Implications of the Babbitt Shooting: Defend Yourself Freely

[Watchman]

The folks over at the John Locke Foundation (JLF) have had an analysis piece up for about two years now — a commentary on the DoJ’s pronouncement that officer Michael Byrd was justified in shooting dead the unarmed 115-lb. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt. First time I’ve seen it, and it well encapsulates what bothers me about the paperwork end of that miserable case. Here’s what I see as the money paragraph:

Legal experts and the media have avoided the obvious implications of the two reviews in the Babbitt shooting. Under this standard, hundreds of rioters could have been gunned down on Jan. 6 — and officers in cities such as Seattle or Portland, Ore., could have killed hundreds of violent protesters who tried to burn courthouses, took over city halls or occupied police stations during last summer’s widespread rioting. In all of those protests, a small number of activists from both political extremes showed up prepared for violence and pushed others to riot. According to the DOJ’s Byrd review, officers in those cities would not have been required to see a weapon in order to use lethal force in defending buildings. …

— Jon Guze
Senior Fellow, Legal Studies, John Locke Foundation

https://www.johnlocke.org/was-michael-b ... justified/

No clue who that guy is, and I’m not too familiar with JLF. I did a bare minimum of diligence and found that JLF is respected on the right, despised by the left, and nobody claims to have them tied to any groups more unsavory than Ricochet. So they would seem at first glance to be our kind of people. It certainly is my kind of analysis.

Okay, the facts and an interpretation are stated above. Now for the implications, and this is just my take. This is a bit of a ramble — I gotta get out the door, and I’d rather hit POST than wait and never get back to it. So keep in mind that this could probably use work, and that I’m not your lawyer: READ FULL ARTICLE HERE