I’m not saying it’s right to pull out a .380 and tag a dude in the arm because he won’t STFU during a movie. But I understand the impulse. It was the wrong thing to do, of course. Very wrong. But I bet the victim will shut his yap during the movie next time.
Yeah, I would never shoot someone for something that trivial. However, I am glad that some fear will be instilled into those types that need an actual reason to be respectful human beings.
You’re saying it’s the movie talker, not the shooter, is the nonrespectful human being? Not sure I agree with that interpretation, Scogg. I’m not gonna lie - the idea of this incident is funny, but when you consider the dad got shot for defending his family and you don’t know what the guy would’ve done if the dad hadn’t stood up, that’s not so funny.
If you’ll excuse the triple negative, Scoggy never said that the shooter wasn’t nonrespectful.
I can see where the OP is coming from, but yeah, shooting someone because they and their family talk too much really isn’t an appropriate response (nor was throwing popcorn at them previously, another solution the shooter tried along with telling them to be quiet).
In any case, the cops arrested the shooter before he could finish the movie. Hopefully would-be gunmen will think twice because of that before opening fire during a showing of some movie they want to see.
I went to see Benjamin Button last night and there was a disrespectful ass in our nearly packed theater who decided that the cinema was an ideal place to take phone calls. After lots of unsuccessful attempts at getting him to cease (cursing and complaining from all parts of the theater) a lady walked over to him and made him take his call outside. My friend sent me the link to the article in the OP shortly after we returned from the movie. We decided that the movie must bring out the scumbag in people.
I have never wanted to peg someone in the head so badly before. He was talking like he was at home. I can barely tolerate people adding their own commentary but taking phone calls is ridiculous. Just go outside.
The impulse I understand, but jeez, doesn’t anyone just give a good old fashioned beatdown anymore?
I hope he used a suppressor otherwise he was just as rude. :eek:
But of course your smart shooter would know that the US runtime is 159 minutes and would plug the talker close enough to the end to not be in the police response window.
Alright “yakking” means something completely different in my book.
Reading the tittle I thought to myself: “Poor guy, gets sick in a theater then someone shoots him for it.”
I believe in the rule of law. Didn’t at least the better movie theatres, once upon a time, hire ushers who would actually eject people for being noisy?
As soon as I get a big-screen HDTV with a decent sound system, I might never go to the flicks again. For the price of two tickets and two sodas, we could buy a DVD.
As a service to non-talking patrons the theatre could place a Simpsonesque sign outside:
No talkers shot during a movie for 8 days.
Yes, but in the era of the 24 screen multiplex, think of how much the national chains would be shelling out in wages to station an usher in every screen. No way are they going to cut into their bottom lines like that - they’ve discovered that people want to see the movie they’ve just paid $10+ for so only egregious misbehavior will get someone out of their seat to come find a staffer to try to get someone spoken to/ejected, and that’s fine by them. They couldn’t care less if people actually enjoy the films, so long as they’ve paid. And if they complain after the fact about other people’s behavior, they’ll get rebuffed with “you should’ve said something while it was going on, we can’t do anything for you now.”
What, you can’t complain to management anymore? Or did he already try that?
Well, the problem is that, in the absence of staff in the actual theater, in order to complain you have to drag your ass out to the lobby, thus missing another 5-10 minutes of the movie which the talking asshole is already ruining for you.
Like the OP, i abhor the response in this case, but i understand the impulse behind it.
This guy’s nuts and a probably low-level mob associate, to judge by the looks of him, so here’s guessing he didn’t bother with a solution other than throwing popcorn and reaching for his piece.
Of course I can’t actually advocate for shooting noisy theatre patrons, but I can totally understand how this can happen.
A few years ago, I was at a showing of Nacho Libre, with a ball-cap wearing idiot a couple rows ahead of me that kept talking on his phone – and I don’t mean just taking calls (which is bad enough, of course,) but he sat there and dialed out. He ignored a few quiet admonishments from the people sitting behind him.
My blood boiled - of course it was impossible to watch the movie with that going on. I snapped, and eventually went over and told him “Put your phone away and don’t take it out again, or I’ll drag you outside and break your fucking arm.” The kid (he was maybe twenty years old) looked at me with this gormless expression on his face for a couple of seconds, and then one of the guys sitting behind him stood up and said in his ear, “I’ll hold you down while he does it.” He didn’t talk on the phone for the rest of the movie. I’m surprised he stayed there.
I think it would have been worse if I was carrying a weapon.
It’s a little bit paradoxical, but I firmly believe that we would have a much more civil society if people weren’t so quite so reluctant to dole out a few beatings when it’s appropriate. That kind of crap should be nipped in the bud/kicked in the 'nads.
A couple of years ago, there was a local murder. A woman in an apartment building was in the habit of playing her (television? stereo?) as loud as hell. An older neighbor had asked her many times to keep it down. Reportedly, her response was “Go away, crazy old man - you can’t tell me what to do.” So he snapped and came back and shot and killed her. The local paper posted the story and a columnist wrote a kind of smarmy “why can’t we all just get along” bit about the incident.
He reported later that he was inundated with e-mails coming down on the side of the old man, and that this was an incident of justifiable homicide! There must be countless people who sit and fume about rude oblivious noisy assholes - and fantasize about blowing them away. Except the guy in the OP didn’t fantasize.
That’s definitely true. I think people here are assuming this family was actually that annoying, but my guess is, a guy who throws popcorn and shoots a man for talking at a theater probably isn’t very patient. 
Due to an old football injury, arthritis, and balance issues, I need to use a cane or walking stick to help me get around. People are AMAZINGLY polite to me, even though I usually don’t threaten to hit anyone* with my stick. It’s almost five feet long, and looks rather menacing.
There’s an old saying that in order to train a mule, first you have to get the mule’s attention. Sometimes with a 2x4. While I don’t condone unnecessary violence, like Lord Vetinari, I am right alongside necessary violence. Too many people are accustomed to going about their business without worrying if they are annoying to other people.
Of course the other side of having the occasional righteous beatdown is the acceptance of unrighteous beatdowns, for being black, or gay, or whatever, in the wrong side of town.
I think that maybe we should recruit some old fashioned grannies and give them tasers, to use as needed for common courtesy to become common again.
*Except my husband. But he doesn’t count.