Slashdot Mirror
Seeking YouTube Fame, A Teenager Kills Her Boyfriend (arstechnica.com)
Last Monday a 19-year-old woman named Monalisa Perez gave the police a strange reason for why her boyfriend, Pedro Ruiz III, was dead. An anonymous reader quotes Ars Technica:
A Minnesota woman has been charged with manslaughter after she shot and killed her boyfriend as part of the pair's attempt to become YouTube celebrities... The two had set up two video cameras to capture Perez firing the gun at Ruiz while he held a book in front of his chest. Ruiz apparently convinced Perez that the book would stop the bullet from a foot away. The gun, a Desert Eagle .50 caliber pistol, was not hindered by the book. Ruiz, who was found with a single gunshot in his chest, was pronounced dead at the scene. Hours before the incident, Perez posted on Twitter, "Me and Pedro are probably going to shoot one of the most dangerous videos ever. HIS idea not MINE."
The teenager -- who is pregnant with the couple's second child -- now faces second-degree manslaughter charges, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a fine of up to $20,000, or both. A local sheriff told the New York Times, "I really have no idea what they were thinking. I just don't understand the younger generation on trying to get their 15 minutes of fame."
The teenager -- who is pregnant with the couple's second child -- now faces second-degree manslaughter charges, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a fine of up to $20,000, or both. A local sheriff told the New York Times, "I really have no idea what they were thinking. I just don't understand the younger generation on trying to get their 15 minutes of fame."
They have already reproduce. Thus they are not eligible.
I just don't understand the younger generation
19-year-old couple, 3 year old daughter, one in the oven - and you expect responsible behaviour on the internet?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The story about it I read last week said that he did test it on another book and showed it to her to convince her it was safe.
That's why she's not going to prison. They'll drop charges, or she'll get acquitted. He asked to do the stunt, she said no, and he kept trying until he convinced her it was safe. Stupid? Yes. Manslaughter? No, she only did it after he had convinced her it would be OK.
The key thing here is that if they had done the stunt successfully, everything is legal. This is no different than a circus accident at the knife-throwing event.
It teaches a lesson, Don't test in Production ...
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The issue at hand is that the right to keep and bear arms is specifically enumerated in the constitution therefore laws targeting to limit or control it are treated with the highest scrutiny, furthermore in Heller v. D.C. the Supreme Court ruled that given the historical background of the second amendment it protects an individual right to keep and bear arms unconnected with military service and that the idea behind the second was to provide a deterrent against tyranny whether domestic or foreign. That being said it seems like the government knowing who and where all the guns are would defeat the idea behind the amendment, but even otherwise the whole round em' up scenario is no longer a hypothetical situation as we've seen gun confiscating campaigns in California and New York already. Speaking of hypothetical situations there is also a famous scene in the movie Red Dawn, whose producers were opposed to the then new FFL system, where a soviet commandant in the invading force orders a subordinate to raid all the gun stores in occupied territory to collect all the Form 4473's so they can systematically quell any opposition in the bud before the citizenry can form a militia.
I'd also like to point out that licenses for firearms originated in the Jim Crowe south with the idea of oppressing certain racial groups from being able to defend themselves against injustice. Martin Luther King, for example, was denied a gun permit even though people were terrorizing his family, defacing his property and sending him death threats.
One could argue that you have some vague right to drive a car but the fact remains driving cars are not specifically enumerated in the constitution like arms are. A more apt comparison might be if the government tried to limit freedom of speech by requiring a license to publish anything for public consumption but then make the argument that because you might be able to get a license means your rights are not being infringed on. In fact we're already seeing this type of thing spread in Europe where certain types of speech is banned and a criminal offense.
But we did not learn how thick the book was, nor its title or author.
The first book was "The Art of the Deal". The bullet got halfway through the book and died of boredom. The second book was Harry Potter, the bullet flew through it looking for more sequels.