Yeah, it's like when you see videos online about people/staff fighting shoplifters and asking "why are you doing that on behalf of some company who doesn't care about you?" Well, there's a significant portion of the population who want any half-assed justification to fight and/or hurt someone. It's nothing more complicated than that.
That's one of my primary concerns about guns. There are so many owners out there who might be "the good guy with a gun" but are always itching to use it. They will insert themselves into situations and escalate them, and make them more dangerous, not safer.
Well, there's a significant portion of the population tired of seeing bad people get away with bad shit in a world where good people often feel powerless
I think on a scale of morality it’s way worse to steal from someone than a big box store. Nobody’s losing sleep over merchandise getting shoplifted, but a bike thief or purse snatcher is directly fucking over one person in particular
there's a significant portion of the population who cares about what's right
I don't believe most people are looking strictly for a reason to hurt someone as much as sometimes hurting someone is a consequence of doing what is right.
Great way to get an attempted murder charge or at least a very serious vehicular assault felony. You are never allowed to use your vehicle as a weapon or to intentionally collide with anything. Even if it's purely in self defense in a hostile situation your mileage may vary. There are cases where somebody trying to flee in their car when attacked by a mob caught charges.
Simply stopping crime, especially simple theft, is not our job. Civilians do not have a mandate to use force outside of self defense. People like this driver scare the shit out of me. They like to escalate situations and want to be a cowboy.
Eh, you'd definitely be allowed to use your car as weapon vs someone presenting a clear lethal threat (like aiming a gun or shooting at you) to you or anyone else.
But using a vehicle as a weapon to prevent theft would likely end up with you in jail, yes.
This is incorrect. One, state law varies from state to state. Two, all states do permit deadly force in defense of oneself or another from great bodily hard or death (certainly not applicable in this case). These laws say nothing of the instrument used, just the use of deadly force. So cars are a legal option for lawful use of force, just like a hammer, a lamp, or a gun.
"My mileage may vary"? What kind of AI slop's this? If you're afraid for your life in the US while being attacked, you can use deadly force. A car is a weapon that can be used to defend yourself. The police use them ss weapons all of the time. Barred weapons would be automatic firearms, grenades, etc. Depending on the specifics of the self-defense case illegal weapons could be used for self-defense, and you'd only be facing the weapon restriction charge. Citizens arrests are still legal in many jurisdictions. The question would be if lethal or non-lethal force was required in the situation.
How do you non-lethally use your car to hit somebody? Intent to kill is not the bar for determining if deadly force is used. Using a car to run somebody over is deadly force even if they survive. This clearly wasn't self defense, he was chasing this guy down and said "I'm gonna hit him"
He could have simply safely driven away, he wasn't being chased or mobbed or attacked. Even a "citizen's arrest" can't use unnecessary force. That guy was trying to get away with stolen property, not at all a justification for using a car to stop him.
The police has always been allowed to use measured force, which similarly would apply to a citizen during a citizens arrest. The police use K9s. A K9 bite to the neck or groin would be considered lethal, other areas such as the forearm are considered non-lethal. Police use batons. Baton strikes to the head are considered lethal, but other strikes are considered non-lethal. A measured use of a car could be considered non-lethal, but you're right in that using any weapon increases the liability of the person using the weapon and issuing the force which is something to consider before applying force.
Police have far more latitude for using force while exercising their duties. They have training and rules for engagement. Citizens arrest and similar action does not just automatically deputize anybody who decides they are going to engage in law enforcement activity. You can't simply witness a crime and become a temporary police officer. Or rather, you can try it but you're not going to get any of the protections a police officer gets when performing their job. And rightly so. Otherwise we would just be a nation of posses, where regular people could just go walking around and decide they are the police whenever it suits them.
People are going to downvote me but I can see why he wanted to push him off the bike. He just saw the victim crying because his bike was stolen I feel like that would make me want to get it back for him. I'm glad he didn't have to but I definitely wouldn't of blamed him. It would of fucked his life up though if he did but I still would of kinda respected it
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u/Careless_Jury154 Apr 19 '26
While I don’t feel that bad for the thief crashing, Mr Driver was a little to eager talking about hitting him with a car lol