There are no "sides", it's just two (or 4) *******s. Yelling and screaming at the lady for bumping into the daughter was out of line. Getting out of the car and pointing the gun was out of line. The latter was escalating an already ridiculous situation into a potentially deadly one. Everyone involved should face charges.
Of course there were two sides.
I never said either side was innocent. They're both guilty, but for different reasons.
I haven't watched any videos so as to allow my opinion to be generalized and untainted by this particular case: who in their right mind brandishes a gun over a stupid argument? Unless I felt my physical safety was threatened, escalating the situation with a gun is just asking for trouble.
If you haven't watched them, then your opinion is based on what you've seen the rest of us post, and it's obvious that we're all over the map. If you would watch them, you could form your opinion based on what
they said and did, not only on how we've reacted.
(bolding mine)
I empathize quite a lot with the (for lack of better label) "white couple". One, yes, my initial reaction to bumping anyone is to apologize. My initial reaction to general emotionally-charged hostility is to leave the area. My initial reaction to being insulted is to explain why the insult doesn't apply. And oh by the way, yes I have (and occasionally do) carry a concealed pistol.
I've watched the initial video, I've not watched the explanation by the white woman afterward. First off, I want to offer a third reason to you about why she got out of the car with her pistol pointed at them. She appeared to have just spent the time leaving the store being neutral and de-escalating; being called names and instead of responding in kind, attempting to clarify, things like "you shouldn't call people racist". Meanwhile they're saying 'get the license plate number' and 'call the police' (two things that take five seconds to do, especially the getting the tag number, when you're already running a videocamera). The minivan starts backing up, not particularly abruptly. It hits the person after it's backed up three or four meters, the shot doesn't show the whole bit of backing so we don't know if the driver hit the gas or not. At that point, driving off makes them guilty of a hit-and-run, and really aside from anything else, if someone is actually injured, no matter who is at fault they should *not* drive off.
I didn't see where the van hit anyone. In that case, shouldn't someone have mentioned having a doctor check the person out? I never heard the word "doctor" or "paramedic" once in that video. All I heard was a screechy woman throwing around racist epithets and calling the white couple (who were not yelling racist insults) "racists".
At this point I will say that I sympathize with the woman in the van when she expresses how upsetting it is to be called something she is not. I've been on the receiving end of accusations of being racist just for pointing out that I wasn't responsible for the residential school system here in Canada, nor do I consider myself a "colonizer" because I was born here, my parents were born here, and one of my grandparents was born here. Them telling me to "go home, colonizer" is really off-putting, particularly since I have made a point of including indigenous issues as factors that help me decide who to vote for or which side to take in referendum votes. Besides which, I
am home. Granted, my ancestry doesn't go back over ten thousand years on this continent, and I haven't been oppressed as they have. I don't get kicked out of stores and restaurants merely for being white. But I'm also not the person they should be ranting at, because I am not one of those doing the oppressing.
It sounds like similar thoughts or feelings are at least in the background of what the white woman was thinking. It's annoying, hurtful, and off-putting to be accused of something you're not, particularly in such an aggressive way.
"Somebody may have just gotten hurt because of these idiots, it's time to take control of this situation."
She knows she's getting videotaped. She gets out, draws (as near as I can tell her finger stays off the trigger), and she's yelling at them to call the police. And then she comes to the conclusion that holding a bunch of people at gunpoint until police arrive is not the best approach, she's seen that the person that was on the ground before no longer is, realizes she's got no really good options, and leaves.
A couple thoughts from a gun-nut. She appears to keep her finger off the trigger. Flashing a pistol from inside the car really is escalating the situation instead of controlling it. Getting out and showing a pistol on one's hip, or drawing and keeping it at one's side, ditto; it could lead someone to rush her (and she won't get that pistol up in time if they do). Sure there's the idea that someone (who currently is not getting a pistol pointed at them) may rush her, but even an exceptionally stupid person would know they'd be risking that pistol-pointee in doing so.
I'm going to have to watch the video again, because you noticed a lot of things I didn't.
I won't and can't rule out that she's a homicidal maniac just itching for an excuse to blow away an uppity black BLMer, or a terrified blackophobe thinking they're about to burn the car and rape them both. But "call the police" is not something I'd expect either of those sorts of personality to yell, more likely something movie-ish like "how about I teach you a lesson about respect you xxxxxxxxxxx" or "you get away from me or I'll blow your head off".
If she was looking for an excuse to kill someone, she would have fired the gun. She had plenty of time, and the situation was tense enough that some people would have. I'm fairly sure that the last sentence - threatening to kill someone - is illegal, isn't it?
That said, I don't think she was in fear for her (or the white guy's) life at that point, and that puts her actions into a grey area at absolute best, or in legal terms, that there were some mitigating circumstances.
That's the thing, though. If you were in that situation, you would not have feared for your life (let's leave aside the fact that you're a reasonable person who would have just apologized in the first place). But you aren't a long-distance mindreader with the ability to know what this woman was thinking or feeling.
If she was a cop, yeah, I'd call BS on the "I was in fear for my life" excuse. But she isn't a cop, and by her own admission, she's a fairly recent gun owner and hasn't had a lot of experience yet to more accurately judge these situations. That's not an excuse, btw, just an attempt to understand why she reacted as she did.
What would I have done? Same as most everyone else, mumbled a half-automatic apology. What would I have done when they started yelling "racist" at me? Pretty much same as her, gotten in the car, objected to the insult, and when I saw that it really was spitting into the wind, I'd have rolled up my window and tried to leave, and ideally (if I was thinking fast enough) grabbing a smartphone and videoing them too. I think (again, if I was thinking fast enough) I'd have dialed 911 when the van knocked the person down, and told the dispatcher that I was going to exit the neighborhood and meet the cop a couple blocks away because hanging around was inviting more trouble.
All I heard was the mother and daughter constantly screaming about being "bumped" - at the door of the restaurant, not being knocked down by the vehicle. If that happened, why was the arrest for the gun and not the vehicle?
I'm not pretending anything. I even addressed it in an earlier post. The other people were likely third party gawkers drawn by Hill's crazy ranting. Lake Orion is a nice suburb between Detroit and Flint. Not some gang ridden ghetto. Low crime, above average property values. There wasn't some armed thugs blocking them in. That's just what the couple perceived. The reality is the onlookers were as likely to be sympathetic to the couple being harrassed by the loud black woman as anything.
I'd join Somerswerd at the hot sauce hat buffet if there really was a group ganging up on these people. The husband even clued you in during the interview that they got the CWPs during these turbulent times. Whether they feared Trump brown shirts or an Antifa mob this is something they anticipated, were looking for. Honestly the interview made me less sympathetic to them, not more.
What does "CWP" mean?
