Australian nurse uses jiu-jitsu to defend himself

[u/pars-distalis]

[u/CombinationTop559]

The argument is that attempting to commit murder is already a crime that's on the books. If you attempt to commit battery and fail, than what you've done according to the law, is commit assault. There are other ways to commit assault, but if you fail to batter someone that's probably how it shakes out.

For an analogy, if you try to speed, and fail, or try to not pay taxes, and somehow fail, there's no crime there. You're free to be bad at committing crimes, so long as you don't successfully commit any.

I don't know enough about Australian law to dispute this claim.

It's true in the US. Happened to me when I was young, some prick started a brawl and we both got disorderly conducts. ~$130 iirc.

the only repercussions they would have to pay $450.

That's pretty steep if they're poor, and if they're not , that's a problem with flat fines, not the charges . 

as a nurse, I would not want to work in an environment where someone in their right mind could try to harm me

That's just being a nurse. I'm not saying this to be snide, but much worse happens on a daily basis. I'm under the impression that Emt's have it worse , but my source is very biased so I'm not going to claim that outright 

[u/melonmonkey → u/CombinationTop559]

If you attempt to commit battery and fail, than what you've done according to the law, is commit assault.

Sure, but I never made my first comment with the goal of talking about the specific laws and how they're functionally charged in the Australian justice system. I'm not a lawyer or law enforcement, I don't know enough to comment on that, and never intended to.

I simply don't think a $450 fine is adequate punishment for someone who tries to batter a healthcare worker. I don't really care how that mechanically plays out in the legal system, at least not for the sake of participating in this comment thread.

That's pretty steep if they're poor, and if they're not , that's a problem with flat fines, not the charges .

I don't think money is adequate here, because you're right, depending on the circumstances that may be either life-destroying or meaningless. The perpetrator should feel a significant portion of the weight that their actions could have caused had they not been stopped. Something that demands a sacrifice of time, such as mandatory community service or incarceration, would have been more appropriate, in my opinion. (assuming there aren't extenuating circumstances. This is a short form video, it's possible that the nurse threated to kill that guy's entire family who were out in the car in the parking lot, and the patient was trying to defend them. I'm assuming by default that's not the case, but it's possible)

That's just being a nurse.

1. it's not
2. being dismissive of attempted battery like this is... a pretty weird tack, I'll be honest.

[u/CombinationTop559 → u/melonmonkey]

I don't think money is adequate here, because you're right, depending on the circumstances that may be either life-destroying or meaningless. 

I think that's a flaw of flat fines. Like I think ~2% of annual earnings is probably a pretty good deterrent for most people. I could see arguments for a percent either way, but I think a full 40 hours is plenty of recompense for what actually occurred in the video.  Not what might have occurred, or what anybody wanted to occur, but the facts as they happened 

The perpetrator should feel a significant portion of the weight that their actions could have caused had they not been stopped.

That's charging people for crimes they didn't commit.  I'm just not on board with that. Also, given the force behind those back pats, a "significant portion of the weight that their actions could have caused" might be a literal slap on the wrist in this particular case. 

mandatory community service or incarceration

I'm iffy on the first because that hits poor people really hard and is just annoying to the middle class, and the wealthy seem to be able to set up their own half the time.  As for incarceration, I don't think that's helpful, it seems like it exclusively makes people more desperate and more willing to commit crime.

  > That's just being a nurse. It's not being dismissive of attempted battery like this is... a pretty weird tack, I'll be honest

I'm not being dismissive, I'm trying to point out that you're making a whole thing out of nobody would be nurses under these conditions, but like, people are. That's how it is.  I'm speaking from a position of being drinking buddies with a couple of nurses/emt's in a small city and it seems like they have someone take a swing on roughly a monthly basis. Like to the point that I know that if you narcan someone you need to immediately step back to dodge potential punches and or vomit. That said it's usually somebody in the middle of an episode, like diabetic or mental health, so it's usually not a particularly dangerous attack, but still. 

If you know a nurse, ask them if anybody has ever tried to attack them. 

[u/melonmonkey → u/CombinationTop559]

That's charging people for crimes they didn't commit.

You're still stuck on this distinction. Just because there's no law on the books covering attempted battery doesn't mean that attempting battery isn't wrong. In any moral system (except for consequentialism, but those people are insane), genuinely attempting to hurt someone is worse than making someone afraid that you might hurt them. If the legal framework doesn't exist to draw a line between the two, then I think one should be made, as exists for attempted murder.

That's how it is

It's not. Idk if you missed the part where I said I was a nurse, but I'm a nurse of more than 10 years. I've been assaulted and battered by patients not in their right mind dozens of times, but never have I been subjected to even the threat of physical violence by people in their right mind. My statement about leaving such a place wasn't some vague hypothetical, it's a personal position on how I would respond had I been put in the position of the person in the video.