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Conservative Blogger Guilty 21 Counts For Self-Defense gets 50 years.

8K views 110 replies 44 participants last post by  Peter 
#1 ·
#3 ·
Obama pardoned a bunch of dirt-bag, drug-running, criminal thugs; released a number of dangerous, Muslim terrorists; and a queer traitor. Maybe we can petition President Trump to pardon a good American who simply defended himself. It's worth a try. Get on Twitter and Facebook (and any other form of communication) and see if President Trump will do for us what Obama did for our enemies.
 
#6 ·
I can say this with certainty.

He pulled a gun and threatened someone. That was his mistake. His gun should have never left his holster unless he was definitely planning to pull the trigger. Never use the threat of a gun in hopes someone will go away. When you point a gun at someone be pulling the trigger. If you aren't willing to pull the trigger the moment you point the gun then leave the damn thing in the holster. And better yet, not even pull the shirt up either.

Would that advice have helped him in this case? Maybe. He might have been less inclined to show it in the first place.

In any case, before you even think of grabbing the thing you had better know your local gun laws.

Maybe 50 years for stupidity is harsh, but he was definitely stupid about the gun laws there.

Never get busted for a menacing charge. That just means you were drawing before you were prepared to shoot.
 
#7 ·
From the video in the linked article, I couldn't see that anyone was close enough and/or made a direct move at Mr. Strickland before he drew his weapon. Was that a camera in his left hand? If so, is his video available for viewing, so we can see **his** POV of the situation?

From what I see, it looks like he's in the wrong. Am I missing something?
 
#76 ·
Sorry but this thinking needs to end. The vast majority of defensive gun uses are resolved without shooting. If drawing a gun when you are fear for your life defuses the situation, then you did nothing wrong. Most victims don't report what happened to the police because they don't want to deal with the BS.

The motto is "don't draw unless you are prepared to shoot." If the situation instantly deescalates, are you saying you would shoot the guy anyway?
 
#18 ·
He was being chased but did he purposely put himself in that circumstance unnecessarily? Why was he there and what did he hope to accomplish? Let the Libtards be idiots. Don't give Conservatives (and especially gun owners/carriers) a bad name.
 
#16 ·
I only needed 50 seconds of that 8:30 video to see a complete idiot brandishing a firearm who should get jail time. He unholstered his pistol, waved it around briefly, then re-holstered it ... that's bush league amateur hour stuff. He had plenty of room for flight if he was indeed threatened, but he opted for posing instead. He makes responsible CCW holders look bad, and further emboldens anti-2A fanatics to target "gun nuts".
 
#25 ·
No evidence that the 10 who voiced intent to harm, while brandishing a blunt object, were charged with anything. According to the prosecutor, it was the defendants fault for being in the wrong place at the wrong time - boy don't know where his kind belongs.

Once upon a time, we had sympathy for those who were threatened, feared for their lives, and had suffered previous harm in similar circumstances. The gun culture may condemn him for his inept use of a carry firearm, but the liberal protesters have just learned that only they are protected under 1A, and they can intimidate, even harm a conservative, and the conservative's only option is to run away and not exercise their 1A rights, never mind their 2A. They couldn't find an unbiased juror on the issue of 2A, 90% were opposed to the constitution on that issue. Folks may not like how the guy did it, but don't miss the much larger and more significance loss to liberty that just happened.
 
#31 ·
If you carry concealed, you have an obligation to yourself to find and study the applicable firearms laws in your state or any state where you plan to carry and that can be a lot of study if you plan to travel with your gun. While you are at it, bone up on general principles of justification for use of deadly force, culpability and Stand Your Ground. Mr. Strickland failed himself and made many poor decisions that day. He may not feel too fortunate right now but he is because in his state of mind a simple pull of the trigger could have sent him away for life.

If he had 123 rounds on him as is reported, unholstered, reholstered several times, remained at the scene afterward and inserted himself in a volitile protest with groups that commonly riot and have views that opposed his.......dang stupid is as stupid does. Might it be reasonable to assume he was looking to make news? Well he did.
 
#42 ·
I have seen 10 or so videos of this on Youtube, all from different angles/points of view. Some of them paint a better picture of the threat this guy was faced with. He was mostly retreating, not standing his ground. In some of the vids, you can see him backing away from a threatening mob, attempting to use flag poles as weapons. When he pulled his weapon, the threat immediately stopped, temporarily. I can't fault him for his response.
 
#44 ·
If all you can do is live in the pristine world of automatic rights then you will have a tough time in the real world that has consequences for your actions. Your stump speech reminded me of this teen girl I saw on Cops telling a patrol officer that he was unable to arrest her because she was a sovereign citizen who was not subject to local laws. She kept it up and her volume kept rising as she was pushed to the car hood and hog wrestled into cuffs for a ride downtown.

Rights do not exist in a vacuum. They are not immutable or universal. Only if the collective herd around you is willing to stand up for them do they exist. And the collective herd invariably puts restrictions on those rights, namely the responsibilities that come from herd deciding what they are.

The universe owes you nothing and life isn't fair.

No right or freedom ever proposed has ever been considered absolute, including the right to life.

Rights come with responsibilities and actions have consequences.

Never walk out your front door making the mistake that your rights will be held immutable regardless of your actions.
 
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#46 ·
More details on this available here, including background related to why he drew his firearm.

Ms. Taft is a local (Portland, OR) talk show host / journalist who has covered the event since it started.

The outcome is not surprising considering the local DA chooses to not charge some young gang members (who do have criminal records) caught illegally carrying a firearm because he doesn't want such a charge to hamper them later in life. Unfortunately, I can't find the article that discusses this stance.

Here's an article on how gang members who carry are dealt with in Portland.
 
#47 ·
When you see some of the sketch police that are actually shooting people and one in the back, I think this guy should start training cops. Secondly our laws are ass backwards and we should allow cops to shoot a threat at distance at the legs and we should not have laws that would contradict that saying "if you had time to aim for the legs then you had time to run away" In a high stress situation people and police can't always process brain signals the way a calm person views the situation on video in a safe room drinking coffee the next day.

My final thought is IF this guy was really threatened by multiple people looking to due him harm then he may have done the right thing and maybe he avoided his head being bashed in.
 
#48 ·
To those who call the man an 'Idiot' or say he deserves 'punishment' -

1) He had every right to be there and voice his opinion.
2) Haven't you seen how the reds beat down with impunity anyone they disagree with? Do you doubt he would have been sent to the hospital or worse had he not been armed?
3) He had a God-Given right to self-defense.
4) He did not handle the situation as well as he might have. Perfectly understandable due to the stress. A good case for Jury Nullification.
5) Get off your high-horses. What have YOU done to oppose the leftist haters? I dare say that staying at home is what you do.
 
#50 ·
That nobody was shot in this scenario is amazing. He had plenty of space to make a hasty retreat and didn't. He was physically able. The only option was retreat. He certainly wasn't going to keep a crowd controlled with one firearm. He threw gasoline on a volitile situation by drawing. How many other protestors there had a gun on them, legal or otherwise? After he reholsters he remains in place.....nullifying any chance he may have had to claim imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury. It is absurd what he seems to be doing. Why does he reholster? Because he knows he screwed up. He even allows several threats to be within inches of him later on and does nothing but creep backwards. At any point the black guy could have easily tackled and disarmed him and shot him with his own gun.

As far as I know he hasn't been sentenced yet. I'd be surprised if he got more than two years. But pretty sure whatever the sentence it will included never owning a firearm again which is unfortunate. It is a grand step backward for firearms owners.
 
#63 ·
That nobody was shot in this scenario is amazing. He had plenty of space to make a hasty retreat and didn't. He was physically able.
As I said in my first post, he was conflating his role as journalist and activist.

The moron likely felt it was his duty as a journalist to keep recording, without realizing he had become a participant activist along the way.

While I see the need for alternative news outlets, given the left wing media machine, we have far too many folks not understanding how a journalist behaves. They have stopped being an honest witness and become activists. Not only did he make gun owners look bad, he also made conservative media look bad too.
 
#51 ·
I think he should have shot each and every one of the people threatening him as they were about to lay hands on him. no backing down, or using the firearm as a repellent (and that's what he did.).

my reasoning behind this is a good amount of them are violent protesters.

then this would be even less of an issue, think he'd be sitting in jail now? portland laws. pfft.

... I look at this from the example of violence coming from leftist protests across America.

In the last few months their tactics have escalated to burning cars, smashing windows, assaulting people and police with rocks, sticks, bottles, pepper spraying...burning people's hair. it's only a matter of time before they start knifing people, shooting and bombing people they don't agree with.
was he wrong to pull his gun and hang around after putting it up..wait a min, didn't they start coming back to him screaming at him, and threatening him again even after seeing he was armed.

personally I have rule- it's easy too.
want to avoid a fight with bikers in a biker bar? don't go to a biker bar.

why would anyone that values their life go to a riot? peaceful protests, pfft... when a mob attacks by race, attacks women, stops traffic and starts burning and looting they aren't peaceful protesters they are enemy combatants.
 
#53 ·
This is the kind of incident that does nothing but hurt the effort to loosen gun laws. You want more onerous gun laws.....continue repeating the stupidity shown here. And it is going to polarize gun owners. Look at the opinions expressed thus far in a forum comprised of a super majority of conservative 2A group. I get that the crowd had a bunch of wrong minded thugs in it but there were many innocent people just hanging around or driving by that could have been shot because this nitwit decided to make a statement. So let's say someone in the crowd was armed.....Strickland gets shot dead, somebody turning the corner at the time gets bullets penetrating their car. Is there ar small child in the backseat. Strickland discharges his gun into the crowd. It's a reckless act to sweep a crowd with a firearm. In other circumstances that could have turned out to be a bloodbath. You pull out your gun you better be able to articulate why you did it in the first place and why you felt it necessary to stick around afterward. I'm calling him out for setting back the cause of responsible gun ownership. He is nothing but a pot stirrer with a gun.

That said the responses of the jurors during voir dire make defending yourself in Portland with a firearm problematic. You are going to be assumed guilty until proven innocent. Not applicable in this case but Strickland made it even more tenuous for all the rest of the concealed carriers in that area.
 
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