Guns don't kill people, talk radio does

What he's saying is regardless of whether you're right or wrong, don't escalate something something physically with anyone. It's always been against the law to beat someone senseless because they pissed you off. Getting out of your vehicle and rushing to the object of your perceived injustice with a red face and raised fist just might get you a ticket to the afterlife.

The only thing the Florida law changed was the fact that you no longer have to RUN from a life-threatening situation and hope the cops will find you and stop the guy chasing you. We are all responsible for our own safety. Remember Katrina? The government, police, military, FEMA, etc. will not always be able to save you. Be prudent. Be slow to anger. Take your own personal safety seriously. Someone with jayman's LE/military experience should know better... unless Canada is teaching their people in uniform some unorthodox tactics for situation control.

Other thing to remember is if you CAN run and avoid any type of violence, it's better. Pull the trigger and you're looking at a minimum $10,000 legal bill, not to mention the moral baggage you will then have to carry the rest of your life. Many in law enforcement will quit after a justified killing just because of the emotional trauma involved... at least according to my CHL instructor.

Let's take a hypothetical Florida scenario. You're on your way to the beach with your family, and right before you get there something happens in traffic. Let's say for the sake of argument that no one is at fault, but there is heated hand gesturing and shaking of the fists from both of you. Then let's say the other guy decides to follow you into the parking lot at the beach. From here there are two scenarios. One a justified shooting, the other not. UNJUSTIFIED: He jumps out of his vehicle and pounds on your rolled up window screaming and yelling. He kicks the side of your car door in, walks around and smashes a dent in your hood and vents some more. He sees you dialing police, then shouts some more then drives off. JUSTIFIED: The guy goes back to his car and comes back with a baseball bat. Your kids are screaming as the guy raises it to break through your window. BAM. The man about to inflict the possibility of deadly violence on you and your family gets a 45 through the skull. Don't tell me you should back out and drive off. You could run over some kid behind your car. This is what the Florida law is designed to do, which is inject common sense into a life-and-death situation. Before the Florida law, you would have been REQUIRED to flee and have killed the kids that skateboarded up behind your car.

 

Maybe I should move to Florida so I can shoot you for "threatening" me.

 

We all are. We bought a Prius. :grouphug:

 

Hahaha :canada: err I mean :usa2: ahh screw it, this is universal :tea:

 

Good on ya', F8L. At least you know where you can run if you have to.

 

Heck ya! I'm coming to live with you. A great climate, a great community, a great family, and a wonderful host that is environmentally aware. Ohh, and he can cook!

 

Naw, I'm just a cheap nice person.

But I will run my pool heater tonight. All that rain made the water cold.

 

miscrms agree with your sentiments especially about the twisted irony of living off food stamps and hating liberals. I do take issue with your inclusion of being in the military. Why? The guy had a history of violence toward his ex-wife. There were obvious signs of mental illness that the right wing radio fuels nicely. There are a lot of former members in the military...some like me combat veterans who were reserved of discussing military service in some circles because non drafted, college deferment, 4fer's, felt all of us were drug addicted, crazy baby killers....Its a different environment now but I can tell just the inference of military service and crazy behavior is a sensitive subject for me to this day. It wasn't until I left military service off my resume that I got bites in the job market...
Regarding right wing radio: I took a road trip in my SUV in 2004 with my family and in-laws to the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee. Besides the beautiful mountains, friendly people, and wonderful cabin, the one thing I remember is the right wing poisonous radio programing on the air waves. It was very hostile..Terry

 

F8L a pompous nice person? Now that's rich! Dave perhaps you might do a little more research on F8L's posts the past few years before you take one from the rovian playbook and swiftboat him.

 

Just the facts...
Books can kill too!
The killer of two adults, one of whom was shielding children in the congregation in Tennessee, had an interesting library of reading material. The three prominent books that were found:
O'Reilly Factor by Bill O'Reilly, Let Freedom Ring by Sean Hannity, and
Liberalism is a Mental Disorder by Michael Savage.
It seems he was convinced liberals and gays' were responsible for ruining the country.
Gee, with such a rich and well rounded reading material how could he come up with that hypothesis?
Right wing reading material should come with a warning for those mentally disturbed readers also suffering from rage disorders. It should have a warning, 'read at your own risk'. This material will substantially lower your homicidal inhibitions. Thank God, most right wing believers don't suffer from rage disorders.

 

I am going to say the killer probably also had a copy of Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, and possibly National Geographic . I don't thing they made him any crazier than he already was. Far right wing or far left wing, they are the same people just with different special interests. Both are radically stubborn and reject anyone that doesn't believe the way they do. I don't think of the graph of right wing and left wing as a straight line but as a circle with the two "opposites" just being back to back and more alike in their nature than different.

 

I agree with you, one normal person to another. I wasn't there cleaning out his house but I can tell you the hatred this man had against minority groups was scary. Liberals, gays, african americans were the primary source of the country's problems, in his demented mind. I understand you or I would never assume one group is less worthy than another. I would certainly defend a republican or democrat as equal in his or her rights as a african american gay man or white lesbian, not better or worse.
The right wing fueled his demented thinking, according to the police reports. The Christian right's opportunity to exploit these mentally ill people in spite of this person's obvious dependence on what might be construed as a liberal policy, providing food stamps for those in need, should be examined by even the most prudent Republican supporter.
We can all play lawyer and bend the facts to support a position. How does one extremely powerful group like the Republican Christian right group deny the existence or importance of another group? It is mind boggling to me.
Yes, maybe he read the Newsweek or Sorts Illustrated...or maybe he just
read the Republican hate agenda and that minority (liberal) groups were his target.
Let me ask you and the other members of Prius Chat, how many times on right wing radio waves have you heard the blustering statements of Rush L. about the liberal wackos...over and over and over again...Is RL a propaganda expert? Yes/maybe/no...how could you dispel it? I've heard it many times...and that's just listening while a commercial is playing on the station was listening to, and I agree with you, mentally ill people can grasp an idea and act violently. That is why they should be identified, hospitalized, medicated, and later released when they are stable. He was neither diagnosed, medicated (except alcohol on his own)
or hospitalized. There was documentation of his violence and certainly his former wife discussed his DUI's and 2 orders of protection....the writing was on the wall...but maybe he was reading about Brett Favre's troubles in Green Bay.