Poll: Teen Shot dead after attempting to mug man

[Daddy Go Bot]

After the first shot that hit, it was no longer self defense. By all means shoot someone once in the leg, or even the arm so that they can't shoot back, but to shoot someone repeatedly is excessive. The guy is a murderer, simple as that. He defended himself and then he made the decision to keep shooting until a kid was dead. He deserves life imprisonment.

It was dark, he's dazed and his vision was blurry from the sucker punch he received. When you're in that kind of situation you shoot until the attackers drop dead and your life is no longer in danger.

There is no such thing as targeted shots here. It's shoot to kill and that's it.

Good fucking luck hitting someone's leg or arm (This is not hollywood, there's potential for a kill due to the massive blood loss from hitting the arteries)

 

[Gindil]

After the first shot that hit, it was no longer self defense. By all means shoot someone once in the leg, or even the arm so that they can't shoot back, but to shoot someone repeatedly is excessive. The guy is a murderer, simple as that. He defended himself and then he made the decision to keep shooting until a kid was dead. He deserves life imprisonment.

I'm going to disagree. Even when it's hollow points, in most gun classes, I believe they say "shoot to kill, not wound". Laws may be a little different in each state, but he did call police, who probably arrested him that night (automatic night in jail till they sort everything out) and stayed with him.

The kid made a bad choice. He decided to rob someone, mistake 1. That person was unknowingly armed, mistake 2. Mistake 3 was thinking he could hit someone, rob them, and get away with it.

 

[necronmm]

I agree with Baker as well, although I'm a little surprised at the result of this poll. I thought a lot more would have disagreed.

 

[Daddy Go Bot]

After the first shot that hit, it was no longer self defense. By all means shoot someone once in the leg, or even the arm so that they can't shoot back, but to shoot someone repeatedly is excessive. The guy is a murderer, simple as that. He defended himself and then he made the decision to keep shooting until a kid was dead. He deserves life imprisonment.

I'm going to disagree. Even when it's hollow points, in most gun classes, I believe they say "shoot to kill, not wound". Laws may be a little different in each state, but he did call police, who probably arrested him that night (automatic night in jail till they sort everything out) and stayed with him.

The kid made a bad choice. He decided to rob someone, mistake 1. That person was unknowingly armed, mistake 2. Mistake 3 was thinking he could hit someone, rob them, and get away with it.

And when you make such bad choices, you know that the grim reaper is constantly breathing down your neck.

 

[LondonBeer]

It's a shame things like mace or tazers haven't been invented...oh wait, and does no one see the potential loss in civil liberty? He 'believed' the kid to be armed, only the kid wasn't, which means his judgement was wrong, which means his decision was wrong, which means he's a murdering prick as opposed to a mugging prick. This will now set a stupid, pro-gun precedent, in that as long as you 'believe' you should have killed someone, your belief is all that's required.

Scenario; I knock on your door to get you to turn the music down, you answer drunk with something small and black in your hand, your trying to hide it. I shoot you dead, ending your drunken Wii session, which I 'believed' to be a weapon, or maybe you weren't holding anything at all, turns out I can kill you anyway.

You realise that alot of countries consider a tazer or CS to be a class one firearm? Furthermore the redundancy of your statement is spectacular given that he is an American. Not only is the right to bear arms constituitional but given the proliferation of firearms, why would you bring mace to a gunfight or a tazer for that matter?

Moving swiftly on because this obliterates the irrelevance of the prior paragraph but ....

If you knock on my door & shoot me, your going to jail regardless. You instigated the event. Your humped no jury will find you innocent.

In a fallacious attempt to prove 'This will now set a stupid, pro-gun precedent, in that as long as you 'believe' you should have killed someone, your belief is all that's required.' exists in law already. Its called reasonable force in the UK. If someone is intent on harming you & you cant stop them without hurting them you must hurt them to defend yourself. 'No man may surrender home or health to the government or any other individual' Very very old law. The statement 'No man may' actually makes it illegal for the individual to surrender himself to injury.

Again just to summarise ... Dont go knocking doors , thats what the police are for.

 

[Mako SOLDIER]

After the first shot that hit, it was no longer self defense. By all means shoot someone once in the leg, or even the arm so that they can't shoot back, but to shoot someone repeatedly is excessive. The guy is a murderer, simple as that. He defended himself and then he made the decision to keep shooting until a kid was dead. He deserves life imprisonment.

I'm going to disagree. Even when it's hollow points, in most gun classes, I believe they say "shoot to kill, not wound". Laws may be a little different in each state, but he did call police, who probably arrested him that night (automatic night in jail till they sort everything out) and stayed with him.

The kid made a bad choice. He decided to rob someone, mistake 1. That person was unknowingly armed, mistake 2. Mistake 3 was thinking he could hit someone, rob them, and get away with it.

He was assaulted using fists, he responded with a gun. That's excessive force.

As far as "they say shoot to kill, not wound", I have no respect for whoever 'they' are in the first place. If someone is teaching how to use a gun on another human outside of the military then they're just as bad as any common murderer. The moment someone pulls a gun on someone who has already demonstrated that they are clearly unarmed, that person becomes the aggressor. One that gun was out, he was attacking, not defending. Cases like this, and the people who defend guys like Baker, are the reason why American gun laws are just plain idiotic.

 

[AbsoluteVirtue18]

You don't want to get shot, then you don't f**kin' mug somebody.

 

[Daddy Go Bot]

After the first shot that hit, it was no longer self defense. By all means shoot someone once in the leg, or even the arm so that they can't shoot back, but to shoot someone repeatedly is excessive. The guy is a murderer, simple as that. He defended himself and then he made the decision to keep shooting until a kid was dead. He deserves life imprisonment.

I'm going to disagree. Even when it's hollow points, in most gun classes, I believe they say "shoot to kill, not wound". Laws may be a little different in each state, but he did call police, who probably arrested him that night (automatic night in jail till they sort everything out) and stayed with him.

The kid made a bad choice. He decided to rob someone, mistake 1. That person was unknowingly armed, mistake 2. Mistake 3 was thinking he could hit someone, rob them, and get away with it.

He was assaulted using fists, he responded with a gun. That's excessive force.

As far as "they say shoot to kill, not wound", I have no respect for whoever 'they' are in the first place. If someone is teaching how to use a gun on another human outside of the military then they're just as bad as any common murderer. The moment someone pulls a gun on someone who has already demonstrated that they are clearly unarmed, that person becomes the aggressor. One that gun was out, he was attacking, not defending. Cases like this, and the people who defend guys like Baker, are the reason why American gun laws are just plain idiotic.

When being assaulted by thugs for no apparent reason, you better expect them to be carrying something other than their fists. While they didn't, it only goes to show how terrible they are when it comes to mugging. They did however assault him with the intention of knocking him unconscious.

That's really what you get for being a knuckle dragging mouth breather.

 

[Mako SOLDIER]

It's a shame things like mace or tazers haven't been invented...oh wait, and does no one see the potential loss in civil liberty? He 'believed' the kid to be armed, only the kid wasn't, which means his judgement was wrong, which means his decision was wrong, which means he's a murdering prick as opposed to a mugging prick. This will now set a stupid, pro-gun precedent, in that as long as you 'believe' you should have killed someone, your belief is all that's required.

Scenario; I knock on your door to get you to turn the music down, you answer drunk with something small and black in your hand, your trying to hide it. I shoot you dead, ending your drunken Wii session, which I 'believed' to be a weapon, or maybe you weren't holding anything at all, turns out I can kill you anyway.

You realise that alot of countries consider a tazer or CS to be a class one firearm? Furthermore the redundancy of your statement is spectacular given that he is an American. Not only is the right to bear arms constituitional but given the proliferation of firearms, why would you bring mace to a gunfight or a tazer for that matter?

Moving swiftly on because this obliterates the irrelevance of the prior paragraph but ....

If you knock on my door & shoot me, your going to jail regardless. You instigated the event. Your humped no jury will find you innocent.

In a fallacious attempt to prove 'This will now set a stupid, pro-gun precedent, in that as long as you 'believe' you should have killed someone, your belief is all that's required.' exists in law already. Its called reasonable force in the UK. If someone is intent on harming you & you cant stop them without hurting them you must hurt them to defend yourself. 'No man may surrender home or health to the government or any other individual' Very very old law. The statement 'No man may' actually makes it illegal for the individual to surrender himself to injury.

Again just to summarise ... Dont go knocking doors , thats what the police are for.

I live in the UK, and I think you've got a very skewed misunderstanding of 'reasonable force'. The fact that the assailant was using his fists and was found to be unarmed would be evidence enough to rule that Baker was in fact guilty of significantly unreasonable force. Which of course, to any rational human being, he was. America's 'constitutional right to bear arms' has a lot to answer for and very little going in it's favour.

 

[LondonBeer]

After the first shot that hit, it was no longer self defense. By all means shoot someone once in the leg, or even the arm so that they can't shoot back, but to shoot someone repeatedly is excessive. The guy is a murderer, simple as that. He defended himself and then he made the decision to keep shooting until a kid was dead. He deserves life imprisonment.

If your joking Im waiting for the punchline. Murder is defined as the unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice.

1. Self defence is reasonable & lawful, the firearm had a permit.
2. Pre-meditated malice is invalid as the event was random and lacked any emotional content. The victim didnt know the individual mugging him.

Good fucking luck hitting someone's leg or arm (This is not hollywood, there's potential for a kill due to the massive blood loss from hitting the arteries)

What this man said Mr. MAKO Soldier. Some interesting rough maths. A human body roughly divides into 10 roughly similarly sized parts. The head is one, both arms account for 2 parts, The chest 2, abdomen 1 & finally both legs account for 2 parts each.

That means very very generally that a limb is not only moving around longer & thinner than all other parts but its also 1/10th the size of a man. By comparision a small dog would be the same rough mass

 

[Gindil]

He was assaulted using fists, he responded with a gun. That's excessive force.

As far as "they say shoot to kill, not wound", I have no respect for whoever 'they' are in the first place. If someone is teaching how to use a gun on another human outside of the military then they're just as bad as any common murderer. The moment someone pulls a gun on someone who has already demonstrated that they are clearly unarmed, that person becomes the aggressor. One that gun was out, he was attacking, not defending. Cases like this, and the people who defend guys like Baker, are the reason why American gun laws are just plain idiotic.

The "they" are the teachers of the law [http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=1143] such as former police officers, lawyers, and regular citizens who carry.

I notice that you're coming at this from a moral perspective, stating "it's wrong to do this"

No, as the article explained many times, he felt his life was in danger, which it was. The alternative could have been that the teenager may have gotten the gun as he was robbed, then we'd be hearing of a story about a robber murdering a jogger. And no, a common murderer doesn't stay with the kid as he dies. He doesn't ask questions first, shoot later. That's a disingenuous argument, conflating two things that shouldn't be near each other.

If he had fired after the kid went down, I'm sure that would have been murder. As it stands, you have a 2nd Amendment right to carry. This kid brought up the situation by his own stupidity, to which I have no sympathy.

 

[Mako SOLDIER]

After the first shot that hit, it was no longer self defense. By all means shoot someone once in the leg, or even the arm so that they can't shoot back, but to shoot someone repeatedly is excessive. The guy is a murderer, simple as that. He defended himself and then he made the decision to keep shooting until a kid was dead. He deserves life imprisonment.

I'm going to disagree. Even when it's hollow points, in most gun classes, I believe they say "shoot to kill, not wound". Laws may be a little different in each state, but he did call police, who probably arrested him that night (automatic night in jail till they sort everything out) and stayed with him.

The kid made a bad choice. He decided to rob someone, mistake 1. That person was unknowingly armed, mistake 2. Mistake 3 was thinking he could hit someone, rob them, and get away with it.

He was assaulted using fists, he responded with a gun. That's excessive force.

As far as "they say shoot to kill, not wound", I have no respect for whoever 'they' are in the first place. If someone is teaching how to use a gun on another human outside of the military then they're just as bad as any common murderer. The moment someone pulls a gun on someone who has already demonstrated that they are clearly unarmed, that person becomes the aggressor. One that gun was out, he was attacking, not defending. Cases like this, and the people who defend guys like Baker, are the reason why American gun laws are just plain idiotic.

When being assaulted by thugs for no apparent reason, you better expect them to be carrying something other than their fists. While they didn't, it only goes to show how terrible they are when it comes to mugging. They did however assault him with the intention of knocking him unconscious.

That's really what you get for being a knuckle dragging mouth breather.

If they had been armed they wouldn't have bothered punching him. If you plan on mugging someone using a knife or a gun, you pull the knife or the gun on them. If you start off by punching someone, the overwhelming odds are that you are unarmed.

 

[open trap]

If you try to rob some one for no good reason at all, well then your worthless scum and deserve to die. Im behind the shooter 100%

 

[orangeban]

It's a damn shame and really no one should ever be shot. However, this man was obviously attempting to protect hisself.
I do not blame the man for what he did but still don't say people should carry guns.

 

[LondonBeer]

It's a shame things like mace or tazers haven't been invented...oh wait, and does no one see the potential loss in civil liberty? He 'believed' the kid to be armed, only the kid wasn't, which means his judgement was wrong, which means his decision was wrong, which means he's a murdering prick as opposed to a mugging prick. This will now set a stupid, pro-gun precedent, in that as long as you 'believe' you should have killed someone, your belief is all that's required.

Scenario; I knock on your door to get you to turn the music down, you answer drunk with something small and black in your hand, your trying to hide it. I shoot you dead, ending your drunken Wii session, which I 'believed' to be a weapon, or maybe you weren't holding anything at all, turns out I can kill you anyway.

You realise that alot of countries consider a tazer or CS to be a class one firearm? Furthermore the redundancy of your statement is spectacular given that he is an American. Not only is the right to bear arms constituitional but given the proliferation of firearms, why would you bring mace to a gunfight or a tazer for that matter?

Moving swiftly on because this obliterates the irrelevance of the prior paragraph but ....

If you knock on my door & shoot me, your going to jail regardless. You instigated the event. Your humped no jury will find you innocent.

In a fallacious attempt to prove 'This will now set a stupid, pro-gun precedent, in that as long as you 'believe' you should have killed someone, your belief is all that's required.' exists in law already. Its called reasonable force in the UK. If someone is intent on harming you & you cant stop them without hurting them you must hurt them to defend yourself. 'No man may surrender home or health to the government or any other individual' Very very old law. The statement 'No man may' actually makes it illegal for the individual to surrender himself to injury.

Again just to summarise ... Dont go knocking doors , thats what the police are for.

I live in the UK, and I think you've got a very skewed misunderstanding of 'reasonable force'. The fact that the assailant was using his fists and was found to be unarmed would be evidence enough to rule that Baker was in fact guilty of significantly unreasonable force. Which of course, to any rational human being, he was. America's 'constitutional right to bear arms' has a lot to answer for and very little going in it's favour.

Past tense, was found later to be using his fluffy pillow would still be irrelevant. Do you mind for a moment old chap I need to check to see if your carrying any other weapons on your person .....

If you consider & a jury considers your life to have been threatened and your physical security compromised (A blow struck in the dark in a creepy park at night qualifies)then ANY action to deter further assualt is LEGAL. If it was broad daylight in a playpark & the muggers promised not to kick him to death then youd have a point.

I used to bounce (doorman for you Americans) so I know people who have twatted knife wielding little plebs with a fire extinguisher. Boy nearly died, pal did a night in the jail and was let out on consideration of the fact the junkie POS had a KNIFE. Proof of intent to cause physical injury justifies reasonable force to resist it, within a reasonable practical & ordinary level.

The arguement the mugger wasnt armed & the victim should have known that isnt ordinary, reasonable or practical.

 

[Mako SOLDIER]

He was assaulted using fists, he responded with a gun. That's excessive force.

As far as "they say shoot to kill, not wound", I have no respect for whoever 'they' are in the first place. If someone is teaching how to use a gun on another human outside of the military then they're just as bad as any common murderer. The moment someone pulls a gun on someone who has already demonstrated that they are clearly unarmed, that person becomes the aggressor. One that gun was out, he was attacking, not defending. Cases like this, and the people who defend guys like Baker, are the reason why American gun laws are just plain idiotic.

The "they" are the teachers of the law [http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=1143] such as former police officers, lawyers, and regular citizens who carry.

I notice that you're coming at this from a moral perspective, stating "it's wrong to do this"

No, as the article explained many times, he felt his life was in danger, which it was. The alternative could have been that the teenager may have gotten the gun as he was robbed, then we'd be hearing of a story about a robber murdering a jogger. And no, a common murderer doesn't stay with the kid as he dies. He doesn't ask questions first, shoot later. That's a disingenuous argument, conflating two things that shouldn't be near each other.

If he had fired after the kid went down, I'm sure that would have been murder. As it stands, you have a 2nd Amendment right to carry. This kid brought up the situation by his own stupidity, to which I have no sympathy.

His life wasn't in danger. The kid was unarmed. You really think the mugger is going to knock someone unconscious, rob them, and then shoot them with their own gun? That's some seriously exaggerate cynicism there. Ok, so here's where to pro-Baker people are contradicting themselves/each other. The general consensus from the article is that Baker had been punched and was confused, with blurred vision, and unable to know for certain if the kid was armed, so he shot to be on the safe side. You are saying that he asked questions first and shot later. So which was it, because it can't be both.

Oh come off it - if he hadn't stayed with the kid while he died it would have essentially been a hit and run. Baker clearly knew the law and how to best exploit it to get off scott-free.

Yes, I'm coming at this from a moral perspective, but only after logic and rational thinking has been applied. One man's paranoia that someone else 'might' be armed is not grounds to shoot someone multiple times. If someone were to punch you in a bar fight or something along those lines, would you really consider it reasonable to assume they're armed too and open fire until they're dead?

 

[LondonBeer]

After the first shot that hit, it was no longer self defense. By all means shoot someone once in the leg, or even the arm so that they can't shoot back, but to shoot someone repeatedly is excessive. The guy is a murderer, simple as that. He defended himself and then he made the decision to keep shooting until a kid was dead. He deserves life imprisonment.

I'm going to disagree. Even when it's hollow points, in most gun classes, I believe they say "shoot to kill, not wound". Laws may be a little different in each state, but he did call police, who probably arrested him that night (automatic night in jail till they sort everything out) and stayed with him.

The kid made a bad choice. He decided to rob someone, mistake 1. That person was unknowingly armed, mistake 2. Mistake 3 was thinking he could hit someone, rob them, and get away with it.

He was assaulted using fists, he responded with a gun. That's excessive force.

As far as "they say shoot to kill, not wound", I have no respect for whoever 'they' are in the first place. If someone is teaching how to use a gun on another human outside of the military then they're just as bad as any common murderer. The moment someone pulls a gun on someone who has already demonstrated that they are clearly unarmed, that person becomes the aggressor. One that gun was out, he was attacking, not defending. Cases like this, and the people who defend guys like Baker, are the reason why American gun laws are just plain idiotic.

When being assaulted by thugs for no apparent reason, you better expect them to be carrying something other than their fists. While they didn't, it only goes to show how terrible they are when it comes to mugging. They did however assault him with the intention of knocking him unconscious.

That's really what you get for being a knuckle dragging mouth breather.

If they had been armed they wouldn't have bothered punching him. If you plan on mugging someone using a knife or a gun, you pull the knife or the gun on them. If you start off by punching someone, the overwhelming odds are that you are unarmed.

You seem to have forgot the statistics that show those odds. Or do odds just come to you without statistics? There are reasons to not just pull a weapon if you have one. One of them being they planned to knock him unconscious, not kill him. But that can change if he starts punching back and they start to lose. Plans. They change.

Not to mention the utterly unreasonable 'Whilst being punched in gut rationalise actions & assess threat based on seconds of barely cogniscant non-verbal signals given off from the guy slugging you'. I for one whenever I get gut shot run through the statistical probabilities

 

[Daddy Go Bot]

You do realize what would have happened if they found a GUN on Baker? Changes are the situation would take a nasty turn and no one with common sense could afford to let that happen. It was self-defense and the kid got what he ultimately deserved.