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Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

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Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#251

Post by heavyset_go »

dmix wrote: post #185
woutr_be wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been fairly critical of protestors before, but in this instance, you can see the police going in for a fight, already heavily outnumbered. I'm not sure what they expected to happen, but the officer drew his gun almost instantly and shot a high school kid at point blank range. There's been other instances today where police was just looking to fight protestors, and as soon as they realized protestors weren't havi…

> There's been other instances today where police was just looking to fight protestors And protestors obviously looking to fight police. They swarmed the other officers partner who was being beaten on the ground and he was next. I find it shocking so many people were expecting him to just take it the beating or 'run away' and leave his partner there. There's a very good argument for having police on the streets when…

> I find it shocking so many people were expecting him to just take it the beating or 'run away' and leave his partner there.

When you're a public servant, this should be expected of you. Especially when the crime you're trying to brutalize members of the public for is "exercising freedom of expression"

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#252

Post by pjc50 »

Fezzik wrote: post #168
nvahalik wrote: post #18

> Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator This is why we have the second amendment. And the constitution as the thing to which office-holders swear allegiance to rather than to "the party" or "the president".

I always find this sentiment a little silly - if the US President went in to full dictator mode and had the support of the military, do you really think a militia of armed citizens would be anything but gnats against the windshield of the United States Armed Forces? And if s/he did not have the support of the Armed Forces, it would not be a very effective dictatorship and you would not even need guns for a rebellion.…

Exactly. The US won wars against its own citizens on a number of occasions; the Indian Wars, the short-lived Mormon conflict, the entire Civil War, and the city of Tulsa.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#253

Post by luckylion »

nicoburns wrote: post #200
luckylion wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a UK citizen, I'd be pretty worried about this kind of thing happening in the US. A police officer shooting somebody that is physically attacking them with a metal club in a violent riot that involves firebombs being thrown at police officers? I would neither be surprised nor worried if that happened in the US. Now, if they just opened fire at unarmed, peaceful protestors, I'd be worried (though not surprised th…

This wouldn't be expected behaviour in the UK. Our riot police carry shields, not guns.

Comparably to China in HK might be UK in Northern Ireland. I do remember them being somewhat less de-escalating than you make it sound.

In any case, you mentioned it happening in the US, that's what I was commenting on. I cannot imagine US cops not using their guns when attacked in that way. There is a point to be made about general strategies and not letting it escalate to the point where protesters throw molotov cocktails on police, but I don't know that either UK or US cops would simply disengage and give up parts of town to mob rule.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#254

Post by josephdviviano »

Clubber wrote: post #232
emptysongglass wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absurd. Any chance a rebellious citizenry had armed to the teeth evaporated with standing armies. Gun owners of the US cling to this ideal even while experiencing the worst spate of mass shootings in its history. There is no solution to this other than disarming.

[flagged]

By this logic, do you think all of the other western democracies that do not have a right to bear arms are at risk of producing a Stalin?

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#255

Post by newvoiceoldphne »

Fezzik wrote: post #168
nvahalik wrote: post #18

> Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator This is why we have the second amendment. And the constitution as the thing to which office-holders swear allegiance to rather than to "the party" or "the president".

I always find this sentiment a little silly - if the US President went in to full dictator mode and had the support of the military, do you really think a militia of armed citizens would be anything but gnats against the windshield of the United States Armed Forces? And if s/he did not have the support of the Armed Forces, it would not be a very effective dictatorship and you would not even need guns for a rebellion.…

Bluntly, yes. All those soldiers sleep, eat and live in a larger community. All those civil servants live in neighborhoods. Even if we accept that the entire military would just forget their sworn voe to uphold and defend the Constitution of the US against all enemies, foreign and domestic, an armed civilian populace in revolt would be a nightmare scenario.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#256

Post by ProAm »

Fezzik wrote: post #168
nvahalik wrote: post #18

> Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator This is why we have the second amendment. And the constitution as the thing to which office-holders swear allegiance to rather than to "the party" or "the president".

I always find this sentiment a little silly - if the US President went in to full dictator mode and had the support of the military, do you really think a militia of armed citizens would be anything but gnats against the windshield of the United States Armed Forces? And if s/he did not have the support of the Armed Forces, it would not be a very effective dictatorship and you would not even need guns for a rebellion.…

> do you really think a militia of armed citizens would be anything but gnats against the windshield of the United States Armed Forces

The US has arguably won only one war in the last 70 years (being at war or at least armed conflict for most of those 70 years) with the largest most powerful military in the world.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#257

Post by fennecfoxen »

DanTheManPR wrote: post #139
foobarian wrote: post #24

Great Britain gave HK back to China. They can do with it as they please - unfortunately I don't see how the protesters can come out on the right side of this without a revolution. Thought experiment: if say Rhode Island had a Muslim majority and they voted themselves Sharia law in violation of federal articles, how cavalier would the federal government / the rest of the populous be in tolerating this?

"They can do with it as they please"... what? The tyrannical CCP has some sort of fundamental ownership right over the lives the people of HK? Your statement about sharia law in Rhode Island not only confirms that you don't care about the will of the people in the democratic sense (which, in your thought experiment, are mostly muslims, and you imply actually do want religiously based laws), but also reverses the reas…

There is a real notion of a nation's ownership right in Western thought. It's called the Westphalian nation-state, and dates back to times of the Protestant Reformation and bitter international warfare. The idea is that peace is better than everyone killing each other over religion, even if this means abandoning the people next door to some measure of religious repression at the hands of a different sect of Christianity.

However, it would be a mistake to think of the Hong Kong matter in this way. To quote the Beijing party line, "Xi Jinping thought on diplomacy has made innovations on and transcended the traditional Western theories of international relations for the past 300 years" (i.e. back to the Treaty of Westphalia). Instead, Xi Jinping thought revives tianxia, the mandate of heaven, and envisions total world domination in a heirarchical system under Chinese rule. "The Chinese have always held that the world is united and all under heaven are one family," Xi told us in his 2017 New Year's message.

Thus, even as China increasingly meddles with other nations' affairs to effect its strategy of world domination, it is naturally unconscionable for other nations to interfere with theirs or attempt containment. It is against this framework that we should consider the matter of Hong Kong.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#258

Post by kaolti »

ORioN63 wrote: post #150
zacharytelschow wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it's coincidental tyrants are more powerful when their populace is unarmed?

Do you have sources to back that claim?

How about you provide sources if you disagree?

Having a better chance of defending yourself if you're armed stands to reason. Since when is that controversial? Isn't that evident to everyone?

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#259

Post by LandR »

jacobush wrote: post #228
geggam wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This concept you can shoot to maim is silly. Hitting a man is hard if you practice shooting. In a chaotic situation with adrenaline its even harder. Shooting to hit is all you can do.

The police in Sweden is trained to shoot to maim, but only in somewhat controlled situations, such as someone wielding a knife approaching officers from a distance. First warn verbally, then fire a warning shot, then fire at the legs. When there is no margin left, fire to stop. (Which means in practice, often death.) https://polisen.se/om-polisen/polisens-arbete/polisens-befog...

THis might be a stupid question, but where are Warning shots fired?

Are they fired close to the target, but far enough away to miss? Can this only be done if there is no one behind the target, are they shot into the sky? If so is their no danger of bullets hitting people falling back down? Or do they lose enough speed on the downward arc to be safe? Or is the chance of a warning shot hitting someone innocent so staggering low that it isn't worth worrying about?

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#260

Post by bhy »

baybal2 wrote: post #52
program_whiz wrote: post #13

Sure, the kid was swinging at the officer, and I suppose that warrants the officer acting in self-defense. But another question is, what are the protesters supposed to do? The government has all the power, and can simply snuff out any resistence. If you just stand in the streets, they really don't care, they are going to take your freedom. Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator that just decided they were going to…

> But another question is, what are the protesters supposed to do? But another question is, what people in Beijing supposed to do? Think of that. To many, it's very clear that men in black will not be content even if given suffrage. Then they will want places in legislature, own foreign policy, armed forces, and ultimately sovereignty. The popular sentiment that it's "poor HK kids" coming out at large out of desperat…

> Most of activists are children of very well off people

Do you have data or reference to back them? Surely there could be rich kids among the protestors, but is that a majority of them?

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