Senseless death at a party. We must do something now!!!!!

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

Man Shot, Dies Amid Party Scuffle
Neighbors Say Man Robbed Group Playing Dice Game

PONTIAC, Mich. -- Neighbors in one community said a man was shot and killed early Sunday morning after he interrupted a neighborhood party and robbed some of the partygoers.
"It's like playground rules. They just broke one of them by going in and robbing and turning your back on someone," neighbor Andre said.
Andre said 29-year-old Gregory Scott interupted a dice game in the basement of a house in the 300 block of Seward Street in Pontiac at about 3:30 a.m.
Andre said Scott pulled a gun on partygoers and robbed them.
"He goes in, pulls out a gun, let off a shot or two to make the person come out his money, and he was fine with that and turned his back," Andre said. "But everybody had pistols ... lights went off on him then."


http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/20108423/detail.html


He would have been better off trying to rob a cop bar.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" -

well, it's official. Some of us are living in a jungle.

That should keep the population down.

Too bad we don't eat what we kill..............................

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

5. Probably not wise to refer to the people in this story in those terms.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

7. PC much?

It's a valid observation, whether the event was in Pontiac, MI or St. Paul, MN.

The behavior is the thing, not the PC gloss people might try to put on language...................

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

8. Calling predominately African American communities jungles probably wouldn't bother Officer Crowley.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

9. And you know the race of the people involved?

How did you manage that, since there's no mention of race in the article, and the "eye for an eye" comment was a direct quote from the article?

Jeez. Pry that PC thing off your brain and snap out of it........................

[paulsby]

12. utter crap

if you have any evidence crowley is a racist - then present it.

otherwise, it's you who are the bigot for maligning him.

[iverglas]

19. feel free to call a spade a spade!

Just don't be deluded into thinking there's a PC bone in old Dave's body ...

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

20. There's our old Iverglas back. That's actually pretty funny.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

21. Sorry -

my comment stands, as does good old PC Dave, who showed his colors...............

[iverglas]

22. I don't think I was looking for an apology

I actually have nothing against PC, other than its use to dismiss people with genuine grievances.

My point was that Dave isn't PC, in any sense of the term; he was playing at caring about people with genuine grievances, is all.

To explain a little more, your reference to living in the jungle was no more racist than my reference to calling a spade a spade. And Dave knew that perfectly well.

It might be "PC" (quotation marks intended) to (pretend to) take offence at either; neither is actually non-PC (no quotation marks), since neither originated in or expresses racism.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

23. No apology intended -

here in the South, we say "Sorry" all the time to get rid of pests, but given your thoughtful explanation of Dave's behavior (and how interesting that he wasn't able to articulate his own behavior), I thank you for the enlightenment.

Clearly, he just had a PC-sounding moment when he tried to warn me off my "law of the jungle" comment.

Happens to the best of us.

He's very fortunate to have such a fine interpreter and defender......................................

[iverglas]

24. I'm getting a little peeved here

Let me try to put it very simply.

There was nothing objectionable in your original post.

My "feel free to call a spade a spade" post was intended to convey that point.

Dave pretended to take offence at your post, on "PC" grounds. No one who genuinely cares about genuine grievances of vulnerable minorities would have launched the baseless attack on your words that he did. Such attacks are what provide grist for the bemoaners of political correctness, and have led to "PC" being a way of dismissing all objections to racist, misogynist, etc. speech.

Dave will say whatever comes into his head to derail a discussion. And that's exactly what he was doing. I would defend Dave only if I thought someone had genuinely misinterpreted/misrepresented something he said, even though that actually happens to be Dave's own particular specialty, just because I'm like that.

That was not the case here. I wasn't defending Dave. Dave was misrepresenting your post. I was attempting to point that out, i.e. to defend you, in fact, not that you needed it, while at the same time pointing out that his motivation was not political correctness, in any sense of the term; it was a simple misrepresentation of what you said for reasons of his own. What they are - your guess is as good as mine.

I don't know whether I have ever taken exception to anything you have said, myself. I did, however, cite a couple of your posts in a thread about the Gates affair with approval recently in a private conversation with someone who had adopted the "racist cop" interpretation of events, over-hastily in my view as well.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

25. So Dave was just kidding me?

Is that it?

What am I missing?

You're siding with me, and telling me that you don't know why Dave posted what he did, is that right?

We can agree on this - Dave posted something inane to me, and I won't call it PC anymore. "Inane" seems to do the job nicely, OK?

And thanks for the kind words, and for taking the time here - not really necessary, but you think and write beautifully - to explain your friend's post.............................

[iverglas]

26. no

Dave was trying to derail the discussion. Read a couple of threads in this forum ...

If you read this excellent analysis:

http://www.scooterbbs.com/archive/anything/5004/0.html

and in particular the parts about phrases like "So, you're saying ...", you'll get an idea of the m.o.

The bit you may not be catching is that I am the hated resident socialistic radical-feminist Canuckistanian gun-grabber. Dave did propose to me once, I think, but only because he was jealous of some others in my large and ever-growing fan club. ;)

[Tangerine LaBamba]

28. Well, I like you,

but without reading that rather lengthy link you so kindly furnished, I think it's great that you're trying to make sense of what was idle and meaningless.

I spent a lifetime in courtrooms as a litigator, so I know a bit about leading discussions and angling techniques (no, not fishing), but, really, this is just not worth the time and energy it's consuming.

Thanks very much, though..........................

[iverglas]

30. well, all I did

was say to go ahead and call a spade a spade! and to ignore our Dave, at least that was what I meant.

I litigated less than persuaded, myself, having practised immigration for many years; persuasion just got one much further much faster almost all the time. My charming personality was my best asset. Just ask Dave. ;)

At some point, do read that article. It's a mirror for much of what one sees from a lot of self-described progressives hereabouts, unfortunately.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

31. I shall,

and thanks again .................

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

34. Now that's not nice. I wasn't trying to derail the discussion.

Given the facts and location it was likely at least some of the people involved were African American. I didn't want Tangerine to later be accused of something that she might have done innocuously. Since your attitude has improved you are much easier to be around.

David

[iverglas]

27. and btw

- see my post 18 in this thread - and to get the discussion back on track - aren't you a tad suspicious about a "neighbourhood party" where dice games were being played being targeted for armed robbery at 3:30 a.m.?

I know I am. ;)

[Tangerine LaBamba]

29. Suspicious?

No.

After all the criminals I've encountered in this life, I've never really been impressed by the intellect I've found there.

Someone heard of a dice game, decided it was easy money, busted in.

I've seen this on "The Sopranos," and heard about it in my little wild-west-type home town...................

[iverglas]

32. well yes indeed, the Sopranos

I'm not sure that I would have called one of their gatherings a "neighbourhood party", myself, you see.

Especially once I read that "everybody had pistols" at the party. ;)

Sometimes the resident gun militants are so eager to take every opportunity to advance the agenda that they fail to notice what they're posting. In the big real world, there might not be a lot of people who would be impressed by the fact that a bunch of guys engaged in a little illegal gambling were all carrying firearms.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

33. No, they're punks, thugs, wastes of life,

the ones I've known. Nothing there to admire, not at all.

On a tangent, I just read the article at your link, and it's a nice deconstruction of the crap that gets flung online. The writer took a good and careful look and wrote a very thoughtful and informed piece.

I don't have any trouble with people like that in real life, and online, well, I read the first line, I know what the rest will say, and they're best knocked off with one line - "Go read it again," or "Sorry, but I'm not in the business of remedial education."

The big words confuse them, but sometimes one rears back, a rapid infusion of testosterone overtaking him, and he bleats something about having bested me.

Of course, I am immediately shamed.

Anyway, thank you, and thanks for a most pleasant exchange...............................

[imdjh]

6. I think eating human would be nasty, even prepared like General Tso.

[paulsby]

13. i went to academy with a guy who had eaten human meat

he was a refugee from the killing fields. pretty incredible stories and an incredible life.

fwiw, human meat is also referred to as "long pork". supposedly it does taste similar to pork. medical experimentation often uses pigs because the flesh IS so similar.

[timeforpeace]

2. Gosh, that's just terrible.

[sasquatch]

3. The wolf must eat, so let him

[MadMaddie]

4. oh well....no sympathy for the thief here...

He even fired off warning shots....

[Mopar151]

10. Did'nt this guy ever listen to Jim Croce?

Bad, Bad Leroy Brown coulda figured this one out........

[proteus_lives]

11. No sympathy for thieves.

[oneshooter]

14. Where o where is sharesunited

To defend this poor fellow who fell under the hypnotic spell of a evil and malicious handgun. He was a saint, a fine fellow and a friend to all before this instrument of EVIL cast it's spell on him. /sarcasm/

Oneshooter
Livin in Texas

[rrneck]

15. Looks like a bad shoot.

Andre said the man was shot several times as he ran up the stairs and out of the house.

He was running away and got shot in the back. Looks like there was no longer a threat of serious injury or death to anyone there.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

16. Likely with an illegally possessed firearm.

[rrneck]

17. Now Dave, lets not be hasty.

Even though it was a basement crap game they were probably planning Fondue and a lengthy discussion of the works of Susan Sontag later.

[iverglas]

18. I'm having a déjà vu ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x89192#89248

edit - oh, I know nobody will click, so here's an idea:

iverglas
Tue Sep-28-04 04:15 PM
Response to Reply #19
25. for pity's sake

"I didnt see anything about an illegal poker game."

Are you saying that you think that it is legal to gamble in New York State (other than at state-operated or -approved gambling facilities) ... and that a card game at a social club was something other than a game being played for money at an illegal private gambling facility?

If this was a bunch of retired guys sitting around playing for matchsticks, can you think of some reason why two masked men - one armed with a shotgun, the other with a pistol - would have paid them a visit in the bloody first place?

Let's have an order of common sense for you, on the house. And some surgery to remove that unfortunate naïveté tumour you seem to have sprouted in your frontal lobe. (A diagnostic biopsy might be advisable first, to rule out the possibility that the growth is actually a disingenuousness tumour, which is more often malignant and almost always much more difficult to treat.)

I'll go right out on a limb here and say that the individual was just too obviously carrying the firearm while engaging in an illegal activity involving the presence of good-sized sums of money, precisely because he anticipated that somebody might come along and try to relieve him and his playmates of that money.

So hey, I guess what we have here is one of those "law-abiding gun owners", d'ya think? A guy who was entitled to obtain a permit to carry a concealed firearm, presumably on the basis that he had no criminal record. A guy who was, nonetheless, carrying said firearm in order to protect himself in a situation that involved an illegal activity and that was, quite simply, an open invitation to bad guys to attack him.

And we can distinguish him from one of those drug dealers who carry and use firearms for "protection" from others of their nasty ilk ... about whom we all care so little, and whom we dismiss so promptly when talking about firearms injuries and deaths and about who oughta have firearms and who oughtn't ... how?

Looks like a case of volenti non fit iniuria to me. You assume the risks of the activity you voluntarily choose to engage in, and you don't get to complain about the foreseeable consequences thereof.

And I just can't really see how anybody gets to carry firearms around while engaging in an illegal activity, to protect themselves from the other people who, extremely foreseeably, are likely to want a piece of their action.

This guy happened to actually hit the guy he shot at. Had the would-be robber accosted him, instead, as he was toddling home with his winnings, he might have missed and hit the five-year-old on the sidewalk, or the letter carrier, or somebody driving by. All because he needed "protection" from the foreseeable consequences of the illegal and very obviously dangerous activity that he voluntarily chose to engage in, and was permitted by the state to carry that "protection" around willy-nilly.

Excellent public policy, I have to say. With the most bitter sarcasm dripping from my fingers.

And ta to TX-RAT for pointing out the fairly obvious, which had quite escaped me, although I expect there were others whom it hadn't escaped: "Illegal poker game." Duh.

(And lest anyone leap on my "volenti non fit iniuria" comment as implying something it doesn't -- I was suggesting that the person engaged in an illegal activity who then shot someone attracted by that activity is the one who doesn't get to complain about being targeted for robbery, i.e. doesn't get to use potentially deadly force against someone while engaged in a criminal activity that was the reason s/he was targeted in the first place -- not that the one who got shot doesn't get to complain about getting shot.)



I wonder what would possess someone to think it would be a worthwhile endeavour to attempt to rob a "neighborhood party".

After all, any dice game being played at 3:30 a.m. at a neighbourhood party would surely have been for pennies.