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Tags bigfoot , lawsuits , sasquatch

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Old 30th April 2014, 05:38 PM   #281
stanfr
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Originally Posted by William Parcher View Post
Would things change drastically if the victim was simply wearing dark clothing instead of a hairy costume?

"I thought he was a Bigfoot" would still apply, right?

We actually expect that many "honest misidentifications" of Bigfoot are really of people just out for a walk in the woods and who are not trying to look like a Bigfoot.

Does the shooter face bigger penalties because the hiking kid wasn't trying to look like Bigfoot as compared to the costumed kid who was trying that?
Probably, cause it would go towards negligence, which involves a determination of what a "reasonable" person would do in that situation.
It's clear you can't just go shooting at every dark object--that would probably fall under most people's idea of negligent if not reckless behavior. But the mistake people are making here is that it seems so obvious to everyone here that BF is a "mythical" creature. The polls say otherwise from a public perspective (sorry, number not readily at my fingertips--but it aint insignificant.) From my informal conversations with many many people living in the PacNW--i would say a large minority of people either have an outright belief in BF's existence or are unsure one way or the other. It is not as cut and dry (public belief) as people are making it out to be.

Last edited by stanfr; 30th April 2014 at 05:44 PM.
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Old 30th April 2014, 05:43 PM   #282
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Originally Posted by River View Post
Replace the word bigfoot here, with ghost, or mermaid. It makes no difference, a mythological creature is still not in existence and therefore cannot be killed. To fire upon what you think "might be a bigfoot" not only breaks hunting laws, it goes past "reasonable" thinking into the mentality that its ok to shoot at something you either don't know what it is, or something you know to be a human in a suit. Otherwise, you're just making crap up to suit your own belief system. A judge and jury may have sympathy for your stupidity, but I doubt it would change the outcome. "I thought I was shooting bigfoot" is not a good defense. I hope we never get to see that used in court...

The whole point to this discussion is to show how ridiculous it is for PhD types, bigfoot enthusiasts and the likes to be talking about specimen collection of something that clearly does not exist, and would certainly be endangering society as a whole to go out looking for an upright man/ape like looking creature in North America to shoot for specimen collection.

How utterly irresponsible can you be bigfooters? This much? Lets hope it never comes to this.

You already have certain groups (biptos group cough cough) that claim to have fired live rounds at claimed bigfoots. I'm sure you're aware of those incidents, and the time where apparently some humans that were likely fired upon and left in a hurry by that same group. (the group paid for the damage to their truck)

This is a sick game, and it should be exposed before someone ends up hurt, or worse.
I agree with your conclusion, but expecting the law to follow your wisdom is not so wise. For one thing, you are comparing apples and oranges. A ghost, for example (which, BTW, a large percentage of people beleieve in!) would not fit in this scenario. Who would be shooting at a nebulous object which is already 'dead' by definition? In the BF scenario, the hunter is most likley going to be of the group that thinks BF is an as-yet unclassified ape, nothing paranormal about it. So, while you and I might agree that BF is imagined, it doesn't matter, what matters is what the person doing the shooting thought, and whether those thougths were reasonable. Sad to say, a lot of folks would have no issue with those actions/thoughts being considered 'reasonable', whether you like it or not.
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Old 30th April 2014, 06:20 PM   #283
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Originally Posted by William Parcher View Post
Would things change drastically if the victim was simply wearing dark clothing instead of a hairy costume?
That depends on the state too. If it went down like that in Florida, then you're just "standing your ground".
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Old 30th April 2014, 09:32 PM   #284
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Originally Posted by Pterodactyl View Post
That depends on the state too. If it went down like that in Florida, then you're just "standing your ground".
If you're going to run a hoax in Florida, go as an albino bigfoot.
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Old 30th April 2014, 09:51 PM   #285
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Originally Posted by stanfr View Post
I agree with your conclusion, but expecting the law to follow your wisdom is not so wise. For one thing, you are comparing apples and oranges. A ghost, for example (which, BTW, a large percentage of people beleieve in!) would not fit in this scenario. Who would be shooting at a nebulous object which is already 'dead' by definition? In the BF scenario, the hunter is most likley going to be of the group that thinks BF is an as-yet unclassified ape, nothing paranormal about it. So, while you and I might agree that BF is imagined, it doesn't matter, what matters is what the person doing the shooting thought, and whether those thougths were reasonable. Sad to say, a lot of folks would have no issue with those actions/thoughts being considered 'reasonable', whether you like it or not.

Excatly! That is why it's a serious situation, and needs to be exposed. We don't need for one kid playing a prank, or a hiker at dusk, or whatever "bigfoot" the "bigfoot enthusiast" happens to mentally identify as being a bigfoot to die due to this "hoax" that is carried on by PhD types, and television networks for profit. They know damn well there is no real bigfoot.

They also know "there's a sucker born every day". I'm not under any illusion that the footers will suddenly change their stance even if someone does die at the hands of a footer attempting to collect a specimen. I would suspect that they might blame the prankster, not the shooter for murdering an upright walking hominid looking creature in the USA. (remember, IT HAS TO BE OUT THERE!! derp) You can't prove it's not neeener neeener neeeeener! (insert sneer here lol) Seriously though, you know exactly what/how I mean that.

Sounds like negligence to me. Or possibly mentally challenged/delusional.

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Last edited by River; 30th April 2014 at 10:02 PM.
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Old 1st May 2014, 11:14 AM   #286
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Originally Posted by stanfr View Post
...But the mistake people are making here is that it seems so obvious to everyone here that BF is a "mythical" creature. The polls say otherwise from a public perspective (sorry, number not readily at my fingertips--but it aint insignificant.) From my informal conversations with many many people living in the PacNW--i would say a large minority of people either have an outright belief in BF's existence or are unsure one way or the other. It is not as cut and dry (public belief) as people are making it out to be.
IMO, polls exaggerate the number of Bigfoot believers. Because in my opinion, people are lying about Bigfoot in a variety of contexts because Bigfoot is a thing that you lie about. People who don't actually believe in Bigfoot will say that they do, and they will create Bigfoot hoaxes and they will be attempting to overemphasize the number of other believers out there at the same time that they recruit new believers.

Bigfootery is about misdirection and obfuscation.

So if there are so many true believers out there then why don't we have hundreds or thousands of people who have been shot in the outdoors by people who mistook them for a Bigfoot and then killed or injured them? We consistently have hunters shooting other people by accident. I thought he was a deer. I thought he was a bear. I thought he was a turkey. We really don't hear about people shooting other people because they think they are harvesting a Bigfoot.

In my opinion, this really doesn't happen because almost nobody actually believes that Bigfoot exists. When you see a walking primate you automatically know it is a fellow human because there are no other kinds of walking primates on Earth. People with guns won't shoot because they have absolutely no faith that they would be killing anything other than a fellow human. This is why we get a whole range of explanations of shooting errors involving animals that actually exist but we have virtually none for Bigfoot.

IMO, we do not live in a world where "shot because he looked like a Bigfoot" is a meaningful danger. I'm afraid that donning a Bigfoot costume and heading out to the woods would be a very unproductive way to commit suicide.
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Old 1st May 2014, 07:13 PM   #287
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Originally Posted by William Parcher View Post
IMO, polls exaggerate the number of Bigfoot believers. Because in my opinion, people are lying about Bigfoot in a variety of contexts because Bigfoot is a thing that you lie about. People who don't actually believe in Bigfoot will say that they do, and they will create Bigfoot hoaxes and they will be attempting to overemphasize the number of other believers out there at the same time that they recruit new believers.
That's certainly a part of it, although a part I have very little experience with or exposure to. I think a bigger part is that most people think it would be cool, and haven't thought much about it beyond that. So, if you phrase your questions properly, you can probably coax the proper answer out of your average person.

Anyone who takes these polls too seriously really has to watch this short clip from the classic British comedy, Yes, Prime Minister, where Sir Humphrey gives a little demonstration of effective polling techniques, and manages to coax contradictory answers out of his colleague in under two minutes:

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Old 2nd May 2014, 12:55 PM   #288
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Originally Posted by stanfr View Post
I still think the shooter would either not get charged, or would get off either with a lesser charge or aquittal at trial. But it's pure speculation--we'd have to see it actually happen. A big civil suit would be most likely. I don't think the mistaken belief in bigfoot is as big a deal as some are making it out to here. For example, suppose I declared I was hunting for Megalodon, went out on a boat with a harpoon. Then, someone comes buy in a submarine disguised as megalodon. I harpoon the boat, and kill one of the occupants. Am i criminally responsible? I dont think so.
I don't believe it's the same kind of situation, and here's why: who ever heard of a submarine disguised as a megalodon? I agree that the fact the idea can be imagined isn't enough to expect the megalodon hunter to pause and consider whether the thing he's harpooning is really a "submarine disguised as a megalodon".

But that's not what we're dealing with here. Bigfoot suits are a thing, and they're as widely known about as the legend of bigfoot itself. Hoaxers have been the bane of bigfoot "research" since its beginnings - bigfoot hunters are in fact keenly aware that bigfoot suits exist, and that people can and do wear them; in fact it's a frequent topic of discussion on their internet communities. Nobody can say that the idea of a man in a bigfoot suit is so off-the-wall that someone who intends to shoot something that they think "looks like a bigfoot" shouldn't reasonably be expected to have that fact forefront in mind.

Indeed, if the shooter can be shown to have actually participated in one of these discussions and agreed with the conclusion that it's okay to shoot because it would be the suited person's fault, I can't see anything less than a premeditated murder charge.
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Old 2nd May 2014, 01:16 PM   #289
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Originally Posted by Checkmite View Post
I don't believe it's the same kind of situation, and here's why: who ever heard of a submarine disguised as a megalodon? I agree that the fact the idea can be imagined isn't enough to expect the megalodon hunter to pause and consider whether the thing he's harpooning is really a "submarine disguised as a megalodon".

But that's not what we're dealing with here. Bigfoot suits are a thing, and they're as widely known about as the legend of bigfoot itself. Hoaxers have been the bane of bigfoot "research" since its beginnings - bigfoot hunters are in fact keenly aware that bigfoot suits exist, and that people can and do wear them; in fact it's a frequent topic of discussion on their internet communities. Nobody can say that the idea of a man in a bigfoot suit is so off-the-wall that someone who intends to shoot something that they think "looks like a bigfoot" shouldn't reasonably be expected to have that fact forefront in mind.

Indeed, if the shooter can be shown to have actually participated in one of these discussions and agreed with the conclusion that it's okay to shoot because it would be the suited person's fault, I can't see anything less than a premeditated murder charge.
Imagine what would happen if the suit at all resembled the one made for the PGF. That's one dead guy in a suit if he ran into a True Believer™ with a .270.
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Old 3rd May 2014, 03:13 PM   #290
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pterodactyl
That depends on the state too. If it went down like that in Florida, then you're just "standing your ground".
Originally Posted by bruto View Post
If you're going to run a hoax in Florida, go as an albino bigfoot.
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Old 6th May 2014, 11:10 PM   #291
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Originally Posted by stanfr View Post
Who would be shooting at a nebulous object which is already 'dead' by definition? In the BF scenario, the hunter is most likley going to be of the group that thinks BF is an as-yet unclassified ape, nothing paranormal about it. So, while you and I might agree that BF is imagined, it doesn't matter, what matters is what the person doing the shooting thought, and whether those thougths were reasonable. Sad to say, a lot of folks would have no issue with those actions/thoughts being considered 'reasonable', whether you like it or not.
I personally would use industrial fans on ghosts but I never see that done in the ghost hunting shows. The unreasonable part of this is the person donning the suit to begin with in an area where hunters roam. That's a suicide mission.
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