Proof that guns SAVE lives.

If the video had been real, the man with the gun acted completely irresponsibly anyways.

Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that the video HAD been real:

Most people in a BMW also have a cell phone. He should have called the police and reported the harassment, in addition to what street he was on and where he was headed.

Instead, he leads the people into the middle of nowhere - intentionally - and then pulls a gun on them. He proceeds to rob them of their camera and their car keys.

At this point, he is not engaging in self defense - he's committing armed robbery and he's putting the lives of everyone involved in danger. If the end result were a shooting situation where somebody died, he could get first degree murder - leading them into the woods would prove premeditation!

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That being said, it's not the gun that commits crime or saves lives. It's the people who hold them. The only thing the gun does, is serve as that person's tool.

Premeditation? Armed robbery? You don't think that approaching someone with a baseball bat and verbally threatening them warrants the use of any defensive measure available?

People need to be able to protect themselves. Reliance on others to protect you will lead you down a painful and possibly lethal path.

Of course that warrants defending yourself.

The problem is, the guy pulled off into the middle of the woods and if the video were real, it would have been pretty clear that it was a trap.

So the other guy had a bat? It's not like the guy with the gun would have a way of knowing that. He lured people into the woods, pulled a gun on them, and stole their car keys and camera. Period.

And what's more, he didn't turn the camera in to the police as evidence, he kept it and used it to make YouTube videos. That's armed robbery, whether the other guy had a bat or not, because two wrongs don't make a right.

And if he had shot one of them, after luring them out there, pulling his gun, and stealing their property, he would have a tough time convincing a prosecutor that he somehow knew the other people were going to be armed. That throws the bat/self defense argument out the window. A Texas jury would probably buy it, but he could still be brought up on charges.

The armed robbery is solid though. If somebody threatens you with a bat, and you pull a gun on them and make them give you their wallet or their watch or something else, you've just used armed robbery as a form of revenge - NOT a form of self defense.

The only saving grace the man with the gun had was the fact that he took a camera which recorded the incident. Unfortunately, in order for that to hold up, he would have had to take it straight to the police. Taking the camera HOME, to post videos on YouTube mocking its' owners, and declaring that it's now *his* new camera, makes it theft.

Had he shot somebody in the act of that theft, even if first degree murder hadn't held up he could still get second degree murder for killing somebody during the commission of a crime.

It really doesn't matter if the guys "deserved it" for being grade-A jerks, nor does it matter that they were originally going to attack him. This country operates on justice, not revenge, and people need to know the difference.

You can defend yourself, and you have that right, but you can't commit armed robbery against somebody in retaliation for them attempting to assault you.

If you can't tell the difference between defense and robbery, I sure hope you don't own guns yourself.

[edit on 16-3-2009 by mattifikation]

I'll concede the armed robbery point. That, is reasonable enough and would probably hold up in a court of law; though i suspect it would only result in a slap on the wrist in this case. As for the whole premeditated trap, you can't really prove the intent in this case, the driver could simply have been unfamiliar with the area, nervous at being followed by angry rednecks, and got lost.

The reason I liked this vid was because as it progressed, I kept waiting for some act of god to deal with these jack-offs, maybe they would have gotten t-boned by a truck, or idiotically rear ended a police cruiser. Instead what I got was even better, because this guy dealt with his pursuers on his own, with no help from any outside power. That to me is the ultimate expression of freedom, self determination and personal power, which seems to be increasingly frowned on these days. We are not sheep relying on the protection of some beneficent shepherd, and we have every right to confront the wolves among us.