Well, the left is now deeply concerned about their 2A rights, so we're clearly leaps and bounds beyond clown world.

6 minutes ago, busdriver said:

I think both incidents change in my mind depending on where I put the "start of the incident."

In the second case (keep this shortish). If I just focus on this: a dude gets in a physical altercation with cops. One sees he's has a gun, then a gun shot is heard. Pretty hard. I think by most precedent, that's a lawful shoot. BUT. I think in this case, you could argue that the cop started the physical altercation by shoving the woman into the ground. If you buy that, then the premise of self defense falls apart. Basically, what is a proportionate response by law enforcement to people standing in the street and getting in the way?

All that said, the protestors are clearly engaging in civil disobedience, not just protest. Given the the history of successful civil disobedience hinges on getting the state to respond with disproportionate force, this should have been entirely predictable. ICE has handled all of this very poorly. If the goal was lots of deportations, this will end up being a failure. If the goal was a political show of force, it has backfired.

In any event, physically getting in the way of law enforcement and not expecting force is just dumb.

I think your absolutely right that "start of the incident." is where a lot of opinions diverge. Was filming "interference"? The statute on interference seems to leave a lot of room for interpretation. Kind of like "disorderly conduct". Pretty easy to charge but in the end will it stick? From a cop's perspective it just made somebody's life miserable justified or not and nothing will happen to the cop. You can beat the rap but not the ride. I don't see any justification for shoving the woman to the ground and Mr. Pretti came to her defense and right or wrong it cost him his life. Either way I don't see shooting Mr. Pretti in the back while he was on the ground as justified and certainly not the next multiple rounds. Of course, the agent(s) has probably already sat with an attorney to come up with his statement on what he needs to say and not say and what he "perceived" at the moment. No way to prove otherwise and it really can justify just about any use of deadly force. I'll tell you this I trust federal law enforcement no matter who they are a lot less now. Very hard to hold them accountable. Not absolute immunity but from a practical standpoint pretty close. State and local law enforcement have their leadership in reasonable proximity to who they serve and can answer to the actions of their employees. Federal not so much. I don't see any federal charges against these agents if for no other reason than I'm sure they'll get a pre-emptive pardon. In my mind DHS is coming very close to a national police force that can be used against anyone depending on the political winds.

To go more macro, there are cities with more deportations than Minne, but none of the Minne BS going on. Why is that? Well, it’s because these aren’t grassroots protests. This isn’t normal Americans who just really love illegal aliens. This is a calculated insurgency-style operation that is well organized, equipped, and funded. There are big actors behind this with the ultimate goal of delegitimizing the gov and hoping to instill increased support for communist/marxist values.

The agitators are useful idiots. They’re petulant children who didn’t get their way in the election, and despite a vast majority of Americans demanding deportations and voting for it in Nov 24, these people don’t care. The left either gets their president/policies, or they’ll hold cities hostage via riot and unrest until they get what they want…or hopefully for all of us reasonable people, they get what they deserve this time around (held accountable for breaking the law).

On the ICE actions front, I’ll say this: I’m always skeptical of the fed gov and our rights - I am far from a “worship the gov” guy. But I also know what it’s like to be in situations where you have milliseconds to make life/death decisions. So while there are issues and bad apples in any organization, including ICE, I also have to say a big GO FUCK YOURSELF to every douche bag out there who hasn’t been in a situation like mentioned above and has the luxury of freeze framing videos from multiple angles over and over.

Edited 57 minutes ago57 min by brabus