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Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

minnesotareformer.com

421–430 of 606 posts

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#421
post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're [deliberately?] misinterpreting the stated intent of the law. A gun that goes off when dropped is substantially less safe than a gun which doesn't. People who buy guns are in fact justified in considering such factors. I think there's a real case to be made that the Californian law is duplicitous and is actually intended to reduce the availability of handguns in California, but that's not the point being raise…

We shouldn’t be doing anything to increase the number of guns in circulation. It reduces safety for everyone, especially the gun owners.

Ho man, that’s like saying we’ll stop war by banning nuclear weapons.

1) the really problematic people won’t care

2) the ‘normal’ people will just be left defenseless and be preyed upon with fewer worries by the #1 cases.

3) which incentivizes the crazies to arm up more so they’ll have leverage.

Notably, this is exactly what happened with nuclear proliferation bans, if we’re being honest.

Assuming it’s not actually possible to control the area physically anyway. Singapore or NZ? Hey maybe. 99% of the rest of the planet? Good luck!

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#422
post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harm reduction is a component of public safety.

If your interest is harm reduction, then you should be focused on reducing the number of handguns in circulation. You should also consider looking in to the data about what actually happens to your chances of being shot once you buy a gun. It’s pretty stunning.

Harm reduction is not a single tactic. For gun safety harm reduction means requiring guns not to fire by accident, AND having gun owners take training that includes all the information about the risks that go up once you own a gun (especially to others in your household), AND requiring or encouraging gun owners to lock their guns up AND to store ammunition separate from guns AND ideally even to store them somewhere not in the house, AND reduce the number of guns in circulation.

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#423
post #68
post #30

The DOJ has to start actually doing its job and completely dissolving these corrupt police departments and rebuilding them. Thats the only way we're going to get rid of corrupts cops like this.

"The DOJ has to start actually doing its job and completely dissolving these corrupt police departments and rebuilding them" Not trivial, considering a substantial percentage of elected officials are dead-set against allowing the DOJ to actually fight this kind of thing. They only approve of law and order when the law and/or order is pointed at very specific types of criminals or protests.

People forget that corrupt police departments are tolerated because they help exert racist and class-based preferential enforcement/harassment/suppression.

Porbably why the police unions are so staunchly supported by conservatives, because in the city the police's primary job is to protect affluents and their property values from the "ghetto".

So the likelihood of some DOJ reformation is slim. The dems in power won't rock that boat (the local governments are usually democratic) and the reps won't because of the real purpose of city police as described.

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without anyone offering a clear, compelling alternative approach to public safety and deterring crime. This really just betrays that you were not paying attention beyond the tagline. Multiple cities have already implemented trial programs to replace police services with mental health and EMT professionals to wild success. Denver has the STAR program [0] and I'm aware of a similar program in New Orleans and I'm sure…

Your reply has a big claim, namely that they have had a "wild success". Instead of giving sources for this claim you provided us with contextual information that proves nothing

Not one of the programs they mentioned, but you might find this interesting https://klcjournal.com/mental-health-cahoots/

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't lower the funding. 1. They self-fund. All confiscated cash is for keeps. If they're not allowed to keep it by state law, they're welcome to call in feds who will do the bust and give them 80% as a finders fee. 2. They extort cities into not "defunding". They don't want it, and they play hardball. > nd no one in their right mind, even on the ACAB side, wants police to go away entirely. No one's ever accused…

Dude, nobody expects a random cop to spend a month trying to track down a $200 bicycle. That's not their job. Your views are extremely myopic. Low-income neighborhoods around me are asking for MORE police because of how things have gotten. It's literally only suburban people who are insulated from crime that are saying dumb things like "defund the police"

This guy literally won't reply to me. I think there's something pathological going on.

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite part is that California has a roster of handguns approved for sale. The pretext for its existence is consumer safety (it is entirely separate from bans on stuff like assault weapons or large magazines), but the actual effect is that you have a very limited selection in stores, and most of the designs are very dated. But if you're a police officer? You get an exemption! Apparently, the state has no regard…

Another reason why I left California. You can't buy a Canik's as a non-LEO. Also, criminals get whatever guns they want and carry them while law-abiding citizens can't do anything except wish not to be mugged or murdered with strong objections. It's completely absurd given how violent America is.

They buy the guns from the cops.

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefighter arson is a relatively well known phenomenon. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/fires-set-by-firefigh... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefighter_arson

I'm curious, how do they actually figure out who is behind a forest fire? Or even suspect that it was a criminal act in the first place. Finding who is behind a burnt house is one thing, but a whole forest is a lot of terrain to cover for proof!

They don't need to cover the whole forest, usually the fire is first seen when still small. But it's a lot of work, I don't know how often they are successful:

https://www.nwcg.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pms412...

(I also know that forensic fire investigation for house fires/criminal investigations is basically a made up art with extremely unreliable results - not sure how much that overlaps with wildfire investigations).

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using the language of labor movements to describe police isn't adequate for understanding the constraints they work under. What makes a cop a cop isn't the work they do, but the power they have. To what extent they are free to apply this power, or sell it, outside of its normal sanctioned purpose is a critical question. And one completely separate from the issue of workers selling their labor to multiple parties. Wor…

I think that argument breaks down if the police are Moonlighting in a job that doesn't require police powers. It is one thing, and I think reasonable, say that police can't wear their uniforms when working off duty. It's another thing entirely to say that they can't work at all

In most of the US (if not all - I don't know), off-duty police have the same powers as on-duty police, uniformed or not. That's why people want to hire them. https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/when-pol...

So if police are allowed to moonlight in other jobs, then they by definition bring those powers to the job - and their legal immunities, and their illegal immunities created by the 'thin blue line' of cops who protect each other.

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only semi related, but we have a synagogue here with it's own small police station. But I'm in Germany, it has been burned twice already.

Pardon the insensitive question, but burned twice since the Holocaust? Is violent antisemitism still so prevalent? Did denazification fail so badly?

It doesn't take a lot of extremists to cause a security threat; "lone wolf" scenarios are absolutely something Jewish places of worship have to worry about. Not just in Germany, and doubly so this week.

Germany had a far-right coup attempt brewing late last year:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/07/germany-coup...

> German authorities on Wednesday arrested 25 people suspected of plotting to use armed force to storm parliament and violently overthrow the state, marking one of the country’s largest-ever raids targeting right-wing extremists.

> Those arrested included a 71-year-old German aristocrat, a former lawmaker from the right-wing Alternative for Germany party and at least one former armed forces member, according to the public prosecutor and officials.

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