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by yomkippur 1403 days ago
> This person did not "rob" the bank. He tried asking the bank for money

Right so if I ask you nicely to donate with an AK-47 and I hold your family hostage, you are gonna make the same claim?

5 comments

He was asking for 15% of his own money, and not for a donation. To save a sick family member in an emergency.

If you come to me asking for your own money in such a situation, and I say - hard luck, I can't give them to you because I only have 5 ferraris now instead of 100 ferraris, and I kick you out humiliated... yeah I'd expect you to, at some point, snap!

It's easy to argue from an ivory tower, in a just society. But harder to imagine what it would be like when there's no justice anymore and there is no rule of law protecting your rights.

I think it's a moral question, and everyone will see this question from their viewpoint. Which is fair.

He withdrew money from his own account. In order to do so, he coerced the bank teller at gunpoint.

It's some sort of violent crime, but not robbery.

If I was holding on to your property which belongs to you and refusing to give it to you, then I think you'd be entirely within your rights to use an AK-47 for persuasion.
The money you deposit into a bank is not yours, it’s the bank’s, and they have a corresponding liability to you.
That completely violates the idea of demand deposits whose entire purpose is to be immediately available.
I wonder if your family feels similarly
If someone is keeping me hostage so that a third party does something (say, releasing others from jail) - I might be a hostage, but the incident still isn't robbery.

You have to steal stuff for it to be robbery.

So yes, I'll make the same claim. There is no point in saying that I was a hostage in a robbery if I was in a hostage situation for different reasons.

You seem to have missed the bit where he asked the bank for his own money