Just wondering why this guy wasn’t charged with attempted murder. He actually fired his rifle.
Is that story related to this one in any way?
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Has to do with the attempted murder charges filed against the Kavanaugh perpetrator. I was wonderingwhy his actions merited that charge while this individuals actions didn’t.
You’re kind of moving the goal posts here with the switch to murder. An example of someone firing a gun at a pizza joint and not being convicted of attempted murder doesn’t mean that the Kavanaugh thing wasn’t an assassination attempt.
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Yeah, I thought it was funny too. You don’t “attempt” to climb a mountain by never leaving the car. You don’t “attempt” suicide with an unloaded gun. And you didn’t “attempt” to get to first base by walking up to a girl and then turning around before she notices you.
But you know, lawyers gonna law.
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When do you cross the line from conspiracy to attempt an assassination? The parts of the plan he carried out i think were mostly legal (ignoring his plan), and he stopped before doing the parts of the plan that were illegal.
But doing the things he did with the intent to murder someone is presumably in a different legal category from doing the same actions without the intent to kill someone.
IMO you can’t ignore his plan. The fact that he made a pre-meditated plan to bring a firearm to the home of a SCOTUS justice with the intent of killing a SCOTUS justice, and then carried out part of said plan makes it an assassination attempt in my mind.
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I mean, I agree that it’s on the edge of what I would consider an assassination attempt. But given that that’s what the grand jury found and it’s how it’s being described by people who know more about the law than me, I went with it. 
It is slightly more than sitting in the car. It’s getting out of the taxi, looking at the mountain, and realizing that it’s actually a very tall mountain.
Obviously it’s a legal question, I’m just saying, the colloquial definition of attempt doesn’t usually include “giving up before anyone even notices you are thinking about doing something.”
Though I guess it depends on personal psychology. “I attempted to lose weight by buying all that jenny craig shit.”
I agree with the poster above saying its on the fence, but I feel like you’re really downplaying how crazy it is that someone traveled from California to Maryland with a gun and was outside the home of a justice. Like the guy had a firearm, pepper spray, (ironically) a hammer, and tons of other equipment needed to break into a home/hurt the people inside.
Source since I just looked more of this up:
Can somebody explain to me why his sister convinced him to call the police on himself rather than just leave?
Regardless this doesnt seem like attempted murder to me.
I’m guessing she probably felt he was a danger to himself and others, and that everyone would be better off if he was off the streets and hopefully getting some help to bring him back from the brink of madness.
And instead of just leaving he took her advice and called the cops on himself? Or did i misunderstand a post? Seems very strange
I agree it’s a strange situation. If it actually happened as described I would expect him to just leave, and then maybe seek out some therapy for his issues. Maybe he figured it would end up better if he turned himself in rather than risk the cops coming after him if they found out what he did.
Yeah idk something is missing here.
Right… that is what makes the other stuff a crime. But just having a plan isn’t attempting murder either, is it? There is a line somewhere in the execution of the plan that isn’t 100% clear, especially in a case where the person called himself off.
If he has a good lawyer and it goes before a jury, i think there is a decent chance he is guilty on a lesser charge but not guilty on attempt.
I think a lot will depend on precisely how attempted murder is defined under … Maryland? federal law.
Edited to correct: he’s being tried in federal court.
I’m not “downplaying” it. I’m talking about the word.
It’s definitely crazy. Or maybe not crazy since it could be entirely rational* to assassinate a leader, but it’s definitely very, very dangerous for our society. And it’s easy to imagine some other scenario where the guy does go through with his plan.
So presumably a crime was committed? It just doesn’t fit my picture of the word “attempted”. Maybe it fits a legal definition, or maybe it fits another crime? Or maybe no crime was committed since this sort of almost doing is too close to being a “thought-crime”, and we don’t want to punish someone for turning themselves in before doing the act? But I don’t know. I don’t presume to know. I’m just laughing at the word here, bro.
*(though it’s pretty dumb to think you could save RvW by offing a justice)
Plotting to kill someone and traveling with the intent of killing someone is a crime I think.
Maybe it’s one most people would get away with because if he’d walked away and booked a hotel room and flew home the next day no one would have been the wiser. But there are thought crimes as I understand it.