TDB: With Guns, the Threatened Can Quickly Become the Threat

[OmahaBlueDog]

Note: As this piece relates to Monday's shooting of a theater-goer/texter by a retired police officer, and this story has been widely reported, I believe the "really big news" exception to the gun rule should apply in this instance.

The dead man was named Chad Oulson. You know his story. It was the big gun atrocity of the day for the 24 hours before the Roswell shooting. Gun atrocities occur so thick and fast that few of them gain public attention, and even fewer hold it for long. Yet the Oulson killing broke through, at least for a little while, because it seemed so unusually pointless and stupid. As the sheriff of Pasco County told reporters afterward: “To have a retired police officer—I don’t know what he was thinking at the time. I can tell you, anybody, over a cellphone, to take their life, it’s ridiculous.”

Ridiculous doesn’t begin to capture it. Oulson was texting his three-year-old daughter. He and his wife were away from home together, and he’d kept their phones switched on so his child could reach him. Now that child is fatherless, and the wife is a widow. During the altercation, she placed her hand on her husband’s chest to restrain him. The same bullet that killed Chad Oulson struck and wounded Nicole Oulson’s hand.

Yet it’s possible the situation did not seem remotely ridiculous to the shooter. If witness reports are accurate, Oulson was the first to raise his voice. Oulson was a tall man, well built, and thirty years younger than Reeves. Reeves may well have felt threatened. And isn’t that the very point and purpose of a gun? To be drawn when its owner feels threatened? “Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.”

Complete article at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/14/with-guns-the-threatened-quickly-become-the-threat.html#url=/articles/2014/01/14/with-guns-the-threatened-quickly-become-the-threat.html

[NYC_SKP]

1. When I think of the PTSD that our veterans suffer, and compare to what *might* effect veteran LEOs..

It makes me wonder if we ought not be more proactive and try to diagnose and provide services to retired LEOs (and veterans, of course).

This violent incident was avoidable and the preventative measure would have been one of appropriate screening and treatment of the person who held the gun.

On the matter of PTSD and suicides among vets, who commit now 22 successful suicides/day (up from 18/day), a link:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/21/us/22-veteran-suicides-a-day/

I thank them, veterans and LEOs for their service, but why do we allow this sadness?

[Aristus]

3. I can't believe anyone finds this even remotely defensible.

The shooter was a gun-crazed asshole who first of all, takes a gun to a movie theater (!), then draws a gun when calm rational discussion would have saved everyone a whole lot of heartache. I guess gun-crazies carry guns in order to avoid the hassle of calm, rational discussion. (too hard? too much effort?)

Fuck that guy. They should throw him under the jail...

[Lurks Often]

4. Your post proves that calm, rational discussion isn't always possible

You've already tried and convicted a person based on what? Some paragraphs in a newspaper or maybe a 30 or 60 second clip on the news.

On edit: Seems that neither of them were willing to try calm, rational discussion either.

[Aristus]

5. I didn't shoot anybody.

And in this situation, one guy is dead, and the guy with the gun is still alive and charged with the crime.

Arcane, abstruse, and Byzantine solutions to crimes are good fodder for television, but as a cop once said, in real life, if it looks like he did it, 99 times out of 100, he did it.

[Lurks Often]

6. And you miss the point

"The shooter was a gun-crazed asshole who first of all, takes a gun to a movie theater (!), then draws a gun when calm rational discussion would have saved everyone a whole lot of heartache. I guess gun-crazies carry guns in order to avoid the hassle of calm, rational discussion. (too hard? too much effort?)

Fuck that guy. They should throw him under the jail..."

There is nothing calm or rational about your response. All we have to go on is what the reporter(s) chose to include, among which was a statement designed to elicit outrage and sympathy: He was texting his 3 year old daughter.
Who he was texting isn't relevant to what happened, what is relevant is what happened in that theater.

For purposes of discussion we'll say this will be a 2 week trial before it goes to the jury. We'll further say that the jury will hear about 50 hours worth from witnesses, experts and lawyers on both sides. That's 50 hours of information not available to us, most especially witnesses present that don't have an axe to grind.

Based on photos the deceased appeared to be well above 6 feet tall, appeared to be in reasonable shape and was roughly 30 years younger. Did he make verbal threats indicating he was going to kill the shooter? Who initiated the verbal disagreement when the shooter came back from speaking to theater management? How big was the shooter? Did he have medical issues? Did he or his wife have medical issue that prevented leaving the scene in a prompt manner? Was either wife threatened? Did either wife try and de-escalate the situation? Did the shooter have a past history of confronting people?
These are all relevant questions that need to be answered.

[OmahaBlueDog]

7. OK, he was a big guy. Does that in any way justify a lethal response.

The chief of police could have:

1) done nothing, since this actually didn't impact his movie viewing, but simply touched a raw nerve
2) simply moved
3) called the cops

There is no evidence that the deceased brandished a weapon. Nothing in any version of the story that I've seen lends any justification to the use of lethal force. Like George Zimmerman, it appears Curtis Reeves felt threatened by Chad Oulson for no reason that makes any particular sense.

[Lurks Often]

8. The legal threshold

is a reasonable fear of death or grave bodily harm. A jury will decide based on a lot more information then has currently been reported, whether Reeves was justified in feeling that way or not.

Another relevant legal term is disparity of force, in this case, did Reeves, at 71 years old, maybe with physical impairments not reported, reasonably (something that the jury will decide) believe that a man almost 30 years younger and by current reports much larger and in decent physical shape, be capable of hurting Reeves with his bare hands beyond Reeves ability to defend himself without resorting to a firearm.

Simplified, it's the principle that allows someone 5 feet tall or someone suffering a physical disability to shoot a larger, healthy unarmed attacker.

I am NOT saying Reeves is innocent. I am also not saying he is guilty. There is a lot of information about this none of us are aware of and won't come out until the trial.

Having said that, based on what HAS been reported, Reeves is probably going to jail.