Given that the famous incident regarding Bernie Goetz happened the year before I was born, I think I can be somewhat forgiven for only passively knowing the name and a little bit of context from something like the (intentionally) bad Family Guy joke about Goetz being, "That guy who shot all those people."
I finally dove into his story and, holy crap, we spent nearly forty years not learning jack-shit from everything that happened.
So, most people who know Bernie Goetz's name and skimmed Wikipedia for a couple minutes associate the name with "The New York Subway Shooter." The most known details of the story seem to be that Goetz is white and he shot four black men with a gun which he was illegally carrying on an NYC subway car. These details are well known and they're true. Still, believe it or not, if you look at the details outside of a vacuum, you realize that the media haven't changed much in all these decades and the justice system is just as corrupt.
We talk about the massive spikes in crime we're having now. Crime, especially violent crime in big cities, was much higher at this time in American history. Our national murder rate peaked at almost double what it is now during periods of the 80s.
Goetz had never been much of a gun guy. Certainly, he never had the enthusiasm that even somebody me has. But, he had already been mugged, violently assaulted, and hospitalized a few times prior to the storied incident. He finally applied for a permit to carry a gun citing how many times he had been attacked, threatened, and injured -- he was denied. So, this is one detail that's indisputable -- Goetz bought a five shot revolver with the intent of illegally carrying it in the city of New York.
There's an old saying, "I'd rather be judged by twelve than carried by six." Goetz made that choice.
The narrative that is clearly false is that Goetz was some kind of vigilante looking for a fight. Really, the arguments that Rittenhouse had no business being there (his drive from Illinois to that place in Wisconsin is the same distance that I drive to my girlfriend's place and I don't even have to leave the city) are much thinner than arguments about Goetz. He was just living his life.
On December 22nd, 1984, he was on the NYC Metro when four men who happened to be black (which shouldn't matter; but, it did then and still clearly does now) cornered him demanding money and threatened him with physical harm if he didn't comply.
Now, since this was 1984, there weren't cameras everywhere to capture the events.
Here are the bullet points of what we know for sure:
All four men that Goetz shot were armed with melee weapons
Goetz fired all five bullets and hit all four men
None of the four men died though one was paralyzed
One of the five shots that Goetz fired was a miss that caused no bodily harm to anyone and it appears to have been the last shot he fired.
Now, let's steel man the arguments that Goetz should have been convicted of one of the more serious charges (he was charged; but, that's a long story that we'll get to). It's been reported enough that it's still on the Wikipedia page for Goetz that, after he had fired four of the five bullets, Goetz stood over one of the men that he shot and said, "You look fine. Here's another." before firing the fifth.
If that's true, that's damning. It's also bloody unlikely that it is true. There's some speculation that this quote came for Goetz giving a statement to police and that's something that he blurted out as something that might have crossed his mind (another reason to not talk to the cops without a lawyer). Still, there's no good evidence that he said it. It also seems strange that he would be four for four during the incident and suddenly miss after the threats were all subdued.
The thing is, this is where the corruption came in as well as capitulation to public reaction to media reporting.
It's all too telling that the judge that oversaw much of Goetz's case was Sol Wachtler who famously said, "You can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich."
Only, in the case of Goetz, the grand jury didn't indict the first time.
The evidence regarding Goetz illegally possessing the firearm was clear and Goetz never denied that; but, the first time around, the grand jury saw no reason to pursue the serious charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, etc.
At this point the state started breaking the law. In fact, it was law in New York that a grand jury could be made aware of a charged citizens past (namely, Goetz's previous times being mugged and beaten) in making a decision. New York retroactively changed the law to prohibit that information to be shown and, second time around, the grand jury gave the indictment.
Really, it appears that the media spin were a motivating factor. Goetz was painted as a racist vigilante. Public opinion turned against him despite all the real evidence that was there. The state capitulated to public pressure and tried Goetz.
Fortunately, the only charge of which Goetz was found guilty was the charge that nobody disputed. He was carrying a gun illegally. He was sentenced to six months in jail and the state eventually pushed it to a full year.
So, almost forty years later, can you see the lessons that we haven't learned from this?
Maybe one lesson that we have learned is that New York's laws regarding permits for firearms were dumb for about half a century or more and the SCOTUS finally repealed them. But, still, after the SCOTUS ruling, Goetz would still be in illegal possession of a firearm in New York today because it's still illegal to carry a gun on the Metro.
We clearly haven't learned, broadly, as a people, that gun laws like New York's don't work. Leftists particularly haven't learned that the laws protect the rich and keep everybody else dependent.
We haven't learned that politicians aren't really looking for justice. When district attorney's and judges are politicians, that should horrify is. Incidentally, the previously mentioned Sol Wachtler spend several years in federal prison after the Goetz case.
We haven't learned that media narratives and spin and public opinions can result in innocent people being dragged through the mud. I mean, how many people still believe the, "He crossed state lines." narrative with Rittenhouse when the commute that he took was only five minutes longer than the one that I take to go to my girl who is a friend's place while not having to leave Glendale?
Given some of the responses to Eli Dicken, even though Dicken didn't break the law by carrying his gun, anti-gunners haven't learned that breaking a dumb law doesn't make you a bad person.
How many people haven't learned that nerfing law enforcement against real crimes while bolstering it against fake crimes ends up enabling real criminals?
It's obscene that we've been living with this story for almost forty years and we seem to have learned nothing from it. If we've learned anything, it's been under false pretenses and omitted information.
Bernie Goetz is neither a hero nor was he a vigilante. He was a dude trying to live his life who broke a bullshit law and he's still alive because he broke that bullshit law.