Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 247 posts

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#161

Post by corrral »

daenz wrote: post #155
corrral wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, so we've solved school shootings, let's say (ignoring that when it actually matters ~everyone agrees removing guns makes things safer, let's just grant that for the sake of argument). How about when it's not kids, with relatives nearby? Vegas shooting? Malls? You gonna run in and risk your life to save some strangers? These cops didn't, despite guns and training and all that "warrior mentality" shit. [EDIT] My ma…

I'm not sure I understand your point. The shooter was stopped by border patrol officers who risked their lives to end the shooting, so yes, there are people willing to step up and save lives. In this situation, these people were rarer than anyone would have liked. But we will always need them to stop violence, regardless of if guns are generally banned.

> I'm not sure I understand your point.

I was responding, originally, to:

> It sort of blows up the whole pro gun control argument that citizens shouldn't be expected to have to protect themselves but instead rely on law enforcement :p

Maybe it was a joke, but it's a bad one when some people actually think that.

I'll reconsider my position when major organizations and government buildings and such start shifting to encouraging gun possession by people who aren't in law enforcement or the security staff. Meanwhile, it doesn't look like it's even controversial in any context other than partisan hacks promoting positions they don't (apparently) believe: keeping guns away is much safer than allowing them. I can tell this is true based on how, again, damn near everyone behaves when they have the choice to ban them or allow them, including the very people promoting more guns as the solution to gun violence. It is only not the obvious solution when the game isn't safety, but politics.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#164

Post by yubiox »

threatofrain wrote: post #14
EricE wrote: post #10

It sort of blows up the whole pro gun control argument that citizens shouldn't be expected to have to protect themselves but instead rely on law enforcement :p

People who want weaker and stronger gun control laws can find consensus for the idea that trained police are the most tactically equipped to deal with an ongoing crime, and that you should not interfere with professionals who are already on the scene. 40% of Uvalde's city budget is going to police. The police went in to save their own kids, but detained and chastised parents who went in to do the same. How many more…

You can watch the hundreds of videos on the PoliceActivity youtube channel showing how terrible "trained police" are at using guns (or doing anything really). Any shooting hobbyist is going to be a better shot than most police officers. My favorite video is the one where the cop empties an entire magazine at a stationary guy 7 feet away and misses every single shot. The one thing cops are really good at though is multiple cops screaming conflicting commands all at the same time. Freeze! Don't move! Hands up! Turn around! Get down on the ground!

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#165

Post by tialaramex »

andruby wrote: post #119
GloriousKoji wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish more of the world could function like the culture adopted by the western airline industry where every incident and investigation is treated as an opportunity to learn and improve the system rather than an opportunity to lay blame. If the airline industry had kept that culture we wouldn't have had so many incidents with the Boeing 737 MAX.

I don't follow. Were airline investigations not able to do a proper and thorough investigation of the 737 MAX crashes? I'm not saying no mistakes were made. Of course mistakes were made. It was my assumption that the typical "post-mortem" process of those crashes did happen.

Post Mortem means somebody died (or more generously, at least you wrote off an airframe) which means you already failed. Actual safety culture went beyond that, the 737 MAX shouldn't have happened because it was apparent this aeroplane was unsafe before it killed people.

One of the many things NASA does for the US which affects ordinary people who aren't ever going to the Moon, let alone Mars, is ASRS. https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/ The purpose of ASRS is to report safety problems that weren't accidents yet. That's how you continue to improve safety when there are a tiny number of fatal accidents - by studying all the things which nearly went wrong. The pilot who nearly turned off his one remaining engine after losing one on a twinjet, the controller who nearly authorised a new pilot to fly straight into a mountain before checking the radar again.

Most safety culture can't aspire to that. In many cases maybe it would be overkill. Therac-25 not withstanding, most software engineers are not going to kill anybody through their incompetence, and we'd do well to even manage a Mortality and Morbidity conference culture (M&M is what medics do when patients unexpectedly die or have seriously negative outcomes, to try to prevent such things in future). Even most of aviation isn't that safe. General (the pilot isn't getting paid, they're doing it for fun or at least as their own choice) is very unsafe. Commercial (e.g. Crop dusting, News helicopter) is better but not great. However Scheduled aviation (you can just buy a ticket, like for a bus) had reached the point where ASRS was the key to likely further safety improvements, and yet somehow Boeing shipped the 737 MAX.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#166

Post by daenz »

corrral wrote: post #161
daenz wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand your point. The shooter was stopped by border patrol officers who risked their lives to end the shooting, so yes, there are people willing to step up and save lives. In this situation, these people were rarer than anyone would have liked. But we will always need them to stop violence, regardless of if guns are generally banned.

> I'm not sure I understand your point. I was responding, originally, to: > It sort of blows up the whole pro gun control argument that citizens shouldn't be expected to have to protect themselves but instead rely on law enforcement :p Maybe it was a joke, but it's a bad one when some people actually think that. I'll reconsider my position when major organizations and government buildings and such start shifting to e…

Unfortunately I am not going to bite on "everywhere is safer with more guns" argument because I also don't believe it :)

You can believe that people shouldn't want/need guns while also believing they should be able to exercise that right if they want to. I hold that belief. Guns aren't for everyone, but who am I to deny someone of their right to defend themselves, for example, from an abusive ex-partner.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#167

Post by kube-system »

jjav wrote: post #135
kube-system wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calculated risks, yes, like going in to the same building as an active shooter. They're not going to jump in front of a bullet to protect anyone else, though. The primary responsibility of any first responder -- police, fire, or EMS -- is to preserve their own lives.

> The primary responsibility of any first responder -- police, fire, or EMS -- is to preserve their own lives. This is fundamentally wrong. If it were ok, let's just disband them all and save a lot of money since their responsibility doesn't benefit anyone other than themselves. I reject the concept of a society where this is somehow ok.

It's 100% the truth. First responders are neither instructed to nor required to sacrifice their lives at work. They're required to take upon some amounts of risk as a matter of circumstance, but that line stops far before death.

The idea that first responders can solve anything is a very comforting idea that resonates with many people. That doesn't make it true.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#168

Post by rickeydidio »

rasz wrote: post #147
SrslyJosh wrote: post #23

Yeah, sure. The "weakness" they don't want exposed is them standing around in the hallway doing nothing while the murderer took his time in a classroom full of kids.

Some went in for their own children https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/officers-rescued-own-child... at this point I assume cops shot those children

I don't want to be Conspiracy Guy here but I read that the officers on the scene fired 26-27 shots into the classroom where the shooter was. 26-27 sounds like a LOT of shots. I get it that this isn't some sniper rifle on Call of Duty but is this going to end up like a Pat Tillman situation where we find out later that one of these kids was hit by friendly fire? Where did those 26-27 shots end up? Sounds a bit reckless in those close confines without more details.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#169

Post by _-david-_ »

pygy_ wrote: post #116
drugstorecowboy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it implied? If you remove my ability to protect myself am I not forced to rely on the police to protect me? Unless they are arguing that gun control will solve all future violent crime I don't see how you could say this with a straight face. If they are "serious" about gun control or not would certainly be up for debate, but I have heard this argument many many times.

The argument is that fewer guns in circulation decreases violence. That is to the point where cops are unarmed in Norway, most of the UK and Ireland, Iceland, New Zealand, Botswana and a dozen smaller countries.

The US has been increasing the number of guns and has seen a decrease in violence.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#170

Post by kube-system »

philistine wrote: post #157
kube-system wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may have attended training that generally suggests that approach, but police are not legally required to put themselves in harms way.

You're removing all the oxygen from the real debate: police officers are expected to rush an active shooter scene to end the threat. Containment only increases the casualties. This has been the best response for a long time. Read this: https://www.theiacp.org/resources/policy-center-resource/act... What has seemingly happened in Uvalde is a complete betrayal of that typical response. Officers contained the threat, al…

I don't disagree that it's a best practice, or that those best practices are a good idea.

Expecting the police to follow those best practices every time is not any more reasonable than expecting any other profession to follow best practice every time. The reason we don't legally require them to prevent crime is that it's an unachievable standard.

Post reply on HN