Poll: Teen Shot dead after attempting to mug man

[Scars Unseen]

You should always aim to control a situation with the minimum amount of force.
Raised voice *PUNCH*
Physical force *KICK* (from the second guy)
Weapon threat *DISARM*
Deleted the rest due to the fact that you are now dead

Fixed.

 

[sageoftruth]

From what I read in the article, he already had blurry vision from getting punched in the face. At that moment, I'd be pretty terrified. Being terrified and half-blind from a sudden assault seems like a pretty good justification for what he did, even if it was eight shots.

 

[Edavies696]

how much is a human life worth? a few bruises and your wallet?...of course it was the wrong thing to do

 

[Danpascooch]

I don't think the M16 not stopping suicide bombers in Iraq really relates to a jogger defending himself from a fucking MUGGING.

Well it serves 2 purposes, firstly it shows you that yes people who have been shot can keep on trucking if you dont knock them down hard and secondly, and maybe this was a little too subtle, the round that the m16 usually fires would be the kind of round that (certain) people would have wanted Baker to fire IE it is a solid round that doesn't fragment* or deform* but instead passes through 'cleanly'(for a certain value of clean) the target and carries merrily on it way down range.

Unlike the hollow point rounds this fellow used.

Do you see where I'm going, shall I use pictures**?


*well not like a HP round anyways, they still do what bullets do when they hit hard stuff, just not as much.

** Yeah..I probably shouldn't have bothered editing out the first one either if you were just gonna whine about it

God you really are smug aren't you? Whatever, the mods will take care of you before long if you keep up your attitude.

If you think a suicidal terrorist has the same motivation and tendency to continue attacking when faced with a gun that an unarmed mugger does, than no amount of logic is going to help you, and I'll let you wallow in your sense of superiority having equated an unarmed mugger to a suicide bomber. Congratulations, you are sticking to an analogy so fatally flawed and batshit insane that I have lost all will to attempt a logical discussion with you, feel free to call it a win if you want.

 

[Daddy Go Bot]

how much is a human life worth? a few bruises and your wallet?...of course it was the wrong thing to do

*sigh*

This is really getting tiring. Go read the rest of the thread.

He was jumped by a couple of thugs who didn't even ask for his wallet. It'd be MORE than safe to assume that they were going to severely hurt him (Which they intended to do).

He did the right thing.

 

[Darth Sea Bass]

The mugger had it coming simple as! The only thing i can say is 8 shots seems like overkill.

 

[macfluffers]

how much is a human life worth? a few bruises and your wallet?...of course it was the wrong thing to do

Baker didn't even know he was being mugged. He was just attacked. If you were attacked in the dark with no warning or declaration, would you assume immediately that they want your money? As far as you know, the attackers could be gangbangers who need to kill someone to get into a gang, and they think you look like an easy target.

 

[Daddy Go Bot]

C- There was no need to fire, he over reacted. Im sure they would of backed off if he pull out his gun and waved it around, like i said in an earlier post if they reached for something when he did that, then fired, well fair enough, but he had no reason to assume they had any kind of weapon. In fact it would of been unlikely, if someone tried to mug someone they use what the have, they have a knife they put it against the victims throat, they have a gun they'd show it, but since they just hit him then its unlikely they WERE armed.

Plus why should we think "Yep, they just wanted his money and his iphone, shoot the bastards" really? does that really justify death?

Here's an age old question used in modern times, if a boy steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving family, does he deserve to be shot? according to these posts, it seems so.

C) First off I don't see any statistics saying they would use their weapon immediately. It carries a worse charge for one thing I believe. Secondly, how the hell would you know what they'd do? If he starts waving it around that gives the guy right next to him an opportunity to grab the gun. You think the mugger's going to think rationally after having a gun pulled? What if he panics instead and gets more violent?

Oh, they wanted his money. I forgot that the fact they also wanted to beat him unconscious was utterly irrelevant. It's just plain fun to be beaten unconscious and carries no dangers at all with it.

Here's a nice question: Since when did beating someone unconscious get you bread? Since when did just stealing a loaf of bread need to include violence?

Yep, clearly a sociopath. I'm certainly not gonna mourn a piece of shit like that.

 

[XShrike]

There is debate on this?

You are jogging minding your own business and then somebody hits you in the head for no reason. Your lip is bleeding, your vision is blurred, and now these people are trying to rob you. There are people that would actually hesitate? You have no idea what else this criminals might want or do. You do what you have to do to protect you and your own in these situations. They started it by attacking Baker. Baker decided how it will end. Good for him.

I wonder if people would even talk about this if the shooter was a women.

I find it funny that the criminal's family is trying to sue Baker. "In addition to providing a valid defense in criminal law, many versions of the Castle Doctrine, particularly those with a "Stand-Your-Ground clause", also have a clause which provides immunity from any lawsuit filed on behalf of the assailant for damages/injury resulting from the use of lethal force." Ha, ha, ha, that family is just going to get a lawyer bill.

 

[Xealeon]

I feel like some of the people here don't know what it's like to be punched in the head forcefully. I've been training in martial arts for a few years now and we do full contact sparring and I've been hit in the head a couple times. It's hard enough to block a second punch let alone step back, pull out a gun, aim and shoot someone in the leg once while he's still attacking you. And your initial instinct is certainly not "I'd better hurt this guy as little as possible".

 

[Karilas]

Sorry but I have to disagree with a lot of people here. It was just a couple of kids and the guy shot him eight times. He could have fired a warning shot, I mean hes clearly capable of handling himself if hes applying for the military and keeps fit. The kid had his whole life to turn around, but now he won't get that chance. People who do bad things can change, and I don't think it was necessary to shot him eight times so he was sure he would be dead.

The guy shot 8 times, only hit 4. The doesn't seem to be a crack shot or really trained because 50% is pretty bad, especially at close range. One could wager that the guy got punched in the face, pulled the gun, and started firing randomly in the general direction of his attackers. And considering he only aimed and didn't shoot at the other kid who ran away showed that he actually did have some constraint.
It would be pretty silly to chide someone for reacting in the way he did, if someone starts beating on me, it doesn't make sense to try and run back, pull a gun, and try to get the attackers to surrender. Another fist could easily hit you in the back of the head or temple and knock you out, the attackers are close enough and possibly stupid enough that when you're pulling the gun and not firing they could try to take it. And who knows the story could've gone much differently if the guy didn't come out with his gun firing, he could've ended up with the gun turned against him and him dead on the ground and two teens at large with money in their pocket laughing it up.

This. Initially, shooting a dude 4 times sounds like overkill, but when you realise the guy was already taking a beating the natural reaction would be to not stop shooting until the beating had ceased.

 

[s0p0g]

yep, that's what happens when you don't listen to your parents and try to rob people.
with an accomplice.
at night.
stupid kid, should have known that life > money (especially the ammount of cash you can expect from a single pedestrian. wtf?)

although eight shots may seem many, but he was attacked ffs, and even if the shooter realized that there were rather young people: teens do pretty weird shit nowadays.
i probably would have done the same

 

[beniki]

snip

Soldiers are trained to kill. They know this, and therefore, they do it because they think that by killing, they are doing some sort of good.

I don't see why you think that me valuing the lives of my family undermines my argument. If one of them dies, it's no big deal, it's just a part of the circle of life. However, if I can prevent it, I'll do it, even if it means killing a non-innocent person.

I think that if an action is justifiable, it shouldn't weigh on your conscience. "Yeah, I killed that guy, but he was holding those people hostage. I just prevented several deaths!" Why would anyone feel guilty about that?

To clarify, when I said "good killing" I really meant "killing that had good effects". If you say that killing is justifiable, then really, you don't disagree with my core philosophy on the subject.

I'm not disagreeing with the justification of it. In fact the very first thing I wrote in this thread was "Yes." to the question of was Baker right.

I'm just saying that the act is still wrong, and he should manfully take a punishment for it.

Our disagreement is about whether the act is wrong or not. I'm saying it is, but he should have done it anyway.

The reason your valuing the life of your family undermines your argument is that it shows you apply a value to those lives, and don't like the idea of someone removing that value. You think it's wrong. From my point of view, every human has a value, and removing that value is always wrong. The potential is lost.

Soldiers are trained to kill, but the majority of that training is to reduce the guilt reflex in the middle of a fight. They simply don't have time to worry about the morals of it all. This is why targets are usually man shaped. The idea is that in real combat you just think of the enemy as another paper target. But the guilt still comes afterwards. That's part of the reason why soldiers drink a lot of a battle.

It's illogical to feel guilt, or a sense of less when you kill for a good reason, but never the less, people still feel it.

 

[pulse2]

I don't think taking a life is justified because of a mugging, especially if a mugger takes off afterwards and / or was unarmed, bit drastic. I think some people are too quick to pull the trigger. Still, if the mugger posed a genuine threat and put his life in jeopardy with factual proof, then yes, it makes sense.

People can't just go around shooting anyone who happens to pose a threat in some way or form, drunken person, stalker, man complaining about you stepping on his shoes and threatening to punch you. Society is ridiculous.

 

[Fawcks]

Eight bullets? Dang, man.

Still, he was attacked. Would I have fired that many times? No. Would I have fired? Not after a single punch, I'd like to think.

I'm gonna have to write this guy off as trigger happy, but not guilty.

 

[nomadic_chad]

Just my opinion, but if you miss 50% of the time or can't regulate yourself to avoid emptying the clip when in a panic, you should not be carrying a firearm, period.

Change the time and location and you could have ended up with bystander casualties with shooting that uncontrolled.

And don't give me that "he was just hit in the head/his vision was blurred" bullshit. The most basic rule of firearm safety, you don't point it at something you don't want dead, and you don't pull the trigger unless you can identify your target. If you can identify it, you can hit it accurately if you know what you're doing. This guy just doesn't have the training required to be carrying.

*To answer the OP, he was justified in defending himself, but he should not have the right to carry (or should face charges of some sort for general fucktardedness).