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What do you do when someone pranks you?

arthwollipot said:
The only justification required for shooting someone, apparently, is "I thought my life was in danger".
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No. Your standard is simultaneously broader and more narrow than the actual legal standard. You can use deadly force if you are in reasonable fear of death OR serious bodily harm. So what kind of threats you can use it against are broader (not just death), but the allowed state of mind is narrower (the fear must be reasonable).

And after you shoot someone it's often difficult to ascertain whether that was actually the case.
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Sure, that can be difficult, which is why self defense training generally advises retreat if possible even when not legally required. You never know if a jury will agree that your perception was reasonable, even if it was not only reasonable but correct.

But again, the standard isn't whether or not you were ACTUALLY at risk, but whether your perception of that risk was reasonable. Legally speaking, if you were at risk but didn't know it, you would not be legally permitted to use deadly force. That's a very unlikely situation to ever get before a jury, but in principle it's possible.
 
Ziggurat said:
No. Your standard is simultaneously broader and more narrow than the actual legal standard. You can use deadly force if you are in reasonable fear of death OR serious bodily harm. So what kind of threats you can use it against are broader (not just death), but the allowed state of mind is narrower (the fear must be reasonable).



Sure, that can be difficult, which is why self defense training generally advises retreat if possible even when not legally required. You never know if a jury will agree that your perception was reasonable, even if it was not only reasonable but correct.

But again, the standard isn't whether or not you were ACTUALLY at risk, but whether your perception of that risk was reasonable. Legally speaking, if you were at risk but didn't know it, you would not be legally permitted to use deadly force. That's a very unlikely situation to ever get before a jury, but in principle it's possible.
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Yup, and in the situation where you have a gun and two guys, including one a lot bigger than you seem to be looking for a fight, if there's nowhere to go, it's reasonable to think that you'd be likely to lose your gun in such a fight and have it used against you.
 
Ziggurat said:
No. Your standard is simultaneously broader and more narrow than the actual legal standard. You can use deadly force if you are in reasonable fear of death OR serious bodily harm. So what kind of threats you can use it against are broader (not just death), but the allowed state of mind is narrower (the fear must be reasonable).
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And thus it all hinges on what is "reasonable", which is as subjective a criterion as any I can think of.
 
arthwollipot said:
Which is so subjective it's ridiculous, and which has been abused time and again by Americans who just wanted to justify shooting someone.
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At least theoretically, no it's not. That's where the "rewasonable person" standar comes in.

Plus, it's not a purely American idea. Not only has some version or another of the self defense doctrine an affirmative defense in all of European history, it's there (and it's been abuses) since the middle ages, before America was even flippin' discovered. Even by the flippin' Vikings.

arthwollipot said:
I've said before that if I wanted to kill someone just to see what it was like (I don't, btw), I'd go to Florida and claim that I feared for my life. I'm pretty sure I'd get away with it.
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And you'd probably be wrong. Because the standard is not what YOU thought, but whethere a reasonable person of average intelligence would also think they're in imminent danger. Presumably the jury being statistically close enough to average intelligence to make a reasonable call. Bearing in mind that in a murder case it's not unusual to expect jury unanimity or such, or it's a hung jury and gets a retrial. Would you actually bet on a dozen random people also thinking that it was reasonable to feel threatened?

Besides, what's the alternative? Expecting you to have omniscience and know exactly if the guy intends to shoot you or not really? I wouldn't think that I would have to explain a prominent and intelligent member of a skeptic community why expecting such paranormal powers of an average guy on the street is a stupid idea.

Let's say I stop my car next to you, get out, pull a Glock (your choice which model) from under my arm, rack the slide and tell you to get in the back of the car next to my pal, who's pulled a 9mm Beretta. While half a dozen people pulled out their phones and are filming?`

How do you know it's actually a threat, or it's realistic replica guns and it's not a threat, if you want THAT to be the legal standard? How would you have ANY right to defend yourself even if the guns are real? How would you prosecute that specific case? Like even if you run away and me and my pal shoot a couple times after you and miss, how would you prossecute that as attempted murder and attempted kidnapping, if we fail to actually put a bullet in you? We can just claim we were doing an extremely realistic prank and walk out scot free.
 
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I mean the particular situation in the OP is kind of a "heads I win, tails you lose" kind of scenario, as far as Arth's question is concerned. Heads, I shoot because I'm being threatened. Tails, I shoot because I'm being pranked by an antisocial scumbag who had it coming.
 
arthwollipot said:
And thus it all hinges on what is "reasonable", which is as subjective a criterion as any I can think of.
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All criminal justice is subjective in the end. That's why we put questions of criminal guilt to a jury of our fellow citizens, to reach a subjective consensus about the matter according to the norms and conventions of the society we share.
 
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theprestige said:
I mean the particular situation in the OP is kind of a "heads I win, tails you lose" kind of scenario, as far as Arth's question is concerned. Heads, I shoot because I'm being threatened. Tails, I shoot because I'm being pranked by an antisocial scumbag who had it coming.
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Kind of my point, yes. I mean, we rarely agree on many things, but yes, it would be putting the victim in some absolutely unreasonable jeopardy.

I mean, it would even invalidate the possibility of an actual self defense even in the first case. Like, if he shoots because I 100% pulled out and racked a real gun, and he could absolutely tell it's real steel not painted plastic, loaded with real JHP ammo, and 100% intend to murderize him to death, if he shoots back he'd still have to explain to a court how did he KNOW he was in actual threat and I'm not pranking him. Like, I may have pointed a gun at him, and even pulled a trigger and put two holes in the wall behind him before he pulled his gun, but I didn't actually hit him, did I? How did he KNOW FOR SURE I wanted to kill him, and not just deliberately aimed at a wall to pull a realistic prank? It's any defense attorney's wet dream scenario.

Standard disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer and none of this is actual legal advice. If you plan to murderize someone to death, please consult with your local lawyers' guild instead :p
 
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arthwollipot said:
And thus it all hinges on what is "reasonable", which is as subjective a criterion as any I can think of.
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There is no alternative. Either you use a subjective standard to allow for self defense, or in practice you don't allow for self defense.

The benefits of allowing self defense under a subjective standard outweigh the costs of prohibiting it.
 
The "reasonable person" standard is a legal fiction. Such a person doesn't exist, because that's not the point of the standard. What one lawyer or one juror considers reasonable varies greatly.

The occasion on which I was privileged to do my civic duty as a juror, the case pivoted on the "reasonable person" standard - in this case what a "reasonable person" considered excessive use of force. It was one of those "I don't know where the line is, but I know when it has been crossed" situations.
 
As subjective as it can be, I appreciate it because it avoids a "magic words" defense.

"I said that I was scared. You can't convict me if I said I was scared."
 
arthwollipot said:
The "reasonable person" standard is a legal fiction. Such a person doesn't exist, because that's not the point of the standard. What one lawyer or one juror considers reasonable varies greatly.

The occasion on which I was privileged to do my civic duty as a juror, the case pivoted on the "reasonable person" standard - in this case what a "reasonable person" considered excessive use of force. It was one of those "I don't know where the line is, but I know when it has been crossed" situations.
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Isn't the highlighted the whole point?
 
arthwollipot said:
The "reasonable person" standard is a legal fiction. Such a person doesn't exist, because that's not the point of the standard. What one lawyer or one juror considers reasonable varies greatly.

The occasion on which I was privileged to do my civic duty as a juror, the case pivoted on the "reasonable person" standard - in this case what a "reasonable person" considered excessive use of force. It was one of those "I don't know where the line is, but I know when it has been crossed" situations.
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How else would you like to arbitrate final questions of criminal guilt, in a self-governing democracy?

Putting the question to the subjective judgement of a group of my peers, and asking them to reach a consensus, seems like a pretty good solution to me. What's your problem with it? It's not a complete system of formal logic?
 
theprestige said:
Putting the question to the subjective judgement of a group of my peers, and asking them to reach a consensus, seems like a pretty good solution to me. What's your problem with it? It's not a complete system of formal logic?
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The obvious problem with it is that sometimes it will produce bad outcomes because people make mistakes.

But unfortunately I can't think of a system which doesn't have that flaw, and no one else seems to have come up with one either. So appealing to the subjective opinions of random citizens is the worst solution except for all the others.
 
arthwollipot said:
The only justification required for shooting someone, apparently, is "I thought my life was in danger". And after you shoot someone it's often difficult to ascertain whether that was actually the case.
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I've been reading Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons lately, and this quote stands out as hitting on something important to the questions you bring up:

We must now distinguish between what is objectively and subjectively right or wrong. This distinction has nothing to do with whether moral theories can be objectively true. The distinction is between what some theory implies, given (i) what are or would have been the effects of what some person does or could have done, and (ii) what this person believes, or ought to believe, about these effects.

It may help to mention a similar distinction. The medical treatment that is objectively right is the one that would in fact be best for the patient. The treatment that is subjectively right is the one that, given the medical evidence, it would be most rational for the doctor to prescribe. As this example shows, what it would be best to know is what is objectively right. The central part of a moral theory answers this question. We need an account of subjective rightness for two reasons. We often do not know what the effects of our acts would be. And we ought to be blamed for doing what is subjectively wrong. We ought to be blamed for such acts even if they are objectively right. A doctor should be blamed for doing what was very likely to kill his patient, even if his act in fact saves this patient's life.
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I think this distinction, between what you should do if you know all the relevant facts, and what you should think you should do, and thus actually do, based on your actual state of knowledge, is relatively clear here.

There's a third distinction, which is how society should judge you, based on the fact that it doesn't have access to your internal state. Your act may have been objectively wrong but subjectively right, but society may be in a position where it can't assertion this fact. That seems to be the issue you are bringing up, but if so I think it should be made clear and separated from the point that acts can be subjectively right.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY-RhIld_nQ

If anyone wants to tell me how subjective it is to think it's not a prank when someone pulls a gun on you and threatens to shoot you if you don't hand over the iPhone... well, go for it.

But yeah, that's the problem I've been saying about the question in the thread title. People's idea of a prank ranges from someone reading a flaming book in the park, to actual armed assault and robbery. There is no one answer that fits all that.
 
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Just noticed this thread.

If someone pranks me, I slash their tyres.

See how funny that is *******!
 
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HansMustermann said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY-RhIld_nQ

If anyone wants to tell me how subjective it is to think it's not a prank when someone pulls a gun on you and threatens to shoot you if you don't hand over the iPhone... well, go for it.

But yeah, that's the problem I've been saying about the question in the thread title. People's idea of a prank ranges from someone reading a flaming book in the park, to actual armed assault and robbery. There is no one answer that fits all that.
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Context matters. I think the OP makes it pretty clear that this thread examines a subset of pranks that are significantly sociopathic in nature.
 
HansMustermann said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY-RhIld_nQ

If anyone wants to tell me how subjective it is to think it's not a prank when someone pulls a gun on you and threatens to shoot you if you don't hand over the iPhone... well, go for it.
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I can't open YouTube, but in reply, the distinction I'm making in no way suggests that you shouldn't act on your local knowledge. If someone tries to mug you with a fake gun that looks very real (for instance), you'd be justified to use lethal force in self defense, even though they couldn't have shot you with the gun.

There's a difference between what you should do given perfect knowledge, and what you should do given your actual state of knowledge. People should be judged on the latter, not the former.

We seem to agree here, by the way, but your post read to me as negative response to my post.

Arthwolipot has be arguing that because we don't have access to a person's actual state of knowledge at the time of action, we can't make reasonable conclusions about what they should have done based on that, and thus should only make judgements based on the perfect state of knowledge we have in hindsight. If it turns out the gun was fake, you can't have been justified in killing your assailant. I reject that view, based on the distinction between subjective and objective moral acts that I brought up.

There are obviously complications. Sometimes we judge people not only on what they should do based on their actual state of knowledge at the time, but on the actions that led them to that state of knowledge. "You should have known better..." can be a reasonable criticism. But I don't think it applies to the subject of this thread.

But yeah, that's the problem I've been saying about the question in the thread title. People's idea of a prank ranges from someone reading a flaming book in the park, to actual armed assault and robbery. There is no one answer that fits all that.
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Agreed, but I think that a reasonable framework for understanding the issue is possible. (I think you have one).
 
It was more to arth's point, sorry.

As for YT, the short and skinny is that the dude went up to a jogger, demanded his iPhone, pulled out a gun and threatened to shoot him, while his friend was filming, and then the perp posted it on TikTok. So he still needed content, so he ran up to another jogger from behind, hit him in the head, demanded his iPhone, they fought, etc, posted it on TikTok. There was no mention of the gun being a fake in any of the news about it, btw.

Now it turns out that the DA didn't think "it was a joke, bro" is a legal loophole :p
 
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