Peterkin

Including one qualified psychologist, I know. I still don't see it as equal to the white supremacist agenda. Yes - it would - in the circumstances you prescribe. Once everything you recommend has been implement, I'll revise my opinion according to the results.

Gun-violence, police raids and shootings, massive voter suppression, racial discrimination at all levels of society, increasing homelessness and child poverty, disinformation and grotesquely unfair application of existing bad laws is perhaps balanced by too much good manners? O-kay....

Of course. You used it as an example and I accepted it as an example, but didn't think this was the appropriate venue to probe the details.

I sincerely hope you're right. The infrastructure situation doesn't belong here, except perhaps as an illustrative example of what can be accomplished in the present political climate.

What happens next? My guess is, nothing better. The present federal government is ... let's be generous and say, not quite strong enough to address either the gun issues or the racial rifts, while the conservative state governments have grown disproportionately powerful. This is the least rational period of my lifetime - not only in the US, but globally - and quite possibly the least rational in modern history. You'd have to look back to the Reformation for so much volatile unreason. I very much fear that what comes next is a far-right victory, one last feeding frenzy, followed by economic collapse - all of it accompanied by many senseless killings, everywhere. Then war, plague, famine - you know the drill. I have been wrong before. I hope I'm wrong now.

That has never been "my choice". My sympathy doesn't enter in. I try to see a coloured picture, that's all.

And that works? I have yet to see it work in US legislation.

Not as, of course not. Hollywood inflates everything and renders stories graphic; it plays an enormously significant part in popular culture, from the 1930's onward. The archetype, as well as well as the names, already existed in literary form, ready for Hollywood to harvest. Just as your present-day Trumpite nutbars carry the Rambo poster. We also get our cinematic imagery from Hollywood. But we don't - except at the extreme fringes - identify with it. Americans do: it's their culture. (Not all Americans with the same archetype, obviously. There are several other kinds of more or less emulatable hero, and many Americans who don't play-act. But this meme is very popular with a certain type of youth.) So what? Neither your lack of sympathy, nor the alt-right's admiration, make a difference to what motivated him. Nor does whatever we, outsiders, think have any part in how the rest of the story will play out.

They didn't. During the world wars, they feared and hated the Germans as an enemy - war propaganda had a hand in the hate part. Between the wars, they did business with Germans, to the extent past-WWI reparations permitted. When they learned the extent of the Holocaust (which they had been reluctant to believe), they were horrified, naturally enough. But it didn't stop them helping post-war Germany rebuild. There was never looking-down on German culture and scientific achievement - which is why so much American technological progress involved ex-nazi experts, as well as refugees and dissidents from before the war. That had nothing to do with a war. Racism is a fact of world history. They do. Many books have been written; many lectures delivered - it's not a secret. After taking it away? How does that make your history any nicer? I have no idea. Canadian prime ministers have apologized to the First Nations. Reparations are and territorial adjustments are on-going. Nothing new or unique about that, either. The more power a nations has wielded, the more wrongs it's done to more people. Little, poorly armed countries can remain neutral (and take material advantage of their neutrality) if their geographic location permits, or they can be victims, or they can be protectorates. If their population is monochromatic and monoethnic, it's easy to maintain racial harmony is easy to feel superior to ethnically diverse countries and their internal struggles.

Exactly that. Legends do not die; they are enhanced, ennobled and enlarged, once they're no longer around to embarrass their admirers. Do your legendary outlaws have a cult following? Songs, I know about. But do kids dress like them, strut about talking tough and shoot tin cans, pretending they're cops - or sheriff's deputies, or Mexican army, or whatever the fantasy is around each particular action hero? That's what a lot of these armed vigilante types are doing: living their own movie. That's what little Kyle Rittenhouse was doing: being a star. That single photo tells his whole script.

Neither situation is a creation of the other; they are parts of the same fringe culture - a fringe that has been growing wider and denser over the last few decades. The gun laws that so many administrations have tried to change cannot be changed because of that culture; the threats of violence, attempted violence and actual violence (against public figures, medical personnel, media personalities, whistle-blowers, reformers, climate activists, people in the news for any reason) are facilitated by social media and enabled by easy access to deadly projectile weapons, that anyone can use from a safe distance. The situations don't create each other, but they do feed on each other.

Very, very far from it! That cult goes back to Davy Crockett and Dan'l Boone and has never entirely been out of the national consciousness. Moreover, there seem to have been almost as many such folk heroes on the wrong side of the law as on the right . That's why the pudgy kid with the big gun is so popular with certain elements - and to another segment of society looks like the archetypal school shooter Regardless that the criminals were, in fact, quite un-Robin Hood-like and some of the lawmen were not much better then their adversaries and mass shooters actually come in all shapes, shades and ages. Pop cults are not deeply concerned with facts or reality; they're more about image.

Half of the second amendment. The first half of the second amendment is not applied, and neither is the constitutional responsibility of Congress to regulate militias, while the states totally abdicate theirs. Laws are drafted according various partial, partisan and selective readings of the Constitution, and the Supeme Court interprets them the same way. And the culture has always, from Frontier days, favoured the lone gunman. It's an American icon to which young boys aspire.

Retreat was the proximate subject. How far you would have to retreat with that gun to stop posing a threat or visibly end a confrontation. Intimidation was his overt purpose in bringing the weapon. Mass shooting might have been his underlying, unstated purpose. He said he meant to climb onto the roof a car showroom, which would have made a dandy position for a mass shooter - and he did actually shoot people. Which part of that is not relevant to how he was perceived at the time by the protestors who felt menaced?

Are you sure? I'd be shaking in boots! People milling about never protected one another from a mass shooting. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/04/22/fact-check-post-missing-context-ar-15-rifles-and-mass-shootings/7039204002/

How far is retreat even applicable, when carrying a weapon with a 600 yard range?

And their families. That's an aspect I forgot about. The defendant may be in custody, relatively safe, but any family members who come out to support them may be vulnerble to hostile action. These days, you can't rely on any degree of civil conduct.

Closed circuit would be useful for juries to review testimony: body language and tone are more informative than a dead transcript. Also, in some cases there may be a questions regarding possible jury tampering, irregularity on the part of legal personnel, coaching of a witness or the chain of custody of physical evidence. A video record, preferably from at least two angles, would be as useful in a courtroom as it is on the football pitch. As mass entertainment, I'm very much against it. Most trials are not interesting enough to watch, but in the high-profile ones, iNow is right: the advocates do play to the house, and sometimes the 'yard', rather than directing their argument to the judge and jury. Even when there is no obvious short-term effect, it's a very bad idea to expose jurors, officers of the court and junior law clerks to public scrutiny - with all the dangers of of social media and targeting by crazies of all kinds, from unwanted romantic advances to bribe offers to harassment to physical intimidation. The worst long-term effect on society is subtle: a general fear of exposure. Good citizens will not come forward to accuse, to testify or to serve on juries; thrill-seekers and self-promoters might come forward with bogus information. I don't know whether, or to what extent, that's happened. It's not permitted in Canadian courts, where the effects would be more easily measurable, due to the scale.

I do understand that. But, as cultures go, it's not so easy to separate the components. People who hold extremist views and advocate extreme actions also idolize their guns and loudly proclaim their patriotism and love of Liberty. Bad laws, that are passed by corrupt or merely craven legislatures, enable that culture of extremism to thrive and arm itself. https://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/books/who-really-said-when-fascism-comes-to-america-it-will-be-wrapped-in-the-flag-and-carrying-a-cross-1/ Of course not. It's merely one hook on which to hang corruption. one of many. And does everyone who refers to those documents take the time to peruse them? I think it's important to put events and the attitudes that lead to events, in some perspective. If attempting to do that is a transgression - ignorance of the law is no excuse! - just add it to my rap-sheet.

Read it. They're not all good ideas by a long chalk. Moreover, the Founding fathers knew this better than anyone, which is why they included and amending formula and promised to draft a Bill of Rights, wherein that notorious half-sentence appears. However, the original text already contained the conditions for such arms-bearing: in one of those hideous run-on sentences that seem to eat their own tails. e hardly never hear that part from gun lobby, and the yahoos aren't lining up with their assault muskets to get regulated by the federal government. Because the original was imprecise and imperfect, amendments were made from time to time, in response to changes in the external situation and fixes to original mistakes - as well as a bunch of new rules about functions and funding of government as it grew to meet the increasing demand of a rapidly-expanding polity.

Anyway, they've changed the US constitution 27 times. The second amendment is much in the news, only because it is much abused. Rittenhouse and Jake Angeli were not in any "well-regulated militia". The gun lobbies like to wave that half-sentence at legislators, who promptly collapse in heap - not because they can't argue with the constitution, but because they lack an internal skeletal structure.

If you make bad laws, bad things happen - and justice doesn't.

Would have, could have, might have.... all depend on the law, its interpretation and who does the interpreting. You see that coming at you, armed, loaded, cocked and cocky, you might feel threatened. I'm pretty sure I would. I haven't said murdering. But he is certainly guilty of several crimes, committed knowingly and with premeditation. Anyway, setting him free after killing and maiming 3 people, isn't even the worst aspect of the situation. The worst is that he won't get the help he needs and very probably grow up to be a very much more dangerous person. He's doing the whole FOX circus act; he's a right wing hero - all his wettest dreams are coming out the barrel of that big macho gun. And, as if it couldn't get any worse, his example is empowering a whole army of little cop wannabees. Watch the mass shooting rate go up - again. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081

The picture illustrates one aspect of what happened. There are also numerous videos, eye witness reports and previous dispatches from the accused. It's an indicator of state of mind. Guy comes all the way from another state with an illegal weapon to guard something he wasn't asked to protect against possible property damage by unnamed persons, marching along, unthreatened and apparently unconcerned, with his gun at the ready. Ready for what? It's not self-defence then, no.

Usually, one credibly defends oneself from an attack or threat of attack, or at the very least plausible fear of attack; in the absence of either, or any visible sign of fearfulness, it's hard to see how one might be believed when claiming self-defense. However, I understand now just how high disbelief can be suspended, where there's a will.