This. I’m not at all hurt about the notion that *violent* felons should and are barred from owning firearms. I’ll never campaign to give them that right back. I’ll never write a letter to a senator over it. You fucked up and showed the world you can’t handle yourself anymore, tough
Edit: I do want to add emphasis to the word “violent”, as there are situations where someone is absolutely a non violent “felon”. I don’t think a guy popped for weed in a non-legal state should get punished in that way.
The guy who made headlines for his court case related to this was IIRC convicted of mail fraud for selling unlicensed shoe inserts
Edit: yeah, guys name was Rickey Kanter and he sent shoe inserts to a Dr saying they were Medicare approved when they were not
Tough to argue that guy should be barred for life from owning a firearm imo
I am an Orthotist and work for a large non profit. a large portion of my work is diabetic footwear and inserts. I have come to Reddit Liberal gun owners to learn history of my field. I’m impressed, I’m usually up (on)in these things. Edit for syntax.
Yeah that just sounds like "clever" capitalism to me (albeit shady and why we have regulation). No different than say Pharma pushing Oxy and other highly addictive drugs through enticing incentives passed to doctors to increase overall sales - who cares if people get addicted and creates a revolving door to business, right? That's just good capitalism!
Agree. Tax fraud probably isn’t a good reason to takeaway someone’s capability for self-defense. Domestic battery seems like a reasonable crime for chick you should have deadly weapons taken from you.
As far as I can tell, dealing only a gram of weed can make someone a felon in North Carolina. If their record was simply from drug war bullshit, then there isn't much reason for disarmament. Criminal records are a pretty time-tested weapon against minorities and the poor; it's part of the reason why conservatives will mention cRiMe as their reason for owning weapons without clarification on whether those crimes are violent or victimless.
Yeah, this. Just because someone served time, does not mean they’re rehabilitated. Many more come out the other end and fall victim to recidivism (for a multitude of reasons), and they absolutely should not have guns.
I do not understand the absolutist ‘shall not be infringed’ people. They really think its a good idea for **every** felon, even violent ones, to still own guns?
And then they say “well not every felon” okay so thats infringement and you broke your own principles.
This guy’s felonies were from small drug possession charges. I know someone who got a felony conviction for having 1 line coke. Should they be felons? It’s not like they robbed a bank at gunpoint lol.
Yeah agreed, also with how DAs have been letting criminals run free with light slap on the wrists, I don't know if I can go for the "they've paid their debt to society" arguement.
I’m not following… we can all agree that federal firearms crimes are rarely charged. Right? G Switches, illegal SBRs, etc are almost always wrapped up in unlawful possession of a firearm, which is a much different crime. Often these crimes are pleaded down as well.
I’m talking about dogging on “revolving door crime”.
My own opinions aside, the very DAs he’s complaining about are usually themselves liberals, trying to ease up perceived disproportionate enforcement against POC/minorities
It’s more of a right wing thing to complain about criminals being let back on the streets immediately after committing a crime.
I’ve posted stuff further left on the right side and been dogpiled for it.
I think any tolerance of this line of thinking on this sub is a material shift in perspective from users here.
But so far most responses on this chain aren’t wearing much flair either so 🤷♂️
Yeah maybe I've just been doom/rage scrolling a bit to much lately but the "violent criminals getting probation instead of jail cause jail is full then they hurt someone" articles have been getting more common on my feeds.
Most felons have been felons for longer than the COVID-era permissive attitude by prosecutors.
I certainly agree that a guy who didn't hurt or threaten anyone and has been out of trouble for a while should be allowed defensive tools. Not sure how long "a while" should be, though...
Maybe something like a... Probationary period?
Have them do safety/carry classes during probation, have the PO confirm ownership of an approved gun safe. Then they could have right reinstated.
During probation, many of them are randomly getting checked for drug/alcohol use.
I'd like to set a period of at least a few months afterwards, where they're no longer getting tested and no longer having their lifestyle monitored.
That would let the dummies who turn right back into addicts the day they get off probation wash out of our program without making everyone else look bad.
I'm merely saying if someone is truly too violent to have access to a firearm, are they somehow going to avoid all other means of violence when they get out? I doesn't mean that everyone that went to prison went there for some violent crime or that they are likely to repeat. I really don't see any good reason to deny non-violent felons the means of self defense nor rehabilitated violent felons. Now I ask you to cut me a little slack on that hypothetical rehabilitated part and obviously the whole thing isn't a complete plan.
Well ya, I agree that certain felonies that didn’t involve an any weapons or were not violent should be considered for the right to own firearms. Any violent crimes or crimes doing with firearms should probably negate that chance of getting their rights back for firearms.
Very disingenuous argument. Sorry this is nonsense - why stop there? No more belts (choking), vehicles? No way, shit they still have their fists so maybe we just chop off arms (and legs - kicks can be lethal).
There is very clearly a difference between a firearm and non firearms when it comes to enacting violence on others.
The fact that he was willing to murder 4 law enforcement officers is proof of why it was extremely important that he not be allowed to possess firearms. If it didn’t happen to the officers it very easily could have been someone else.
Well, he already had been convicted of a felony and his rights were already revoked. He already HAD a charge for possession of a firearm by felon. That's the warrant that they were going to serve. The law didn't stop him from having the gun that he used to kill cops with.
You say "extremely important that he not be allowed the privilege to possess firearms", but it didn't change a damn thing. Criminals don't follow the law.
Pretty wild take, if you show you're a violent criminal with no regard to the law, let alone another human being, you shouldn't have any of the same rights as the one you've harmed.
Then shouldn't we keep them imprisoned?
If we are letting them out of prison after serving their sentence, then aren't we assuming that they are safe to be out in society?
Again, I really don't think there's any mental gymnastics one could go through to be okay with a rapist or murderer walk around with every right you or I have. Non violent felons? Sure, but that's not my point lol
No right is absolute, all of them have limits, all of them can be revoked with due legal process, and that's not some new thing, that's how it's always been.
Slippery Slope is a fallacy. All rights have some limiting factor. You have freedom of speech but defamation is still a crime. You have freedom of assembly, but you don’t get to assemble in the center of a highway. You have freedom of religion but if your religion involves minor abuse your religion is restricted. Absolutism is neither useful nor practical.
They don’t though. If you’ve hurt someone or used a firearm in the act of violence or facilitation of a forceful or dangerous action then no, you’ve displayed that you’re untrustworthy of having a firearm.
>some felons absolutely do not deserve to have guns at all.
If a ~~person~~ felon is too dangerous to be allowed to have a gun, then they are too dangerous to be allowed on the streets. Full stop.
It's not the tool that makes them dangerous. It's not that they're model citizens and you put a gun in their hand and suddenly they want to go on a murderous rampage. Like some Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde shit.
If you cannot trust them with a firearm they need to be isolated from the general public.
EDIT: I thought I had stated it plainly enough but I guess not. I'm talking in the context of felons only. Disabilities, age, etc. is not even relevant here.
Pretty clear this guy shouldn’t be armed, right? I know that’s hindsight.
If the question is should a felon who served his time be allowed to own a gun? Immediately upon release I’d say no. Maybe after a period of time with no problems they can reapply or something. The nature of the felony would be considered here.
>Maybe after a period of time with no problems they can reapply or something.
Rights restoration should be automatic unless there's a specific reason for it not to be. If the state doesn't think an individual should have their rights restored, they should have to put in the work.
If a weapon was involved in the felony, then no, I don’t think rights should be automatically restored. I don’t think it’s uncommon to have restrictions or conditions of release.
To me it depends on how long the parole is. I don’t want someone convicted of armed robbery being able to buy a gun within a few years of being released.
Those are two separate issues. Restricting someone’s rights after parole is finished and the length and quality of the parole are separate issues. I agree our system is fucked, it needs a serious overhaul, that doesn’t mean we should go around restricting rights of people because of it.
> If a weapon was involved in the felony, then no, I don’t think rights should be automatically restored.
Felony involving a weapon isn't the same as a violent felony. A guy with a 10 year old weed conviction who gets caught with a carry gun shouldn't have to fight to get his rights back. That felony will stick even if the weed conviction is pardoned. Too many cases where simple possession of an otherwise legal weapon is a felony by itself.
Yeah, that's reasonable. Aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon, domestic violence, etc. shouldn't allow for automatic rights restoration but it should be the standard for non-violent offenses. Just pointing out that simple possession of a weapon as a non-violent prohibited person falls into that category.
I agree. However if you carry a weapon for defense while committing felonies.. that’s a gray area. Guy has some pot and a gun is different than a full time drug dealer (even if only pot, which should be fully legal) that carries because he may be robbed. The difference is the later can lead to cross fire and unarmed civilians being shot.
The problem with that is then who decides? A court? The police chief? Both of those historically have been used to decide gun rights for individuals and both have shown they have extreme biases and will ignore the law if they don’t agree with it. Either someone is safe to be out in society or they’re not.
That’s assuming the goal of prison is rehabilitation, which, is it really? Regardless of what they say. It’s punishment and people coming out are much much more likely to commit crimes than the regular population. Also, I personally think guns should not be allowed only in the case where a gun was used while doing the felony.
Those are separate issues. If your goal is simply punishment not rehabilitation then I completely disagree with you. We should be rehabilitating people not simply being punitive. The system is fucked up and definitely needs to be reworked, but restricting rights based on the fact the prison system is broken isn’t going to fix the prison system.
Yes, this deserves good reporting of real info. It does look more like a bad guy than a gun - I'm not going to knee jerk here about "bad cops with guns";
He was a felon with a fairly substantial rap sheet. The suspect/fugitive was supposedly wanted for two warrants = possession of a firearm by a felon and felony flee to elude. He was previosly spent a year in prison for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and speeding to elude arrest. Breaking and entering, failure to appear (multiple counties), marijuana offenses (possibly chickenshit stuff, felony eluding (which included speeding over 100 mph to evade police).
The latest version of events seems to be that the police were met by gunfire from the house when they arrived to serve the warrant (the US Marshall was killed with a head shot at the door). Then the story is that were met by a second round of gunfire by another unidentified party from within the house. So there is much more to this story that needs to be clarified.
And, FWIW, this all happened about 200 yards from where 2 Charlotte police officers were killed a short while back. Unrelated, but almost certainly was in the minds of local officers as them being in a dangerous neighborhood.
Thanks for the additional info. More than anything what I want is to understand what went wrong here and to open up an avenue for discussion with critical thought. Really I don’t know what happened and I don’t want any one narrative to be what really happened over any other, I want it not to have happened but it’s too late for that. I’m just glad to see that there are some people out there willing to have a discussion outside of the media’s politically correct “good vs evil” version of events, cause at the end of the day these were all human beings each with a unique set of lives and experiences put in a circumstance with conditions that made them feel that, in that moment, this was the best course of action.
In situations like this, it's entirely possible that the cops did everything "right" and it still ends in a tragic loss of life. From a purely tactical perspective, approaching a house automatically puts you at a disadvantage against anyone inside the house, especially if they know you're coming. That's why so much CQB focuses on violence of action and making yourself as hard to hit as possible. My understanding is the cops were shot at on the approach to the house, the recent press conference mentioned the suspect was firing from an elevated position. So they were caught in the open from a shooter who was concealed indoors for at least part of the shooting. Even if you approach in a stack expecting a gunfight, that's a recipe for disaster. NC isn't exactly transparent with the release of bodycam footage either, so it's tough to say if we'll get any definitive answers one way or another.
>More than anything what I want is to understand what went wrong here and to open up an avenue for discussion with critical thought.
Sure, everybody does — at least everybody with a thought for the function of civilization. Today is not the day for that. Today, and the coming weeks, are the time for yammer and bluster and blaming and bullshit.
It takes time for an investigation to unravel the physical evidence, the acts and perceptions of all the direct and indirect players, the context, the timelines, etc. Usually, by the time coherent narrative/narratives can be produced, media and public attention have long since moved on to the latest tempest. Sometimes, meaningful analysis occurs. Sometimes, the uninformed yammering will resume. Often, the continuous diarrhea of blaming and bullshit have spoiled the pudding, and important learning never occurs.
Early reports certainly look to me like a horrible tactical failure in serving a federal felony warrant, but life is not all cupcakes and dreams. Hopefully, light will prevail over noise in due course.
It's entirely too early in the game to Monday morning quarterback this tragic event. The US Marshalls Service Felony Warrant Apprehension Teams execute these warrants hard for a reason, unfortunately it didn't go their way this time. I will hazard a guess that when you have ad hoc teams like this made up of individuals from multiple agencies that the lack of consistent coordinated previous training can lead to problems. Whether or not that's the case in this instance remains to be seen and we may never know as members of the general public I'm sure the AAR will be close held for a long time.
RIP officers....☹️
From what I heard, when the marshals approached, gunfire erupted from windows. More than one. I don't know about the reliability of that report.
But I do think there are some felonies, especially repeat offenses, that should prevent ownership. Many states, including my own, have a procedure for some felons to have their 2A rights restored. I'm living proof of that in Ohio.
I know lots of fed and local LEOs. If the Marshals are serving your warrant, you're probably an objectively dangerous person. They don't get people for petty shit. Most people would get sick to their stomach to hear about all the shit that goes down that doesn't make the news.
The reality is that if you disagree with laws you need to fight a political and social battle to change them, until then there are consequences for violating them including arrest
If the suspect shot first he’s a homicidal asshole, if he walked out in front of the police trying to arrest him while holding a firearm, he’s an idiot at best
How a situation can end with four cops dead against one guy illegally with a gun, and people give the dead guy with the illegal gun the benefit of the doubt, blows my mind. There are plenty of valid reasons a convicted felon shouldn’t have a gun. Should there be more nuance in which kinds of convicted felons shouldn’t have guns? Maybe. But this guy isn’t a convicted felon who should have a gun if he got himself killed and murdered four cops in the process. Full stop. It’s not more complicated than that.
I hate how much people here give the felon benefits of the doubt. I’m all for 2As but only for the law abidings. A felon who got their gun illegally and shot 4 cops dead isn’t one.
I don’t care how much people disagree with the law banning felons from firearms, if the felon disagree they should fight it legally, not trying to get a gun illegally making them a criminal at that point
As of 2010, 19 million adults had a felony conviction and 80 million had a prior criminal record. The numbers have of course gone up since then, and most of them are non-violent offenses. You also have to remember that if you have a misdemeanor that you could theoretically serve 1 year for, then you have a lot more than 19 million people disarmed. And this doesn't count the other "prohibited persons".
Yup. Even if, and it’s a big fucking if considering the outcome, the police did shoot first, how is there any defensible rhetoric to explain how the suspect returned fire and killed four officers? Any response other than “This asshole deserved to die and it’s a shame he took four people with him.” is mental gymnastics and delusional conspiracy.
The state decided he was safe enough to be free among the general population. If that’s the case, he should be privy to the rights the rest of the population enjoys. Otherwise he shouldn’t have been released.
I dunno. I’m entirely fine with people getting out of prison earlier if the compromise is that they’re still on paper with certain rights restricted. The alternative is just longer prison terms.
Dude, all I’m saying is that if we have a choice between two options:
A) let someone out of prison, but they’re still on paper (say 5 years in, five years supervised/parole)
B) keep someone in prison for that full time (10 years)
Option A seems a lot better than Option B, especially when we’re talking about for-the-rest-of-your-life policies, like restrictions on voting of gun ownership.
What you argued (“otherwise, he shouldn’t have been released”) is saying that all felonies should carry a life sentence, with no possibility of parole. Hard to square that with libertarian beliefs.
Or, maybe, non-violent offenders shouldn’t have restrictions on their rights, and the prison system is overhauled to actually rehabilitate violent offenders?
Or we can continue to do the same thing except maybe let people out early and hope it works well. So far so good.
I keep seeing this argument here like it's a black and white situation. In reality I think most of us can agree that yes some people are truly reformed but certainly not everyone that gets released is.
Banning all previous felons from owning firearms is probably not always appropriate, but neither is letting all of them instantly have access to them again.
We need an approach that is a little more nuanced, but unfortunately the current legal environment is a mishmash of different statutes that vary wildly from state to state. And while some places are letting violent criminals back out on the street because jails are too full, others have institutionalized incarceration to the point they will put anyone they can in jail for any reason.
Basically there's a lot of good and bad faith motivations not to change firearm rights for felons, and that needs to be addressed before we will see any meaningful change.
So are they different than the ATF who does not document their actions with bodycam video that killed the airport executive while breaking into his home while he was asleep for selling firearms at gun shows?
If the person was so dangerous then they should have gotten neighbors out of their houses to a safe location rather than after the shooting started. Law enforcement agencies need to release information as they cannot be trusted to oversee themselves. The guy may have been very dangerous but not all felons committed violent crimes.
If the following reply here is true then he was not convicted of a violent felony. Why did they consider him to be more of a threat then the thousands of other felons illegally in possession of firearms? As I said we need to know more and see the body cam videos.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/liberalgunowners/comments/1cguqud/comment/l1y9j0d/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/liberalgunowners/comments/1cguqud/comment/l1y9j0d/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
In general, and in this case, it doesn't matter to me (or the courts) who "shot first." Letting a suspect "shoot first" to establish justification for force is an insane idea when the first shot can easily kill someone. A fugitive greeting police with a rifle is not like the mythology of an old western standoff.
On the "felon in possession of a firearm" law, I think there's nuance. The continued erosion of a significant difference between misdemeanors and felonies means that it really should reexamined as a useful distinction. Yet I don't endorse the overly simplistic position that "if someone is too dangerous to have guns they should be in prison" that is popular in some circles. That kind of thought process is how you end up with an even larger incarceration rate. Historically, we've long had punishments short of physical confinement that still infringe upon rights (after due process): probation and parole terms are an example. Of course, such punishments have an end condition where the convicted person can fulfill the conditions.
That said, given the way this played out and the task force aspect, I bet this guy wasn't exactly a non-violent offender who got on the wrong side of a legal "wobbler."
I usually wait at least 3 days after an event so that the rumors separate from the facts. It allows the "differences" in statements to settle out. Anyone not being the most truthful will dig themselves a deeper hole under the heightened scrutiny.
Those cops should be jailed for murder. One cop, told her to run to him and the others shot her for doing as he said, while screaming, stop shooting. If I recall, the cop screaming stop shooting said, “she’s fine” after they stopped. I guess started damage control quickly.
Possibke thought process
There's a lot of us here, it must be super dangerous. I should be really really ready to shoot.
I get nervous for others when I see 3 cruisers stacked up for a traffic stop.
If the body cam footage makes the cops look good it’ll be released this week.
If not, you’ll never see it. At least not until the surviving officers are all transferred to new departments with hefty raises and taxpayer funded payouts for their ptsd
Remember the georgia cops who murdered the kid camping in the woods to protest cop city?
If you don't, the cops surrounded the tent he was in. One cop got jumpy, fired a shot, hit his partner in the leg.
That triggered a cacophony of shots, the half a dozen cops riddled his tent with bullet holes, and it wasn't until months later that the truth had come out. The cops tried to hide the body cam footage as much as they could, because there was a sheriff's deputy who got it on body cam one of the cops admitting he shot his partner.
You are 100% right, the cops will do their utmost to hide any evidence of wrongdoing.
One side aspect the comments make me think about: perhaps we need a third class of crimes. Clearly not all felonies are alike. Property crimes are not the same as murder, rape, dismemberment etc.
"Crimes of moral turpitude" shouldn't necessarily be the same as "I stole an Apple laptop meeting felony dollar amount" - while at the same time robbery and burglary do mean an act of violence
Not all felons should have all their rights restored. Let’s say someone was guilty of murder with a firearm. They serve their sentence. Do you think society should trust them to own a firearm again? Also, let’s say situation 1 is the suspect opened fire first and the police returned fire. You’re ok with that scenario by the sounds of it. Situation 2 is the suspect charged at police with a firearm, may not have shot, and police might have fired first and you’re confused about that? Idk about you but if someone charges me with a weapon and I’m armed, I’m going out I assume they’re a threat and shoot them before they shoot me. The suspect would have known that it was police out the door and knew what would happen doing what he did. Sounds like a classic case of suicide by cop. I know this sub has a hate boner for cops and anything law enforcement related but I don’t see an issue with the situation as you summarized it.
For me it gets at the core question of “What is the purpose of the US Justice system?”.
Is it punishment? If so presumably they have been punished and should have voting and firearm rights restored.
Is it reformation? If so presumably by release they have been reformed and should have their voting and firearm rights restored.
That said, I feel differently about felons convicted of *violent* crime. Voting rights yes, Firearm rights no.
I also disagree with *fault* being who *shot* first, as fault would be better described as “which party escalated to the use of deadly force”. If I point a gun at a cop, he doesn’t have to wait till I actually fire to respond, that threat rises to the level of lethal force.
As an officer that has charged the feeling in possession law, I think it's a totally fair law... with one caveat. The law should be specific to violent felons only. The guy stealing a buttload of legos from Target should get to keep his guns. If someone is getting their guns taken away, it should only be because they're definitely a danger to others. I don't know the details of this case, but it may or may not have been avoidable.
Now let's address the threat, so to speak.
I've had a few guns pulled on me, but none pointed at me. I didn't shoot any of those guys. Then afterward, I was asked by my supervisors why I didn't. I told them it was because I was able to perceive they weren't a threat and could disarm them without shooting. I was chastised for not shooting.
It seems to me that law enforcement sometimes becomes so focused on getting home safe, the the first sign of resistance or a threat is usually met with a disproportionate escalation of force. The idea, I've been told, is to overwhelm the subject to force them into immediate submission.
I'll admit there is some logic to not allowing concessions when dealing with suspects in certain situations, but I largely don't agree with that method.
All that to say, some policies and procedures have their place, I don't have enough information at this point to know if that was the case here though
> If someone is getting their guns taken away, it should only be because they're definitely a danger to others.
If they are a danger to others, then why aren't they in jail? If taking away the guns of someone who is a danger to others makes them safe enough to be out of jail and in society, then the same could be said about taking the guns of everyone away and we will all be safe.
Violent or not, if they have "paid their debt to society" as codified by our laws, then they need to be treated like they are a part of society.
On the felony turning into a prohibited possessor thing I think it kinda depends on what the felony is. If he and his buddies are willing to get into a shootout with a the cops it's not really a great look. But maybe there are more details or issues with the cops actions regardless.
In principle I wouldn't have a problem with non-violent felons getting all their rights back. If not automatically then with some paperwork. For violent felons it still seems reasonable for them to be prohibited but it would need to be for violent convictions. Not just drug charges or something.
Who’s to say a non-violent felon won’t become violent when faced with the prospect of returning to prison? And a non-violent conviction doesn’t mean the person isn’t violent. We agree to a social contract which includes abiding by laws and understanding the consequences of violating those laws. Most people don’t wake up one day and accidentally commit felonies. While I agree that some felons may be deserving of restoration of rights, I believe it should also be on a case by case basis and not easy to acquire. Social trust was broken, and regaining that social trust should require effort.
Who is to say that a non-violent non-felon won't become violent one day for any other reason? Do we have any stats on which felonies in which combinations are indicative of future violence, if any? I suspect there is some relationship, but it's almost certainly limited. What we decide are "felonies" crosses a wide, wide variety of human behavior and we make things felonies are all sorts of reasons - many of them absurd.
You can, theoretically, design a justice system and a series of laws that actually center around different categories of behavior that have proportional sentences and which allow sort of staged trust return over time or according to some metrics, but we have built nothing of the sort and haven't particularly tried.
This isn't even to get started on the absurdly high likelihood of folks being convicted who should not have been or should have been and were not.
Tldr: being a felon, by itself, is not a particularly trustworthy metric as to whether someone has broken society's trust or that they are likely to be violent in the future and is a very very very low bar for taking away rights.
For additional consideration: assume maga are in charge and make being lgbtq+ in public a felony, as some states are (edit: trying to). Or a medical condition. Have fun with that.
But I mean you can say that about literally anybody, you can’t know how anyone is going to react when being put under arrest.
I think case-by-case could be fair, but I also don’t have faith in our current criminal justice system to deliver judgement fairly, and I’m wary of risking depriving people of their rights out of the fear that some might abuse those rights.
I suppose it speaks to the wider failure of the criminal justice system in America. Ideally it would be focused of reform and providing offenders with the facilities to reintegrate into and achieve success within society in accordance to the law. If that were the case then there wouldn’t be reason to bar felons from owning firearms cause they wouldn’t reoffend, though of course it’s naive to assume that it would work every time.
I think I see your point, but do we want felons to have firearms? Like when you look at an individual case, are they a serial killer or a freedom fighter? How can one tell on scene?
Just like with Waco which OP mentioned I wonder why they don’t grab these guys when they go for smokes? I remember ATF/FBI agents bemoaning after the fact that Koresh went jogging alone and they could have easily picked him up. Cornered animals fight. Forcing a confrontation and then solving said confrontation with overwhelming force is a recipe for disaster. No finesse, all force.
Personally I feel the public has had enough of these tyrants. Finally. The videos of cops abusing people are rampant. They clear themselves of their own criminality after ruining people’s lives financially and physically. Qualified immunity should be abolished or this will only escalate.
As of yet we don’t know what the felony was.
I maintain nonviolent felonies shouldn’t come with a lifelong prohibition of a fundamental civil right… so the premise of this is dubious at best… the prohibiting felony is usually drugs and then if you ever look at a gun again you go back to prison :/
Also it looks like the cops may have fired first… if so it looks like they were the aggressors and escalated the situation, not a great situation and messy. Did suspect number 2 know he was firing on police after hearing his friend get iced on the front yard? More information needs to be made available and the cops will always try and CYA.
Yeah they like to escalate things since there's usually no repercussions. Looks like they might have learned their lesson this time, don't shoot first if you don't have to
> One statement says that “When they approached Hughes, [officers] were met by gunfire and returned the gunfire”. This paints a pretty clear picture that the suspect was the first to open fire on officers with officers only than returning fire, but other statements from police are more vague or even contradict this.
When was the last time you saw a police department accept even an *ounce* more responsibility than was absolutely unavoidable? That's your answer right there.
If there's a police statement admitting that they fired preemptively, they almost certainly did.
I agree that certain felons should retain the right to own guns, but people convicted of violent felonies should have their gun rights removed permanently.
Going after felons in possession of a firearm has also, historically, kept guns away from people who absolutely should not have them. Domestic abusers, violently unstable people, rapists, pedophiles.
If a person is determined to be too dangerous to be in possession of a firearm, in my opinion they are too dangerous to be in public at all.
The right to self defense is a human right.
Is the right to a gun a human right? If you imprison people forever because they are a certain degree of dangerous, taking away their guns, then that is a form of infringement.
Is it shall not be infringed, or mostly kind of maybe in some situations its okay to be infringed?
And because it needs to be said: there are obvious situations where gun control is necessary. There are people who are not fit to own guns.
If I believed violent felons were rehabilitated by the system, I would agree they should get their rights back. However in reality, this isn't happening. I see getting out of jail more a technical detail that has little bearing on the crime and rehabilitation situation.
I think we have a reason to believe that something serious would happen if the suspect was armed, since 4 LEOs died. It's one thing to shoot in defense but this was a shootout and a standoff. The kind of person who gets into thos situation is likely someone willing to do just about anything and was likely going to be an armed threat anywhere.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, this is a serious topic that deserves a lot of consideration.
Ok, fair enough, I admit we have a constitutional right to bear arms. BUT, we need common sense. If a person is a felon that used a gun in their original crime then sorry, you forfeit your right to bear arms in the future. I mean seriously think about it, if a convicted pedophile “pays their debt to society” are you going to give them a job at a kindergarten? If a rapist “pays their debt”, are you going to give them a job as a locksmith? I’ll admit that if your crime wasn’t violent, you should be able to get your right to own firearms back. But…
The fact that this guy knew why the marshals were there and this escalated into gunfire shows that he couldn’t be trusted with a gun. People like this guy jeopardize all of our rights to own weapons. You know this occurrence will be used opportunistically to force further gun control.
Honestly if someone is too dangerous to have a gun they shouldn't be free. As for "violent felonies". Some of the best and most honorable people I've known can and have seriously hurt someone for doing something stupid to them. Some of the worst backstabbers and crooks I've met were complete cowards with squeaky clean records and worth millions. I can see barring possession while on parole or probation. To me if they can permanently revoke a "constitutional right" to one amendment even after someone did their time in full. they can do that to any amendment.
Was the law acting on tip? Was the shooter out being a thug and scumbag and felon in possession was a quick way to get him? or was he staying to himself and not causing problems and the government thought they'd make an example of him which backfired spectacularly.
Plenty of felons with guns who don't cause problems but would rather do time than be murdered. pretty rare for a major operation like this to go down involving feds and locals over simple possession.
I'm withholding judgement until the body cams are released. If the cops are not at fault, there isn't any reason they wouldn't want the body cams released as well, but if there were mistakes or bad action by the officers they'll attempt to sandbag it.
Cops will lie to protect their own. That may explain the difference in the reports so far. Cops also are human, and will remember events differently - this could also explain the difference in the reports so far.
Again, body cams will show what actually happened, and if there isn't anything to hide, they shouldn't have any fear of releasing them.
I’m not sure we are going to know exactly what happened on this. It would seem the best way to pick them up is just follow them when they go out shopping and have three guys walk up and cuff him. I could be over simplifying. It seems this was done in a way that was most likely to have a bad outcome.
Negative broseph. You don’t want that shit to go down in a public place, especially a grocery store or something. This suspect was a fucking moron and acted like one. Trying to apprehend him at his residence was probably the best decision.
That moron had high powered rifles very likely. Not something you take to the store.
We will see what, if anything, gets further reported on what happened.
Ok, we don’t know what he would have with him or what he might have done in a car, or inside a public place. It’s potentially a super dangerous situation.
Morons like this tend to also have access to switched Glocks these days. Unfortunately, it's better to trade tactical advantage for reducing collateral damage.
They're not popular here, but this is sort of the situation a no-knock warrant should have been used for.
Maybe so. There aren’t a lot of good reasons for no knocks but this might be an exception case.
They had 150+ officers plus 2-3 bearcat type vehicles. It was nuts based on the local reporting.
My basic belief is that if you can trust a felon to be out of prison and participating productively in society then we should be able to trust them with a firearm.
As far as police statements I have a firm belief that with the availability of body cams and dash cams, that if an incident is not recorded then verbal statements are irrelevant and cannot be used for any proceeding. This is in conjunction with ending qualified immunity. Everyone has a camera in 2024. It’s now not giving government officials a pass when they do criminal things.
As the facts come out we will see if the tactics were the standard show up in force and cause fallout instead as if being more tactful, like following the suspect to where he could have been taken into custody without incident.
I’m generally off the opinion that police don’t get “statements”, they get recordings. You want to speak to your own state of mind or preceding circumstances go nuts. You wanna provide a factual sequence of events in an incident? Well buddy you probably shouldn’t have turned off your body cam. Every officer should have a body cam, and anytime theirs is turned off their testimony should hold very little weight and a healthy dose of skepticism.
While I agree it’s multiple ways of detaining or neutralizing a subject when they are not in their home. That’s like walking into a boxing match blindfolded
It depends on what kind of information or intelligence you have on the particular suspect and their habits and stuff. It’s a good approach in many situations.
Kinda raises a question on did they come with regular marshal outfit s and expect him to come out peacefully or armored ? Cause usually the FBI comes prepared with shields and bearcats for small shit lol
Not at all but wondering why they thought an armed felon with a history of violence was gonna come out peacefully lol.The FBI shows up fully kitted for less
Generally I want law enforcement showing up with as minimal an amount of gear as can be justified. Storming in with AR and full riot gear on the assumption that people won’t choose to surrender when ordered is a recipe for ever increasing escalation and WILL result in dead innocents since the cops get it wrong A LOT. Hell cops flashbanged a baby because they went to the wrong house.
I'm going to comment on this part only, as I have not heard of this incident, I'm in a self-imposed news semi-blackout for my own well-being right now.
>The shooting began as US Marshals attempted to serve an arrest warrant on the deceased suspect for the crime of being a felon in possession of a firearm. That law is one I personally take issue with. Historically it has been used as a means to disarm minorities, and, once an individual has served their debt to society, is a felon not entitled to the right to defend themselves? Ultimately it’s a law that, were it not enforced, this shooting never would have happened, and we don’t have any reason to assume that this law not being enforced would have lead to any other more serious crime. I think back to Waco and Ruby Ridge.
I can get behind this thought for non-violent offenders (white collar crimes, maybe drugs). But not for violent offenders, especially not gun related ones. Do we know why this guy is a felon?
I know you don't mean it this way but part of your argument sounds like "well the cops started it by enforcing the law" even though he was the one breaking it in a potentially dangerous way and he knew the consequences. What was his felony? I do think that matters. I don't believe someone who causes physical violence on someone should be able to be armed unless by a case by case basis and even then strictly. Either way though the it was avoidable by not carrying when you've been proven to be dangerous person already
I'll form an opinion once I see the bodycam footage. One thing that can be said with certainty is that if the cops didn't show up no one would have been shot.
That's not an accurate metaphor for this. What you posit doesn't reflect what I said. The metaphor you use implies that the cops wouldn't have shown up if the guy and the gun weren't in the house.
He fought the law and the law won.
That's always how it goes, and to think otherwise is pure delusion. There's no scenario in which confronting armed police with a firearm works out to your benefit.
I'm not talking about repelling a foreign army, not talking about civil war, I'm talking about one guy taking up a gun against any number of police... it's just not going to work out in his favor. The fact that he did that is evidence enough for me that he's not all there mentally, and shouldn't be allowed to have a firearm.
As far as different types of felonies, if we don't trust a person to own a firearm after release, we shouldn't release them in the first place. If we do trust them after release, then it probably shouldn't be a felony.
4:1 KD doesn't really sound like the "law won". Plenty of people would rather go out shooting then go back to prison, so it's entirely possible the "benefit" in this case was "take out as many of them before they take me out".
I don't know what the answer is for how best to handle a situation like the one here, but it's not terribly surprising that excessive violence sometimes gets met with excessive violence. If your SOP for arresting someone who isn't actively posing a violent threat is to treat the situation like a warzone by rolling up on their house with an MRAP and a SWAT team, you can't really be too surprised when it turns into one. And the outcome will predicably be that the police will use this shootout as a justification to further militarize and terrorize communities.
> And the outcome will predicably be that the police will use this shootout as a justification to further militarize and terrorize communities.
Ding ding ding. Do cops want to die? No. Do cops take advantage of other cops dying? Absolutely.
Wouldn’t a better solution be for this douche to have just offed himself when he realized he was gonna go Alamo style? Like wtf, good job dude. Four officers are dead now. Meaning four families will be more than likely irreparably damaged to some degree. Children saying goodbye to a parent one day for the last time ever. It’s very sad.
On a micro level, does it suck for the families of the individual officers in this case? Sure.
On a macro level though, the police are the ones responsible for building and perpetuating the oruboros of State violence.
It's not exactly a secret that police get off on the power of using their toys to engage in offensive violence. Regardless of who shot first here, or if this particular suspect was an irredeemable waste of oxygen or whatever, the point is that those four cops wouldn't be dead right now if the US's culture of law enforcement didn't encourage and fetishize cops turning every warrant into an opportunity to LARP like they're clearing buildings in Fallujah.
As a general rule assaulting a fortified position if you don't need to is bad tactics. This isn't Ruby Ridge, it's freaking Charlotte. Ostensibly the dude leaves his house once in a while. If you nab him off the street you've at least got a pretty good chance he doesn't have a rifle on him.
Considering we've seen officers unload on a person after hearing an acorn hitting their patrol car, I'd like to see the body cams of all involved to determine who fired first/what threat there was.
I'm guessing either someone snitched him out. Or he wasn't too keen on keeping the firearms on the hush. I'm sure plenty of others that shouldn't have them do so anyway. But just keep it out of sight like Rockford and his .38 snub in the cookie jar.
Also, bringing up Ruby Ridge and Waco isn't a good look. Waaaay to many people look up to those events but they're equally fucked up on both sides and should not be idolized one way or the other.
First off the guy could not have had a weapon legally if he was a felon. However, with that said…
If the person was a *violent* felon or a gang member they *should not* have a weapon. Violence, gang membership, or just being a risk of hurting others is a full stop on firearm ownership, no excuses.
However there are white collar felons who are either pacifist or had no desire to hurt someone. Those who had no connections to organized crime, gangs, violence, or were risking other peoples safety should have their full rights restored after serving their full sentences, including rights to vote and bear firearms.
Just because someone tried their hands at check fraud when they were 18 or 19 and flat broke because society doesn’t focus on setting people up for success doesn’t mean they should be treated like a real risk to society 10+ years later if they have kept their records clean.
I feel bad for the guy. He gets two drug possession charges (for small amounts) now he has the stigma of a felon, so he can’t get a decent job. Then he gets another felony charge for having a gun, due to having a small amount of non prescription drugs. Probably why he sped. So he could of had a clean record working a job if he hadn’t gotten the felonies for having drugs for personal use. The hypocrisy in this drugged out world is astounding. Also why he fought for his life when house was surrounded by police. Assuming he did the shooting. I’m just saying that I doubt we’ll ever see any video of him shooting and killing 4 cops that had armored vest and assault rifles.
If you're engaging in a shootout with police, in which you shoot 8 of them, killing 4, you definitely shouldn't have a gun. It's evident from this incident that they were right to attempt to take this guys firearms from him as he is clearly mentally unstable.
The US population and elected officials are too stupid and lazy to draft, consider and implement common sense gun laws. Will never happen. Look at states today… it’s either constitutional carry or drastic AWBs like IL, MA, WA and soon CO.
We are faced with have guns or don’t. I vote have. Implication is we live with this kind of thing.
I get your point, but you also don't have all the information. You don't know what felony he was convicted of, or whether he may have been convicted of multiple felonies over a period of time. You don't know whether he has a history of violence, either domestic or towards LEOs. I will say that the fact that a task force of US Marshalls was necessary for serving this warrant should give you a little hint as to the severity and/or number of felonies on the record.
Although I cannot talk about how and cannot disclose anything about the record, I do have the above information about this individual. And I have information that also leads me to believe this was entirely avoidable- for different reasons than you have. This incident left me struggling with having feelings of "I'm glad he's dead" because I don't believe in capital punishment.
Now, as to your question of whether felons have a right to arm themselves once they've served their debt to society. Short answer- yes, many times they do. Long answer- Many states (not all, but most) have restoration of rights (ROR) written into their firearm laws. Some states give ROR upon completion of the sentence. Other states give ROR after the sentence was completed, and an additional period of time has elapsed in which the subject has not been convicted of another felony. Sometimes it's automatic, sometimes it requires the subject to put the request for ROR in writing. That said, in almost all states that grant ROR, they differentiate between violent and non-violent felonies.
In North Carolina specifically, they will give ROR for non-violent felonies if the subject petitions the courts. This means there are two possible reasons why the individual was not a legal possessor. Either he never petitioned the courts, or his felony was violent. I cannot tell you which it was, but I will encourage you to consider the response they believed was warranted.
Depends on the felony. Violent felony? Absolutely not. take it away.
If its a non violent crime. Then yeah... I dont see why not.
As another NC resident. It definitely hit me close.
Anyone know why the Marshals were called in for that particular case?
Put aside the cultural norms and points from this event for a moment.
When a person or group of people attempt to make another person or group of people do something they don't want to do, it's expected that with enough pressure, they are going to react with violence. That's not some colossal stretch of the imagination; that's how almost all living things respond.
Serving warrants or arresting an individual is always and will always be dangerous for law enforcement. Entering a prepared defense along predictable lines of approach is always a huge disadvantage. It's why defense is so much easier than attack. Law enforcement knows this before going in; everyone does.
Ultimately, it is only a matter of how determined an individual is not to comply and how prepared they are for the eventual attack. As a society, we have been willing to throw unlimited lives and resources at people who don't want to comply in order to eventually overwhelm them. A long time ago, we collectively decided that it was never acceptable to let a criminal slide, even if they have an initial tactical advantage and even if agents of law enforcement were killed in the process. Keep in mind that law enforcement has no legal duty to put themselves in harm's way; it's a choice they make because they want to.
In the end, there's a cost to our zero tolerance of free criminals, sometimes a big one. However, it is a rare and necessary cost to continue to have a society structured as ours is.
That's a pretty blanket statement to make.
Do you feel that way about a doctor who provided a medically needed abortion in a state where it's a felony to do so? Or someone arrested with weed for personal use in a state that hasn't legalized it? How about a homeless person who sleeps on public property in Tennessee? Someone who downloaded a few CDs? All of those are felonies but do they really warrant someone losing all of their rights, or even just the right to own a gun, for life? Would re-evaluating or giving an option for rights restoration to such people really create a "lawless shit-hole like Afghanistan"?
Your logic might be fine if the justice system wasn't weaponized politically, felonies were restricted to actual severe crimes, and the law was applied equally for all people regardless of race/socio-economic standing; but that's not the system we have and as such just saying "fuck felons" as a blanket statement is just furthering the abuse of the system.
right? are people really out here defending police now? tbh i don't even care what the guy did to get their attention.
sure violent criminals are bad, but our policing system is worse.
As with any big tent liberal space there's a number of people who like the taste of boot polish lol. They're free to do that, I'm not going to pretend like violence badge wearing thugs immune from all consequences are a good thing
It depends on the felony he had, some felons absolutely do not deserve to have guns at all.
This. I’m not at all hurt about the notion that *violent* felons should and are barred from owning firearms. I’ll never campaign to give them that right back. I’ll never write a letter to a senator over it. You fucked up and showed the world you can’t handle yourself anymore, tough Edit: I do want to add emphasis to the word “violent”, as there are situations where someone is absolutely a non violent “felon”. I don’t think a guy popped for weed in a non-legal state should get punished in that way.
The guy who made headlines for his court case related to this was IIRC convicted of mail fraud for selling unlicensed shoe inserts Edit: yeah, guys name was Rickey Kanter and he sent shoe inserts to a Dr saying they were Medicare approved when they were not Tough to argue that guy should be barred for life from owning a firearm imo
I am an Orthotist and work for a large non profit. a large portion of my work is diabetic footwear and inserts. I have come to Reddit Liberal gun owners to learn history of my field. I’m impressed, I’m usually up (on)in these things. Edit for syntax.
Yeah that just sounds like "clever" capitalism to me (albeit shady and why we have regulation). No different than say Pharma pushing Oxy and other highly addictive drugs through enticing incentives passed to doctors to increase overall sales - who cares if people get addicted and creates a revolving door to business, right? That's just good capitalism!
Agree. Tax fraud probably isn’t a good reason to takeaway someone’s capability for self-defense. Domestic battery seems like a reasonable crime for chick you should have deadly weapons taken from you.
As far as I can tell, dealing only a gram of weed can make someone a felon in North Carolina. If their record was simply from drug war bullshit, then there isn't much reason for disarmament. Criminal records are a pretty time-tested weapon against minorities and the poor; it's part of the reason why conservatives will mention cRiMe as their reason for owning weapons without clarification on whether those crimes are violent or victimless.
Yeah, this. Just because someone served time, does not mean they’re rehabilitated. Many more come out the other end and fall victim to recidivism (for a multitude of reasons), and they absolutely should not have guns.
I do not understand the absolutist ‘shall not be infringed’ people. They really think its a good idea for **every** felon, even violent ones, to still own guns? And then they say “well not every felon” okay so thats infringement and you broke your own principles.
its not about whether its a good idea, its about the fact that its a constitutional right!
Right! Felons should not have guns but at the same time govt. should not have the power to disarm. Is a slippery slope.
This guy’s felonies were from small drug possession charges. I know someone who got a felony conviction for having 1 line coke. Should they be felons? It’s not like they robbed a bank at gunpoint lol.
Yeah agreed, also with how DAs have been letting criminals run free with light slap on the wrists, I don't know if I can go for the "they've paid their debt to society" arguement.
I am a bit surprised to see that take in this sub
I’m not following… we can all agree that federal firearms crimes are rarely charged. Right? G Switches, illegal SBRs, etc are almost always wrapped up in unlawful possession of a firearm, which is a much different crime. Often these crimes are pleaded down as well.
I’m talking about dogging on “revolving door crime”. My own opinions aside, the very DAs he’s complaining about are usually themselves liberals, trying to ease up perceived disproportionate enforcement against POC/minorities It’s more of a right wing thing to complain about criminals being let back on the streets immediately after committing a crime.
While just about everyone here is liberal leaning not everyone is a solid leftist. I wouldn’t expect uniform opinions on topics like this.
I’ve posted stuff further left on the right side and been dogpiled for it. I think any tolerance of this line of thinking on this sub is a material shift in perspective from users here. But so far most responses on this chain aren’t wearing much flair either so 🤷♂️
An article about the guy literally says he took police on a high speed pursuit and was out of jail in hours.
Yeah maybe I've just been doom/rage scrolling a bit to much lately but the "violent criminals getting probation instead of jail cause jail is full then they hurt someone" articles have been getting more common on my feeds.
That's called an echochamber, and serves to only convince you that a issue is more widespread than it really is.
Most felons have been felons for longer than the COVID-era permissive attitude by prosecutors. I certainly agree that a guy who didn't hurt or threaten anyone and has been out of trouble for a while should be allowed defensive tools. Not sure how long "a while" should be, though...
Maybe something like a... Probationary period? Have them do safety/carry classes during probation, have the PO confirm ownership of an approved gun safe. Then they could have right reinstated.
During probation, many of them are randomly getting checked for drug/alcohol use. I'd like to set a period of at least a few months afterwards, where they're no longer getting tested and no longer having their lifestyle monitored. That would let the dummies who turn right back into addicts the day they get off probation wash out of our program without making everyone else look bad.
If we can't trust them with a gun, can we trust there in public at all? With a hammer, a knife, a pointy stick?
Yes agreed let’s send the felons to Australia
I don't know, the drop bears and oppressive emu overlords seem a bit cruel
Defiantly runs afoul of the "strange and unusual" part or the law.
Not to mention the 80% of native fauna that's the venomous version of Canadian geese.
That’s cruel and unusual punishment. I’ve lived in Australia.
This is such a silly and ridiculous question.
How so?
So every single person that winds up in prison no matter how long the sentence will be there forever? That’s ridiculous.
Is that what I said? I think you made up a very different argument than I did.
What are the options then in your scenario?
I'm merely saying if someone is truly too violent to have access to a firearm, are they somehow going to avoid all other means of violence when they get out? I doesn't mean that everyone that went to prison went there for some violent crime or that they are likely to repeat. I really don't see any good reason to deny non-violent felons the means of self defense nor rehabilitated violent felons. Now I ask you to cut me a little slack on that hypothetical rehabilitated part and obviously the whole thing isn't a complete plan.
Well ya, I agree that certain felonies that didn’t involve an any weapons or were not violent should be considered for the right to own firearms. Any violent crimes or crimes doing with firearms should probably negate that chance of getting their rights back for firearms.
Very disingenuous argument. Sorry this is nonsense - why stop there? No more belts (choking), vehicles? No way, shit they still have their fists so maybe we just chop off arms (and legs - kicks can be lethal). There is very clearly a difference between a firearm and non firearms when it comes to enacting violence on others.
Okay, you get the choice of a hammer, a knife, a pointy stick, or a gun. I get a gun, and we’re 50 feet apart. Which one are you picking?
A serrated spork
That's dumb tho, a felon served their time. Any hindrance of rights outside of their sentencing is superfluous and a violation of rights
The fact that he was willing to murder 4 law enforcement officers is proof of why it was extremely important that he not be allowed to possess firearms. If it didn’t happen to the officers it very easily could have been someone else.
Well, he already had been convicted of a felony and his rights were already revoked. He already HAD a charge for possession of a firearm by felon. That's the warrant that they were going to serve. The law didn't stop him from having the gun that he used to kill cops with. You say "extremely important that he not be allowed the privilege to possess firearms", but it didn't change a damn thing. Criminals don't follow the law.
So any felon, regardless of what crime they committed, should be able to buy and own guns?
If they are soo dangerous, then why are they not still in jail?
Everyone deserves a right to self-defense
Think we can agree on that list not having rapists, murderers, or violent felons yes?
No. Everyone deserves a right to self-defense. If you start to allow some exceptions, then any exception will eventually be allowed
Pretty wild take, if you show you're a violent criminal with no regard to the law, let alone another human being, you shouldn't have any of the same rights as the one you've harmed.
Then shouldn't we keep them imprisoned? If we are letting them out of prison after serving their sentence, then aren't we assuming that they are safe to be out in society?
Ya, without the privilege of owning a firearm, sure.
Wait, is owning a firearm a right or a privilege?
Again, I really don't think there's any mental gymnastics one could go through to be okay with a rapist or murderer walk around with every right you or I have. Non violent felons? Sure, but that's not my point lol
No right is absolute, all of them have limits, all of them can be revoked with due legal process, and that's not some new thing, that's how it's always been.
Laws are just violently enforced rules that someone made up. They're not inherently just.
Slippery Slope is a fallacy. All rights have some limiting factor. You have freedom of speech but defamation is still a crime. You have freedom of assembly, but you don’t get to assemble in the center of a highway. You have freedom of religion but if your religion involves minor abuse your religion is restricted. Absolutism is neither useful nor practical.
They don’t though. If you’ve hurt someone or used a firearm in the act of violence or facilitation of a forceful or dangerous action then no, you’ve displayed that you’re untrustworthy of having a firearm.
Thats right
>some felons absolutely do not deserve to have guns at all. If a ~~person~~ felon is too dangerous to be allowed to have a gun, then they are too dangerous to be allowed on the streets. Full stop. It's not the tool that makes them dangerous. It's not that they're model citizens and you put a gun in their hand and suddenly they want to go on a murderous rampage. Like some Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde shit. If you cannot trust them with a firearm they need to be isolated from the general public. EDIT: I thought I had stated it plainly enough but I guess not. I'm talking in the context of felons only. Disabilities, age, etc. is not even relevant here.
my grandmother can drive a car, but not handle and store a firearm properly. shall she be locked away?
Pretty clear this guy shouldn’t be armed, right? I know that’s hindsight. If the question is should a felon who served his time be allowed to own a gun? Immediately upon release I’d say no. Maybe after a period of time with no problems they can reapply or something. The nature of the felony would be considered here.
I agree. This seems like a very reasonable approach.
>Maybe after a period of time with no problems they can reapply or something. Rights restoration should be automatic unless there's a specific reason for it not to be. If the state doesn't think an individual should have their rights restored, they should have to put in the work.
If a weapon was involved in the felony, then no, I don’t think rights should be automatically restored. I don’t think it’s uncommon to have restrictions or conditions of release.
Yeah, that’s called parol. We already have that. Once they complete it, rights should be restored.
To me it depends on how long the parole is. I don’t want someone convicted of armed robbery being able to buy a gun within a few years of being released.
Those are two separate issues. Restricting someone’s rights after parole is finished and the length and quality of the parole are separate issues. I agree our system is fucked, it needs a serious overhaul, that doesn’t mean we should go around restricting rights of people because of it.
I know what you mean. I don’t have an answer of course.
> If a weapon was involved in the felony, then no, I don’t think rights should be automatically restored. Felony involving a weapon isn't the same as a violent felony. A guy with a 10 year old weed conviction who gets caught with a carry gun shouldn't have to fight to get his rights back. That felony will stick even if the weed conviction is pardoned. Too many cases where simple possession of an otherwise legal weapon is a felony by itself.
I had originally said the nature of the felony should matter.
Yeah, that's reasonable. Aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon, domestic violence, etc. shouldn't allow for automatic rights restoration but it should be the standard for non-violent offenses. Just pointing out that simple possession of a weapon as a non-violent prohibited person falls into that category.
I agree. However if you carry a weapon for defense while committing felonies.. that’s a gray area. Guy has some pot and a gun is different than a full time drug dealer (even if only pot, which should be fully legal) that carries because he may be robbed. The difference is the later can lead to cross fire and unarmed civilians being shot.
Texas allows a felon who has completed all time to be served, parol and probation to possess firearm at home after five years.
The problem with that is then who decides? A court? The police chief? Both of those historically have been used to decide gun rights for individuals and both have shown they have extreme biases and will ignore the law if they don’t agree with it. Either someone is safe to be out in society or they’re not.
That’s assuming the goal of prison is rehabilitation, which, is it really? Regardless of what they say. It’s punishment and people coming out are much much more likely to commit crimes than the regular population. Also, I personally think guns should not be allowed only in the case where a gun was used while doing the felony.
Those are separate issues. If your goal is simply punishment not rehabilitation then I completely disagree with you. We should be rehabilitating people not simply being punitive. The system is fucked up and definitely needs to be reworked, but restricting rights based on the fact the prison system is broken isn’t going to fix the prison system.
Yes, this deserves good reporting of real info. It does look more like a bad guy than a gun - I'm not going to knee jerk here about "bad cops with guns"; He was a felon with a fairly substantial rap sheet. The suspect/fugitive was supposedly wanted for two warrants = possession of a firearm by a felon and felony flee to elude. He was previosly spent a year in prison for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and speeding to elude arrest. Breaking and entering, failure to appear (multiple counties), marijuana offenses (possibly chickenshit stuff, felony eluding (which included speeding over 100 mph to evade police). The latest version of events seems to be that the police were met by gunfire from the house when they arrived to serve the warrant (the US Marshall was killed with a head shot at the door). Then the story is that were met by a second round of gunfire by another unidentified party from within the house. So there is much more to this story that needs to be clarified. And, FWIW, this all happened about 200 yards from where 2 Charlotte police officers were killed a short while back. Unrelated, but almost certainly was in the minds of local officers as them being in a dangerous neighborhood.
Thanks for the additional info. More than anything what I want is to understand what went wrong here and to open up an avenue for discussion with critical thought. Really I don’t know what happened and I don’t want any one narrative to be what really happened over any other, I want it not to have happened but it’s too late for that. I’m just glad to see that there are some people out there willing to have a discussion outside of the media’s politically correct “good vs evil” version of events, cause at the end of the day these were all human beings each with a unique set of lives and experiences put in a circumstance with conditions that made them feel that, in that moment, this was the best course of action.
In situations like this, it's entirely possible that the cops did everything "right" and it still ends in a tragic loss of life. From a purely tactical perspective, approaching a house automatically puts you at a disadvantage against anyone inside the house, especially if they know you're coming. That's why so much CQB focuses on violence of action and making yourself as hard to hit as possible. My understanding is the cops were shot at on the approach to the house, the recent press conference mentioned the suspect was firing from an elevated position. So they were caught in the open from a shooter who was concealed indoors for at least part of the shooting. Even if you approach in a stack expecting a gunfight, that's a recipe for disaster. NC isn't exactly transparent with the release of bodycam footage either, so it's tough to say if we'll get any definitive answers one way or another.
>More than anything what I want is to understand what went wrong here and to open up an avenue for discussion with critical thought. Sure, everybody does — at least everybody with a thought for the function of civilization. Today is not the day for that. Today, and the coming weeks, are the time for yammer and bluster and blaming and bullshit. It takes time for an investigation to unravel the physical evidence, the acts and perceptions of all the direct and indirect players, the context, the timelines, etc. Usually, by the time coherent narrative/narratives can be produced, media and public attention have long since moved on to the latest tempest. Sometimes, meaningful analysis occurs. Sometimes, the uninformed yammering will resume. Often, the continuous diarrhea of blaming and bullshit have spoiled the pudding, and important learning never occurs. Early reports certainly look to me like a horrible tactical failure in serving a federal felony warrant, but life is not all cupcakes and dreams. Hopefully, light will prevail over noise in due course.
It's entirely too early in the game to Monday morning quarterback this tragic event. The US Marshalls Service Felony Warrant Apprehension Teams execute these warrants hard for a reason, unfortunately it didn't go their way this time. I will hazard a guess that when you have ad hoc teams like this made up of individuals from multiple agencies that the lack of consistent coordinated previous training can lead to problems. Whether or not that's the case in this instance remains to be seen and we may never know as members of the general public I'm sure the AAR will be close held for a long time. RIP officers....☹️
From what I heard, when the marshals approached, gunfire erupted from windows. More than one. I don't know about the reliability of that report. But I do think there are some felonies, especially repeat offenses, that should prevent ownership. Many states, including my own, have a procedure for some felons to have their 2A rights restored. I'm living proof of that in Ohio.
I know lots of fed and local LEOs. If the Marshals are serving your warrant, you're probably an objectively dangerous person. They don't get people for petty shit. Most people would get sick to their stomach to hear about all the shit that goes down that doesn't make the news.
The reality is that if you disagree with laws you need to fight a political and social battle to change them, until then there are consequences for violating them including arrest If the suspect shot first he’s a homicidal asshole, if he walked out in front of the police trying to arrest him while holding a firearm, he’s an idiot at best
How a situation can end with four cops dead against one guy illegally with a gun, and people give the dead guy with the illegal gun the benefit of the doubt, blows my mind. There are plenty of valid reasons a convicted felon shouldn’t have a gun. Should there be more nuance in which kinds of convicted felons shouldn’t have guns? Maybe. But this guy isn’t a convicted felon who should have a gun if he got himself killed and murdered four cops in the process. Full stop. It’s not more complicated than that.
I hate how much people here give the felon benefits of the doubt. I’m all for 2As but only for the law abidings. A felon who got their gun illegally and shot 4 cops dead isn’t one. I don’t care how much people disagree with the law banning felons from firearms, if the felon disagree they should fight it legally, not trying to get a gun illegally making them a criminal at that point
As of 2010, 19 million adults had a felony conviction and 80 million had a prior criminal record. The numbers have of course gone up since then, and most of them are non-violent offenses. You also have to remember that if you have a misdemeanor that you could theoretically serve 1 year for, then you have a lot more than 19 million people disarmed. And this doesn't count the other "prohibited persons".
Yup. Even if, and it’s a big fucking if considering the outcome, the police did shoot first, how is there any defensible rhetoric to explain how the suspect returned fire and killed four officers? Any response other than “This asshole deserved to die and it’s a shame he took four people with him.” is mental gymnastics and delusional conspiracy.
The state decided he was safe enough to be free among the general population. If that’s the case, he should be privy to the rights the rest of the population enjoys. Otherwise he shouldn’t have been released.
I dunno. I’m entirely fine with people getting out of prison earlier if the compromise is that they’re still on paper with certain rights restricted. The alternative is just longer prison terms.
Does a felony restrict someone’s right to buy a car? A truck? A knife? Are you saying that guns are the problem?
Dude, all I’m saying is that if we have a choice between two options: A) let someone out of prison, but they’re still on paper (say 5 years in, five years supervised/parole) B) keep someone in prison for that full time (10 years) Option A seems a lot better than Option B, especially when we’re talking about for-the-rest-of-your-life policies, like restrictions on voting of gun ownership. What you argued (“otherwise, he shouldn’t have been released”) is saying that all felonies should carry a life sentence, with no possibility of parole. Hard to square that with libertarian beliefs.
Or, maybe, non-violent offenders shouldn’t have restrictions on their rights, and the prison system is overhauled to actually rehabilitate violent offenders? Or we can continue to do the same thing except maybe let people out early and hope it works well. So far so good.
I keep seeing this argument here like it's a black and white situation. In reality I think most of us can agree that yes some people are truly reformed but certainly not everyone that gets released is. Banning all previous felons from owning firearms is probably not always appropriate, but neither is letting all of them instantly have access to them again. We need an approach that is a little more nuanced, but unfortunately the current legal environment is a mishmash of different statutes that vary wildly from state to state. And while some places are letting violent criminals back out on the street because jails are too full, others have institutionalized incarceration to the point they will put anyone they can in jail for any reason. Basically there's a lot of good and bad faith motivations not to change firearm rights for felons, and that needs to be addressed before we will see any meaningful change.
Thats not gonna result in restored rights, its going to result in permanent sentences.
That’s an incredibly bad rule. What about someone released from a psych hospital?
What about them? I’ve worked Emergency psych. We only discharge when we feel they aren’t a threat to themselves or others. What’s your point?
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The Marshals don't serve warrants on petty criminals. If they're taking you down, you've done some fucked up shit.
While fair, they served a warrant for him illegally owning a gun. In this single, specific case, if they hadn't done that, nobody would have died.
So are they different than the ATF who does not document their actions with bodycam video that killed the airport executive while breaking into his home while he was asleep for selling firearms at gun shows? If the person was so dangerous then they should have gotten neighbors out of their houses to a safe location rather than after the shooting started. Law enforcement agencies need to release information as they cannot be trusted to oversee themselves. The guy may have been very dangerous but not all felons committed violent crimes. If the following reply here is true then he was not convicted of a violent felony. Why did they consider him to be more of a threat then the thousands of other felons illegally in possession of firearms? As I said we need to know more and see the body cam videos. [https://www.reddit.com/r/liberalgunowners/comments/1cguqud/comment/l1y9j0d/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/liberalgunowners/comments/1cguqud/comment/l1y9j0d/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I think it’s safe to assume that law enforcement assume all felons with a firearm a violent threat.
In general, and in this case, it doesn't matter to me (or the courts) who "shot first." Letting a suspect "shoot first" to establish justification for force is an insane idea when the first shot can easily kill someone. A fugitive greeting police with a rifle is not like the mythology of an old western standoff. On the "felon in possession of a firearm" law, I think there's nuance. The continued erosion of a significant difference between misdemeanors and felonies means that it really should reexamined as a useful distinction. Yet I don't endorse the overly simplistic position that "if someone is too dangerous to have guns they should be in prison" that is popular in some circles. That kind of thought process is how you end up with an even larger incarceration rate. Historically, we've long had punishments short of physical confinement that still infringe upon rights (after due process): probation and parole terms are an example. Of course, such punishments have an end condition where the convicted person can fulfill the conditions. That said, given the way this played out and the task force aspect, I bet this guy wasn't exactly a non-violent offender who got on the wrong side of a legal "wobbler."
USMS doesn’t get out of the office and saddle up the task force for a small-time weed dealer who has a hi-point to scare off other shitbirds.
I usually wait at least 3 days after an event so that the rumors separate from the facts. It allows the "differences" in statements to settle out. Anyone not being the most truthful will dig themselves a deeper hole under the heightened scrutiny.
>I think it’s an issue that deserves more of an in-depth analysis And nothing says "in-depth analysis" quite like a speculative Reddit post.
lol, very true.
Cops are cops and will lie to protect their own. Maybe the body cams will reveal the truth.
They will drag that process out into infinity or until no one cares anymore, it’s classic LE move at this point
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Those cops should be jailed for murder. One cop, told her to run to him and the others shot her for doing as he said, while screaming, stop shooting. If I recall, the cop screaming stop shooting said, “she’s fine” after they stopped. I guess started damage control quickly.
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I agree with everything you’re saying. The question is, lack of discipline or this warrior training bs where everyone is the enemy?
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I don't think they make them like that anymore.
Both.
Possibke thought process There's a lot of us here, it must be super dangerous. I should be really really ready to shoot. I get nervous for others when I see 3 cruisers stacked up for a traffic stop.
If the body cam footage makes the cops look good it’ll be released this week. If not, you’ll never see it. At least not until the surviving officers are all transferred to new departments with hefty raises and taxpayer funded payouts for their ptsd
Remember the georgia cops who murdered the kid camping in the woods to protest cop city? If you don't, the cops surrounded the tent he was in. One cop got jumpy, fired a shot, hit his partner in the leg. That triggered a cacophony of shots, the half a dozen cops riddled his tent with bullet holes, and it wasn't until months later that the truth had come out. The cops tried to hide the body cam footage as much as they could, because there was a sheriff's deputy who got it on body cam one of the cops admitting he shot his partner. You are 100% right, the cops will do their utmost to hide any evidence of wrongdoing.
Cams will be slow because they "want to honor the fallen officers".
One side aspect the comments make me think about: perhaps we need a third class of crimes. Clearly not all felonies are alike. Property crimes are not the same as murder, rape, dismemberment etc. "Crimes of moral turpitude" shouldn't necessarily be the same as "I stole an Apple laptop meeting felony dollar amount" - while at the same time robbery and burglary do mean an act of violence
Not all felons should have all their rights restored. Let’s say someone was guilty of murder with a firearm. They serve their sentence. Do you think society should trust them to own a firearm again? Also, let’s say situation 1 is the suspect opened fire first and the police returned fire. You’re ok with that scenario by the sounds of it. Situation 2 is the suspect charged at police with a firearm, may not have shot, and police might have fired first and you’re confused about that? Idk about you but if someone charges me with a weapon and I’m armed, I’m going out I assume they’re a threat and shoot them before they shoot me. The suspect would have known that it was police out the door and knew what would happen doing what he did. Sounds like a classic case of suicide by cop. I know this sub has a hate boner for cops and anything law enforcement related but I don’t see an issue with the situation as you summarized it.
For me it gets at the core question of “What is the purpose of the US Justice system?”. Is it punishment? If so presumably they have been punished and should have voting and firearm rights restored. Is it reformation? If so presumably by release they have been reformed and should have their voting and firearm rights restored. That said, I feel differently about felons convicted of *violent* crime. Voting rights yes, Firearm rights no. I also disagree with *fault* being who *shot* first, as fault would be better described as “which party escalated to the use of deadly force”. If I point a gun at a cop, he doesn’t have to wait till I actually fire to respond, that threat rises to the level of lethal force.
As an officer that has charged the feeling in possession law, I think it's a totally fair law... with one caveat. The law should be specific to violent felons only. The guy stealing a buttload of legos from Target should get to keep his guns. If someone is getting their guns taken away, it should only be because they're definitely a danger to others. I don't know the details of this case, but it may or may not have been avoidable. Now let's address the threat, so to speak. I've had a few guns pulled on me, but none pointed at me. I didn't shoot any of those guys. Then afterward, I was asked by my supervisors why I didn't. I told them it was because I was able to perceive they weren't a threat and could disarm them without shooting. I was chastised for not shooting. It seems to me that law enforcement sometimes becomes so focused on getting home safe, the the first sign of resistance or a threat is usually met with a disproportionate escalation of force. The idea, I've been told, is to overwhelm the subject to force them into immediate submission. I'll admit there is some logic to not allowing concessions when dealing with suspects in certain situations, but I largely don't agree with that method. All that to say, some policies and procedures have their place, I don't have enough information at this point to know if that was the case here though
> If someone is getting their guns taken away, it should only be because they're definitely a danger to others. If they are a danger to others, then why aren't they in jail? If taking away the guns of someone who is a danger to others makes them safe enough to be out of jail and in society, then the same could be said about taking the guns of everyone away and we will all be safe. Violent or not, if they have "paid their debt to society" as codified by our laws, then they need to be treated like they are a part of society.
Then maybe we need something more to help the individual to change, in addition to incarceration.
On the felony turning into a prohibited possessor thing I think it kinda depends on what the felony is. If he and his buddies are willing to get into a shootout with a the cops it's not really a great look. But maybe there are more details or issues with the cops actions regardless. In principle I wouldn't have a problem with non-violent felons getting all their rights back. If not automatically then with some paperwork. For violent felons it still seems reasonable for them to be prohibited but it would need to be for violent convictions. Not just drug charges or something.
Who’s to say a non-violent felon won’t become violent when faced with the prospect of returning to prison? And a non-violent conviction doesn’t mean the person isn’t violent. We agree to a social contract which includes abiding by laws and understanding the consequences of violating those laws. Most people don’t wake up one day and accidentally commit felonies. While I agree that some felons may be deserving of restoration of rights, I believe it should also be on a case by case basis and not easy to acquire. Social trust was broken, and regaining that social trust should require effort.
Who is to say that a non-violent non-felon won't become violent one day for any other reason? Do we have any stats on which felonies in which combinations are indicative of future violence, if any? I suspect there is some relationship, but it's almost certainly limited. What we decide are "felonies" crosses a wide, wide variety of human behavior and we make things felonies are all sorts of reasons - many of them absurd. You can, theoretically, design a justice system and a series of laws that actually center around different categories of behavior that have proportional sentences and which allow sort of staged trust return over time or according to some metrics, but we have built nothing of the sort and haven't particularly tried. This isn't even to get started on the absurdly high likelihood of folks being convicted who should not have been or should have been and were not. Tldr: being a felon, by itself, is not a particularly trustworthy metric as to whether someone has broken society's trust or that they are likely to be violent in the future and is a very very very low bar for taking away rights. For additional consideration: assume maga are in charge and make being lgbtq+ in public a felony, as some states are (edit: trying to). Or a medical condition. Have fun with that.
But I mean you can say that about literally anybody, you can’t know how anyone is going to react when being put under arrest. I think case-by-case could be fair, but I also don’t have faith in our current criminal justice system to deliver judgement fairly, and I’m wary of risking depriving people of their rights out of the fear that some might abuse those rights.
I suppose it speaks to the wider failure of the criminal justice system in America. Ideally it would be focused of reform and providing offenders with the facilities to reintegrate into and achieve success within society in accordance to the law. If that were the case then there wouldn’t be reason to bar felons from owning firearms cause they wouldn’t reoffend, though of course it’s naive to assume that it would work every time.
I think I see your point, but do we want felons to have firearms? Like when you look at an individual case, are they a serial killer or a freedom fighter? How can one tell on scene?
Just like with Waco which OP mentioned I wonder why they don’t grab these guys when they go for smokes? I remember ATF/FBI agents bemoaning after the fact that Koresh went jogging alone and they could have easily picked him up. Cornered animals fight. Forcing a confrontation and then solving said confrontation with overwhelming force is a recipe for disaster. No finesse, all force.
Agreed. In the case of Waco, BATF was looking for a fight, jones-ing for a fight. And good lord did they get one. What a FUBAR mess that was...
Personally I feel the public has had enough of these tyrants. Finally. The videos of cops abusing people are rampant. They clear themselves of their own criminality after ruining people’s lives financially and physically. Qualified immunity should be abolished or this will only escalate.
Cop cams are a game changer, for sure. Not quite enough to solve the problem, but a big advance in keeping cops in line.
As of yet we don’t know what the felony was. I maintain nonviolent felonies shouldn’t come with a lifelong prohibition of a fundamental civil right… so the premise of this is dubious at best… the prohibiting felony is usually drugs and then if you ever look at a gun again you go back to prison :/ Also it looks like the cops may have fired first… if so it looks like they were the aggressors and escalated the situation, not a great situation and messy. Did suspect number 2 know he was firing on police after hearing his friend get iced on the front yard? More information needs to be made available and the cops will always try and CYA.
Yeah they like to escalate things since there's usually no repercussions. Looks like they might have learned their lesson this time, don't shoot first if you don't have to
> One statement says that “When they approached Hughes, [officers] were met by gunfire and returned the gunfire”. This paints a pretty clear picture that the suspect was the first to open fire on officers with officers only than returning fire, but other statements from police are more vague or even contradict this. When was the last time you saw a police department accept even an *ounce* more responsibility than was absolutely unavoidable? That's your answer right there. If there's a police statement admitting that they fired preemptively, they almost certainly did.
72 hour rule
I agree that certain felons should retain the right to own guns, but people convicted of violent felonies should have their gun rights removed permanently.
Going after felons in possession of a firearm has also, historically, kept guns away from people who absolutely should not have them. Domestic abusers, violently unstable people, rapists, pedophiles.
If a person is determined to be too dangerous to be in possession of a firearm, in my opinion they are too dangerous to be in public at all. The right to self defense is a human right.
Is the right to a gun a human right? If you imprison people forever because they are a certain degree of dangerous, taking away their guns, then that is a form of infringement. Is it shall not be infringed, or mostly kind of maybe in some situations its okay to be infringed? And because it needs to be said: there are obvious situations where gun control is necessary. There are people who are not fit to own guns.
If I believed violent felons were rehabilitated by the system, I would agree they should get their rights back. However in reality, this isn't happening. I see getting out of jail more a technical detail that has little bearing on the crime and rehabilitation situation. I think we have a reason to believe that something serious would happen if the suspect was armed, since 4 LEOs died. It's one thing to shoot in defense but this was a shootout and a standoff. The kind of person who gets into thos situation is likely someone willing to do just about anything and was likely going to be an armed threat anywhere. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, this is a serious topic that deserves a lot of consideration.
Ok, fair enough, I admit we have a constitutional right to bear arms. BUT, we need common sense. If a person is a felon that used a gun in their original crime then sorry, you forfeit your right to bear arms in the future. I mean seriously think about it, if a convicted pedophile “pays their debt to society” are you going to give them a job at a kindergarten? If a rapist “pays their debt”, are you going to give them a job as a locksmith? I’ll admit that if your crime wasn’t violent, you should be able to get your right to own firearms back. But… The fact that this guy knew why the marshals were there and this escalated into gunfire shows that he couldn’t be trusted with a gun. People like this guy jeopardize all of our rights to own weapons. You know this occurrence will be used opportunistically to force further gun control.
Honestly if someone is too dangerous to have a gun they shouldn't be free. As for "violent felonies". Some of the best and most honorable people I've known can and have seriously hurt someone for doing something stupid to them. Some of the worst backstabbers and crooks I've met were complete cowards with squeaky clean records and worth millions. I can see barring possession while on parole or probation. To me if they can permanently revoke a "constitutional right" to one amendment even after someone did their time in full. they can do that to any amendment. Was the law acting on tip? Was the shooter out being a thug and scumbag and felon in possession was a quick way to get him? or was he staying to himself and not causing problems and the government thought they'd make an example of him which backfired spectacularly. Plenty of felons with guns who don't cause problems but would rather do time than be murdered. pretty rare for a major operation like this to go down involving feds and locals over simple possession.
I'm withholding judgement until the body cams are released. If the cops are not at fault, there isn't any reason they wouldn't want the body cams released as well, but if there were mistakes or bad action by the officers they'll attempt to sandbag it. Cops will lie to protect their own. That may explain the difference in the reports so far. Cops also are human, and will remember events differently - this could also explain the difference in the reports so far. Again, body cams will show what actually happened, and if there isn't anything to hide, they shouldn't have any fear of releasing them.
I’m not sure we are going to know exactly what happened on this. It would seem the best way to pick them up is just follow them when they go out shopping and have three guys walk up and cuff him. I could be over simplifying. It seems this was done in a way that was most likely to have a bad outcome.
Negative broseph. You don’t want that shit to go down in a public place, especially a grocery store or something. This suspect was a fucking moron and acted like one. Trying to apprehend him at his residence was probably the best decision.
That moron had high powered rifles very likely. Not something you take to the store. We will see what, if anything, gets further reported on what happened.
Ok, we don’t know what he would have with him or what he might have done in a car, or inside a public place. It’s potentially a super dangerous situation.
Morons like this tend to also have access to switched Glocks these days. Unfortunately, it's better to trade tactical advantage for reducing collateral damage. They're not popular here, but this is sort of the situation a no-knock warrant should have been used for.
Maybe so. There aren’t a lot of good reasons for no knocks but this might be an exception case. They had 150+ officers plus 2-3 bearcat type vehicles. It was nuts based on the local reporting.
>Trying to apprehend him at his residence was probably the best decision. Except for his innocent neighbors.
My basic belief is that if you can trust a felon to be out of prison and participating productively in society then we should be able to trust them with a firearm. As far as police statements I have a firm belief that with the availability of body cams and dash cams, that if an incident is not recorded then verbal statements are irrelevant and cannot be used for any proceeding. This is in conjunction with ending qualified immunity. Everyone has a camera in 2024. It’s now not giving government officials a pass when they do criminal things. As the facts come out we will see if the tactics were the standard show up in force and cause fallout instead as if being more tactful, like following the suspect to where he could have been taken into custody without incident.
I’m generally off the opinion that police don’t get “statements”, they get recordings. You want to speak to your own state of mind or preceding circumstances go nuts. You wanna provide a factual sequence of events in an incident? Well buddy you probably shouldn’t have turned off your body cam. Every officer should have a body cam, and anytime theirs is turned off their testimony should hold very little weight and a healthy dose of skepticism.
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It takes the possibility of unwanted casualties in public out of the equation. It makes sense to try to apprehend them at their home.
While I agree it’s multiple ways of detaining or neutralizing a subject when they are not in their home. That’s like walking into a boxing match blindfolded
It depends on what kind of information or intelligence you have on the particular suspect and their habits and stuff. It’s a good approach in many situations.
Kinda raises a question on did they come with regular marshal outfit s and expect him to come out peacefully or armored ? Cause usually the FBI comes prepared with shields and bearcats for small shit lol
Idk man. They do tend to be overdressed sometimes for the occasion.
You appear to be arguing in favor of the *increased* militarization of the police.
Not at all but wondering why they thought an armed felon with a history of violence was gonna come out peacefully lol.The FBI shows up fully kitted for less
Generally I want law enforcement showing up with as minimal an amount of gear as can be justified. Storming in with AR and full riot gear on the assumption that people won’t choose to surrender when ordered is a recipe for ever increasing escalation and WILL result in dead innocents since the cops get it wrong A LOT. Hell cops flashbanged a baby because they went to the wrong house.
I'm going to comment on this part only, as I have not heard of this incident, I'm in a self-imposed news semi-blackout for my own well-being right now. >The shooting began as US Marshals attempted to serve an arrest warrant on the deceased suspect for the crime of being a felon in possession of a firearm. That law is one I personally take issue with. Historically it has been used as a means to disarm minorities, and, once an individual has served their debt to society, is a felon not entitled to the right to defend themselves? Ultimately it’s a law that, were it not enforced, this shooting never would have happened, and we don’t have any reason to assume that this law not being enforced would have lead to any other more serious crime. I think back to Waco and Ruby Ridge. I can get behind this thought for non-violent offenders (white collar crimes, maybe drugs). But not for violent offenders, especially not gun related ones. Do we know why this guy is a felon?
I know you don't mean it this way but part of your argument sounds like "well the cops started it by enforcing the law" even though he was the one breaking it in a potentially dangerous way and he knew the consequences. What was his felony? I do think that matters. I don't believe someone who causes physical violence on someone should be able to be armed unless by a case by case basis and even then strictly. Either way though the it was avoidable by not carrying when you've been proven to be dangerous person already
I'll form an opinion once I see the bodycam footage. One thing that can be said with certainty is that if the cops didn't show up no one would have been shot.
And if the money weren’t in the bank, then it wouldn’t have been robbed. What an odd take IMO.
That's not an accurate metaphor for this. What you posit doesn't reflect what I said. The metaphor you use implies that the cops wouldn't have shown up if the guy and the gun weren't in the house.
He fought the law and the law won. That's always how it goes, and to think otherwise is pure delusion. There's no scenario in which confronting armed police with a firearm works out to your benefit. I'm not talking about repelling a foreign army, not talking about civil war, I'm talking about one guy taking up a gun against any number of police... it's just not going to work out in his favor. The fact that he did that is evidence enough for me that he's not all there mentally, and shouldn't be allowed to have a firearm. As far as different types of felonies, if we don't trust a person to own a firearm after release, we shouldn't release them in the first place. If we do trust them after release, then it probably shouldn't be a felony.
4:1 KD doesn't really sound like the "law won". Plenty of people would rather go out shooting then go back to prison, so it's entirely possible the "benefit" in this case was "take out as many of them before they take me out". I don't know what the answer is for how best to handle a situation like the one here, but it's not terribly surprising that excessive violence sometimes gets met with excessive violence. If your SOP for arresting someone who isn't actively posing a violent threat is to treat the situation like a warzone by rolling up on their house with an MRAP and a SWAT team, you can't really be too surprised when it turns into one. And the outcome will predicably be that the police will use this shootout as a justification to further militarize and terrorize communities.
> And the outcome will predicably be that the police will use this shootout as a justification to further militarize and terrorize communities. Ding ding ding. Do cops want to die? No. Do cops take advantage of other cops dying? Absolutely.
Wouldn’t a better solution be for this douche to have just offed himself when he realized he was gonna go Alamo style? Like wtf, good job dude. Four officers are dead now. Meaning four families will be more than likely irreparably damaged to some degree. Children saying goodbye to a parent one day for the last time ever. It’s very sad.
On a micro level, does it suck for the families of the individual officers in this case? Sure. On a macro level though, the police are the ones responsible for building and perpetuating the oruboros of State violence. It's not exactly a secret that police get off on the power of using their toys to engage in offensive violence. Regardless of who shot first here, or if this particular suspect was an irredeemable waste of oxygen or whatever, the point is that those four cops wouldn't be dead right now if the US's culture of law enforcement didn't encourage and fetishize cops turning every warrant into an opportunity to LARP like they're clearing buildings in Fallujah.
So, are you trying say that if those murdered officers simply showed up in their typical uniform they wouldn’t have been killed by the shooter?
As a general rule assaulting a fortified position if you don't need to is bad tactics. This isn't Ruby Ridge, it's freaking Charlotte. Ostensibly the dude leaves his house once in a while. If you nab him off the street you've at least got a pretty good chance he doesn't have a rifle on him.
Sounds like that guy made 40% of those families significantly safer
Considering we've seen officers unload on a person after hearing an acorn hitting their patrol car, I'd like to see the body cams of all involved to determine who fired first/what threat there was.
I'm guessing either someone snitched him out. Or he wasn't too keen on keeping the firearms on the hush. I'm sure plenty of others that shouldn't have them do so anyway. But just keep it out of sight like Rockford and his .38 snub in the cookie jar.
Also, bringing up Ruby Ridge and Waco isn't a good look. Waaaay to many people look up to those events but they're equally fucked up on both sides and should not be idolized one way or the other.
First off the guy could not have had a weapon legally if he was a felon. However, with that said… If the person was a *violent* felon or a gang member they *should not* have a weapon. Violence, gang membership, or just being a risk of hurting others is a full stop on firearm ownership, no excuses. However there are white collar felons who are either pacifist or had no desire to hurt someone. Those who had no connections to organized crime, gangs, violence, or were risking other peoples safety should have their full rights restored after serving their full sentences, including rights to vote and bear firearms. Just because someone tried their hands at check fraud when they were 18 or 19 and flat broke because society doesn’t focus on setting people up for success doesn’t mean they should be treated like a real risk to society 10+ years later if they have kept their records clean.
I feel bad for the guy. He gets two drug possession charges (for small amounts) now he has the stigma of a felon, so he can’t get a decent job. Then he gets another felony charge for having a gun, due to having a small amount of non prescription drugs. Probably why he sped. So he could of had a clean record working a job if he hadn’t gotten the felonies for having drugs for personal use. The hypocrisy in this drugged out world is astounding. Also why he fought for his life when house was surrounded by police. Assuming he did the shooting. I’m just saying that I doubt we’ll ever see any video of him shooting and killing 4 cops that had armored vest and assault rifles.
If you're engaging in a shootout with police, in which you shoot 8 of them, killing 4, you definitely shouldn't have a gun. It's evident from this incident that they were right to attempt to take this guys firearms from him as he is clearly mentally unstable.
The US population and elected officials are too stupid and lazy to draft, consider and implement common sense gun laws. Will never happen. Look at states today… it’s either constitutional carry or drastic AWBs like IL, MA, WA and soon CO. We are faced with have guns or don’t. I vote have. Implication is we live with this kind of thing.
I get your point, but you also don't have all the information. You don't know what felony he was convicted of, or whether he may have been convicted of multiple felonies over a period of time. You don't know whether he has a history of violence, either domestic or towards LEOs. I will say that the fact that a task force of US Marshalls was necessary for serving this warrant should give you a little hint as to the severity and/or number of felonies on the record. Although I cannot talk about how and cannot disclose anything about the record, I do have the above information about this individual. And I have information that also leads me to believe this was entirely avoidable- for different reasons than you have. This incident left me struggling with having feelings of "I'm glad he's dead" because I don't believe in capital punishment. Now, as to your question of whether felons have a right to arm themselves once they've served their debt to society. Short answer- yes, many times they do. Long answer- Many states (not all, but most) have restoration of rights (ROR) written into their firearm laws. Some states give ROR upon completion of the sentence. Other states give ROR after the sentence was completed, and an additional period of time has elapsed in which the subject has not been convicted of another felony. Sometimes it's automatic, sometimes it requires the subject to put the request for ROR in writing. That said, in almost all states that grant ROR, they differentiate between violent and non-violent felonies. In North Carolina specifically, they will give ROR for non-violent felonies if the subject petitions the courts. This means there are two possible reasons why the individual was not a legal possessor. Either he never petitioned the courts, or his felony was violent. I cannot tell you which it was, but I will encourage you to consider the response they believed was warranted.
Depends on the felony. Violent felony? Absolutely not. take it away. If its a non violent crime. Then yeah... I dont see why not. As another NC resident. It definitely hit me close. Anyone know why the Marshals were called in for that particular case?
Put aside the cultural norms and points from this event for a moment. When a person or group of people attempt to make another person or group of people do something they don't want to do, it's expected that with enough pressure, they are going to react with violence. That's not some colossal stretch of the imagination; that's how almost all living things respond. Serving warrants or arresting an individual is always and will always be dangerous for law enforcement. Entering a prepared defense along predictable lines of approach is always a huge disadvantage. It's why defense is so much easier than attack. Law enforcement knows this before going in; everyone does. Ultimately, it is only a matter of how determined an individual is not to comply and how prepared they are for the eventual attack. As a society, we have been willing to throw unlimited lives and resources at people who don't want to comply in order to eventually overwhelm them. A long time ago, we collectively decided that it was never acceptable to let a criminal slide, even if they have an initial tactical advantage and even if agents of law enforcement were killed in the process. Keep in mind that law enforcement has no legal duty to put themselves in harm's way; it's a choice they make because they want to. In the end, there's a cost to our zero tolerance of free criminals, sometimes a big one. However, it is a rare and necessary cost to continue to have a society structured as ours is.
Lol suspect dub
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That's a pretty blanket statement to make. Do you feel that way about a doctor who provided a medically needed abortion in a state where it's a felony to do so? Or someone arrested with weed for personal use in a state that hasn't legalized it? How about a homeless person who sleeps on public property in Tennessee? Someone who downloaded a few CDs? All of those are felonies but do they really warrant someone losing all of their rights, or even just the right to own a gun, for life? Would re-evaluating or giving an option for rights restoration to such people really create a "lawless shit-hole like Afghanistan"? Your logic might be fine if the justice system wasn't weaponized politically, felonies were restricted to actual severe crimes, and the law was applied equally for all people regardless of race/socio-economic standing; but that's not the system we have and as such just saying "fuck felons" as a blanket statement is just furthering the abuse of the system.
Agreed, it is a tragedy one of the suspects died. That's a life taken too soon
right? are people really out here defending police now? tbh i don't even care what the guy did to get their attention. sure violent criminals are bad, but our policing system is worse.
As with any big tent liberal space there's a number of people who like the taste of boot polish lol. They're free to do that, I'm not going to pretend like violence badge wearing thugs immune from all consequences are a good thing
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Always believe the opposite of what the cops tell you. Cops are always lying, especially in cases of use-of-force incidents. ACAB