(05-11-2020, 03:49 PM)TJBender Wrote:

(05-11-2020, 02:26 PM)jagibelieve Wrote: So because the guy was openly holding a shotgun that makes the intent to kill clear?  Based on what they knew about Arbery's criminal history did they know without a doubt that he was unarmed?  Were they not allowed to arm themselves for their own protection?

Regarding your last question, I encounter people all the time holding weapons and walking towards me.  I don't consider that a threat unless the weapon is pointed in my direction.  Go back and look at the video again.  Was the younger McMichael walking towards him in a threatening manner (pointing the shotgun at him)?

In order for the charge of murder to apply it must be proven with evidence that they armed themselves with the intent to go and shoot the man.

Bold point 1: So the new standard is, "I get to shoot you because I don't know for sure that you're unarmed"?

Bold point 2: How many times has someone pulled up in front of you and gotten out with a shotgun, facing towards you? Do you consider having your path blocked by someone with a shotgun to be threatening? And if the person who gets out with a shotgun ends up using it on you, wouldn't there have to be some intent involved on the part of the person who pulled a shotgun in the first place?

The extent to which some of you are bending over backwards to defend the murder of an unarmed man because he was on someone else's unoccupied property, or because blocking someone's path and brandishing a shotgun at them isn't a threat, or because no one can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was not armed...I mean, what the [BLEEP]? Am I allowed to go around shooting people because I don't know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're not armed?

Screw privilege. Some of you need to check your brain cells and make sure the neurons are still doing their thing. I block your path with a truck. I get out with a shotgun. I brandish said shotgun at you. I shoot you. You die. Somehow there's no intent on my part, even though I'm the one who blocked your path, hopped out with a shotgun and opened up a new putting green in your chest. But no, it's your fault because you didn't run screaming like a baby in your basketball shoes.

If it's a white guy doing what Arbery was doing, whatever that was, we never hear about this because no one gets shot. Because it was a black guy in a white neighborhood, the Stormfront brigade showed up and decided that petty theft of an unoccupied structure warranted blockading someone with a shotgun. I'd also like to point out that there were two 911 calls. In the first, the caller reported a black man inside a house under construction, and the caller could not articulate for the 911 operator what the man had done wrong, just that he had "taken off down the street". A second 911 call came in from someone else saying--literally--that there was "a black man running down the street".

So, again, explain how there's not intent to kill on the part of someone who blocks someone else's path, brandishes a shotgun, then puts a hole in that person's chest. Explain how there's no racial motivation when the two 911 calls made prior to the shooting are mostly to entirely focused on "a black man running down the street" without articulating any crime or threat. There was apparently enough perceived threat to stop the man with a shotgun, but not enough of one to explain the situation to a 911 operator as anything other than "a black man running down the street."

You want to say it's not racially motivated? Ok. No one showed up wearing bedsheets and burning a cross before shooting him, but as I've said over and over, all anyone was able to speak to on 911 was "a black man running down the street". And then they shot him. Because he was a black man running down the street. Their own words. Not mine.

Regarding bold point #1.  Nobody said that they could "shoot somebody".  All I said is that they were justified to be armed for their own protection.

Regarding your ridiculous point #2.  I've had people get out of vehicles in front of me with weapons (shotguns, AR-15's, etc.), and I have never perceived it as a threat.  I have never had them point the weapon at me.  Show me in the video or any evidence where any firearms were pointed at Arbery.  It doesn't get pointed at him until he (allegedly) initiated the physical struggle.

You miss my point that to charge and convict for murder it has to be proven that it was pre-meditated (intent).  The fact that the white guys armed themselves (for whatever reason) doesn't prove intent to kill Arbery.  They are innocent until proven guilty.  That's how the law works.  It's the burden of prosecutors to prove that they actually intended to kill the man.  From the evidence that I have seen.... aint gonna happen.

My point is that people (including the media) are trying to turn this into a racial issue.  No wonder the country is so divided right now.  I have seen no evidence that would suggest that race had anything to do with it.

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