Admittedly, I haven't followed this case much at all so excuse the errors in my thought process. But, if some looters/rioters were in my neighborhood and coming up to my house, I don't see the foul in coming outside with my gun, pointing it at them as a visual of "Get the fuck back". I know that if I was looting/rioting and someone pointed a gun at me, I'd sure as shit step back. I don't see it that different than small business owners who posted up on their roof or in front of their shops with guns.
I guess I just don't think "white homeowner brandishing a weapon against BLM protesters" is a good look. It might be legal, it might be perfectly fine given the protesters were trespassing. It doesn't paint a great portrait for gun owners, despite doing exactly what the guns are supposed to do. The gun owner home defense argument in real life means threatening civilians engaged in protest? It screams "tiny dick energy". Looking at this couple, it seems they have never dealt with violence before and have no idea the power they are wielding. The lack of restraint, proper technique, or awareness of the consequences awaiting them all suggest "amateur" at best, gleeful idiot at worst. It feels like shattering a fantasy: you feel like Rambo, you look like that ass sandal. I agree with GTE, if I saw a mob coming down my street, I can't say I'd leave my gun in the safe. I also hope I understood the laws, my responsibilities as a gun owner in that situation and err wildly on the side of caution. I'm not seeing that from Leisure Suit Larry there. I'm seeing someone who fantasizes about shooting people, gets a thrill from the power of the weapon and got carried away. I'm seeing someone who's not approaching the situation with the awareness, care and caution that would be indicative of responsible gun ownership. Most of the folks I know & respect who have seen combat or work in LEO that have successfully navigated some of those situations emphasize their weapon is the last option, and they emphatically will do everything they can to avoid it. Those two did not look like they were aware they were a hairs breath away from manslaughter, they looked like they were masquerading with their toys. I hope my thought when pulling a gun out in that situation would be "I don't want to kill anyone. I don't want to shoot anyone. I want to make sure my family is safe." You don't do that by stepping outside and directly challenging the mob. You don't do that by pointing a gun at civilians. You don't do that by escalating tension. It's Monday-morning quarterbacking for sure, and God knows I don't EVER want to be in that situation. Like I said, the worst person to be in a riot is someone with a gun. Also, you might point a gun at a crowd and some guns get pointed back. I doubt Randall Rambo, Esq. there could get himself out of that situation. It's also a show of disgust, lack of empathy and animosity that I think is simply deflating. He reached for a rifle, before he reached out. That genuinely saddens me. It feels like this couple doesn't understand the difference between real life and what they see on Fox news, and that scares me as well. Again, one of the reasons most professionals resort to violence last is they have to deal with the consequences, and that's hard to reckon in the moment. Those two seem wildly ignorant of that. I identify with those two: I own guns. I've been in riots. I understand the fear and the impulse to reach for a weapon to protect yourself. I just feel sad, disgusted and....deflated by this, in ways that are hard to express. Just....ugh, people.
With respect, I think there's a difference between people defending their homes and property and two dipshits brandishing guns at protesters walking past their house.
Yeah the Latinos protecting their stores a few weeks ago got no traction in the press compared to this. Basically showing force to make the mob play nice. They only had a modicum more finger control on their weapons. No real outrage because it was another disaffected minority group as the “antagonist”. The reporting and framing of the “peaceful protestors” just “passing through” like they just hopped a cyclone fence in a public back alley is a stones throw off Nicholas Sandman level reporting. The blatant misrepresentation of the situation by the media is what saddens me the most.
The biggest difference is that the LAPD abandoned Koreatown. They fell back to protect the white neighborhoods like Beverly Hills and just left Koreatown to fend for itself.
How is that much different than cops standing by and letting chaos unfold in more than a few cities around the country? The people in the picture are certainly overreacting, but when the media and local politicians have allowed, if not endorsed, the conflation of peaceful BLM protestors and anarchists hijacking the moment for their own cause, people acting out with defensive measures, even if misguided, should be expected. Just because cops in some cities get hamstrung by overcompensating mayors, doesn't meant people are going to put up with it if they think its going to happen in their town.
No city in America has abandoned entire neighborhoods while dozens of people die and a billion dollars of economic damage racks up. It just hasn't happened.
I didn't say it had, are you just going to avoid the point altogether? I didn't realize the gate for self-defense was a dozen people dead and $1 billion in economic damage.
What point is that? My point was that people are making the comparison to the LA Riots because they have a hard-on for Roof Koreans, but that Roof Koreans only existed because of a wholesale abandonment of them by a racist/classist police department. The current situation is not analogous.
I didnt make that initial comparison, but has nothing to do with Koreans in the LA Riots anyway, specifically. If people think their community is about to be terrorized because similar events have unfolded elsewhere, they're not going to rollover and take it. There have been plenty of people online and even in the media that have justified the rioting as an "outburst" in reaction to police violence. Now you have local jurisdictions that are standing by and letting that happen. Whether or not the cops are doing it out of racism or because their woke mayor told them to, is irrelevant to someone who's storefront is being burned. Thats not an endorsement of it either, but it doesnt take Nostradamus to see how this would start snowballing.
I think the point Juice is making is a good one: you can't force cops to do their jobs, and it's not like the problems we face could be solved with scabs or a replacement force. To a larger extent, actual solutions are not going to result from excluding the police from discussing those solutions: they can and will let communities run rampant with crime, sitting back and watching it happen. That's what we're seeing: when the cops aren't coming, people will act accordingly, and over-react accordingly. So, if these mayors are content to sit back and lob bombs at cops, the cops will sandbag until it feels like we're in LA in the 90's. That doesn't exactly speak highly for cops, but it's what you can expect when you try and decide how to handle someone else's problem without involving them, and often over their objections.
But where is that the case? Pretty much all of the violence and looting I've seen was limited to the first few days, and in commercial districts where there was stuff worth stealing; it all happened in city centers as well. I haven't seen any situations where the mob "came for" residents in suburbia, who for some reason seem to be the most fearful.
You’re trying to apply logic to people behaving irrationally. I’m saying it doesn’t matter. There are enough places where it did happen to cause an effect, regardless of continued likelihood. Just like people being fearful of being killed by police. Statistically, it doesn’t happen. But perception is reality, and people responding irrationally is a dangerous snowball to start rolling.
https://www.npr.org/sections/live-u...rd-joins-coca-cola-starbucks-and-other-brands Facebook getting boycotted by advertisers. I wonder how long it takes before Fox News is next...
FYI, I made the "Roof Koreans" comparison in jest... Now, the funny thing about the US and your gun laws... you allow people to do some scary shit "if they feel afraid". Well, I can tell you that those 2 fuckers were afraid. Were they justified in their fear? Who knows, but it doesn't matter... because a lot of your states have no such requirement. As to their behaviour? Nuts... scary... amateurish... laughable... and so many more words. All that being said, I have yet to see anything that provides real context to what was going on there. I've heard different things... they broke through gates/fences, they didn't... I have no idea. What I do know is that everyone seems to be cherry picking parts of it and using it to feed their narrative slant, and pushing that without any real details.
The cynic in me thinks most of those companies shrewdly realized they could a lot more free press and goodwill by pulling their ads from facebook for a month and it has the side benefit of being free. In a month if this has all blown over back to business as usual... if it hasn't blown over they have avoided having facebook's stink on them.