It’s a bit of a joke that “You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.” But there’s a more important principle that it seems some people were never taught: You don’t bring a knife to a fistfight. A few years ago I was on an attempted-murder jury. Two young minority men (one black, one Hispanic) got into an argument which escalated to a fistfight, which escalated to one of them stabbing the other in the neck. The trial lasted 2.5 days, with a half day of deliberation. The act itself was caught on tape (security camera footage) so there was no dispute as to what happened. The defendant’s claim was that he was in fear for his life, so it was self-defense to pull out his knife. He claimed his opponent had yelled something to his sister about “Get the gun from the truck!” There was no audio aspect to the recording.
Zimmerman's Escalation of Violence
Zimmerman's Escalation of Violence
Zimmerman's Escalation of Violence
It’s a bit of a joke that “You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.” But there’s a more important principle that it seems some people were never taught: You don’t bring a knife to a fistfight. A few years ago I was on an attempted-murder jury. Two young minority men (one black, one Hispanic) got into an argument which escalated to a fistfight, which escalated to one of them stabbing the other in the neck. The trial lasted 2.5 days, with a half day of deliberation. The act itself was caught on tape (security camera footage) so there was no dispute as to what happened. The defendant’s claim was that he was in fear for his life, so it was self-defense to pull out his knife. He claimed his opponent had yelled something to his sister about “Get the gun from the truck!” There was no audio aspect to the recording.