tvc184

Like a lot of laws, it is political nonsense. Beat up your neighbor without serious injuries (broken bones, put out eye, etc) and it is a misdemeanor. A few months later, you do it again and it is still a misdemeanor. After you serve about a month in the County Jail, you get out and beat up the neighbor on the other side of you. It was still a misdemeanor. A couple of months later you beat up the guy across the street because like everybody in the neighborhood has found out, you have a bad attitude. But…, it is still a misdemeanor. You lose no federal gun possession rights. Slap your wife on the cheek (no bruise, no busted lip and so on) after she has provoked you all day and you have become the equivalent of a felon and can no longer lawfully possess a firearm. You can routinely beat the heck out of a dozen people with black eyes and busted noses and lips and it is a minor crime. If you went to college and lived in a dorm with a guy, if you met up 20 years later and got mad and slap him (no injuries other than pain) and you again have the status of a convicted felon. Is this political or really protecting the community? Assault every person in your neighborhood and it’s all misdemeanors. Slap a former roommate from a couple of decades ago and you now have felony status as far as possessing firearms. Does that make any sense?

I intentionally gave a radically different age to show the stupidity of the law. It is the same law regardless of the ages. I also gave the example of a 17 year old and a 50 year old. In that case he works 50 feet away from campus so it is just consenting adults. Here is another example. Nederland and PNG are literally across the street from each other. The same 32 year old teacher could have the same relationship with the same student as described in the actual case. BUT… they live across the street from each other. The teacher lives on the PNG side and the (unknown age) adult student lives in the Nederland side of the street. The teacher was tutoring the student and it led to the relationship but guess what? No crime has been committed because ever though they live 50 feet apart, the student attends a different school. So age and occupation are not a factor. So when is a consenting adult the victim of a predator? When they live across the street from each other he/she isn’t a victim but if on the same side of the street he/she is? As I mentioned, I understand the situation but should the penalty between consenting adults of any age be the equivalent of a homicide? Terminate? Sure. Misdemeanor with jail time attached? Okay. Obviously we don’t know the age of the student but I suspect that if the student was a child, it would have been mentioned and Sexual Assault/Child would likely have been filed.

Gabbard seems like a tough interviewer!

The best thing is that he has already been convicted and sentenced to the maximum. Bye-bye…… 😆

I know this is tough but you have to be able to follow along. Unwoke mentioned the House J6 committee. LumRaiderFan noted that it (J6 committee) was another swing and a miss. What would they try next. My answer was nothing, they are out of power. My comment had nothing to do with the results of the committee and LRF’s comment about “the next” bogus change was obviously talking about a House investigation. Nobody mentioned the DOJ or any other federal crime that they can investigate at any time on their own authority. If that is too hard to follow: LRF-What will the Democrats in the House try next? Me-Nothing, they aren’t in power. You-The Republicans don’t control the DOJ. The rest of the forum: HUH? Your straw man argument is stretching a rubber band beyond its breaking point.

It is a stupid law. At the very least the penalty should be radically reduced. I could go into much more examples if needed but as an example: An 18 year old guy graduated last year. He is still 18 and gets his first job on the maintenance crew at the high school. He mows grass, helps unload trucks with office supplies, etc. A 19 year old girl is a senior at the high school. They are attracted to each other and start having a relationship. By Texas law the 19 year old girl is a victim. The 18 year old boy? He has committed a 2nd degree felony. What are other examples of 2nd degree felonies? A guy gets drunk, causes an accident and kills a 10 year old child or a guy finds out that his wife is cheating on him so in a sudden rage of passion, he shoots and kills his wife. I could give others but two different homicides should get the point across. That is the equivalent the 18 year old guy is facing… 20 years in prison. Why? Because of his place of employment. Had the same guy found a new job across the street from the high school doing the exact same thing but 50 feet away, it is two consenting adults. A 17 year old girl in high school could have a relationship with a 50 year old man (or woman) who works at the store across the street from the school and it is completely legal. Again it is between two consenting adults. So an 18 year old having a sexual relationship with consent with a 19 year old is a felony but a 50 year old having a sexual relationship with consent with a 17 year old isn’t. Let’s refresh our memories of the class of felony. The 18 year old having a 19 year old girlfriend is the equivalent of a drunk driver killing a child. Someone please explain the rationale. If you want such a law to stop potential corruption like a teacher doctoring grades, absolutely. Write a law that says it convicted the teacher is terminated and loses his/her license to teach for lifetime. If they want to attach a criminal penalty to the teacher who has already lost a career, make it a misdemeanor like a B with 180 days maximum or an A with a year maximum. Why the 20 year maximum felony for a relationship with two consenting adults? And then… if the same 18 year old guy and the same 19 year old girl start the relationship the day after she graduates OR…. she is still in school but it is in a college where he works and she attends, it is no crime. There are laws if the student is 16. That would be sexual assault of a child. By all means, prosecute him/her. But an 18 year old student and a 19 year old teacher’s aide? Ridiculous.

The old school GOP might not like Trump but I seriously doubt that they will form committees to go after him.

None. The Democrats are no longer in power. For those on the left, yes I know that technically the Republicans don’t take over for 6 more days. The Dems have less than a week to formulate an outrage, form a committee, issue subpoenas, get witnesses to a hearing and hear testimony, draw a conclusion and then take a vote….. all while missing the holidays in order to fake an outrage. To paraphrase, the Dems are no longer in power in the House.

What you call manipulation I call reality. I didn’t address individual topics and only drew the conclusion that if you want to use population percentages, it should always be used and not cherry picked for convenience. You might note that I never addressed any issues as to police shootings, welfare, etc. My only point was that it is disingenuous to cite racial percentages in one issue and completely disregard in another if it doesn’t fit a narrative. You must have a different definition of manipulation. But, your response doesn’t surprise me. If you can’t find a valid response, accuse the other person of manipulating. 😂

It is called buying votes and at the same time keeping in segments of the population in the situation that allows their votes to be bought.

Then according to the USDA, 15% of food stamps go to no one. I am not sure of your intent but….. Either population matters in comparisons or it doesn’t. Neither side of an argument should say that percentage of a population matters…. unless we are discussing a different topic where someone doesn’t like the numbers. In that case population is irrelevant. In this thread UT Alum brings up that twice as Whites are killed by the police but they have a 500-600% higher population. I am assuming that the correlation is that if 1,000 Blacks killed by the police then 5,000 Whites should be killed by them. If you accept that premise then Whites having at least 500% more population should equally have 500% more people on food stamps. But as your data shows, instead of 500% more Whites getting food stamps it is only 15%. Does the percentage of police encounters matter? So do we get to pick and choose when population matters? Another example is that roughly 7% of the population (Black Males) commits annually about 52% of homicides going by FBI statistics. Yet deathpenaltyinfo.org shows that “only” 41% of people on death row are Black. So are Blacks sentenced to death at a lower rate than everyone else combined? If a group is committing 52% of murders then shouldn’t 52% of death row be from that race? How is there a 20% reduction when comparing the percentage of murders committed by Black as opposed to the percentage of the death penalty? I could give interesting arguments as to why it appears that Blacks are underrepresented on death row but that shows the problem with statistics. Raw data doesn’t always (or perhaps rarely) show the reality. It only shows raw data without showing cause. So by population it seems that Blacks receive the death penalty at a higher rate but when compared to known crimes committed, they appear to be very underrepresented. So do racial percentages matter or only if the topic seems favorable at that moment or that topic? Everyone is entitled to make whatever out of statistics. It seems disingenuous however to look at a topic based on race population prior to determining if they favorable to one side or the other before making that determination.

We are getting closer to 1984 and Newspeak. Instead of Big Brother mandating Newspeak, it is the woke left (which is Big Brother realistically) by shaming people into the new language, mind control and action requirements or prohibitions. Change just a little bit of the novel and we are knocking at the door.

If the greed from the buyer or the seller took over, who is responsible for reparations? The White man who wanted cheap labor to pick crops or the Black man who was willing to capture and sell his own people for profit?

Hahaha…. He must have read my comments of it being a kangaroo court. if he mentions participation trophy, I want credit or I will accuse him of plagiarism. 😃

Ignoring history is a common theme. I suppose the Black slave owners in the US get a pass also.

Assuming that was correct, who is responsible? It has been mentioned that people of Japanese descent were housed in internment camps during World War II. That was the United States government and state governments setting rules for intermittent within their states. The federal government paid reparations to the survivors. It was not paid to their heirs. It was a one time payment for the government (not private citizens or companies) interning people without justification (done under a Democrat presidency). I can find no information showing that the US government ever owned slaves. It appears to be a completely private enterprise, unlike Japanese internment. The payments to people of Japanese descent were for those actually interned and not future Japanese Americans or any other Asians. Who was responsible for the 350 years? The US? The US under our current Constitution came to be in 1789. So under the Constitution, slavery existed in the US for 76 years… not 350. Even then, it was a private institution. Who was responsible for the Atlantic slave trade? The entire endeavor started from the Portuguese. Other countries later joined in but none were the US as the US would not exist or even be contemplated for hundreds of years. How were slaves captured? They were captured by Black Africans. That’s right… Black African slaves were captured by other Black Africans and sold as cattle and some were kept as slaves in Africa. No matter how we try to dissect it, if Black Africans did not capture, enslave and then sell other Black Africans as a commodity, there would have been no slave trade. So Blacks were captured and sold Blacks hundreds of years before the US was ever thought of and whose government didn’t own any slaves, whose country fought a war because of slavery with thousands of Whites being killed or dying (approximately 400,000 plus 400,000 wounded) yet the US government is responsible for what? Toss in the tidbit that many slave owners in this country were Black, including women. So of the likely thousands of Black Americans whose ancestors actually owned slaves, do they get reparations based on melanin content when in fact they furthered the institution? Reparations European and west African countries that caused the slave trade?

1. Congress has no authority to bring charges on anyone. In that scope they are nothing more than private citizens. As an example, if someone in this forum believes they’re aware of or can show a civil rights violation, they can contact the FBI and pass on the information. In that respect, Congress can pass on the information, but that is it. 2. The United States Attorney (USA) for that district in Washington has to accept charges and seek a federal indictment. The same USA on his own discretion could have investigated Trump at any time in the last two years with actual law-enforcement authority, and not under a recommendation from Congress. 3. This was just a committee and not the entire House of Representatives. It was basically a Star Chamber were a defense was not allowed and the Republicans weren’t allowed to participate or call witnesses. It was an example of a kangaroo court. 4. The entire House voted during Obama‘s term to seek criminal contempt charges against Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt of Congress. The USA did not seek an indictment. Another Democrat committee in 2019 voted to ask the USA to indict then Trump Attorney General William Barr for criminal contempt. Nothing was done. 5. The Democrats have had two years of “investigations” and their term and committees (and any proposed laws) ends in a few days. Once a Congress ends its term and a new Congress is seated in odd years on January 3, all previous bills end and any investigations start anew but in this case, under Republican control. That means anything not passed or finished in the next few days, ends. This was their parting shot. This was the Democrat’s participation trophy to themselves. It was now or never so their last official act was to say, we would sure like to see Trump indicted. NO KIDDING?? 6. The USA could, at his discretion, seek an indictment on recommendations from Congress but it is not an automatic as I showed above. 7. I would normally say that this is a non-issue and will go nowhere. Under the current, hyper partisan dog and pony show that we are watching right now, I would not disregard that It might happen, however.

Where speculation becomes fact….. Say it once and it’s a guess or rumor. Repeat it and it becomes ironclad proof.

Or the short version, I can find no place that the law allows for a warning shot but can find that if force is lawful, the threat of force is lawful, and that includes displaying a weapon.

You might find this interesting on brandishing a weapon (although brandishing is not a legal term in Texas) in self defense instead of firing a warning shot. This is from the Texas Penal Code chapter on self-defense. Sec. 9.04. THREATS AS JUSTIFIABLE FORCE. The threat of force is justified when the use of force is justified by this chapter. For purposes of this section, a threat to cause death or serious bodily injury by the production of a weapon or otherwise, as long as the actor's purpose is limited to creating an apprehension that he will use deadly force if necessary, does not constitute the use of deadly force. I read this as, if you are in a possible deadly force situation and you display a weapon, you are allowed to make a threat to use the weapon if needed. L As it says, if the purpose is to create the apprehension that will shoot if necessary, it is lawful. I am not making a legal suggestion but I always have looked at that section under self defense. I have so many times heard the claim that a handgun license instructor has made a statement like, if you feel the need to draw a weapon, you had better use it or you are in trouble. I have never heard that but I have seen it stated numerous times. If an instructor ever made, such a statement, that would be like saying, it is okay if you draw your handgun and kill a guy in lawful self defense but it’s a crime if you draw your handgun and refused to kill him unless necessary. HUH?? Let’s see, a guy pulls a knife on me and demands my money which is an aggravated robbery. I act like I’m reaching for my wallet but pull my handgun and shoot and kill him and it is completely legal. But if I do the exact same thing and quickly back away and point my handgun and say something like drop the knife, etc.. I command a felony Aggravated Assault by making a threat while displaying a deadly weapon? Uhhhhh……. No. I think that is the exact situation this law on self-defense is referencing. There are several reasons to lawfully use deadly force in Texas. If you were in a situation that allows for that deadly force to be lawfully used, drawing a weapon and threatening to use the lawful deadly force is not a crime. So while firing a warning shot is not specifically lawful and “could potentially carry a legal liability, displaying a weapon and threatening to use lawful deadly force does not appear to be a crime under this section. As that section starts out….. The threat of force is justified when the use of force is justified by this chapter. So is brandishing a weapon with a threat to use it a crime if the force is justified? Not in my opinion. Remember that in Chapter 9 on self defense, the state has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you had no reasonable belief of self defense.

What percentage? I have no statistical data but was directly involved in many arrests. Illegal alien criminals are not deported as a rule. Committing a murder? Robbery or other violent crime such as sexual assault? Sure. Multiple DWI, assaults, thefts, etc? No. Illegal aliens lawfully arrested that are deported is probably less than 5% and probably way less. An arrest is not required for deportation but that is a quick way to be discovered by federal law enforcement. Prior to Obama taking office, it was simple. Local police have no authority to arrest anyone simply for being an illegal alien. If an arrest was made for a state crime however such as DWI, theft, trespassing, assault, etc. a call to an Immigration (now ICE) Special Agent could get an immediate immigration hold placed on the person. I had 3 area agents cell phone numbers if needed. It was rarely used but it was an option to notify Immigration of an arrest of an alien unlawfully in the country. That all ended. I was told that special agents (federal police officers) no longer had the authority to arrest or detain for processing from illegal aliens arrested on state level crimes. They told me that they had to call Washington DC to get permission to enforce the law and it had better be a serious crime. Illegal alien criminals were no longer allowed to be detained even after a lawful arrest. The law says they can be but that isn’t reality. I believe currently even a criminal conviction in court will not result in automatic deportation. The law says it is a lawful deportation but it is a hollow law if not enforced. If you really want to see data, check this site. Notice the number of appearances ordered to immigration court in 2009 and 2010 (when Obama took office) and now. If you don’t want to read a few paragraphs, at least look at the graph. That isn’t all aliens that could have been given notices to appear but those who actually went through the process after Immigration was notified and then decided to act on it. Even that study notes that there is no need for a criminal conviction or even a criminal charge for deportation but it isn’t enforced even in most cases after a conviction. [Hidden Content] If you wish to read this actual federal law you will see that even an attempt to enter the country after deportation is a felony and up to 2 years in prison. How many times have we seen in the news stories like, illegal alien who committed some violent crime has been deported a few times. Well each time that the person reentered it was a crime. While in federal custody for that felony reentry, instead of filing criminal charges, they get a ticket home. The mere fact that they are here is a felony and they are in federal custody. This isn’t some theoretical person that may be here (as you mention knowing some) unlawfully but people actually detained by federal law enforcement. [Hidden Content] So your claim that if they are up to no good, they don’t last long, isn’t true. Even if deported, they can come back (in itself a felony) and nothing is likely to be done.

That is absolutely false. They can be convicted of a crime and the federal government refuses deportation.

The law doesn’t address it. I know that use of force experts advise against it. Since the law doesn’t address warning shots, other laws have to be applied. Firing a firearm on public property is a crime (I think up to 6 months in jail) and that includes the right of way/utility access in front of a house. Cities probably have ordinances against discharging firearms in the city limits and I think state law prohibits discharging a firearm in the city limits automatically if the city has a population of more than 100,000 such as Beaumont. Firing in the direction of a person, vehicle or building is a felony but that is overcome by self defense laws… assuming the self defense was lawful at the time. A DA might not prosecute or the police may not arrest and forward the case but a person is rolling the dice. Of course if you are outside of a city limits and on your own property, discharging a weapon usually isn’t a crime anyway. In such a case unless you are actually firing at the person, in which case you would have to justify it, merely shooting a gun in most situations isn’t likely a crime. In reference to shooting in a city limits with less than a 100,000 population a city ordinance is usually only a class C misdemeanor or basically a traffic citation. A person might get away with a warning shot but it potentially has legal consequences.

He is pandering to free speech. That’s what has you confused. The guy that owns, runs and/or has developed Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity (largest US producer of solar panels), StarLink satellites (which might be how you’re reading this message), The Boring Company (to build underground high speed travel) and Neuralink (hooking brain power to computers) probably isn’t worried about a lot. Musk also dabbles in a few smaller venture companies and projects like real estate. I suppose the woke would call that a disaster I am sure if he gets in a bind, he can always call you on business advice though.

If they would quit just taking the letter next to their name of the party that so embarrassed them and swap the I for am R, it would mean something. All this means is that my party is so bad but I don’t want to make it look like I support them…. but I still do…. just don’t associate me with the Democrats…. which I am.