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Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

(twitter.com)
1061 points danso | 6 comments | 29 May 20 07:24 UTC | HN request time: 0.856s | source | bottom
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shiado ◴[29 May 20 07:38 UTC] No.23347239[source]▶
The service that hosts the accounts of all branches of the US military, all major weapons contractors, all three letter agencies, and many foreign militaries, governments, and world leaders guilty of all manner of war crimes, and this is where they draw the line for violence. Really interesting.
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slg ◴[29 May 20 07:47 UTC] No.23347332[source]▶
This is using past violence as a threat of imminent violence while the other accounts you mentioned will generally reference violence indirectly or in the past tense. That is an important distinction.
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TechBro8615 ◴[29 May 20 09:04 UTC] No.23347853[source]▶
He is the commander in chief. He has the capability to threaten violence.

This tweet, while in bad taste IMO, was a threat to those who are planning to continue looting and burning buildings in Minneapolis.

I’m not sure if you’ve seen the videos, but there are full scale riots. Rioters completely looted a Target and burned it nearly to the ground.

Is “shooting” the answer to that? Probably not. And hopefully the National Guard is not going to do that.

But at the end of the day, this is the commander in chief making a public statement, and Twitter is editorializing it. Make of that what you will.

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ashtonkem ◴[29 May 20 14:55 UTC] No.23350625[source]▶
Are you honest to god defending the president saying that American citizens should be shot?
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stronglikedan ◴[29 May 20 15:13 UTC] No.23350870[source]▶
Are you honest to god deducing that the president said American citizens should be shot?
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ashtonkem ◴[29 May 20 15:15 UTC] No.23350899[source]▶
How else would you interpret “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”?
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1. stronglikedan ◴[29 May 20 16:42 UTC] No.23352221[source]▶
It's a (perhaps too) succinct plea to not loot, and a warning that people will defend themselves and their property accordingly.
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2. jaredmosley ◴[29 May 20 16:50 UTC] No.23352340[source]▶
You can not take someones life to defend your property in Minnesota. There are not "Stand Your Ground" laws afaik. A use of lethal force must be intended to protect someone's life.
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3. ◴[29 May 20 16:51 UTC] No.23352359[source]▶
4. ashtonkem ◴[29 May 20 16:55 UTC] No.23352409[source]▶
That’s an implausibly charitable interpretation, especially given that Trump has repeatedly expressed positive sentiments towards police violence, and advocated for the death penalty for citizens accused of crimes. He paid $85k to take out a full page ad calling for the Central Park five to be executed.

This is also the same guy who promised to pay the legal fees of anyone who attacked protesters at his rally, and suggested that we should shoot migrants crossing the border. It strains credulity to believe that this time Trump was just asking people to not loot.

5. ashtonkem ◴[29 May 20 17:17 UTC] No.23352701[source]▶
Pedantry time.

“Stand your ground” isn’t about defending property with lethal force. Stand your ground is about whether or not you have a duty to attempt to flee (if possible) before applying lethal force. Castle doctrine is a similar rule, but more narrowly scoped to your own home. Without stand-your-ground, you have to demonstrate that you tried to, or were incapable of retreating before applying lethal force.

That being said, there are very few states of the union where applying lethal force to protect property is legal. Texas is the only one I know of. In Texas you could shoot someone to protect property even if you feel that your life and limb are not at risk, but that’s not the norm in other states.

All states allow some level of force to stop a fleeing felon, the well named “Fleeing Felon” rule, but Tennessee vs. Garner limited this to non-lethal force. So you could tackle a fleeing robber legally, but shooting one would be illegal outside of Texas.

Now Minnesota only has castle doctrine and stand your ground from your own vehicle. If one reasonably feels that life and limb are at risk in Minnesota you can apply lethal force, but if you’re outside of your home and car you have a duty to attempt to retreat first. In my opinion this makes shooting at looters to protect your business a dicey proposition legally, as arguably you should have just fled.

As always, I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.

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6. jaredmosley ◴[29 May 20 19:16 UTC] No.23354319{3}[source]▶
That's very interesting information, thank you for taking time to research this and explain it in a friendly and informative way. I am from Texas, so I admit most of my knowledge comes from my own state's laws. If I'm not mistaken we are in agreement that the looters lives should not be at risk in this situation and that Minnesota law will likely not protect an equivalent of what the Korean population did in LA during their riots, when they took to protecting their shops by getting on their roofs with rifles.