No criminal charges over British woman shot in US during a holiday
No criminal charges over British woman shot in US during a holiday
Lucy Harrison was visiting her father during a holiday in Texas when she was fatally wounded.
jfc DO NOT COME TO THE UNITED STATES
Well, don't visit the US. This is just one of the many reasons to avoid that place.
What's madness to me is that people in my country have a holiday to the US booked... and are still going.
My safety is worth more than a few sunk thousand
probably dint want to waste thousands of euros, or some people are sitll ignorant of politics.
In a different universe, in a different timeline, maybe we wouldn't be stuck so far up America's arse and do something sensible like putting the damn country on a travel ban list.
The UK Tends to warn not ban travel.
We have levels of warning that equate to. You are all on your own if shit happens.
Down to the be very careful to follow rules level the US is currently under.
But proscription of travel only happens in a open we are at war setting. And rarely even then,
The US on the other hand will do it for political disagreements. Like Cuba.
YSK that Americans will liberally (!) provide, carry and use their weapons for everything except the second amendment intended purpose.
Forming a militia to protect from foreign invasion?
I should withdraw my original comment. I spent a while re-researching the original intent, the Heller case and some of the subsequent cases to its current interpretation.
I believe it was originally intended to prevent federal overreach. Except that when there was a belief by some people that that had happened and there was an invasion of the capital. That confused me. I don't know what the rights and wrongs were - apparently the alleged overreach wasn't adjudged to be severe by anyone.
For Brits, while there's many possible worse interpretations, the usual reason for US law to function this way is if the weapon was fired by a very young child.
And yes, we have a "usual" regarding children getting their hands on firearms. That sucks in it's own special way.
US law seals many records in cases for child offenders.
If the weapon was fired by a child too young to understand firearms, that could result in no charges - although it's more usual to see a charge against the caretakers in such cases.
Disclaimer: Since tone doesn't convey in text - I want to clarify I'm not trying to advocate for the US system. I just want to share that there are explanations - in addition - to our usual ones.
None of what I've shared is meant to attempt to address the concerns that must come with having a gun culture.
Everything still sucks in this situation, and everyone has a right to how they feel about it.
Whatever else we feel, we can all agree we need to find ways to do better than this. Nothing is okay about this.
(And yes, I know I'm saying that in one country where this kind of thing still routinely happens.)
Even if she was shot by a young child, shouldn't charges be brought against the parents or anyone responsible for letting that child have access to a lethal weapon ?
That would be negligence charges, yes, which is what went to the grand jury. The grand jury, for the record here, is a bunch of randomly selected people - not the cops, or a prosecutor, or anything like that. Its a jury. And what this jury decides is not guilt, but whether or not there is enough evidence that supports the charges to bring it to a trial.
And that grand jury decided there was not.
I'm not aware of (and was unable to find) any specifics around what actually happened, so there may be a very good reason why this was the case.
I'm not defending the decision here, just explaining the situation. It was investigated, the police brought someone and evidence to a prosecutor, a prosecutor brought it to court, and a jury decided the charges didn't fit the evidence to bring forward to a criminal trial. That is all we really know.
A lot of jumping to conclusions with very little evidence in this thread.