# Take you opinion, your skepticism, and your tragic excuse for reason and shove em. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 9, 2009, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187 "2009-06-09T05:12:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/161 "2009-06-10T15:17:28Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Except that, if the details are sufficiently inaccurate, it stops being relevant to the thread topic. For example, if my hypothetical origin for your story is accurate, then your story no longer supports the idea that it’s better to finish off a wounded criminal than let him escape. How so? Even if the only true things are two armed robbers come in , one is wounded not killed, and later harms employee, doesn’t that make the point? > [@](#): > > Sorry, I guess I wasn’t clear: I do think that the story, as you presented it, is incredibly implausible. Not impossible, but I don’t think any reasonable person should accept it at face value. I’ve said several times that I wouldn’t expect anyone to accept a post on a message board without question. > [@](#): > > Particularly since you’ve added the detail that the rapist had been shot in the hip. Criminals do all sorts of stupid and illogical things, sure, but raping someone with a bullet in your pelvis violates a pretty simple reptile-brain aversion to pain, which makes me very skeptical about either your source, or your own recollection of the story you were told. > > The purpose of my theoretical original story is to demonstrate how an actual, believable event might have led to the ridiculous story you offered here without anyone purposefully lying along the way. I did not intend it as a defense for offering ridiculous, unsubstantiated stories as datapoints in a legitimate debate, which is a practice I strongly oppose. So in the category of armed shootouts between civilians and robbers in which one might expect to find events that are hard to believe or understand as rational my abbreviated story was just ridiculous? It’s obvious people seem to think that way. I prefer the stance of I don’t have adequate information to make a judgment call. There’s no need to believe it, and equally none to piss all over it. IMHO especially since we were already discussing a rather bizarre unlikely but none the less true event. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/162 "2009-06-10T15:28:34Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > ## Is that a mostly accurate summary? yes > [@](#): > > My positions: > > –If someone after watching the video has enough sympathy for the pharmacist to defend his actions --beyond simply noting that there may be extenuating circumstances-- that person has very questionable judgement. (And recent evidence indicates the pharmacist has a fanatic personality.) > > * * * > > So did you already understand all my positions? All except this one. I don’t think having sympathy for a man who’s life was being threatened during an armed robbery and was then thrust into a tragic situation is questionable judgment at all. I am also able to recognize the tragedy of a young teen being killed in a moment of bad judgment. I feel sympathy for his parents who lost a son. I don’t feel sympathy for the adults who talked those kids into committing the robbery. Other than that, we disagree and there;s no need to keep hashing it out. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/163 "2009-06-10T15:32:07Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > I don’t think having sympathy for a man who’s life was being threatened during an armed robbery and was then thrust into a tragic situation is questionable judgment at all. He shot the kid in the head the first time because he was scared. I have sympathy, or empathy. He shot him an additional 5 times because he was pissed. Fuck him. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/164 "2009-06-10T15:37:02Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Okay, let’s totally leave aside the issue of whether the story is true or not, and simply deal with your assertion that “a wounded criminal can still hurt others”. > > This is, of course, unarguable. A statement of absolute fact. > > Unfortunately, it’s utterly meaningless. So what if he can “still hurt others”? That means you’d better finish him off quick? Where do you draw the line, though? How long are you allowed to kill him for? Just until the police arrive? Until he’s arraigned? Convicted? > > By your logic, you’d better be outside the jail waiting for him to be released, because once’s he’s out of prison he can still hurt others. The whole case is about where the line is drawn. That’s why there’s a debate. Do you know for sure because I’ll admit I don’t. I was speaking only about self defense during the commission of a crime. I’d say you stop defending yourself when you are fairly certain the perp is no longer a threat to you or others. That might vary from individual to individual in a heated moment. We can’t expect civilians to react like trained officers. > [@](#): > > If you don’t have any self-control, don’t buy a gun. I have absolute sympathy for the pharmacist for what he went through. I have no sympathy for what he did. I understand that. Because of more recent info in other links I’ve conceded in the other thread. The scales have been tipped for me against Ersland. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/165 "2009-06-10T15:37:24Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > I don’t feel sympathy for the adults who talked those kids into committing the robbery. > > Other than that, we disagree and there;s no need to keep hashing it out. Who has expressed sympathy for the adults who talked those kids into committing the robbery? Who? Who are you disagreeing with on this point? ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/166 "2009-06-10T15:43:17Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > I understand that. Because of more recent info in other links I’ve conceded in the other thread. The scales have been tipped for me against Ersland. Glad to see that it was a just a case of needing to have evidence pointed out that was somehow overlooked in your first perusal of the facts. I’ll offer a tentative “welcome back” to you. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/167 "2009-06-10T15:47:02Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > If you don’t have any self-control, don’t buy a gun. BTW If someone has a gun at work because there’s crime in their neighborhood and they’ve been robbed before and they would like not to be robbed and or killed, when exactly are they supposed to find out how much self control they will have in a shootout? ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/168 "2009-06-10T15:52:17Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Glad to see that it was a just a case of needing to have evidence pointed out that was somehow overlooked in your first perusal of the facts. I’ll offer a tentative “welcome back” to you. I read the first links a couple of times and saw that the ME said Parker was alive but it didn’t specifically say the ME said he was unconscious. It said the prosecuter claimed that. The link **emcee** provided did say that but it wasn’t one of the early ones was it? Regardless, I concede the point. I also promise to halt any hostilities toward you. We disagreed and it got a little carried away. No harm done? ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/169 "2009-06-10T15:53:28Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Who has expressed sympathy for the adults who talked those kids into committing the robbery? Who? Who are you disagreeing with on this point? Nobody. I’m just saying since the subject was feeling or not feeling sympathy. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/170 "2009-06-10T17:33:24Z")
> [@jimpatro](#): > > … Being hit by his own casings may have caused him to think he was grazed by a bullet. Right, how’s that work when the gun in his hand, the one he shot Parker in the head with and the only gun visible in Ersland’s hand(s) during the “shoot-out”, was a REVOLVER??? Didn’t actually bother to watch the videos did ya? CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/171 "2009-06-10T17:45:25Z")
From the link up-thread, > [@](#): > > … He {Ersland} also has given accounts of his actions that conflict with surveillance video of the shooting. > > **He told an Oklahoma City TV station, KFOR, he had a gun in each hand at one point.**"Yes, I had to,” he said. "They were shooting at me from both sides so I shot at them from both sides as well.” > > In the video, he can be seen shooting one robber in the head and chasing a second robber from the store. **The video shows** he returns to the store, puts his gun down and gets out a second gun from a drawer. He uses the second gun to shoot the wounded robber again. **He never had both guns at the same time.** … Either Ersland is right or the video is, which is more likely? CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/172 "2009-06-10T17:51:00Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > How so? Even if the only true things are two armed robbers come in , one is wounded not killed, and later harms employee, doesn’t that make the point? Not if the harm happens _before_ the criminal is wounded, as described in my alternative scenario. > [@](#): > > I prefer the stance of I don’t have adequate information to make a judgment call. There’s no need to believe it, and equally none to piss all over it. IMHO especially since we were already discussing a rather bizarre unlikely but none the less true event. Personally, I like that there’s a very low tolerance for bullshit in GD, and that instances of bullshit are met so ferociously. And I do think your anecdote has mutated sufficiently from its origins so as to be classified as bullshit. As with all the other posters to this thread, I am open to correction on that point, if you can provide evidence that I’m wrong. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/173 "2009-06-10T18:20:16Z")
[QUOTE] > [@Miller](#): > > Not if the harm happens _before_ the criminal is wounded, as described in my alternative scenario. Ahhh I guess I missed that. > [@](#): > > Personally, I like that there’s a very low tolerance for bullshit in GD, and that instances of bullshit are met so ferociously. And I do think your anecdote has mutated sufficiently from its origins so as to be classified as bullshit. As with all the other posters to this thread, I am open to correction on that point, if you can provide evidence that I’m wrong. Fair enough. Since my friend has declined to make any effort to prove his honesty to strangers I doubt that will happen. I’ve seen a lot of GD threads get derailed by focusing on irrelevant details. I suppose I should have just asked the skeptics to consider it a hypothetical and respond to the point being made rather than the details of the story. I still maintain the point that trying to apply the standard rules of reason and logic to extraordinary events like this is an affront to logic and that’s what set me off. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/174 "2009-06-10T18:22:59Z")
To clarify-if you present a story that is 90% absolute bullshit, pointing out the ten percent that isn’t doesn’t make it stink any less, especially when you can’t(and actually see no need to) varify _any_ of it. The only reason you repeated this stinking pile of fertilizer without even questioning it is that it supported a position you already held. Just because you don’t have the cojones to call your buddy on his tall tales is no reason to believe we’d follow suit. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/175 "2009-06-10T18:31:30Z")
Not to mention that the story has dick to do with point being argued. Unless the Ho-Jo Commando was shot in the head and unconscious before he got back up and raped someone. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/176 "2009-06-10T18:49:38Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > BTW If someone has a gun at work because there’s crime in their neighborhood and they’ve been robbed before and they would like not to be robbed and or killed, when exactly are they supposed to find out how much self control they will have in a shootout? Send in a test robber. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/177 "2009-06-10T18:56:07Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > Not to mention that the story has dick to do with point being argued. Unless the Ho-Jo Commando was shot in the head and unconscious before he got back up and raped someone. Better late than never? ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/178 "2009-06-10T18:57:44Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Send in a test robber. It was funnier when I glanced at it and thought you said rubber, but it’s still pretty funny. 🙂 Actually, that’s kinda what happened in the actual event. The two teenagers were test robbers for the adults who talked them into it. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/179 "2009-06-10T19:00:00Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > To clarify-if you present a story that is 90% absolute bullshit, pointing out the ten percent that isn’t doesn’t make it stink any less, especially when you can’t(and actually see no need to) varify _any_ of it. The only reason you repeated this stinking pile of fertilizer without even questioning it is that it supported a position you already held. Just because you don’t have the cojones to call your buddy on his tall tales is no reason to believe we’d follow suit. You’re incorrect and not a mind reader. That is all. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2009, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187/180 "2009-06-10T19:08:28Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > Better late than never? A stitch in time saves nine? 😕 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-you-opinion-your-skepticism-and-your-tragic-excuse-for-reason-and-shove-em/499187.md?page=10)