And he would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for the victim being white.
“I feared for my life!”
Yeah I’ll bet you did.
Fucking coward.
He feared that his best chance to get away with shooting someone was peacefully driving away.
Funnily enough, I believe him.
This is what a steady diet of Fox News does to a motherfucker. This is exactly why Americans are so obsessed with guns, it’s why they pour so much money into their military, and it’s why 9/11 fundamentally reshaped their culture. They’re terrified of everything and anything around them, all the God damn time. They have to be armed, they have to be the biggest military power on the planet, and God forbid anyone remind them that none of that does them any good. America is a culture entirely driven by fear.
Fear doesn’t excuse what he did. You don’t get to murder defenceless people just because you’re afraid. He chose to own a lethal weapon and he chose to make using that weapon his first reaction to something that frightened him, instead taking even a few seconds to assess the situation. That’s 100% on him, and deserves every single year of that sentence and more.
America is a culture entirely driven by fear.
Some politicians would find themselves unelectable if they didn’t have a platform of fear and othering to depend on for their continued access to power.
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As someone who doesn’t own guns. This photo always makes me cringe.
All I see is poor trigger discipline, poor muzzle control, and two dumb fucks. It’s amazing that they didn’t “accidental” start blasting.
Are you sarcastically implying there’s no way someone would fear for their life in that situation, and then in the next sentence that the shooter is an easily frightened person who might’ve feared for their life?
If you have the paranoid delusion that a car turning around in your driveway is a threat, you are a serious risk to the public.
“I feared for my life!” Is a direct quote I’ve heard more than a couple times from big burly manly Texas men I’ve worked with. I’d bet $20 this guy used to talk the same trash. They’ll claim that if they ever have to kill somebody, they’ll say that to the cops / judge and get set free for having fired in self-defense. I keep my thoughts to myself.
Except with y’all!
It sounds to me that these guys want everybody to think they’re super tough, but their pre-planned defense is to claim cowardice as a virtue, and they’ll tell you so ahead of time. It baffles me that they fail to feel shame for it, but I believe them when they proudly declare what cowards they are.
And yeah, that dude was an angry coward who wanted to lash out at the first person who dared cross an imaginary line in his head. There’s no reason to be afraid when a couple cars come down your driveway. But they’ve let themselves get whipped into a bloodthirsty frenzy over imaginary terrors. Fear is a central facet of their personalities.
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The shooter sounds like a gigantic pussy
Wish I hadn’t read this headline, it validates the anxiety I’ve had before about being confronted for turning around in a stranger’s driveway.
Dude, people get unreasonably pissy about that. I don’t know why. For instance, there are several houses around here with big “No U Turns In Driveway!” or similar signage to the same effect, which all have like 4 foot long driveways in locations where I can’t imagine anyone would be looking for a spot to turn around anyway.
Motherfuckers must be paranoid. It’s got to be exhausting, being so spooked all the time.
There is some legitimate reasons for it, but not likely to ever be the case. Larger vehicles may damage their driveway if it’s older or not as well built. So it works for their sedan, but an f-150 or a EV could irreparably damage it. People wouldn’t ever think of that, it’s like driving on their grass basically. Who does that?
It’s their private property, they do have a right to protect from damage from people entering it, but not to death.
Protect as in “put up a sign”, sure. But I can’t justify any amount of force to protect someone’s driveway.
If your driveway is damaged by using it as a driveway, then it’s already too late and you need a new one. You have no control over what delivery people are driving, or any number or legitimate public service workers who might need to stop at your house.
No delivery driver pulls up on driveways anywhere I have been, and you can request them not too as well. Lots will damage driveways due their weight (see below), so policy is to avoid for liability reasons.
And same as above for public service workers as well, you can request stuff too.
And that’s actually not true, lots of driveways aren’t able to handle EV weight, the standard 3.5-4” isn’t strong enough. It’ll damage very quickly. It’s not brought up enough to be honest.
you can request them not too as well.
Not too what? Request them not too heavy…?
Really? Our delivery drivers pull into the driveway all the time. Just had a FedEx truck in our driveway a few hours ago, in fact. Now that I think about it, Amazon trucks often stay at the street, but not always; my wife had to wait for one to leave the other day when she got home as Amazon was making a delivery.
EVs aren’t uniformly heavier than ice vehicles. Median weight is 2145kg vs 1768kg for ice. Your driveway should be able to hold around 8000 lbs, or 3600 kg. Basically the only ev you need to worry about is an electric Hummer.
And, again, if you feel your driveway can’t be used as a driveway, it’s already broken. The point of the thing is for people to put cars on it.
You’re welcome to put signs up on your own property for whatever you like, but you look silly getting upset for something like that.It’s like putting up a sign demanding that people don’t knock on your door because if they do it’ll fall off the hinges. It’s your right, but don’t be surprised if people don’t look for the sign, and maybe just get something that isn’t broken.
That 8000lbs is for 3” of asphalt, not concrete.
You are entirely misinformed.
Concrete is stronger than asphalt though.
Weird, because “googling it” shows that every source says otherwise.
Maybe you should check your recollection before spouting off about stuff so confidently.
If 300kg makes that big a difference, your driveway is broken. Do you think your driveway is permanently damaged by something as extreme as “two cars” being parked on it?
Everyone but Amazon pulls into my driveway. I share a double wide driveway with the neighbours and the deliver drivers love it. Only time it’s been an issue was when a ambulance parked there for someone across the street and we couldn’t exit. Woe is me – someone is literally dying and I had a minor inconvenience. All in all, pretty happy with it.
Lol if a F150 or EV damages your “driveway” it was never an actual driveway to begin with. As in, no it won’t damage a driveway. You’re thinking of a lawn.
I mean that’s just plain fucking false
Brooks said. The extra weight will affect everything from faster wear on residential streets and driveways to vehicle tires and infrastructure like parking garages.
Michael Brooks, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety
How does this even make him qualified to be making such statements? Furthermore, my residential neighborhood is full of 25 year old driveways and big ass trucks like F350 diesels and nobody has damaged driveways.
You understand that some people cut corners and may not have the same quality of products yeah? That’s for them to decide, not you. Some people make their driveway out of paving stones FFS LMFAO.
And some counties have different codes and standards, maybe where you live it’s 6” slabs and it’s fine, but lots of places are 3.5” driveways dude. And lots of places cut corners dropping it to even 3” or less. Without engineers verifying, it’s a crapshoot. And no one wants to pay for that for a resi driveway.
Not everyone is going to have the same experiences as you lmfao.
Wear on road goes up by the fourth power. Do you have any idea what a fully loaded tractor trailer weighs? Consumer vehicles are not even a rounding error.
Residential roads are built vastly different than interstate roads. Sorry to inform you.
To, you know, build those houses you have those tractor trailers. And concrete trucks. In addition to transit buses, garbage trucks, moving and furniture trucks. Consumer vehicles are a rounding error.
This is what happens when you have a libertarian rural populace. They believe that you entering their property is an invasion of their sanctity.
Devil’s avocado: People used to turn around in my driveway all the time at my old house. If they stayed on the pavement, that’d be one thing. But half of them cut into the grass, and it turned it into and stayed a rutted, muddy mess.
Granted, I would never start taking pot shots at people turning, but I did put up a sign.
Thus the giant rocks I see on either side of the end of some driveways. Possible car damage seems to be a helpful deterrent to driving through the grass.
I have big boulders for inflicting car damage if someone goes off the driveway.
Otherwise I don’t care if someone turns around in my driveway.
Boulders are the best kind of decorative bollard
That works too. lol I just didn’t have any handy, and I thought cinder blocks would either look trashy or get stolen.
To prevent people from parking in front of and blocking my driveway, which happens often due to the location, I cast some traffic cones out of concrete and spaced them so parallel parking anything larger than a motorcycle is impossible but you can pull in between them nose first or in reverse. They weigh 180 pounds each, and look squishy… until you strike them with a vehicle.
Watching morons clonk into them is hilarious. But they seldom do it twice.
They only look trashy until they get stolen.
Win/win? Lose/lose? That’s for you to decide.
Yeah that sucks but a couple large rocks or simple fence would take care of it.
I have one of those signs along with beware of dogs. Living in the country there has been a ton of theft here, stopped once i got 2 dogs. People were pulling in grabbing stuff often the first few years here. Other issue is I have a narrow driveway and road, it a pain to back out and not go in the ditch or hit the mailbox. 500ft down the road is a turn around for the school bus, they can turn around there.
Side note, due to the unruly angry people that live in the country. Was taught as a kid to not use people’s driveways for turning around, don’t want to get shot.
If someone is using a driveway to turn around, I’d put money on them being lost and not knowing about the bus turn around farther down the road.
Living life in fear.
I’m American, grew up being aware of the nuts with guns that live thier life in fear. Have had guns in my face so many times, it’s no fear but frustration with theft. Living in the country you get shot at often for no reason
Yeah, it’s stuff like this that’s made me afraid to pull into driveways to turn around. I’m afraid to even pull up and stop next to a house in a neighborhood I don’t know. There have been so many stories like this going around lately.
I’m sure this guy did fear for his life. I am sure he did feel like the safest thing he could do in that moment for himself was to fire directly into the unknown car.
And that’s why he doesn’t belong in our society. He is not welcome to participate given that the above is true, and we need to remove him until the end of time to ensure that no such thing can ever happen again.
We have places for people this. Florida and Texas.
We just let anybody have a gun these days
I say that as a firearm owner and manufacturer. Anytime somebody asks me about my guns I explain to them how any 13-year-old could have done the same thing and how are gun laws are completely broken
You can be pro gun in pro regulation at the same time, fuck all these false dichotomies
He doesn’t belong in general society. That kind of fear and response is reserved for the police.
The most ridiculous part about this is he stated the first shot was a warning shot in attempts to “start a dialog.”
You can’t ask questions later if you don’t shoot first!
Then he told a cop he was asleep and didn’t hear anything. After he told 911 he thought there were hunters illegally on his property. Not a smart guy.
Consequences. Not enough for the damage inflicted, but at least consequences.
If he did this in Florida they would have thrown him a parade.
not from the us; what does ‘25 to life’ mean?
did he get 25 or life?
That pig (with18 previous brutality complaints, two convictions and a totat of ~$9M Minneapolis taxpayer money settlements) who murdered George Flloyd got 22 years.
Minimum 25 years actually in a prison +/- some minor adjustments for behavior and then he’ll be eligible to request release on parole. But if parole isn’t granted there’s no upper limit on how long he can continue to spend in prison.
They’re going to initialize his exact sentence at a later date.
That not what that means in the US, ‘25 to life’ is an exact sentence for our “justice” system.
Many things to take issue with, but 25 to life is a completely sane sentence.
Minimum 25, then parole hearings start. If he keeps failing parole (is a danger), the sentence can continue indefinitely
I’m not trying to argue this guy doesn’t deserve his sentence. I just take some issue with our system in general. I agree he earned 25 to life.
I mean, I don’t like how we have to shit all the time, if we are just discussing whatever
So not sure what your problem is…the person I was originally replying to thought 25 to life wasn’t an actual sentence in the US. I was correcting that misunderstanding originally.
Then you came in sideways and off topic about it being a justifiable sentence for his crime. I assumed you were commenting in good faith and were confused about my use of quotes around justice. So I responded to that. But if you’re just looking to be a jerk can you do it on like Facebook or something?
You said “justice” system, as if 25 to life wasn’t “just”. It is, and it’s easy to understand.
Pretty rude that you respond to a misunderstanding on an open forum by being toxic and trying to gatekeep the platform, as if only your view, understanding and discussion is above reproach.
A classic thing that happens on Lemmy is people focus on systemic issues when in a thread about a very specific part of a system. I was replying to the specific relationship between 25 to life, and “justice”.
You whiffed then lashed out but whatever,none of this matters.
Good. Fucking nut bastard.
Good. I hope he rots
The only harmful thing someone could do in your drive way is illegally park in it. This is when you call a tow truck.
Or be like that farmer and use your tractor.
What if people were being gay or black?!?! Next to his house?!?!!
Sorry, best I can do is a police on your neck with his knees.
Not even long enough.
Well he’s 66 and serving 26⅓ years to life. It’s unlikely he ever gets out.
Still sets a precedent.
Still sets a precedent.
He received the maximum sentence possible for the crime.
Oh I guess I misunderstood You’re totally right 25 years seems absolutely fine for somebody to shoot a stranger for accidentally pulling in the driveway My bad. We really all should just shoot strangers when they pull in our driveway and be back out on the street and 25 years. Seems the right thing to do.
Oh I guess I misunderstood You’re totally right 25 years seems absolutely fine for somebody to shoot a stranger for accidentally pulling in the driveway My bad. We really all should just shoot strangers when they pull in our driveway and be back out on the street and 25 years. Seems the right thing to do.
I didn’t say that. I explained that the sentence he received, 25 to life, is the maximum allowed under New York State law. I have no interest whatsoever in defending things I did not say. So you can stop wasting your time, you aren’t going to goad me into defending a position I never claimed to hold just because you’re looking to argue with someone. We’re done here.
In my experience, overly fearful people that get terrified over nothing are the primary audience for gun ownership. The mindset it takes to responsibly own and carry a gun is RARE.
I have 60+ year old relatives that suddenly all decided they wanted a gun, just because one of them bought one and won’t shut up about the confidence it gives her. She literally bought it just to walk to and from her car, which is parked directly in front of the business SHE owns, despite there being absolutely zero crime happening in her parking lot, and not bothering to set up security cameras. She literally bought a gun because she was afraid of a non-existent problem, and made no non-violent effort to correct the issue. I’m waiting for her to shoot some poor homeless person asking for change…
If owning a gun makes you confident, then you’re a scared little baby. Especially the guys with big trucks that drive like they’re trying to provoke people. I KNOW you have a gun. You bought the little dick pride set, so there’s no way you don’t have a gun. Quit trying to make excuses to pull it out. Pussies. FYI, I’m driving slow in front of you BECAUSE you’re driving like an ass hole and riding my bumper. Wave your gun at me again. I do not care.
Ugh
Unfortunately, as you get older and closer to death, fear becomes a big factor in your life. This is the reaction you see from boomers. They can’t verbalize or even comprehend the fear of death, so it manifests in these bizarre behavioral patterns.
Source: Myself
No, this is just boomers. They were exposed to lead their entire lives and emotional disregulation is one of the consequences. They were done dirty by their parent’s and grandparent’s generation.
Weird, the older I get, the less scared I am of death
Found the goth teenager /s
I think you skipped the word “older” there
In my experience most people that get a gun because they are “terrified” are just waiting for an excuse to finally kill another person
You hang out with the wrong crowd. I’ve belonged to several gun clubs over the years, of the many hundreds of people I’ve gotten to know, I’ve met probably a dozen who fit the profile you describe. IMO the difference is socialization: if guns are a right but at the same time you make guns a taboo and actively discourage organized events and interest shooting sports, the people who do not go into it with a healthy mind and diverse social life end up dwelling on whatever someone feeds them for clicks and ad revenue (Fox News and similar shit, not even partisan just scary news gets clicks and trains fear into people). Shooting is fun if you do it right.
your guns aren’t welcome here bro
Your gatekeeping credentials are?
idk we’ll see how many downvotes i get i suppose…
Ah yes, the true test of what’s right: how many people’s preconceptions your words appeal to. Perhaps we should have have an AI stroke our egos instead of communicating with other humans.
isn’t that already happening?
There are a lot of far left people on lemmy that would disagree
At least 18 apparently.
It’s such a shame Americans brains are completely dysfunctional when it comes to guns. Despite literally overwhelming evidence that guns are a errible, terrible idea to be so easily accessible. Somehow what you you’d usually call a socially progressive person becomes more like a raving lunatic to most others outside of the USA when it comes to guns…
It’s honestly a fascinating phenomenon, it’s just really, really tragic.
23 now
thanks for the update!
👍
With appropriate legislation and social norms, I’d agree with you.
So I don’t agree with you.
We really need responsible gun owners to form a bloc, and shun the gun nuts and work with the left for gun legislation.
Answer this: how do you work on legislation to ensure responsible gun ownership with someone who detests any form of civilian gun ownership and absolutely refuses to learn the intricacies? How do you collaborate with someone who thinks themselves to be above understanding what they’re working on? Sensible things HAVE been proposed by people with a deep understanding of guns, but they get spit on because they’re something other than another ban on an inconsequential feature or function or type of something.
Edit to add: I cannot count the number of times I’ve given someone a chance and nearly every time the answer to “are you open to the possibility of your side being wrong about anything at all” is along the lines of me being the one who needs to be schooled by someone with zero firearms experience about why banning some specific things will solve mass shootings. On the other hand, I’ve taken many anti gun people shooting, and taught them some basics, and that changed a lot about how they viewed what they’d previously been told. Internet scholars will say this invalidates their ability to be objective and so their opinion no longer counts.
The evidence, that is total intolerance to the actual ideas and proposals by gun owners, and pushing for more of the same that didn’t work the first few times, shows that legislators actual objectives are total disarmament, not the safety and lives of good people.
Hanging out with the wrong crowd? It’s my family. And about half of them aren’t even Republicans. If anything, THEY hang out with the wrong crowd. And considering that you make guns such a large part of your identity, even making it a regular social interaction, I have a hard time believing that you’ll look at it from anyone else’s perspective. I especially doubt your ability to judge who should and shouldn’t have a gun, because you literally go to clubs full of people and judge their ability to responsibly own a gun off of their social skills, which for many people is a facade they create to seem normal. I doubt that the guy who’s excited to kill people is talking about it like that at club time. And my problem isn’t just intent. My problem with my family, specifically, is that they’re all a bunch of scared little bitches who are going to shoot at the first thing that scares their precious little baby asses. And I’ve met a shitload of fearful gun owners. I grew up in the South. Saying you’ve only met a dozen, means that you don’t pay attention, you excuse more than you should, or you’re just lying.
Sorry about your family.
What makes you think it’s so central to my identity? (Granted I’ve got way more hobbies than most people, I’m sure it’s an innocent assumption.)
We might have different ways of judging people. I learned to judge character long before I ever touched my first gun (as an adult), and do not defer or equate a person’s identity to their character.
Yeah people lie, but in the orgs I belong to everyone has the keys and full access to nice facilities, and is treated like an adult - consider that a litmus test, or a baseline level of trust which is exceedingly rare to have someone break. You think fearful people just sign up to be on a “cold” range (unarmed) where someone else is running around with a loaded gun (e.g. USPSA), and submit fully to whoever’s running the range that day? Or join the club at the police or military range? There’s way more fear at the universities (and I live at one of the biggest right now).
Yeah I’m not in the south, only ever lived in big cities that are as blue as it gets.
not bothering to set up security cameras
LOL
Yeah. I want a gun. Specifically I’d love to have a bolt action rifle I can use as a long range hole punch on some papers and cans. And I can definitely afford it. I don’t have it because I don’t have the free disposable income for it, a secure and sturdy gun safe, and the space for it.
If I thought for a second that I needed a pistol to walk around town I shouldn’t have one. The only times I even consider owning a gun for conflict is when the proud boys occupy a nearby city that I do stuff in regularly. They’re holding semi automatic rifles and it may be valuable for a counter fascist militia to march against them. But I’m not a good shot and that’s expensive and I can’t go to prison.
Guns are not therapy. They aren’t Xanax or Wellbutrin or buspirone or anything else that will actually fix irrational fear. They are a device that exists solely to put a hole in something far away, and often they’re designed for that thing to be a living animal or person.
I had the fun of explaining the Castle Doctrine, Stand-Your-Ground laws and Trayvon Martin’s murder to my 13-year-old today.
So at least I got to read some good news regarding someone who murdered in “self-defense.”
It’s a good thing she wasn’t black. Well, as good as can be under the circumstances of still having been killed.
