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Everything you say...

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shdwfx

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Everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.

Can and will.

Everything.

Including flippant remarks made on The High Road three years prior to your arraignment.

MySpace and Facebook indiscretions are increasingly frequent sources of damning court evidence, and THR is just as public.

If today, I braggadociously depict how I'd deal with this situation or that, and tomorrow I am forced to "empty a mag into" some BG on the street, what then? The local prosecutor will surely capitalize on my loose tongue.

If I rail against the BATFE, and depict 8th Amendment violations as just reward for their agents' 2nd Amendment violations, know that will show up in court were I ever to have an unfortunate encounter with said agency.

Most here are wise and cautiously consider the legal ramifications of their comments before slapping the "Submit" button, but just in case someone has not...

Post safe.
 
Why does it have to be used against you? Why will it be? It doesn't have to be, and some things certainly won't be so why do people say will?


Other than that, good post.
 
2RCO said:
I think that Don't make stupid comments is a good rule for life.
Click to expand...

Add to:

Don't do stupid things.
Don't go stupid places.
Don't hang with stupid people.

Four rules for avoiding the need to defend oneself.
 
You might make the bullies REALLY angry with you.
Click to expand...
People who are afraid to exercise our civil rights don't still have them.
Click to expand...
No, that's not it at all. The original post isn't about treading lightly so as to avoid offending "THEM".

It's clearly about not making ill-advised statements that could come back to haunt you later in court should you have the misfortune to have to use a gun in self-defense.
 
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4097602514885833865

I found this a fascinating discussion. advice to new lawyers/law students from a professor explaining why you should never talk to the police. Goes along with the thread advice that everything you say will only be used against you. I was already heading this advice before i found this post, with which i completely agree.
 
+1

We have the right to speak freely & discuss various issues. Likewise, we have the freedom to keep from shooting off our mouths. Don't be afraid to discuss issues, but be smart about what you discuss, and try to determine whether you're actually thinking when you post. :scrutiny:
 
I've always been amazed with the imprudence that some folks have about what they post. I go back to early Usenet days when there was an explosion of online discussion. Almost everyone new used non-hiding e-mail addresses and lots of people even used their names openly while saying highly intemperate things to one person they were arguing or conversing with in a newsgroup--not realizing that their comments would be preserved for at least decades and be available for anyone wishing to search them out.

In the PHP-forum environment, a lot of folks think that a concocted username provides sufficient anonymity and cannot somehow be connected to themselves personally--so they express their opinions, which is great, and sometimes do things like specifically admit or encourage law violations, which is terrible. And inadvisable.

Most people sluff it off and forget it. But it stays available to searches--both ad hoc and webcrawler types.
 
People who are afraid to exercise our civil rights don't still have them.
Click to expand...

I've got the right to freedom of speech which allows me to walk down the street making verbal comments to the various women I meet about whatever personal fanatsies I might have involving them.

The fact that I have the right doesn't make my behavior smart or socially acceptable though - nor does it promote the underlying values behind free speech. More likely it will eventually bring about greater restrictions on speech if enough people make a habit of it.

You can still exercise your civil rights without being obnoxious about it and being obnoxious adds nothing to your exercise of civil rights. On the contrary it detracts.

Likewise, this is a public forum where everything you say is recorded for who knows how long. A heat of the moment comment to someone over a silly issue like 9mm vs. .45 may linger out there a LONG time.
 
If you have beliefs and convictions, have the courage to espouse them. In a court of law, it would have to be proven that what ever those beliefs and convictions are led to an injudicious act.

If the act was prudent, there is no leg for prosecution to stand on. One cannot set out to defend themselves on a whim or for a cause. One defends them self only when actually placed in a situation that would require self defense.

It's not about your beliefs, but about what you do that can get you in trouble if you act injudiciously.

Let's say you are a black separatist and you live in a neighborhood of mostly black citizens, and you have vociferously espoused your beliefs on black separatism. If a white criminal breaks into your home and attacks you or your wife or children and you kill him in the defense of you and yours, would a prosecutor be able to sustain a charge of a hate crime against you? It's doubtful. Switch the colors of the people around and nothing would change. It should be no different than if the colors of the victim and criminal were the same. It is about self defense and not about what you've said about your beliefs.

Bringing up such espousals in such a case is the same as adding words to the Constitution to "change" it, or imply its meaning is different from what it actually says.

Hire a good lawyer and fill him or her in on the situation and he or she will be able to dispel any of the crap a prosecutor wishes to "introduce" beyond the facts of the case.

Woody
 
Bart, my respons is not in answer to your post. In fact, I was composing before you posted, and I didn't refresh before I posted. I agree that being obnoxious is imprudent. I'm talking about deeply held convictions.

Woody
 
This thread isn't about deeply held convictions unless you have deeply held convictions that would incriminate you in a self-defense trial.
If the act was prudent, there is no leg for prosecution to stand on.
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There's some truth to that, but you can make your legal defense a lot more complicated by making silly statements about what you plan to do in a self-defense situation. A common one that I see is: "If someone <insert a particular criminal offense>, I'm gonna make sure they're dead!" A more prudent remark would be something along the lines of: "I will use my gun, if the situation calls for it, to stop them from hurting me or my family."
 
" . . . and will be . . ." is the stuff of movies and TV, not real world. There may be some agency out there that actually makes their folks say that.

BTW, the cops are required to provide information to the court, and to the defense that would be exculpatory. Therefore the "will be" stuff doesn't really work in the real world.
 
JohnKSa

I can see your point, but even with all the braggadocio, if your assailant dies as a result of you defending yourself, unless you empty a couple of mags into him at point blank range, or roll him over and place one up into his brain from the base of his skull, there would be little if any weight placed upon what you "espoused" on the Internet.

Woody
 
And they would know it was indeed you who made those posts how? A login and IP address is nothing if not highly circumstantial...
 
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