You must be new to my posts, I label everyone a douchebag that resorts to violence based off of their paranoia.
lol at you thinking that someone chasing you through your neighboorhood after you start running on a dark, rainy night might have ill-intentions towards you as "paranoia", especially since you stated earlier that since GZ was chasing TM, TM should have assumed he had a gun.
You're missing the point here entirely. Who started the assault? Chasing / running/ following/ driving after is not assault. Whoever started the assault is the one acting on their paranoia and is in the wrong.
This is laughable. You're trying to take an absolute statement (one you made up yourself) and apply it to this situation. Are you saying if someone chased you through your neighboorhood on a dark, rainy night, you are going assume they have good intentions up until the point that their hands/weapons come into physical contact with you?
1. Assault is defined differently in different states - but typically it deals with imminent intention of doing harm. Pulling a weapon would suffice.
2. It's already been stated that this case represents 1% of when laws don't work - which I agree that happens - why is it hard to believe that 1% of the time, the guy following you could just be trying to return the wallet you dropped.
This entire debate reminds me of a study done several years ago where they had children play Grand Theft Auto at different age brackets to see how they played the game. It was surprising to see the kids roughly 7 & under play the video game in a completely non-violent manner. Driving around firetrucks/ambulances and generally being decent human beings. The older kids drove around killing prostitutes and were shocked to know that it was possible to drive around firetrucks and make $$ by putting out fires.
You're the type of guy that drives around choking out prostitutes - and shocked to see that people
might have good intentions. I'm the guy that knows you like to choke out prostitutes, but also knows some people like to drive around with their fire trucks and put out fires - so I withhold judgement until I'm sure if I need to shoot you in the rough ridin' chest or not. So until it is evident exactly who initiated the assault, I will withhold judgement on who is legally responsible, but I will immediately judge both of them for being the type of guys that like to drive around & choke out prostitutes. I should emphasize though that enjoying this behavior is not illegal... the behavior itself is.