This topic is getting pretty heavy. Would you all like to hear my story about what it was like in Normandy during June 1944?

No wait, I WASN'T THERE...

Let me tell a story about something I WAS "there" for though. When I was a boy in high school, two good friends (16yr old girls I'd literally known my entire life, did a lot of ranch work for both of their dad's, good family friends, two neighbor girls that were closer than sisters) were driving on a Friday night and rolled their car. The driver, Molly, spent 3 weeks in the hospital, but the passenger, Megan, was killed.

About 2months later, only a few weeks after the driver returned to school, she shot herself. She left a note apologizing to everyone that thought "she had killed Megan", and stating that she couldn't take hearing the whispers and seeing people point at school anymore.

Obviously, Molly felt awful about what happened, but everyone was throwing rumors that Molly was drunk, or driving too fast, etc etc, all of which the state patrol examiners and medical examiners proved false. Very like this thread itself, a lot of people were suggesting that Molly face AT LEAST manslaughter charges, if not murder charges, even though there were no formal charges and not even a ticket issued to Molly, the driver. Molly was still in a coma during Megan's funeral, so she couldn't even be there for her best friends' funeral. A few weeks later, the coma was forgotten, and people were telling the rumor that "Molly was so guilt ridden she didn't even come to Megan's funeral". The worst part was that it wasn't even just the high school kids telling rumors, it was the school staff, and the people in town.

Talk in the hallways turned one tragic death into two. None of those kids (ashamedly, myself included) were there, but they sure did pass the gossip, and assign a lot of blame.

Frankly, no, nobody should shoot at sounds in the dark, but none of us know that that's what happened. For all we know, the dad and son confronted the guy about hunting in their spot and threatened him, making the shooting self defense. Or maybe it was a moon lit night and the dad was carrying rattling antlers hanging over his shoulders with the kid closely behind. Either is possible as far as I'm concerned. I wasn't there to know what happened, so who am I to say how it went down, and what the consequences should be for it? Would you still suggest felony charges if it was the dad, hunting with his son, or the 15yr old kid himself that had accidentally shot the 53yr old man instead?

Moral of the story? Don't pi$$ on someone else's shoes unless you're sure of where they've been.