America. I’ve lived with, worked with black people and instructed black children. No one has ever acted afraid of me.
I call BS.
I’m sorry, but I don’t want anyone interrogating me or my kid in a place they have every right to be, doing what they have every right to do. Unless they are being a active nusiance, the assumption should be that they belong where they are.
Asking someone to explain what they are doing there is begging for a smartass response, anyway. “I’m breathing, that’s what. Now mind your fucking business.”
And so this means that black people can’t be afraid of whites?
You do realize that interrogating you is ALSO something that someone else has “every right to do,” right?
This is what it seems many people in this thread are missing–armed civilians can patrol neighborhoods whether anyone in this thread wants them to do so or not.
I’ve reported this to the mods. Let’s see what happens (any guesses?).
That rather depends on how you define “interrogating”.
He seemed to shut the fuck up when I pointed out that I was at least part way to gay…
Of course. Everything depends on how you define everything.
You’re misreading…well, some people are engaging in the same sort of exaggeration they decry in others. This issue has never been about gun control to me but I think 2nd amendment rights people have flocked to it in defense of “Stand Your Ground”.
Even if you’re correct (and you’re not…an interrogation becomes harrassment the instant someone tells you stop bothering them and you continue…and if you’re doing it aggressively, it could be construed as assault), I posted that I wouldn’t want anyone interrogating me or my kid. That shouldn’t get anyone labled as “self inflated”. It makes them like most peace-loving people.
There are other things that people arelegally allowed to do that the vast majority would find intolerable if done to them:
- being leered at
- being asked for a lewd sexual favor by a stranger on the street
- having one’s personal space violated (e.g. standing unnecessarily close to someone)
- being ignored if in need of emergency assistance
People might have the right to do these things , but for some reason I doubt anyone complaining will be regarded as anything except sane. So why should someone be accepting when a busybody asks them to explain what they are doing somewhere? Why does that make them smart-assy and self-inflated?
Thanks. It’s clear we all filter through our experiences.
I listened to the President’s brief talk today.
I’ll reread in light of your response.
We’re talking about police and authority figures here ywtf. If you have children and tell them that this is an appropriate response you certainly aren’t contributing to their safety.
You can think it’s about race but where I live any teen-ager running at night is apt to get stopped and questioned. Made my daughter late for curfew one night. And that’s why she was running. :smack:
My son was stopped running with some friends once and frisked! The police took his pocket knife.
Totally unfair. The police were out of bounds. I still wouldn’t advise my kids at that age to smart off to the police. It’s hard for young people to learn to chose their battles wisely and as long as they are not being harmed it’s safer for them to be respectful to authority.
There is a huge difference between being stopped by a uniformed public peace officer and some dude who suddenly makes it his business to question you. The latter is not acceptable.
This is my concern. Any fool can learn to shoot straight. It takes a lot of training and experience to be able to assess a situation, often under stressful circumstances (i.e., darkness), identify a target, evaluate the situation under rules of engagement, determine the correct action, and take the correct action, all in a matter of seconds. Even the professionals sometimes get this wrong. How can someone with a day or two of firearms safety training get it right?
You’d think that would be obvious by the thread title.
I live in a large city (Philly), and the cops would shut that down pretty quickly.
OK fine. If you understand that you are only expressing your preferences, then that’s OK, you can like or not like whatever you want. But it seemed like you were doing more than that, like you were saying that there was some objective wrongness to a person questioning your kid, and you based that claim of objective wrongness on the fact that your kid had a legal right to be there. If that were the case, then your argument collapses in on itself because the questioner has a legal right to question.
I’ll illustrate it this way.
Someone stops and questions your kid. You say to that person “why are you questioning my kid? My kid has a legal right to be there.”
Similarly, I am saying to you “why are you questioning that person questioning your kid? They have a legal right to question your kid.”
Well, Sparky?
Neither is the former, unless predicated upon reasonable, articulable suspicion of crime.
As long as you are free to disregard the inquiry and go about your business, there’s no harm.
“Some dude” has every right to ask me a question. The moment “some dude” crosses the legal line is when he restricts my liberty of movement.
The law is not the sole consideration in society, Bricker. Just because “some dude” has the legal right to do something is not where it ends.