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“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

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Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#301

Post by afterburner »

gaius wrote: post #122
mikeash wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, yes, it is the America that America wants, as far as I can tell. I think this is where efforts to fight these problems fall down. They're almost all based on the assumption that the populace doesn't want this stuff to happen, but that the government pushes it through by abusing power, subverting democracy, etc. But from what I see, this is not the case. Most Americans want this. Whether it's gun-wielding mania…

What fascinates me about this is that the SWAT team and the spies are people too. Which sounds obvious but it isn't. Take a guy off the street and he believes about himself, and the government believes about him, that he needs to be surveilled constantly and if he acts suspiciously, violently confronted. But what if that guy is a bureaucrat or a policeman himself? What happens in the recruitment/training process to t…

People are constantly drinking the koolaid, and readily. They want to fit in, want their boss to like them, want to do as well as their colleagues, and don't want to confront anyone. It's the human condition, and takes effort and introspection to do otherwise.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#303

Post by sneak »

jlgreco wrote: post #279
llamataboot wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give someone assault weapons, train them to believe that they are fighting for good, and remove all legal and moral contraints and watch how quick they turn into a "bad apple". It's not a personnel problem, it's a structural problem. See Stanford Prison Experiment, etc.

Put a bad apple in a barrel, leave it there for a short period of time, and observe that all the apples are now bad. Rotting apples release ethylene gas which is a ripening agent. Through the release of this gas, bad apples will "spoil the barrel" if they are not diligently weeded out and disposed of. Bad cops don't release ethylene gas. The mechanism that rot uses to spread through a police organization is called "T…

Exactly my point above; I'm glad it came through.

I love this "bad apple" tidbit, it's going in the top drawer of the toolbox. :D

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#304

Post by sneak »

jleader wrote: post #271
akiselev wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been incidents like the Oaksterdam raid where the DEA took up all SWAT resources for a raid of a civillian, unarmed (and legal state-wise) marijuana cooperative. Meanwhile, there was a school shooting minutes away. [1] The reality is that crime is falling in the United States and has been for a while (Freakanomics has a decent piece about the relationship of crime and the availability of abortion, with a t…

There's debate about whether increased availability of abortion really accounts for the decline in crime; one alternative hypothesis is that reduced rates of childhood exposure to lead (mostly from leaded gasoline and the resultant exhaust) is at least as responsible.

I remember reading a fantastic article on that topic, have you got a link?

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#305

Post by ndesaulniers »

kdeberk wrote: post #201
noelwelsh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you're wrong. From the same article: Indeed, that’s exactly what happened to seventy-two-year-old Aaron Awtry in 2010. Awtry was hosting a poker tournament in his Greenville, South Carolina, home when police began breaking down the door with a battering ram. Awtry had begun carrying a gun after being robbed. Thinking he was about to be robbed again, he fired through the door, wounding Deputy Matthew May in both…

> "Thinking he was about to be robbed again, he fired through the door" Yeah, that appears to be a pretty foolish thing to do. What if it were firefighters who noticed a fire through his upstairs window? I don't think that they would just ring the bell and wait for an answer. I know that this a hypothetical situation, but it just seems a really stupid thing to just blindly fire at whatever is behind the door. The onl…

>> "Thinking he was about to be robbed again, he fired through the door"

>Yeah, that appears to be a pretty foolish thing to do.

Definitely. Reminded me of the part in Major Payne when the little boy is scared because he thinks there's a monster in his closet. The first time I saw this, I figured it was one of the other boys in the movie playing a prank on him and hiding in the closet. Major Payne draws his pistol and unloads it into the closet door, exclaiming "if he's still in there, he ain't happy." At this point, I was like OMG he probably killed a kid (there's no one actually in the closet). Point being, if you fire a gun through a door knowing someone is on the other side, you should be held as accountable had you aimed the gun directly at them and fired.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#306

Post by ajtaylor »

VladRussian2 wrote: post #281
ajtaylor wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the America I grew up in, nor the one I want to live in. So I left and have no plans to go back anytime soon. The land of the free isn't so free anymore, which makes me incredibly sad. And my parents live in VA!

well, the America has definitely changed during last decade+. Yet, still it is somewhat surprising that there is a place you found you think is more free.

I now live very happily in Australia. It's not perfect by any means (nanny state comes to mind), but I feel safer here. More importantly, my wife feels safer.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#308

Post by tsotha »

jlgreco wrote: post #298
tsotha wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>All the more reason to never speak to the police. He didn't know the guy was a cop.

Is this actually the case? Of course he didn't know the reason this cop was his "friend" and the cop didn't introduce himself as a cop, but after a few months you would think that his job would have come up once or twice. Did the cop lie when asked about it? Regardless, it is more than enough reason to never be "friends" with a cop.

The article implies the cop was undercover. Look at it this way: If you knew your buddy was a cop, would you break the law in front of him and put him in an awkward position?

I'm sure the cop's job did come up. And I'm sure he lied. Who would bother to check?

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#309

Post by tsotha »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #246
vacri wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lifeisstillgood is talking about the cultural expectation that problems are solved by throwing overwhelming force at them.

True. Fallujah, being an example of SWAT team over-reaction On a nationstate level. the more direct problem that there is no a preponderance of ex-soldiers, weapons, and an entire industrial base massively expanded and looking for civilian roles now everyone can see wars winding down and this kind of thing will be more prevalent. All the forces mentioned in the article (including "militarisation" are conspiring in a…

>True. Fallujah, being an example of SWAT team over-reaction On a nationstate level.

That's so daft I don't know where to start. There's no such thing as an overreaction in war.

>the more direct problem that there is no a preponderance of ex-soldiers, weapons, and an entire industrial base massively expanded and looking for civilian roles now everyone can see wars winding down and this kind of thing will be more prevalent.

All these things were true to a much greater extent at the end of the Vietnam war and again at the end of the cold war.

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