Please don't post flamewar comments to HN. It makes discussion meaner and dumber. We're hoping for the opposite here.

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All the righteousness of "self defense" goes out the window when you start casually throwing around things like "make a colander out of worthless idiot".

Self-defense is important, and I'm so sick and tired of seeing people only bring it up when their own internal bloodlust flares up.

If you sick and tired, go talk to a doctor and take a rest.

You either can protect yourself or not. Legal ability of citizens to protect themselves against worthless idiots is important part of keeping our streets and cities clean.

I wish same right will be given to business owners.

Then all these self-righteous corrupted criminal movements of "almost peaceful protesters" will cease to exist.

Personal attacks are not ok, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are.

Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

That is not what parent meant, but I think it is reasonable when you are in the car.

If you are in a car and are attack you have the same self defense rights as if you were at your house. Something similar happened at a BLM protest in texas with predictable results.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12239517/garrett-foster-black-...

So you could conveniently drive around in a bubble of ‘right to self defense’

This guy you’re referencing here had a violent past and it’s possible that he was looking for confrontation. Believe what you may but a young man is no longer with us. I don’t buy this self defense blanket

>So you could conveniently drive around in a bubble of ‘right to self defense’

Yes that is how self defense works.

The driver was an Uber driver who made a wrong turn and was mobbed by people, one of who pulled an ak-47 and pointed at him.

In most states you are allowed to use deadly force if you reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to yourself or another.

Situations like this are exactly what these laws are written for.

Doesn't matter how many priors you have. Even here in Norway - where you're barely allowed to look at a gun - if some random person points an AK47 at you, then you're allowed to defend yourself with a "reasonable response". Tell me, what do you consider a "reasonable response" to being threatened with an AK47? Yeah, that's what I thought!

Hell, it doesn't even matter if you're in a car or not. Or would you be ok with someone randomly pointing an AK47 at you? Would you refrain from using deadly force against someone like that, just because you had priors?

There is no evidence pointing the victim pointed the gun at the suspect. At the moment you choose to take their word which indicates your bias. I lean on the victim’s side though I respect your right to believe what you want.

> At the moment you choose to take their word which indicates your bias.

No, not really. I'm talking about principles.

If a guy acts threatening towards you, then you're allowed to defend yourself.

If a guy holds a gun, and throws aggressive slurs at you while approaching, do you agree that it's a really threatening thing to do? Would you wait for the obviously threatening guy to raise his gun, or just shoot him before he ever gets to that point?

> There is no evidence pointing the victim pointed the gun at the suspect.

Is there evidence that he didn't?

Honestly, does it even matter? When some guy starts acting threatening while holding a gun, are you going to wait until he points it at you before defending yourself? Cuz you won't get a second chance, mate. You either make him a "victim" of your right to self defene, or you die. I'd rather survive to spend some time in jail, or die because of poorly thought out ideas about victimhood.

So at what time is it reasonable to apply force against a visibly aggressive person who is approaching your car yelling slurs?

If you reasonably believe it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to yourself or another.

Killing some random grandma for showing you middle finger does not really qualify.

However killing threatening idiot armed with something and facing you is totally different. To note - if idiot hits you and then runs away - sending bullet to catch him is not a good idea and not going to work (unfortunately).

On a final note - in a state with good CCW laws people typically are more polite and well behaving. Flipping a bird to random asshole might backfire and it won't matter to you whether he knows the laws or not.

Laws vary between areas but the general approach is that you can only respond to force with equal force. It's obviously more complex than that but that's what most laws are based on.