Summary
At a Lafayette, Indiana anti-Trump rally Saturday, a man pulled an assault-style rifle after clashing with protesters who blocked his truck at a Third Street intersection.
Video shows the man in a MAGA hat yelling at protesters, prompting another man—angered by the confrontation with women—to intervene.
The two exchanged shouts before the protester headbutted the man. He returned to his truck, retrieved a rifle, and reentered the crowd.
Police detained but released him, citing self-defense. The “Hands Off!” rally drew nearly 1,000 people and ended early amid safety concerns.
If you can leave the situation safely - like being able to go back to your truck - it’s not self defense.
Self-defense isn’t going back to your vehicle to get a weapon to come back and terrorize people. That’s assault.
If he had returned with his weapon, and someone killed him, THAT would be self-defense.
But what about pre-emptive self defense? That’s a thing, right?
You don’t understand, your honor, I know I was gonna say something that would make them threaten my life! I had to start shooting.
It’ll get you on a talk show circuit
Self-defense requires there to be an ongoing threat to your or someone else’s immediate safety. If he was able to leave the altercation, head to his truck to retrieve his rifle, and then return to the situation that’s not self-defense, its premeditation.
I fucking love you guys. Like your head in a book being like awksuelly…
Reality is that guy could have killed that protestor and charges would be dropped. If not, trump would pardon him. There are no consequences
Stop trying to be correct. Just fucking win for a change. Being correct is not a win in today’s world. Way too many people that are wrong who keep winning.
Stand your ground laws have completely wrecked the premise surrounding threats and threat avoidance. Now it’s people being assholes and escalating the assholery until someone gets pissed and throws a punch and then the shooting starts. Doesn’t matter if it’s road rage or fighting over a parking space. No consideration that anyone involved could have walked away at any point before things got bad.
The duty to retreat and use a firearm as a last resort is dying a quick death in most red states. Even in NY where shooting someone in self defense was often a trip straight to jail now ends up with people not being charged.
Basically, you need to Han Solo the thing most times these days. Shoot first and you’re not guilty.
How does going back to your vehicle and retrieving a n assault rifle count as self defense? That’s premeditated at that point if he were to use it.
The difference between this, and any other mass shooting is just whether this guy decided to pull the trigger, which he obviously wanted too.
I wouldn’t say premeditated as it was in the heat of the moment, but intentional as hell and not self defense at all
Premeditated has a specific legal definition. He went back to his truck and came back with a gun. I would find it a hard sell to say that wasn’t premeditated if I was on a jury.
What matters is he should be held accountable. I think we agree on that
I think premeditated in the legal sense means planned. So they would probably have to prove he intentionally went to the protest vs happened to be going that way. And they would probably have to prove he doesn’t drive around with that weapon all the time. But I am not a lawyer.
He drove there with an assault rifle.
While I get what you’re implying, if he can legally carry it, that means nothing. Going to get it and returning, that’s the real issue
Inserts himself into a situation he wasn’t invited to, or welcome at, instigates people for the purpose of “justified” retaliation- whips out his loaded lib-killer , and is summarily released by law enforcement.
I’d say those folks dun’ got Rittenhoused!
ACAB.
If the game is about driving around with a gun, provoking people into hitting you, and then going back and getting your gun to kill them, it would be very easy to go around deleting Trump supporters. You know, if not for the police / government being on their side.
That dude could’ve stayed in his truck and waited for people to walk by. Instead he ended up bloody and teary-eyed. And he’s the one with the fucking assault rifle.
Bullies aren’t used to people hitting back. They’re so scared of losing face they’d rather carry a gun and possibly kill someone to prove what a badass they are.
Self defense would be a headbutt back or fists, not the AmRepublican-14.
Gravy Seal Clown
So Indiana is a “stand your ground” state. That generally removes any duty to retreat. I’d be curious how they rule when he clearly retreated to his vehicle already, and only then retrieved a weapon, brandished it, and reentered a crowd. If they allow self defense, how far is someone allowed to retreat in order to retrieve a weapon and re-engage? Can I go all the way back to my house and get a gun to defend myself?
Of course this will only be litigated if the public can pressure the prosecutor to press charges. If not it’ll be easy for the cops to disproportionately apply that defense to like minded miscreants.
It removes your duty to retreat if you are in a life-threatening situation, whether on private or public property. It essentially extends the castle doctrine to include your personal space at all times.
If after being headbutted, he pulled a CCW, or even had the AR on his person, I think he could make a reasonable claim of self defense. If the protestor followed him back to his truck, he could make a claim of self defense, but if you have the time and security to go back to your truck, get your gun, and the return to confront someone, I think you’ve gone outside the realm of being in a life-threatening situation, and therefore self-defense no longer applies.
And I’d agree with that. But if it’s not settled in court, cops are allowed to pick and choose how they apply that.
This is what we’re up against.
I’ll be damned if I let these people continue to run our country
What an actual POS, but do we really expect anything else from a Trump supporter. Clear as day he should not have been released citing any self-defence. Anyone who argues against this fact shows they should not even own a gun. US is going US though, not even dead kids can separate them from their guns.
He will shoot next time. Like a not so smart missile they just aimed him at decent human beings.
I mean lots of people open carry. Hopefully we don’t get to this point, but if someone threatens someone else with firearm, lots of localities justify lethal force at that point (one must always assume a firearm is loaded)
Of course. If he was black the story would be different
The source loses my respect for calling it an “assault rifle” when it almost certainly was not. This summary (which I assume was written by MicroWave) calls it an “assault-style rifle”, which has no meaning at all.
This is not an assault rifle, and not fully automatic. If it was, the gun’s existence would have been almost certainly illegal.
Words have meaning. The meaning in this case is important. Use your words.
At this point it’s difficult to take this critique seriously when right wing gun nuts use arguing over minutiae like this to prevent any kind of constructive discussion whatsoever.
Yes, there is a technical definition of an “assault rifle”. It’s also a shorthand that regular people not familiar with firearms use to mean “gun that looks like something the military carries” or something approaching that. It’s not even relevant here. We do not need to break up every single discussion involving firearms with arguments over meaningless definitions.
they do it to intentionally derail the conversation. Fuck them.
Youre trying to change the subject. 🤡
It was a rifle, used for an assault, ergo, an assault rifle.
