How is it objectively incorrect, if he pretty much quoted a direct speech verbatim? At least one of them hit Rittenhouse with a skateboard, so he was armed.
Yeah, and a knife can kill just as well as a gun. Except it can’t. A medium build woman can break one’s skull with 2-3 swings of a skateboard, especially if it lands on the edge or on a sticking metal part. To achieve the same damage with fists, it would take years of training and would also cause a significant damage to one’s hands.
If hitting with just the right angle on a hard bit is good enough to count then half the things on my desk are deadly weapons. I can't get behind that definition.
Then don’t. You can continue denying common sense. But if someone threatens to assault you with a skateboard, bare hand or an item from your desk, then will intuitively discover the difference.
If you started using your desk items as a weapon and swung them at a person in a manner that could reliably kill them then the court would consider you to have a deadly weapon as well.
If you use an item in a manner that can reliably kill people then you use a deadly weapon even if it wasn't intended to be a deadly weapon. Is a pair of scissors a deadly weapon? Yes. Is a heavy hard blunt object (like a statue) a deadly weapon? Yes.
Well, noted I guess. I probably dismissed the idea in the wrong way then. Next time I'll just say "'deadly weapon' is a very low bar and doesn't mean much".
It's not productive to argue about definitions, even if they don't make sense to me. My intent wasn't a semantics argument.
The requirement is that you be in fear for your life or the life of another in your vicinity. Let's say you grabbed a Bic pen, and went for someone's neck with it: in this situation the courts would favor the persons right to self defense given the credible threat to their life. The same counts for something that is a risk to incapacitate them, because courts have historically favored the argument that what happens after you are disarmed or incapacitated could result in death.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm just offering my observations of precedent.
We don't have to argue about it, you can look at the Wisconsin law for it.
> “Dangerous weapon" means any firearm, whether loaded or unloaded; any device designed as a weapon and capable of producing death or great bodily harm; any ligature or other instrumentality used on the throat, neck, nose, or mouth of another person to impede, partially or completely, breathing or circulation of blood; any electric weapon, as defined in s. 941.295 (1c) (a); or any other device or instrumentality which, in the manner it is used or intended to be used, is calculated or likely to produce death or great bodily harm.
I would say a skateboard, wielded as a weapon, is likely to produce death or great bodily harm. Getting hit in the head with a skateboard even once seems likely to cause a concussion or maybe even internal bleeding.
You probably do have a good number of items that could be classified as deadly weapons on your desk, depending on how they were used.
You must be joking or have not done many things where people swing things at you. 100% of the time in a random “get hit in the head taste test” I would choose a fist.
Aluminum bats don’t weigh much either but I’m not going to go out of my way to have my head in the path of one.
They're about as long medieval maces, with a similarly heavy bit of metal on the end. And when either is held in the hand and swung, they have substantially more leverage than the hand itself. Unless you think he was swinging a skateboard from his armpit?
> And when either is held in the hand and swung, they have substantially more leverage than the hand itself. Unless you think he was swinging a skateboard from his armpit?
A skateboard held in your hand can't use much of the mass of your arm to help, it's mostly impacting with its own weight. Your hand can impact with a lot more weight behind it even though the swing radius won't be as big.
People die if you hit them with in the head with a fist sized rock, that is what is required for something to be a deadly weapon. A metal rimmed skateboard can deal more damage than a rock so it is a deadly weapon.
But if someone charged at you holding a rock ready to swing it high, would you fear for your life? Almost surely, yes, you should fear for your life in that situation.
This isn't about possession but about a confrontation. A person with a rock wont get caught by police and taken to court over owning a weapon. But a person swinging the rock around and charging at people will get charged for attacking people with a deadly weapon. And in this situation the question is "Was it reasonable to fear for your life?", then the second definition is used.
If it's about confrontation, I'd fear for my life if someone came at me hard enough even if they were empty-handed or holding something tiny.
And I'll point out that the original post I responded to was saying that they were armed. To me that implies the object needs to be a weapon in a vacuum.
Yeah, I agree that the person wasn't armed. Armed typically means weapons made to kill like firearms, I just object to the deadly weapons discussion since that is a much more lax term.
But sometimes things get interpreted in ways that really stretch the meanings of words. I think anyone that has looked at legal history can agree with that.
And sometimes legal definitions are dumb, which isn't even a court thing.
Also even if it's correct inside its realm, if enough objects count as deadly weapons then "he had a deadly weapon" loses most of its impact and gets misleading. I'm reminded that technically a bare receiver is a gun...
But as a general rule, if we think about all this in aggregate, we should agree that the literal legal experts are way way more likely to get this stuff correct than you are.
If we were evaluating how valuable someone's opinion is on all this stuff, your opinion would be way down the list, compared to legal experts.
And if we compared a random ununiformed opinion, such as from you, and compared it to the opinions of the legal system, it is way more likely that you don't really know how any of this works, as opposed to the actual legal experts.
I think you’re being hung up on the literal meaning of the words a little bit. It seems reasonable to have more severe consequences for someone attacking someone else with a rock compared to somebody just using their fists. We decided to call the former “assault with a deadly weapon”. This doesn’t mean that a rock is a “deadly weapon” under all circumstances. You can’t get charged with “possession of a deadly weapon” for simply walking around with a rock without intent of hurting anyone.
A skateboard, when used as a weapon, is a deadly weapon.
weapon, n: a thing designed or used for inflicting bodily harm or physical damage.
Does a skateboard have other innocent purposes, to which it is generally put to use? Of course — that’s generally why skateboards are brought to riots.
It provides plausible deniability during the times when you’re not using it to hit people in the head with a deadly weapon.
If we go with that definition, and nothing else, then imagine "one of them threw an ice cube at someone, so he was armed". It's a thing used to inflict bodily harm in that context, but calling it "a weapon" seems crazy to me.
If you have large enough ice cube — or any other object — that is capable of inflicting serious bodily harm, and you use it to physically attack someone, you’ve committed assault with a deadly weapon.
Why is this crazy to you? This is why someone can be charged for assault with a deadly weapon while trying to run someone over with their car.
Do you think that’s crazy just because cars are usually meant to be used for driving?
I'm talking about normal ice cubes. They can inflict bodily harm. With 'serious', does that mean you're suggesting a different definition from the one you quoted?
> This is why someone can be charged for assault with a deadly weapon while trying to run someone over with their car.
A car is at least in a medium category where it's not a generally safe object.
Remember that my original objection was saying someone was "armed". If we used the definition you gave to figure that out, I think almost everyone is armed. Or they transform from unarmed to armed when they smack someone??
> I'm talking about normal ice cubes. They can inflict bodily harm.
If you used it as a weapon, it's a weapon. There aren't generally enhanced criminal charges for non-deadly weapons, however — that's usually just charged as assault.
> With 'serious', does that mean you're suggesting a different definition from the one you quoted?
No, I'm tying this question back to the actual law.
> Remember that my original objection was saying someone was "armed". If we used the definition you gave to figure that out, I think almost everyone is armed.
You're treating the law like it's some sort of extremely idiotic expert system that implodes anytime someone grabs their child's baseball bat with the intent of murdering someone — or actually does so.
Google "mens rea". You're not going to beat a charge with the argument of "It was a little league baseball bat!".
If this still isn't clear, maybe it'd help to see how Colorado defines a "deadly weapon":
> (I) A firearm, whether loaded or unloaded; or (II) A knife, bludgeon, or any other weapon, device, instrument, material, or substance, whether animate or inanimate, that, in the manner it is used or intended to be used, is capable of producing death or serious bodily injury.
If you can figure out how to use your ice cube as a deadly weapon, then congratulations, at the moment you picked up an ice cube with the intent to use it as a deadly weapon, you armed yourself with a deadly weapon.
> Or they transform from unarmed to armed when they smack someone??
They transform from unarmed to armed when they arm themselves with an object they intend to use as a weapon.
You know you could just google this stuff, right? This is very simple, well-established law.
> They transform from unarmed to armed when they arm themselves with an object they intend to use as a weapon.
That makes sense if they intended to use it as a weapon.
What if they didn't?
> This is very simple, well-established law.
Mens rea makes sense for certain crimes.
I would not say someone is 'armed' or 'not armed' based on intent.
> Google "mens rea". You're not going to beat a charge with the argument of "It was a little league baseball bat!".
> (II) A knife, bludgeon, or any other weapon, device, instrument, material, or substance, whether animate or inanimate, that, in the manner it is used or intended to be used, is capable of producing death or serious bodily injury.
A baseball bat at least is pretty dangerous when used as intended. So is a car. A skateboard isn't, and an ice cube isn't.
> You're treating the law like it's some sort of extremely idiotic expert system that implodes anytime someone grabs their child's baseball bat with the intent of murdering someone — or actually does so.
The legal system wouldn't implode if it was just 'assault'.
> A baseball bat at least is pretty dangerous when used as intended. So is a car. A skateboard isn't, and an ice cube isn't.
If you claim to not see the similarity between a skateboard and a baseball bat in terms of the potential for serious bodily harm, you're either lying to us to keep this tepid, boring argument on life-support, or just lying to yourself.
> The legal system wouldn't implode if it was just 'assault'.
You don't think assault with a deadly weapon is a more serious crime than simple assault?
So you'd charge and punish a shove identically to hitting someone with a skateboard?
> If you claim to not see the similarity between a skateboard and a baseball bat in terms of the potential for serious bodily harm, you're either lying to us to keep this tepid, boring argument on life-support, or just lying to yourself.
It says "intended to be used" right there in the law.
> So you'd charge and punish a shove identically to hitting someone with a skateboard?
Would you charge a shove exactly the same as stomping on someone's face?
Same crime category doesn't mean same punishment. I would charge a big skateboard swing as worse than a shove, and I would also charge a solid punch as worse than a shove.
You're extrapolating from my posts in an extremely uncharitable way.
> It says "intended to be used" right there in the law.
It also says "in the manner it is used or intended to be used".
> Would you charge a shove exactly the same as stomping on someone's face?
In Colorado, a simple shove would be third-degree assault, while stomping on someone's face would be first-degree assault.
> Same crime category doesn't mean same punishment. I would charge a big skateboard swing as worse than a shove, and I would also charge a solid punch as worse than a shove.
Guess what? Both a fist and a skateboard can be classified as assault with a deadly weapon!
> You're extrapolating from my posts in an extremely uncharitable way.
You don't need a law degree to wrap your head around any of this. Even the most basic googling would suffice, but you're clearly not even doing that. What you are doing is ignorantly pontificating about something you clearly know nothing about, while making not even a modicum effort to learn.
> Cool, then saying someone was 'armed' is extremely meaningless.
‘Armed’ means they were carrying a weapon. That’s not meaningless. How have we come full circle here?
You’re welcome to disagree with the dictionary, the law, and the rest of the world, but there’s absolutely zero point in us debating your unique, novel, pedantic, and most likely disingenuous position further.
If fists count as a deadly weapon, which makes someone armed, then calling someone armed is misleading and meaningless because 99% of people are armed.
Pointing that out is not disingenuous!
And it's not disingenuous for me to earnestly use the definition of weapon I'm being told to use, right? Nobody seems to like my definition of weapon.
