Officer Shot While Responding to a Domestic Disturbance Call

[MyrnaLoy]

"Police say Collier texted family members Sunday to say he'd killed his 1-year old daughter and his mother-in-law, who remains missing. The girl's body was found in the suspected gunman's truck near the burning home. The girl had been shot in the head." http://www.ktsm.com/local/officer-shot-while-responding-to-a-domestic-disturbance-call

[bluerum]

1. Good gawd. Although gawd has apparently had very little to do with this.

:-(

[GreenStormCloud]

2. I bet he has a lengthy history of violent behavior. N/T

[iverglas]

3. so the impotant thing to do

was to make sure he had access to guns.

It is awfully tempting to say: yup.

[pennylane100]

4. What kind of monster kills his own baby.

and I am sure the chances of finding the mother-in-law alive are slim. It is times like this that we really appreciate the fact that the police have to put their lives on the line to protect us and I really hope he is going to be okay.

[SteveM]

6. My sentiments exactly. nt

[TPaine7]

5. Point?

Have you surrendered your gun(s) and permit yet?

[oneshooter]

8. You can't see the point, because it is under the hat! n/t

[MyrnaLoy]

9. right here is my point

"Then she wrote a chilling final message: "I have never been so scared in my life, Heather. He has guns. He's gonna shoot my daughter. (H)e has lost his (expletive) mind." http://www.chron.com/news/article/2nd-body-found-at-CA-home-where-man-shot-officer-2135251.php

[TPaine7]

11. Well then...

Have you surrendered your gun(s) and permit yet?

[iverglas]

12. when are you going to thank me for educating you?

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=447511&mesg_id=448831

That's one strange blind spot you seem to have developed ...

[AtheistCrusader]

13. Incidentally, this is why our rights are inalienable, not unalienable.

Jefferson had it right, and the correct word is reflected upon the base of his memorial in Washington DC.

Adams was a pinhead.

[TPaine7]

15. Really?

iverglas' "lesson" is the reason our rights are inalienable and not unalienable?

I haven't taken the time--actually haven't had the time--to wade into her depressing BS in spite of her following me around like a lost puppy, but I do have the time to read your explanation of how her "lesson" is the "reason" our rights are inalienable.

After all, you don't have a history of attempted to "teach" me mountains of BS.

[AtheistCrusader]

16. Inalienable/unalienable.

It's a tangent, to some degree. But a criminal can, (with due process) give up the right to freedom, by overt act.

Unalienable rights cannot be taken away, ever, nor can they be given away/surrendered by the individual.
Inalienable rights cannot be taken away either, but can be surrendered by the individual overtly or by implication.

For instance, I can, if I feel my mind is no longer competent (say with onset of Altzheimers) I can surrender power of attorney and other control of my finances, and even my physical location, to another person.

Or I can go out and commit a heinous crime, surrendering my freedom to a concrete cell via due process.

I can grant another person a lein against my freedom, by killing someone, or stealing, or by voluntary surrender.

Therefore, Jefferson was right, dead on the money. Smart guy. Too bad about the whole having slaves thing. Could have been an unmitigated hero.

[iverglas]

19. sadly

this is an odd red herring invented by USAmerican analysts that, as far as I can see, simply tries to use a completely meaningless variation in word formation to found a doctrine that would otherwise be unacceptable.

"Un-" and "in-" mean exactly the same thing. So "unalienable" and "inalienable" cannot mean different things. There isn't even any semantic way that "inalienable" could possibly mean what you say it means:

Unalienable rights cannot be taken away, ever, nor can they be given away/surrendered by the individual.
Inalienable rights cannot be taken away either, but can be surrendered by the individual overtly or by implication.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights starts out:

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, ...

and it really just doesn't mean "can be given up". And I doubt that Eleanor Roosevelt would have said it does.

Criminals do not alienate their right to freedom by committing crimes.

Deprivation of freedom for committing crimes is a violation of the right to freedom -- a violation that is justified according to the standards adopted by the particular society.

Your argument amounts to saying the right itself is defined by ordinary law: if a particular statute says that a person may be sentenced to death for a particular crime, then the person alienates that right by committing that act. And yet over the border of the jurisdiction five miles away, that wouldn't be the case.

How can one person alienate their right to life by committing a crime, and another person not alienate their right to life by committing the same crime? Does the alienability of rights depend on location, or even time?


Or I can go out and commit a heinous crime, surrendering my freedom to a concrete cell via due process.

That's a nonsense, quite simply. It is not the crime that results in the deprivation of liberty; it is the decision of the court of competent jurisdiction, having applied due process etc., that does that. That's what your constitution is all about.

People sentenced to incarceration have neither given up their right to liberty nor had it taken away. They have been denied certain exercises of it for a certain period of time.


If the right to liberty is alienable, I could sell myself into slavery tomorrow morning. And yet by universal consensus, a person simply may not sell themself into slavery. Because the right to liberty is inalienable: I may not alienate that right, I may neither strip myself of it nor be stripped of it.


For instance, I can, if I feel my mind is no longer competent (say with onset of Altzheimers) I can surrender power of attorney and other control of my finances, and even my physical location, to another person.

And yet oddly, you have not actually given up your right to the property. If you had, no one would need a power of attorney to deal with it. (This is simply not the meaning of the "right not to be deprived of property without due process" in your constitution anyway. Anyone may alienate their own property. Just as anyone may lock themself in a closet, or kill themself.)

The fact that someone else may be appointed, either by the person or by an authority, to exercise a right on someone's behalf does not remotely mean that the person has "surrendered" that right. The right is simply being exercised on their behalf.

It may not be exercised against their interests -- parents may send children to their room as punishment, but they may not lock them in closets for a year. The person with power of attorney over your property may not burn it down; the person with power of attorney over your person may not deny you medical treatment. The reason is precisely that you still have those rights. If you didn't have them, the person with the power of attorney could do as they liked.

I'm afraid that I just find this whole effort incomprehensible and unmitigated bumph.

But then, it comes to us from all those many years ago, when not only were people just starting to work out these ideas, but they also had not the slightest idea that anybody all these many years later would decide that their small efforts were writ in stone. I dunno, maybe they were that arrogant. I just doubt their minds were that closed.

[AtheistCrusader]

20. What, where the hell did my post go?

Argh.

See, Black's Dictionary of Law, 1st or 2nd edition. Editions from the latter half of the 1900's do not reflect it, but earlier versions do: Inalienable and Unalienable have different definitions.

You are correct that grammatically, in common english language usage, the words are identical, but as early as the 1600's, and late as the 1920's, multiple law sources refer to a distinction between the two. Obviously, Jefferson didn't have Black's Dictionary of the Law, as it came in around 1891 or so, but ... argh.


What is his name. British fellow. Wrote some material, coincidental name, IIRC. I can't find it at the moment, but I suspect your professional background might help you identify what I am looking for. I believe it was called something like 'Black's Letters on the Law' or Essays on the Law, something like that. Jefferson and co borrowed heavily from English law and legal references in concepts like Natural Rights.

I know I'll think of it. I'll come back later when my subconscious kicks it out while i'm off doing something else.

You bring up a good point on slavery. To most civilized countries, the concept is unalienable, or incapable of being aliened. I cannot even voluntarily sell myself into slavery. So, good point. I think the situation has evolved somewhat, since the BoR and DoI were authored, however.

[iverglas]

21. I did not take it

I would say, myself, that any early distinction/confusion was simply a result of the fact that the entire concept of rights was in its infancy.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/inalienable

While inalienable and unalienable are today used interchangeably with inalienable more common, the terms have historically sometimes been distinguished.<2>

Regarding current usage being interchangeable:<3>

The unalienable rights that are mentioned in the Declaration of Independence could just as well have been inalienable, which means the same thing. Inalienable or unalienable refers to that which cannot be given away or taken away. However, the Founders used the word "unalienable" as defined by William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1:93, when he defined unalienable rights as: "Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and therefore called natural rights, such as life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolable. On the contrarty, no human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture."...in other words a person may do something to forfeit their unalienable rights...for instance the unalienable right to freedom which can be forfeited by the commission of a crime for which they may be punished by their loss of freedom. However, once they are freed after serving their punishment their right is restored.

In earlier legal usage the terms were distinguished, but not explicitly contrasted. Black’s 1910 defines inalienable as:<5>

Not subject to alienation; the characteristic of those things which cannot be bought or sold or transferred from one person to another such as rivers and public highways and certain personal rights; e.g., liberty.

while it defines unalienable as:

Incapable of being aliened, that is, sold and transferred.

Bouvier’s Law Dictionary (1856) defines the terms as follows:

INALIENABLE. A word denoting the condition of those things the property in which cannot be lawfully transferred from one person to another. Public highways and rivers are inalienable. There are also many rights which are inalienable, as the rights of liberty or of speech.
UNALIENABLE. Incapable of being transferred. Things which are not in commerce, as, public roads, are in their nature unalienable. Some things are unalienable in consequence of particular provisions of the law forbidding their sale or transfer; as, pensions granted by the government. The natural rights of life and liberty are unalienable.

It is noteworthy that while Bouvier’s draws a distinction between the terms, it uses much the same examples (public roads, the right to liberty) for both, and does not specifically contrast them, nor is an example given of a thing that is one but not the other.

If there was a historical difference, it does not appear to be clear from the literature, and any such difference is now effaced.

Some authors draw a fine distinction, with unalienable being stronger and absolute, while (in this usage) inalienable is weaker and conditional. This draws on a more recent definition, given by the Missouri Court of Appeals, 1952:

Inalienable Rights: Rights which are not capable of being surrendered or transferred without the consent of the one possessing such rights.<6>

The distinction is most often discussed, if at all, in the context of the Declaration of Independence, which uses the now less-common unalienable, but which is today frequently quoted using the now more-common inalienable, as in the 1997 film Amistad. Further, some drafts used inalienable, notably the draft by Thomas Jefferson.<7> Most authorities consider this an insignificant stylistic difference,<3><7> though some consider this a significant distinction.

It strikes me as one of those chicken entrails things.

And in any event, "commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture" simply does not mean "commit a crime". It means an act of forfeiture of a right, e.g. voluntarily entering indentured labour, which was entirely legal at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted. It is now regarded as incompatible with an inalienable ... or unalienable ... right.



edited to remove random stupid idioticonface

[AtheistCrusader]

22. BLACKSTONE.

There it is. Thank you. Damn, that was driving me nuts. This was the source of much of Jefferson's understanding in the terms.

I agree with regard to recognition and definition of rights being in their infancy. To some degree, in many countries such as the US, they still are, or have somewhat regressed.

I may be using somewhat of an expansive definition for 'consent' in

"Inalienable Rights: Rights which are not capable of being surrendered or transferred without the consent of the one possessing such rights."

To me, consent can be explicit, or implicit. For instance, I can implicitly consent to be gored to death (loss of life) by voluntarily participating in The Running Of The Bulls. It is a risk I have agreed to, by the nature of my actions. It would be a violation of my right to liberty, if someone forced me to try it at gunpoint. Not the best example, but hopefully it illustrates where I am going with linking commiting an act that amounts to forfeiture, to consent, and why I think the distinction between the olden terms of inalienable, which an individual can consent to surrender a right, and unalienable, where an individual cannot, is vital.

[SteveM]

7. And?

[MyrnaLoy]

10. sure

http://www.familylawcourts.com/kids_killed.html

[SteveM]

18. GPS...

for strangulation, slit throats, and beatings, too? Sure. I assume GPS stands for global positioning system. This seems to be a general law-enforcement problem, not limited by gun-violence. The poor victims are just as dead by other means.

[YllwFvr]

14. This is why domestic calls

along with vehicle stops, remain a very dangerous call. An officer can go to the same house half a dozen times and then someone has had enough. In a personal matter the police are generally unwanted, and it becomes routine for the cop. Nothing should become routine. You go into a potentially deadly situation with your guard down expecting a simple talk.

My thoughts go out to the family.

[jeepnstein]

17. Most of the kids killed by their parents...

that I've seen were not shot. They were either beaten or stabbed to death. One was boiled alive, and another was burned with an open flame. Most of them took a while to die from their injuries. I can remember one that was shot to death. It's not a gun problem. It goes much deeper than that.

Domestics are always dangerous. I have yet to go on one where everyone is happy to see you.