settled in court, cops are allowed to pick and choose how they apply that.
The source loses my respect for calling it an “assault rifle” when it almost certainly was not. This summary (which I assume was written by MicroWave) calls it an “assault-style rifle”, which has no meaning at all.
This is not an assault rifle, and not fully automatic. If it was, the gun’s existence would have been almost certainly illegal.
Words have meaning. The meaning in this case is important. Use your words.
At this point it’s difficult to take this critique seriously when right wing gun nuts use arguing over minutiae like this to prevent any kind of constructive discussion whatsoever.
Yes, there is a technical definition of an “assault rifle”. It’s also a shorthand that regular people not familiar with firearms use to mean “gun that looks like something the military carries” or something approaching that. It’s not even relevant here. We do not need to break up every single discussion involving firearms with arguments over meaningless definitions.
they do it to intentionally derail the conversation. Fuck them.
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It was a rifle, used for an assault, ergo, an assault rifle.
Who fucking cares
“…which has no meaning at all.”
OK. So I go to a donut shop, and ask for a Boston Creme. The clerk pulls out a donut and gives it to me, I pay him and say thank you and am on my way.
Next, I go to a donut shop, and ask for a Boston Creme. The clerk pulls out an assault-style rifle, waves it around, I pay him and say thank you and am on my way.
Yeah, words have meaning. What part of returning to his vehicle, pulling out a firearm and threatening the protesters with it did you fail to attach meaning to?
He threatened assault with a rifle. The fact that we don’t know if the firearm was legally classified as an assault rifle, in any sane location on earth, would be immaterial.
Or are you worried that he may be confused with someone who could have got a few more shots off into the crowd before being disarmed or killed, due to their faster firing firearm with rifled barrel?
What would you call it?
A rifle
why not just say “a gun” then? why attempt any amount of specificity that folks who aren’t firearm nerds might still possibly understand to any extent?
The article says “gun” seven times. It’s accurate and gets the point across about his crime, unlike “assault rifle”, which falsely states that he had an illegal type if gun.
“Rifle” is a word that everyone knows is a type of gun. Even if not everyone knows the specifics, news people should at least look up the word before using it if they don’t know. It’s wrong for news people to use falsely the phrase “assault rifle” because of their ignorance.
What was the actual model of rifle that this article discusses?
Nobody knows. The police didn’t say. There are no photos close enough to identify it.
So how do you know it wasn’t literally an assault rifle?
He will shoot next time. Like a not so smart missile they just aimed him at decent human beings.
This is what we’re up against.
I’ll be damned if I let these people continue to run our country
ACAB.
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Inserts himself into a situation he wasn’t invited to, or welcome at, instigates people for the purpose of “justified” retaliation- whips out his loaded lib-killer , and is summarily released by law enforcement.
I’d say those folks dun’ got Rittenhoused!
I agree with you. That’s not how “self-defense works”. If the snowflake geot hit, walks away from the situation, gets armed, and returns to attack the person that attacked such a fragile sheep, this is not self-defense, it’s retaliation.
The sheep crybaby and whoever proclaimed this as self-defense are just a bunch of puppets.
That’s most likely why the police changed the order of events around:
“During the event, an adult male driver attempted to make a lawful turn at the intersection of Third Street andColumbia Street when his path was obstructed by protesters standing in the roadway. A verbal altercationensued between the driver and protesters,” the release said. "The situation escalated when the driver exited his vehicle and was subsequently pushed and battered by individuals in the crowd. The driver then retrieved a firearm from his vehicle in what he described as an act of self-defense.
“He did not discharge the weapon and promptly returned it to his truck. Shortly after, a male protester approachedthe driver and head-butted him, causing injury,” police said.
Even though multiple protesters described it otherwise. ACAB.
Edit: punctuationification
It’s not a lawful turn if there is a pedestrian in the path of the vehicle.
There was an altercation and then he retreated and came back with a firearm. That’s not self defense, that’s brandishing.
I can understand the police not making that determination at the time, their goal should be to de-escalate and separate the conflicting parties, but they should send someone round to pick this guy up and book him for the felony he committed afterwards.
There’s also video of the events that clearly shows the police statement is fucked.
We know what side the cops are on.
If someone had done that to protesters at a Drag Queen Story Hour or something, the cops would have slaughtered them.
If the game is about driving around with a gun, provoking people into hitting you, and then going back and getting your gun to kill them, it would be very easy to go around deleting Trump supporters. You know, if not for the police / government being on their side.
That dude could’ve stayed in his truck and waited for people to walk by. Instead he ended up bloody and teary-eyed. And he’s the one with the fucking assault rifle.
Bullies aren’t used to people hitting back. They’re so scared of losing face they’d rather carry a gun and possibly kill someone to prove what a badass they are.
Self defense would be a headbutt back or fists, not the AmRepublican-14.
there’s video, no one was doing anything to him. he got out of his SUV, started yelling at people, returned to the vehicle, got back out with the weapon at his side. self defense would have been (a) for literally anyone to have threatened him and (b) for him to simply leave the scene.
It is Indiana. Basically wild west style gun laws. You buy the gun, its yours … done. No permit, no concealed carry, nothing. You bought the gun, take it where you want. Pretty much anywhere. If people are yelling at you on the street then Indiana’s stand your ground style law basically kicks in. The state is very much “fuck around and find out”.
Since you didn’t link the video, here it is on reddit.
I can see the headbutt, it’s at second 12.
Still an insane overreaction of course, but the truth is important.
oh geez, thanks for the correction there
Can someone share a mirror?
Found it on Twitter… but I guess that doesn’t help.
Maybe it’s easier to download, but I haven’t tried from either site before. I’ll drop the link in case anybody wants to try.
at least I can watch twitter without an account, so it does help, thanks.
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No, he didn’t. We were having breakfast that morning, when it’s alleged he killed a mass murderer.
And right after that, he was with me playing video games and chilling. We played some classic games that he was too young to enjoy first game. He enjoyed it. I then made him a nice spaghetti lunch.
He was defending the entire country
He wasn’t. Because he didn’t kill that CEO. My man’s innocent.
Whoever did happen to off that CEO certainly did everyone a favor tho
as far as i am concerned Thompson’s body just did that weird bullet thing 3 times in a row. Seems to be a latent condition in most billionaires.
Tonight at 11: Is being rich bad for your health? 99% of the population seem to think so, and it’s not why you think!
Pre-existing condition, I’m thinking.
The body has a way of shutting down illegitimate bullets.
He died of acute lead poisoning. He was born in a leaded house with leaded gasoline on the farm. The bullets didn’t do anything.
Mangione is so last week buddy. We’ve moved on. He’s old news
Of course. If he was black the story would be different
What an actual POS, but do we really expect anything else from a Trump supporter. Clear as day he should not have been released citing any self-defence. Anyone who argues against this fact shows they should not even own a gun. US is going US though, not even dead kids can separate them from their guns.
Wonder if the boots taste different in Indiana…
the boot type is also accurate, this is well done
Less like cow leather. More like cow shit.
Gravy Seal Clown
Meal team six
Y’allqueda
