Jogging in Georgia while black.

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SuburbanTurkey said:
*SNIP*According to ST, Arbery fleeing and ultimately fighting is a clear indication that he is an antagonist to law enforcement and a belligerent menace to society.*SNIP*
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Correct.

Thermal said:
*SNIP* Again, in my State, no way in hell. But in a banjos and boomstick State, maybe. *SNIP*
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I live in a state very far from the south and very distinct from that area culturally. I grew up actually having a lot of disdain for the south, and the one time I did venture down there in my youth, I was quite put off and weirded out, maybe even creeped out / mildly frightened by all the confederate flags I saw, and gun racks on pickup trucks.

I was thoroughly indoctrinated at that time to look down on and hate southerners, and thankfully I've broken free of that.

The "banjos" remark indicates to me that you're still in that place. Sad.

As for what my state allows re: all this, I wouldn't have a clue. I've never carried a gun in public. I own just a couple. Not really a gun enthusiast at all.

I would guess my state is considerably more restrictive than Georgia seems to be.
 
pgwenthold said:
If he felt threatened, he should not have followed the victim around town.

You cannot provoke a fight and then claim self-defense.
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Agreed. The issue is whether open carrying is provoking a fight. I would think it is. In Georgia, maybe not

Just chasing down someone in a car saying 'we want to talk to you' is not a crime. Weird, but not a crime. So claiming it was provoked doesn't fly, if, and only if, holding a shotgun on the street is legal.

My understanding of open carry in general was that the weapon could be holstered or slung to be carried, not held and ready for use. That has been the distinction I am not clear on. Georgia police said it was a legal carry. That's problematic, legally.

Again, not sure why more of the discussion isn't about disallowing, or at least restricting this kind of open carry. If Travis couldn't swagger around with a shotgun legally, none of this could take place. Or if it did, no ambiguity about who was the criminal.
 
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Thermal said:
Agreed. The issue is whether open carrying is provoking a fight.
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He wasn't just open carrying.

He, along with the other guy, stalked the victim in their vehicle for an extended time, ultimately cornering him. And then they took out weapon.

How is that NOT a threat? As I have said, without even adding, "...to a black guy in Georgia."

Again, this is in all appearances a lynching, from the very start, all the way through the outcome.

You act in a way that looks like a lynching, you can't blame the other person for viewing it as a lynching.
 
Thermal said:
Just chasing down someone in a car saying 'we want to talk to you' is not a crime.
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I never said it was a crime, I said it's a threat. Especially when they have weapons.

They had NO AUTHORITY to chase him down or "talk" to him about anything. All they were were two gun-toting white guys in a pickup chasing down a black guy.

There is good reason to see them as a threat - they were. In fact, they friggin killed the guy, he was right to feel threatened.
 
Thermal said:
.....
Just chasing down someone in a car saying 'we want to talk to you' is not a crime. Weird, but not a crime. So claiming it was provoked doesn't fly, if, and only if, holding a shotgun on the street is legal.
....
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Keeping someone from leaving IS a crime. Do you really think the gun-waving McMichaels would have let Arbery jog away?
 
Skeptic Tank said:
I was thoroughly indoctrinated at that time to look down on and hate southerners, and thankfully I've broken free of that.
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Seems to me that you overcame the "southerners" part of you indoctrination, but not the "hate" part. You substituted a new target for hate.

Better yet would be to just leave out the "hate" altogether, and treat people as individuals instead of representatives of some sort of group.
 
Thermal said:
Agreed. The issue is whether open carrying is provoking a fight. I would think it is. In Georgia, maybe not

Just chasing down someone in a car saying 'we want to talk to you' is not a crime. Weird, but not a crime. So claiming it was provoked doesn't fly, if, and only if, holding a shotgun on the street is legal.

My understanding of open carry in general was that the weapon could be holstered or slung to be carried, not held and ready for use. That has been the distinction I am not clear on. Georgia police said it was a legal carry. That's problematic, legally.
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No, I don't think it is. Look back at the definitions of common assault and aggravated assault; they refer to taking actions that a reasonable person would consider threatening. A reasonable person would clearly feel threatened by two strangers, one driving a pickup truck and the other standing in the back with a shotgun, demanding to talk to them. Whether or not it's legal to carry a shotgun openly, it's clearly not legal to take actions while carrying a shotgun openly that present a clear threat to a reasonable person. In the same way, it's perfectly legal to carry a brick openly, but if you wave it at someone in a way that makes them reasonably think you're about to hit them on the head with it, that's assault.

What is most problematic, of course, as others have already said, is how a jury might interpret all this.

Dave
 
Thermal said:
Agreed. The issue is whether open carrying is provoking a fight. I would think it is. In Georgia, maybe not

Just chasing down someone in a car saying 'we want to talk to you' is not a crime. Weird, but not a crime. So claiming it was provoked doesn't fly, if, and only if, holding a shotgun on the street is legal.

My understanding of open carry in general was that the weapon could be holstered or slung to be carried, not held and ready for use. That has been the distinction I am not clear on. Georgia police said it was a legal carry. That's problematic, legally.

Again, not sure why more of the discussion isn't about disallowing, or at least restricting this kind of open carry. If Travis couldn't swagger around with a shotgun legally, none of this could take place. Or if it did, no ambiguity about who was the criminal.
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I think we should be wary making conclusions about open carry based on this case.

The original DA is widely suspected of corruptly covering up this crime, and the letter written was clearly a bad-faith interpretation of the relevant laws. The case has been taken away from this prosecutor, and pretty much everything he claimed can probably be dismissed out of hand.

I think even in the gun-toting South, riding in the back of pickup truck chasing down a man on foot is going to be understood to be threatening behavior.

The law for assault includes language about a "reasonable person" standard, which is a subjective standard that takes context into consideration. I don't think any reasonable person is going to be fooled by this "open carry" gambit.
 
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Bob001 said:
Keeping someone from leaving IS a crime. Do you really think the gun-waving McMichaels would have let Arbery jog away?
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They already let him trot away without shooting once. Parking a truck in the middle of a street and standing by the drivers door is not keeping a pedestrian from doing anything.
And what I (or you) think the McMichaels would or wouldn't have done is irrelevant. They are locked up over what they are actually accused of.

But kick that around anyway: did they jump out and shoot the first time they tried to 'talk' with him? Did they start aiming or shooting prior to Arbery running right at them? No. This makes me think they intended to show off the guns, not actually fire them. Greg didn't even have his out of the holster till Travis fired.

Again, I'd love to know exactly how Georgia precedent views having a gun unholstered/unslung. I think that would make a huge difference.
 
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Incidentally, can I just point out that there's a certain irony in making your judgement that a black person is a law-abiding citizen on the fact that they're dressed like Bill Cosby? Because he's a fine, upstanding citizen that anybody should be proud to call one of the good ones.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
I think we should be wary making conclusions about open carry based on this case.

The original DA is widely suspected of corruptly covering up this crime, and the letter written was clearly a bad-faith interpretation of the relevant laws. The case has been taken away from this prosecutor, and pretty much everything he claimed can probably be dismissed out of hand.

I think even in the gun-toting South, riding in the back of pickup truck chasing down a man on foot is going to be understood to be threatening behavior.

The law for assault includes language about a "reasonable person" standard, which is a subjective standard that takes context into consideration. I don't think any reasonable person is going to be fooled by this "open carry" gambit.
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Agreed on The DA and others who knew/covered up.

Re: open carry: it's really just about holstered or at the eady. And I'm pretty sure there is statute and/or precedent for having them out and at the ready, that the DA is sweeping under the rug.
If having the weapon at the ready is not covered by open carry, the McMichaels are toast. No actual defense that could even plausibly fly.
 
Thermal said:
They already let him trot away without shooting once. Parking a truck in the middle of a street and standing by the drivers door is not keeping a pedestrian from doing anything.
And what I (or you) think the McMichaels would or wouldn't have done is irrelevant. They are locked up over what they are actually accused of.

But kick that around anyway: did they jump out and shoot the first time they tried to 'talk' with him? Did they start aiming or shooting prior to Arbery running right at them? No. This makes me think they intended to show off the guns, not actually fire them. Greg didn't even have his out of the holster till Travis fired.

Again, I'd love to know exactly how Georgia precedent views having a gun unholstered/unslung. I think that would make a huge difference.
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That's a fair question, but probably one only a real criminal lawyer in GA might know. How exactly the law is applied is going to rely on more than just the text, but a deep understanding of previous rulings and cases.

My general understanding is that plenty of things well short of pointing a firearm have been considered adequate threats to justify criminal charges.

Something as simple as revealing a concealed firearm or moving a hand to the grip of a visible, holstered pistol have been understood as armed intimidation.

There's no hard and fast rule about what is or is not allowed. It comes down to context and whether a reasonable person would interpret an action as threatening.

in this case, we got Redneck Sr. standing in the back of a pickup truck that's chasing down a jogger. That same truck later heads off the target and the shotgun armed driver forces a confrontation.

Close watching of the video shows Travis raising the shotgun on Arbery even while he's down the road and well out of reach.

In totality, I don't see how a reasonable person doesn't come back with a guilty on aggravated assault, unless they somehow buy the whole "citizen's arrest" gambit.

My prediction is that the citizen's arrest claim is going to be the crux of the whole case. It's going to be impossible to deny that the McMichaels were clearly using firearms to attempt to detain Arbery. Whether or not that attempted detention was lawful will be the deciding factor. Since there is no evidence of any felony committed by Arbery, it seems clear it shouldn't succeed and both men are found guilty on all counts.
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
My general understanding is that plenty of things well short of pointing a firearm have been considered adequate threats to justify criminal charges.
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For ***** sake, the whole line in this thread is that the mere act of an unarmed black guy coming at a guy holding a weapon is enough of a threat that warrants killing the SOB! But now we have to quibble about whether the white guys chasing him down, cornering him and pulling out a weapon is an adequate threat to justify criminal charges?

He should have just killed them. Then no one would worry about it, right?
 
pgwenthold said:
For ***** sake, the whole line in this thread is that the mere act of an unarmed black guy coming at a guy holding a weapon is enough of a threat that warrants killing the SOB! But now we have to quibble about whether the white guys chasing him down, cornering him and pulling out a weapon is an adequate threat to justify criminal charges?

He should have just killed them. Then no one would worry about it, right?
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If you mean Arbery should have shot both of his attackers, I agree completely. I think the Black Panthers have the right idea about how to react to violence against their community, and it involves lots of guns and occasionally shooting white people. 100% endorsement.
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
If you mean Arbery should have shot both of his attackers, I agree completely. I think the Black Panthers have the right idea about how to react to violence against their community, and it involves lots of guns and occasionally shooting white people. 100% endorsement.
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...you 100% endorse occasionally shooting people?
 
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