A Florida and Texas Question about who you are allowed to shoot?

[PurgedVoter]

I wonder if this argument can get the right to shoot states to change their mind about the right to shoot.

Since you can shoot people who scare you in Florida and Texas, does that mean it is legal to shoot a person without a mask who confronts and approaches you?

I mean, you can't brandish your gun and say, back off, I have a gun. But if they threaten you and without a mask they are threatening your and your families lives, I think you are allowed to pull a gun, point it at them and pull the trigger.

I expect this message to be deleted and I understand that it probably should be. But I would love for a few jerks to suddenly realize that there is a good argument that says they should not be pushing their idiot no mask issue. I would also love for a few states to realize the right to kill is a very bad law.

[weaponeer]

1. I would refer you to Texas Penal Code

Chapter 9.

[link:https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/SOTWDocs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm|

[PurgedVoter]

3. From the wording, an idiot has more rights to kill.

By reading the Texas Penal Code sited, I think the code reduces your right to kill. If you are ignorant of the law then you would be more "reasonably expected" than if you know the law. But then again, I am not an expert on reading law so it might be argued that having read the laws, I became reasonably confused and felt I had the right to do all sorts of horrible things. In turn, that would give me reasonable rights to do some pretty horrible things.

[Hoyt]

2. First off, even if the answer is "Yes, you can kill someone without a mask,"

I, and most of us, would not.

Second, I think even in the rube gun states you mention, you’d have to convince a jury you were reasonable in fearing for your life. You might could do that if you had reason to believe the “assailant” was CV19 positive or rabid. Otherwise, it’s a tougher sell.

Of course, in those rube states if the assailant is a POC, you’d get off even if you shot them in the back running away or if they were in a full HAZMAT suit.

I know you were trying to make a point; but, I think people are wising up to the white wing gun-humping Stand-Your-Ground BS.

[PurgedVoter]

6. I too suspect this law has a racist background and bias.

I think we are focused on police and their crimes right now and ignoring the fact that prosecuting attorneys and judges have a very strong influence on what police consider available options of behavior. If abusing police found the courts less friendly to abuse, we would see a lot less abuse.

I think there is a bit too much racist wiggle room available when the law says, "when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary." If there were an addendum that said, "evidence of racial bias is cause to infer that there is not reasonable belief," then these laws would be improved quite a bit. I still don't like them. Little men by the wording of these laws have an advantage over people of larger stature.

[Shermann]

4. I may regret this but I'll bite

So I don't think somebody invading your personal space without a mask rises to the legal standard of "the threat of death or great personal injury". Even if they were aggravating the situation and trying to lick you, there can be no reasonable good-faith belief that deadly force was necessary.

It's actually kind of an interesting scenario. If, on the other hand, a drug addict were chasing you around with an AIDS-infected hypodermic needle, you could probably make a successful case for using deadly force. In both cases, you are being threated with infection from an incurable disable and possible delayed injury or death resulting from it. But one involves a more violent physical attack, is far more alarming, and they are not equivalent.

[PurgedVoter]

7. Hypothetical time.

If a person starts putting grenades out on playgrounds, he is not directly threatening you with immediate damage. He is however a sociopath who is endangering children and all of those around them.

By walking around without a mask, I could potentially cause, way more damage than if I left a box of grenades on a playground. If I have covid, I can turn people into boxes of grenades that in turn make more people into boxes of grenades.

I just checked https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ to see the numbers. We have 407 deaths per million, the world has 70.6. That means we have 5.76 times as many deaths recorded (and I suspect our numbers) due to corona than the world does. With 134,724 deaths, that means we have 111,334 more deaths than we would if we matched the world average. So people who have not taken basic care (Far Right Republicans) have probably killed 111,334 Americans. Worse yet, their box of grenades is still being passes around and even if they stop putting boxes of grenades on playgrounds today, we will see even more deaths.

Personally, I want to see a really large fine associated with folk that approach without a mask and continue in the act when warned. I would love to see a fine that climbs based on net worth. If fines matched percentages of earnings, then rich folk might not feel as free to flaunt the law.

[Shermann]

8. You just aren't going to win making it a numbers game

It just doesn't get to threat of death or great personal injury as defined by law. It has to be an up-close and personal crisis situation.

[PurgedVoter]

9. I don't want to win this.

I have no desire for anyone to die. I would however like laws that are clearly aimed to enable ammosexual racists to be eliminated. I would also like the idiots who push the no mask evil to be fined enough to regret spending so much on guns.

[Shermann]

10. There's those pangs of regret I was afraid of

You are twisting two unrelated issues into one pretzel.

[PurgedVoter]

12. Read the original post, the regret is right up front.

Before I became convinced that I had corvid I was trying to maintain distance while wearing a mask for my protection. The last three times I was in a checkout line, someone made sure to come close to me unmasked and declare that covid was a hoax. I am over sixty and one of them told me to my face that it only effects old people. In other words, this person had no empathy for people who were not just like them.

When I became convinced that I had covid, I stopped getting into lines. Even if I were sociopathic enough to infect a sociopath, they might in turn infect innocents and they might in turn infect more innocents. Worse yet, there is good evidence that the amount of exposure makes the results worse. The more people infected the worse it gets.

The thing is, the same demographic who want to carry guns around want to get up and in the face of people who are showing compassion by wearing masks. The same folk who are spending all their money on guns are the same folk that have bought into an idea that it is a good thing to carry cards saying they don't have to wear a mask and going places just to cause trouble and assert their twisted ideas. These are not unrelated at all. In a shopping line in Texas you will see both of them combined. Fortunately most stores in my area have decided "No Guns." Fortunately in my community most the guns stay hidden. But you might be surprised to see how many bumper stickers advertise that the owner loves his weapons and not just for killing animals.

[PTWB]

5. The fear has to be reasonable.

You can’t be afraid that someone is going to be rude to you. You must be afraid that you’re in imminent danger of being seriously injured or killed. That fear must be reasonable.

[hack89]

11. We have several centuries of case law regarding self defense

it is very well defined and understood. Your hypothetical would get you charged with murder - because there is no way a jury will believe that your life was in imminent danger. Especially in Florida or Texas where they don't believe COVID is deadly to start with.

[Iggo]

13. Hmm.

In Florida, you can start a fight, and if you’re getting your ass kicked, you can shoot the other guy.

In Texas, I think you can kill anybody you want, long as he needed killin’.

[denem]

14. Blacks

... if you're a cop