A few thoughts on this verdict. It’s probably obvious I think it was a bad verdict. But I think we have to look more broadly at the result. People disagree. Juries make bad decisions. There’s nothing new about that. But what we have in the country right now are three factors.
2/ One is highly permissive self defense laws. In some cases the statutes are ok but they’re interpreted too heavily or entirely in the defendants subjective perception of danger. In other stand your ground type cases they’re just bad laws. But the upshot is the similar.
3/You also have a situation where any yahoo is now allowed to bring a high capacity fire arm into an already tense or potentially violent situation. Usually they come with a chip on their shoulder or a political agenda. Then if they get scared they can start shooting.
4/It didn’t get a lot of attention but the judge essentially threw out the law that bars minors from open carrying in Wisconsin. So literally a kid can now show up with an AR to ‘help’ and that’s okay.
5/ Finally we live today in a very polarized, very divided society in which some peoples lives and inner experiences count a lot more than other peoples. You can say that that really means white people’s count more. And that’s generally right. But it’s not only that.
6/ As long as murder is okay as long as you were feeling the right thing at the moment you killed the other person that makes something as foundational as killing wildly subjective and that makes the decisions jurors make too dependent on their own …
7/ private definitions of good guys and bad guys.. None of these are new exactly. But together they create something genuinely new in this political moment. Add in the increasingly public acceptability of political violence on the American right and you’ve ….
8/ got a powder keg confluence of factors that will make resorts to violence and general murder safaris not only more common but also acceptable under the law.
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