LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

Post by y_u_no_rust » Sun, Dec 31, 2017, 9:09 AM UTC

barsonme wrote: post #534

IgorPartola wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, I want to send my kids to school and be reasonably sure that some idiot can’t go down the street, buy a couple of rifles, and murder them and their classmates. Being able to go to the gun range once in a while and post on /r/guns is sorta secondary to that. Different priorities I guess. Edit: and funnily enough the above scenario doesn’t happen in the developed world, except in the US, where it happens multiple…

> See, I want to send my kids to school and be reasonably sure that some idiot can’t go down the street, buy a couple of rifles, and murder them and their classmates. Everybody does. Let's not be disingenuous, though: the chances one of our children dies from a gunshot wound at school is incredibly small. By my counts, 4 students have been killed at school shootings this year. 4 students out of ~50 million kids at ov…

Post by LoSboccacc » Sun, Dec 31, 2017, 9:43 AM UTC

vehementi wrote: post #690

brucephillips wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that if you did have a way of killing a commuter to save your own live, you would be justified in doing so, just as a cop is. The fact that you don't is a consequence of how driving works, not of power that society is stripping you of. You do have this right on the street, for instance. Just as a cop does.

So wait, if I legally have a gun in my car it'd be fine to start shooting at that erratic driver?

Post by glenstein » Sun, Dec 31, 2017, 9:56 AM UTC

avar wrote: post #477

glenstein wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in special circumstances a butter knife could probably kill someone. But I don't think getting trapped in a continuum fallacy represents forward motion in this kind of conversation. Maybe a tazer should count as lethal and should be excluded. Let's draw the line somewhere, most definitely. But I'm not any closer to understanding whether you merely object to that example or the principle itself, and the latter is…

It's not the lethality of the weapon, but the police response that's the problem. In most (northern) European countries the response to somebody brandishing a knife would be to set up a perimeter around that person, rather than directly engage them. Only as a last resort would you resort to violence. Instead you try to tire them out. By comparison, the American police response would be to immediately subdue the perso…

Post by simonh » Sun, Dec 31, 2017, 10:02 AM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #685

roenxi wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is actually a slightly more damning view of the situation here than the moral issues around police safety. The police had complete control over how they approached this. Why then are they even in a position where they feel threatened? When we look at the outcome here, they just killed some dude for no reason. If this is acceptable to the police force; why not have them call out to the room with a megaphone? Wha…

This to me seems to be the big difference between US policing and what we're used to in e.g. most European countries: A focus on quick resolution at all cost rather than peaceful resolution. UK police for example tends to respond with overwhelming force, clear the area if possible, and contain their potential adversary, and if possible often wait the situation out. They will use violence if they have to, but it ends…

Post by pizza234 » Sun, Dec 31, 2017, 10:09 AM UTC

WhatIsDukkha wrote: post #100

What bothers me about these situations is just the entire idea of "SWAT" as practiced. You are a cop with 5+ other cops. You all pull your guns. Someone comes to the door, groggy in the middle of the night. They may or may not understand you are police. They may or may not believe you are the police. They are definitely confused/frightened/angry by your presence. We now begin the dice rolling process. Since every pol…

  There is plenty of reason to restrict the use of SWAT teams, but not to abolish
  them. They are needed now and then, when there is an actual hostage situation or
  an armed gang that tries to shoot it's way out. They should never be used for
  routine search or arrest warrants. That not only endangers the possibly innocent
  target of the raid, but it undermines the team's training – they become used to
  tearing up houses where no one is resisting. There's a dashboard video of the
  Jose Guerena raid. My drill instructor would have said they looked "like a monkey
  fucking a football" – and I was in the Air Force, ground tactics weren't even on
  the curriculum. I've seen considerably more forceful comments from Army and
  Marine Corps infantrymen who actually have had to break into a house against
  armed defenders. They milled around, exposed themselves to possible fire through
  the open door, and got into each others line of fire. They did NOT identify
  themselves as police that I can hear on the audio track, so Guerena was justified
  in hunkering down in a defensive position with a rifle. If Guerena (a former
  Marine) hadn't been far more professional than any of the cops and not fired
  without identifying his targets, several cops would have been down.

  Then there are the SWAT members that "accidentally" (that is, negligently) fired
  a round and killed an unresisting, unarmed suspect because they tripped or
  bumped their elbow – an accident that can only happen if you are in violation of
  the two most important rules of gun safety: don't put your finger on the trigger
  until you have decided to shoot, and don't point the muzzle near anything that
  you do not intend to shoot. We know they were running around with their finger
  on the trigger – in a situation where there was clearly no need for shooting –
  because modern firearms in good working order just don't fire unless the trigger
  is pulled. The military just doesn't tolerate that. If a non-police civilian in
  my state had done this, he could have been sentenced to life for manslaughter.
  But if you are a cop, you can recklessly kill someone and the prosecutor will
  throw the case…