Wow, I'm actually writing something here again after months of neglecting it. In the beginning I thought I might actually be able to make some money at this if at any point I got enough subscribers. But paying subscribers naturally expect regular new content for their money, and I can’t imagine anyone paying somebody who takes almost a quarter of a year* between posts.
Well, if nothing else, this gives me a place to write stuff that would normally take multiple tweets, and saves me the trouble of taking however many seconds or minutes I'd need to learn how to use TwitLonger…
All right, without further ado, I’m gonna write about two cases today wherein someone claimed to be in fear of his life and responded by firing a gun. We’ll start with the oldest one.
In 1984, I was seven years old and not interested in the news, so I didn’t hear about any of this until later in my life. Some of you were younger. Some of you weren’t born yet. Some of you were older and remember hearing about this when it happened. (Or maybe just one person is bothering to read this at all and it’s just one of those things.)
In 1984, this dude named Bernie Goetz was on the subway in NYC and he shot four black men.
Why did he do that?
Well, according to Goetz, he got mugged previously. It wasn’t fun. He didn’t want to be mugged again, so he started carrying a firearm.
Fast forward a few years, and Goetz gets approached on the subway by these four black guys. Accounts over the years have varied as to what happened next, with even the ones I remember being contradicted by Wikipedia there. (And although Wikipedia has been contaminated in recent years by the likes of “Phillip Cross”, I figure I can trust it for a story like this.) Anyway, let’s get into the details.
These guys asked Goetz for money. They would later claim they were panhandling. Goetz would say that it was a demand and that they obviously intended to hurt him if he didn’t comply.
So, Goetz shot them all. Bear in mind that despite the threat, if that’s what it was, none of those men had become violent yet.
On top of that, one of the things I remember hearing years ago (but which Wikipedia now says is debunked, and I wonder whether that’s true or not—maybe I can’t actually trust it for a story like this? Or maybe it was never true) was that when one of the guys was down after being shot once, Goetz walked over to him and said he could use another, before shooting him again.
I’m writing this article to explain why I felt the way I did about that shooting back when I heard what were (I thought) accurate accounts, and why I feel the way I do about the Rittenhouse shooting now despite feeling the opposite way about it when I first heard about it. And so, the next thing I’m going to do with regard to Mr. Goetz and his victims is to go over my thought process after I heard about the incident years after it happened…
Okay, does it matter that Goetz got mugged prior to that day? No, I felt. It doesn’t.
Does it matter whether or not the men intended to take his money and/or hurt him? No, it doesn’t.
Does it matter that Bernie Goetz went into a subway station just like the one where he got mugged before, and can the argument be made that any violence which ensued from him doing that is on him because he entered a dangerous area with a lethal weapon? No, that doesn’t matter either and that argument doesn’t fly, although I do still believe him to be guilty of attempted murder and other serious charges, and I’ll tell you why. (I know that most New Yorkers kind of have to use the subway, but even if Goetz drove way out into the boonies, to someplace dangerous there, with a lethal weapon, the same argument still wouldn’t fly.)
Here’s why the Goetz incident wasn’t a justified shooting: none of the men did anything more than get close to him and talk to him. Goetz himself says that he fired as soon as he got his gun out.
It would have been one thing if he drew it and said “All right, back the fuck off! Get away from me, because if you try to do anything to me I will use this!” And then waited to see whether they backed the fuck off or ignored his warning.
That was not what he chose to do.
And the reasons why he chose to draw and immediately shoot all four of them don’t matter.
There is one question in cases like these. ONLY one question.
“Was the shooter being attacked, or not?”
If the answer is yes, he was being attacked, then he is justified in opening fire.
If the answer is no, he was not being attacked, then he is not justified in opening fire.
It is exactly that simple. That is the difference between self-defense and murder. (Or, in the Goetz case where fortunately nobody actually died, attempted murder, assault, etc.)
Everybody who wants to talk about what kind of person Goetz was, what he wrote in his diary (since this was long before social media), whether he had expressed hatred for black people in the past or not, what his politics were…none of that shit matters one iota. Same goes for people who want to talk about what kind of people the alleged would-be muggers were, what they’d done or said in the past, and so on. Does not matter one iota.
Okay?
Again, for those of you who missed it the first time: the ONLY relevant set of facts is whether or not the shooter was being attacked, and that is the ONLY thing that determines whether or not it’s a case of self-defense.
Goetz wasn’t being attacked, so it wasn’t self-defense, and he shouldn’t have walked. That has always been my feeling. If he was traumatized then I have some sympathy for that, but if his trauma caused him to freak out and act with excessive force to a situation that up to that point had not become violent, then he demonstrated himself to be a danger to the community. He demonstrated himself to be the kind of person who was prone to shooting people without cause.
Now, let’s compare that to Rittenhouse.
All the things I said did not matter one iota in the Goetz case don’t matter with Rittenhouse either.
It doesn’t matter what his politics were, why he went to Kenosha, what he wrote or said before…none of it.
It’s all just as irrelevant, and the SOLE QUESTION is the same as in the Goetz case:
“Was the shooter being attacked when he shot?”
Well, the first guy he shot lunged at him. I’ve been told this by people who think Rittenhouse should be behind bars.
In that case, the shooter was being attacked when he shot, therefore it was self-defense. So that’s one question answered.
The second guy he shot was hitting him with a skateboard.
In that case as well, the shooter was being attacked when he shot, therefore it was self-defense. So that’s two questions answered.
The third guy had a gun. Accounts I’ve seen so far differ as to whether he actually drew it. If he had drawn it, then that could be taken as an attack with him drawing it to fire, perhaps. Or perhaps not, and perhaps it only becomes an attack once the trigger is pulled.
At any rate, Rittenhouse shot that guy too. Was THAT self-defense? I don’t know enough to confidently say at this time.
And that is why I say that if Rittenhouse should be charged with ANYTHING at all, it should be in relation to the events of the third shooting. Because maybe he actually WAS the aggressor in that instance.
But the first two? He wasn’t at fault. It was open and shut both of those times.
For the final time: there is only ONE relevant question in all three cases. That question has been answered twice, without any room for argument.
* Actually more like a sixth of a year; I forgot about the 9/11 post. But still much too long
UPDATE: Reading this over again, I guess I really didn’t need to make the same point three separate times as if I thought the average reader would be some kind of imbecile whom it wouldn’t register with the first time. I don’t think I should delete those parts since this thing has been up for a while and I don’t want to pretend that I never wrote what I wrote, but I do apologize for coming across like a condescending, self-righteous prick if that’s how I came across. I’ve got another post swirling around in my head about why we act the way we act, and I might talk about this more in that one.
SECOND UPDATE: Since I wrote this, I’ve learned a lot more about the events of that night. I wasn’t clear on what the third guy, Grosskreutz, did and didn’t do. I know now. He advanced on Rittenhouse while Rittenhouse was still on the ground. Rittenhouse noticed him and pointed the rifle at him. He stopped advancing and raised his hands, making no threatening moves. Rittenhouse did not fire. All of this was caught on video, by the way. After a moment, Grosskreutz lowered his hands and pulled out his gun. Rittenhouse saw this and, understandably feeling that things might end badly for him if he let Grosskreutz draw and aim his gun and still on the ground (in no position to flee), fired the rifle.