posted
When I worked at the first of 3 shooting ranges...the cops would come to practice and OMG they needed it! Yeeouch
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The man was within stabbing distance, with a knife, and trying to stab him. A knife is not a semi lethal weapon, at all.
And not to mention, the perp in question was shot point blank in the abdomen and basically brushed it off like it was nothing. I'm not asking police to deal with people like that in situations like that without the option of lethal force.
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posted
I am. Or at least to consider options that don't lead to a "use lethal force or die" situation. If the guy was that dangerous, he should have waited for help. If a guy was just walking down the street, maybe don't confront the guy. There is a policy in many cities that basically amounts to harassment. Stop them if they look shady. Or are loitering. Or might have pot on them. Or jaywalk. The idea is that if they think that the police are always watching them, they will stay out of trouble. See Florida's "stop and frisk" policy.* Baltimore, for instance. Freddie Gray wasn't doing anything when he was arrested except for fleeing when police made eye contact. Since the police had a history of busting him on small or no charges, I can't really blame him for that. He ended up dead in the back of a police van. Not a quick death either.
Michael Brown had stolen some cigarillos. There may have been a struggle for the gun in the officer's car but Brown had already lost that struggle and was running away when the officer shot him 12 times. Laquan McDonald was breaking into vehicles in a trucking yard and was down after the first bullet before the officer (the only officer that fired) shot him 15 more times. Did the SWAT team really need the flash grenade that grievously injured a toddle while his sisters were held at gunpoint to arrest a guy who also lived there for selling $40 worth of meth? (The guy wasn't actually home at the time.) Tamir Rice was 12. The police shot him before they even got out of the car and would not administer first aid.
Is that what you do when peoples' live matter to you?
I agree that police are doing a dangerous job but they choose to do a dangerous job. More preschoolers are shot than police officers. Maybe shoot first just in case is not the best way to keep people safe and maybe it shows that those lives are not all that valuable to the people who are supposed to be protecting them.
quote: After a 6-month investigation, the TV network Fusion has documented a racist, illegal policing strategy that a local public defender calls "stop and frisk on steroids." One Miami Gardens police officer reports that his supervisor ordered him to stop all black males between the ages of 15 and 30. Just 110,754 people live in Miami Gardens, yet going back to 2008, police have stopped and questioned 56,922 people who were not arrested. There were 99,980 total stops that did not lead to arrests, and 250 individuals were stopped more than 20 times.
posted
That stuff is all deplorable, and is why I wrote that there needs to be a high level of accountability.
We'll just have to agree to disagree. I think the police should have the option of deadly force at their disposal.
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quote:Being meek is not a guarantee of safety. And sometimes people just have their fill of having to be meek in the face of injustice and aggression.
I would not characterize the behavior I described as "meek"...it's more like "careful & compliant".
I've been pulled over while working the range & had guns in my car (legally). The cops frisked me (I had a knife & Leatherman which I disclosed) and had me sit for over an hour while they checked my credentials & my car's too...paperwork & physical search.
I could easily had been in jail (I was speeding)...but I handled my business. I'm 6'2" 300 lbs so I can easily intimidate w/o meaning to.
posted
Sometimes, one's interactions with police are not entirely in the hands of their own behavior.
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Also, let's just note that it's a perverse inversion what is supposed to be the American attitude towards its government, that it is chosen by and answerable to us, in the way we expect people should interact with police officers. Note that I mean this not as a practical concern but one of how we and our government should interact.
The expectation, and sometimes this even extends to those who are victimized by police, is that we should be deferential and even obsequious to police officers. Even if we have not broken any laws. Note that I am not saying 'cooperative', I'm talking about an attitude almost of fawning.
Cops work for us. We pay their salaries, we empower them to carry and wield deadly force in our service, and they are volunteers that have to go to some trouble to attain that position. Respect is appropriate, courtesy is appropriate, cooperation is appropriate. But often there is an attitude that one should-not simply as a means to avoid trouble in a pragmatic way-kiss ass to police, and that police have a right to expect this sort of thing from citizens.
That is *my* attitude and I've interacted with police and the courts, counting being pulled over, maybe a half dozen times in my life. All of them fairly, also. I suspect my attitude would be substantially less forgiving if I had been 'randomly' stopped and searched by police in my own neighborhood many times not just in my life but recently.
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posted
I'm not saying when you should do it; I am saying that the discussion will be more productive after you do.
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quote:So when I was in Los Angeles last week, I proudly told people that I’m from North Carolina, which usually brought comment about our “awful” new law – and said that, while no law is ever perfect, I’m proud of our state legislature for standing up against the tsunami of insane, intolerant social change.
Of course, they had to cease speaking to me immediately – those who were Total Conformists within the Established Church. No heretic can be allowed to pollute the purity of their ignorance.
But most of the time, the response I got was, in a nutshell, “Yes! That’s how I feel about it!” even though, in almost every case, their tone had been scornful of our law until I spoke up in its favor.
Because few regular people actually believe in the dogmas of the Established Church. They just know that if they don’t talk as if they believed, the consequences are likely to be unbearable.
You know, like the citizens of Communist countries before liberation. Like Afghanis under the Taliban. Like Palestinians under the rule of terrorist governments. Like citizens of Seattle.
This is the "bathroom law" in question (as well as some of the events surrounding it). Basically it's a law that criminalizes transgendered persons using a bathroom that matches their gender identity. Or in other words, if you're a woman but were born male, you could be jailed for using a woman's bathroom.
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zlogdanbr
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posted
quote:Originally posted by Heisenberg: That stuff is all deplorable, and is why I wrote that there needs to be a high level of accountability.
We'll just have to agree to disagree. I think the police should have the option of deadly force at their disposal.
Down here in Brazil it would be impossible to Police work without fire guns. Criminals are heavily armed to a point their armament far excedes the power of the guns our police can carry.
Last month a safe box was robbed and the criminals used their guns shooting randomly to stop police to come near them. It is not uncommon to see drug dealers in favelas using military weaponry against police who cannot - for the sake of safety of common people - use powerful weapons like bazookas.
Still, it is very common to see gunfire killing innocents, specially children, and both sides- police and criminals are to be blamed.
Our police is said and known to be corrupt and violent but I think it happens because most of them are not psychologically prepared to do their jobs and facing real risk of death in front of them and low salaries, they become stressed and violent. And they commit abuses.
Criminals are much more violent though. I am not sure if this exists in USA but here in Brazil we must carry money in our wallets all the time. This is said to be "money for the robber" because it is statistically seen that it makes robbers angry not to have enough money and it leads them committing violence against the citizen.
Sometime ago, a dentist was leaving her clinic late a night when a group of criminals approached her. After they getting all they wanted from there they took her to a atm machine and when they saw she had only 5 dollars in her account they put fire in her body. Sadly this is one case among many.
The human rights associations here work really hard to allow safety and rights to the criminals, but they usually work to restrain police violence and abuses instead of realizing you cannot talk to criminals in terms of peace and love. I would be tremendously happy to see a place where non deadly weapon where enough, but at least here in Sao Paulo, this is just a dream.
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This is the "bathroom law" in question (as well as some of the events surrounding it). Basically it's a law that criminalizes transgendered persons using a bathroom that matches their gender identity. Or in other words, if you're a woman but were born male, you could be jailed for using a woman's bathroom.
Thanks. While I don't agree that transgenders should be jailed by doing that. I admit, I am not proud of saying it but I have a real hard difficult time to understand transgenders. My first thought is always about agreeing with the conservatives but I know I have this dark side of me whose I need to fight. So what I do is to think about the Wachowskis and Brazilian comedian Nany People rather than Caytlin Jenner as examples and although the beast inside me is not completely tamed at least I feel in peace and I understand, then, transgenders the best way I can.
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This is the "bathroom law" in question (as well as some of the events surrounding it). Basically it's a law that criminalizes transgendered persons using a bathroom that matches their gender identity. Or in other words, if you're a woman but were born male, you could be jailed for using a woman's bathroom.
Was this the NC law that removed sexual orientation as a protected class statewide?
Posts: 1194 | Registered: Jun 2010
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posted
Yes. Sexual orientation and gender identity were not protected classes statewide in the first place, but there were ten municipalities that had local protections for LGBT persons in place, and this law stripped those protections. Meaning it's now legal to fire people, deny them service, refuse them housing, etc. for being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. It's a cowardly, hateful, discriminatory law pretty clearly designed to oppress and discriminate.
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zlogdanbr
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quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: Yes. Sexual orientation and gender identity were not protected classes statewide in the first place, but there were ten municipalities that had local protections for LGBT persons in place, and this law stripped those protections. Meaning it's now legal to fire people, deny them service, refuse them housing, etc. for being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. It's a cowardly, hateful, discriminatory law pretty clearly designed to oppress and discriminate.
Dude this is loathsome. Not even the more radical Right people here in Brazil would endorsee tis law. It is complete not human. Does OSC support this law ? Man...
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Not only does he support it, he likens the culture that opposes it to the Taliban and most of the individuals who claim to oppose it to cowering people under a tyrant's boot.
But I suspect soon we will hear 'don't call him crazy' and 'it's not fair to say he hates homosexuals or transgender people' and 'what about that gay writer' and so on.
I would love to hear somewhere an explanation of 'doesn't hate' that reconciles the problem of 'doesn't think it should be illegal to fire, deny housing, etc., them for being gay'. That certainly sounds like 'love the sinner, hate the sin' to me!
Anyway, that won't happen here since on such topics this board doesn't have a diversity of opinion anymore, but it would still be interesting to me if there were such a defense somewhere.
What's amusing to me, in a bitter anticipatory schadenfreude way is that I know Card is aware of the currents of culture and history well enough (in spite of how batshit he's gotten) to recognize how much he will be reviled and to the sorts of extent his earlier work will be forgotten and overshadowed as a result of his politics and homophobia. And I can speculate that it must make his teeth grind, that awareness.
Well, the part where his earlier work will be overshadowed doesn't make me happy. Imagining the current totally not hate-filled politically rational Card feeling angry about that, though, does give some conciliatory pleasure though.
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quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: Yes. Sexual orientation and gender identity were not protected classes statewide in the first place, but there were ten municipalities that had local protections for LGBT persons in place, and this law stripped those protections. Meaning it's now legal to fire people, deny them service, refuse them housing, etc. for being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. It's a cowardly, hateful, discriminatory law pretty clearly designed to oppress and discriminate.
Yeah that's what I find loathsome about the law too. And Mr. Card's lack of even mentioning that aspect of it makes me wonder if he realized the law does much more than stop the hypothetical man from putting on a dress and waltzing into the women's bathroom.
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posted
He's a grownup and purports himself to be an informed political commentator. But supposing he actually *didn't* know that (well publicized, basic fact of that law), then I will grant it does mean he's not necessarily homophobic. For this.
Of course what it does mean, if he didn't know that, is that he allowed his hatred for liberals and the left in this country to fuel him to a knee-jerk hysterical and profoundly lazy reaction which he then wrote about.
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posted
Sounds like me.
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zlogdanbr
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posted
quote:Originally posted by JanitorBlade:
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: Yes. Sexual orientation and gender identity were not protected classes statewide in the first place, but there were ten municipalities that had local protections for LGBT persons in place, and this law stripped those protections. Meaning it's now legal to fire people, deny them service, refuse them housing, etc. for being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. It's a cowardly, hateful, discriminatory law pretty clearly designed to oppress and discriminate.
Yeah that's what I find loathsome about the law too. And Mr. Card's lack of even mentioning that aspect of it makes me wonder if he realized the law does much more than stop the hypothetical man from putting on a dress and waltzing into the women's bathroom.
I honestly hope OSC will eventually clarify it, because you know this law suppresses and denies basic human rights to LGBT people to work and make a decent living, things that should stand above left or right, or sexuality.
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quote:Originally posted by JanitorBlade: Yeah that's what I find loathsome about the law too. And Mr. Card's lack of even mentioning that aspect of it makes me wonder if he realized the law does much more than stop the hypothetical man from putting on a dress and waltzing into the women's bathroom.
Honestly, there's enough stuff that Card gets wrong - and I don't mean he has the "wrong" opinion, I mean he's just plain factually wrong (see the Churchill Bust thing) - that, along with his reviews about browsing Buzzfeed articles, makes me strongly suspect he's getting a lot of his news from clickbait sites. Like, strongly suspect. Like, all my super-conservative friends on Facebook will be sharing around that inane article about Obama sending away Churchill's bust a week before Card brings it up again completely out of the blue suspect.
So if he got presented this situation as "North Carolina passes bill to protect little girls from sex predators, and THIS is how the liberal media reacts!" with the snidest picture of Caitlyn Jenner you can imagine as the image... well, I could see how that would sort of perfectly match and reinforce all his preconceived expectations about the "PC Inquisition" and how liberals are all hateful hypocrites and/or sheep. And as I said, he really, really hasn't been fact checking his articles at all for the past several years.
That seems like a pretty plausible explanation. And it's certainly one that makes more sense to me than he actually knew the full ramifications of the bill and defended to praise it anyway. The former is sort of annoying, but in a "annoying uncle to forwards you conspiracy theory e-mails" way. The latter is just appalling.
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zlogdanbr
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DB , it makes a whole lot of sense what you said. Dude it makes me feel better.
One of my best friends is a real conservative person who does believe those rumors.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: it is from his wide body of words and actions like that — a history that makes it nearly impossible to give him the benefit of the doubt, honestly — that we come to that he will have to state clearly that he's in favor of trans bathroom rights before we can entertain the notion that his words were only incidentally critical in a way which is typically anti-trans
unsurprisingly, guess what's happening
he was not incidentally critical
and is gonna for sure be garishly transphobic
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: But 10,000 volts is a WAY more reliable way to stop people...AND it's non lethal.
Yeah, I don't think I'm buying that. If you've got stats or sources or anything, by all means share. But I've heard of people ignoring a tazer the same way this guy ignored a gunshot, and there's nothing to make me think a tazer is more debilitating then a bullet.
Posts: 572 | Registered: Jun 2013
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posted
I'll look...but fyi, "stopping power" is one of the most hotly debated thing other than AK vs AR (AK wins).
quote:Anatomy can also ruin your day. An inch or less this way or that may be the difference in your future. People are not homogenous, and no one is good enough to shoot the heart on a fighting person reliably. It’s luck. And it gets worse. Your bullet may absolutely shred the heart, or it may not. No bullet is perfect. Throw in a few inches of fat or muscle, some bones, varying positions, and it’s all, pardon me, a crapshoot. No telling what will happen. If I have to fight you, I’d prefer to put some holes in you first on general principles, but there is no guarantee of any particular effect.
And it gets still more difficult. People wear clothes and hide behind things, and they have stuff in their pockets. They sit in cars. They might be standing over you ready to deliver the coup de grace when you get off your first shot into the pelvis from below. Then you’ll be wishing for a lot more than 12 inches of penetration in gelatin.
Add to that the variation in the determination of your assailant, what he is wearing, how far away he is and how good you are in the worst moment of your life. Add it all up, and you will have to shoot till there is no need to continue, (or you run out of ammo) and hope for the best. There is no guarantee of winning even if you shoot first and best with the most.
Hand guns are great. I love em! And if cops really really need gyns they should carry rifle caliber cqb weapon system...a pistol's main ability is portability/concielability...since uniform officers have no need to hide ther gun...
More to come...have to go for now
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
so once upon a time in the fully civilized land of america (fully civilized, I say!) a fully civilized event called the Cottonwood Wal-Mart Parking Lot Doomsday Mormon Busker Brawl occurred. Well, maybe it is not remembered by that name specifically, but it should be.
A family of eight or so people living and sleeping in a Chevy Suburban (can you imagine the smell?) in a Wal-Mart parking lot got it on with the police in a wild brawl you might remember being caught on tape and it was great because these guys had evidently been saturated with tons of apocalyptic anti-state paranoia and had learned techniques to handle tazings and sprayings well. Like they would get tased over and over again and just roll the contact leads out and then get back to punching cops.
Well until one of them wrestled a cop's gun out of its holster after trying to choke the cop out, then he shot the cop in the leg. then the cops unsurprisingly killed him.
But it's such a morbidly interesting video to watch, not just because it is the CWMPLDMBB but because you watch how they circumvent their tasings
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posted
and also because it is legitimately being argued that tasers have more 'reliable' stopping power than literally shooting someone with a bullet and i kind of want to kibosh that now
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posted
I am less concerned with police using lethal force to defend themselves and am more concerned with the decisions they make to confront and escalate to the point that they need to defend themselves with lethal force.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I agree w your concern, however, when facing difficult challenges (as I'm sure we all agree policing the US is difficult) often the best course of action is to setting one's self up for success.
So to prevent shootings...leave the deadly force in the locked car & first respond with less than lethal (but still highly effective ) weapons.
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: What tasers were they using? Most taser have barbed darts & require emts for removal...as they bury themselves under the skin...
the kind you can roll to break the contact leads on if you know how (aka all of them)
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
i know that this is your pet project, tirelessly advocating a blanket slate of nonlethal weapons options for police, but rubber bullets in particular are not going to happen. they are not very useful and are even being phased out of riot use. they are insufficient as a less-lethal technology.
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: I'm not suggesting disarming cops entirely...just that a gun is unnecessary on first contact
Usually yes. In this case, it is why the situation had to escalate to that an individual wrestled a police officer to the ground and took his firearm and shot him with it before the police themselves escalated to lethal force. And they had been having an all-out brawl before then. The tasers simply did not work to keep the officers safe. Most of the gang of individuals were pacified at gunpoint.
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posted
I'm not seeing any part in particular of disagreement...for my thought to be actually helpful, the non lethal weapons (nlw) would have to be reliable...the sticky foam is quite impressive.
Reguardless...if a Star Trek phaser on stun was available I doubt we would be arguing at all.
I was not aware of the rolling technique...so clearly my info isn't cutting edge.
What do you guys think about just the idea of increasing the armor on cops? I bet they wouldn't be so trigger happy if they felt less vulnerable.
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posted
To my knowledge, there is no armor currently available that both protects from close range, large caliber rounds, and is not ridiculously bulky and/or heavy.
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Kate, I agree that the police are poorly trained, too edgy, and have such little accountability for their actions that it might as well be none at all.
However, suggestions such as "well, they shouldn't have approached him," are kind of problematic. The man was walking on the side of a highway, causing a traffic hazard. Not to mention, it's strongly suspected that he had murdered someone else prior. He was going to confront somebody, sooner or later.
These kinds of unknown, sketchy situations where it's possible that either someone needs help, or society needs protecting from them, is one of the main reasons that we even have police. My work is recently been thrown into some minor chaos, because one of the clients has turned violent and in order to keep ourselves and him safe we have to work with him on a two to one basis. I can't imagine the budget and logistical problems if we required a full team or even a pair of officers for every little situation.
Lastly, if the officer HAD had backup, it wouldn't have made a difference. The perp had enough presence of mind to hide the weapon and wait in ambush. It would have turned into a deadly force situation no matter what.
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