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SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

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Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#221

Post by jacobush »

jonnycomputer wrote: post #181
jacobush wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I can imagine that going wrong in so many ways. Executions squads come to mind. Groupthink. Even less liability. Instant guaranteed kill instead of only probably kill, even fewer annoying survivors in court.

Well, the thought was to avoid a single agent having a fear reflex and pulling the trigger. In fact, I think the situation now is that one spooked officer shooting off the gun causes other officers to get spooked too and pull the trigger. I think under those circumstances, having a consensus algorithm in place would diminish the likelihood of it occurring, since, presumably multiple agents would have to have the fear…

Yeah, that sounds reasonable, including how practical it would be.

Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#222

Post by zelon88 »

penagwin wrote: post #43
donatj wrote: post #24

The heart of the problem is that SWAT-ing is possible. You shouldn't be able to make an anonymous phone call and have the police bust down someone else's door guns drawn. An unverified phone call alone should not amount to probable cause. That's not civilization.

To play devils advocate a little - If I'm a 911 operator and the person calling says "They have gun next door - there's shouting, I'm really scared WHAT DO I DO?!" What do we do? Turn them down? Ask for proof? From the police perspective - they're entering a potentially dangerous environment, which means gun drawn until the environment is cleared. To your point though - the fact that the swatting has resulted in inno…

It can't be anonymous. That's where this problem lies.

If you're sending cops with guns to someone's house at 3am you should be required to prove your identity.

Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#223

Post by blaser-waffle »

Tepix wrote: post #213
RickJWagner wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I own guns, as my father did before me and his father before him. All my brothers own guns. We're sportsmen, hunting is a popular recreation where we live. Of all the guns in my family, not one has ever hurt a human being. Not a single incident, over many decades and who knows how many shots fired. I have many friends with the same situation-- I don't know of anyone who has ever shot another human being.…

Guns are so dangerous, is it really worth it just to have "a popular recreation"?

Cars are so dangerous. Is it really worth it just to have a popular recreation like racing? Why don't we just ban cars?

In 2010, there were an estimated 5,419,000 crashes, 30,296 deadly, killing 32,999, and injuring 2,239,000.

There are a roughly similar amount of fatalities related to guns, though more than 50% of those are suicides.

Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#224

Post by JetSpiegel »

jMyles wrote: post #208
dmix wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus a calm rational authoritative person on the ground who isn't in Captain America hero mode but instead expects verifiable and multi-sourced evidence that the situation requires escalation to extreme force. Rather than relying on his lackeys to observe for very lax rules of engagement based on some hyper-pessimistic risk models.

> Captain America hero mode I don't really follow the Marvel universe very closely outside of X-men, but isn't Captain America a figure who stands in contrast to government overreach, Nazism, police brutality, etc? I think of him as being a sort of left libertarian. I think we might actually need more Captain Americas in these situations, not less.

> left libertarian

What's a left libertarian? A liberal socialist? Those words are opposite.

Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#225

Post by mcantelon »

kybernetikos wrote: post #212
mcantelon wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first was at most in anti-govt groups, which were clearly not left. You don't need to be associated with a group to be an individual extremist deciding to advance a movement. The shooter's photographed doing a black power salute. The black power movement isn't right wing. https://heavy.com/news/2016/07/micah-xavier-x-johnson-dallas... While there may certainly be more extremists on the right the idea that someo…

> the idea that someone on the left can't be an extremist Well of course it doesn't, which is why nobody was saying that. There's been plenty of horrific deadly left wing violence historically, both in the US and other countries. It's just that in the last few decades and limited to the US, there has been little to no deadly left wing violence, a time period which has seen quite a lot of deadly right wing violence.

If so, why are many people hesitant to condemn the left wing extremism that does exist? Does right wing extremism somehow justify left wing extremism?

Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#226

Post by [deleted] »

donw wrote: post #210
whyaduck wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High powered semi-automatic long and hand guns with high capacity magazines loaded with hollow-point or armor piercing rounds have not been common in the US for several hundred years.

Winchester repearting rifles were popular as of 1870. As they held 16 rounds, could be rapidly fired, and were easily reloaded, there is a strong argument that these were, in fact, the first assault rifles. Modern semi-automatic (double-action) revolvers were commonplace as of 1900. Both of the above fired highly lethal ammunition, with rates of fire and reload not that far from modern semi-automatics, which were the…

[deleted]

Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#227

Post by kybernetikos »

mcantelon wrote: post #225
kybernetikos wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the idea that someone on the left can't be an extremist Well of course it doesn't, which is why nobody was saying that. There's been plenty of horrific deadly left wing violence historically, both in the US and other countries. It's just that in the last few decades and limited to the US, there has been little to no deadly left wing violence, a time period which has seen quite a lot of deadly right wing violence.

If so, why are many people hesitant to condemn the left wing extremism that does exist? Does right wing extremism somehow justify left wing extremism?

I'm afraid I can't answer for 'many people'. But complaining that nebulous groups of people don't condemn things you don't like vociferously enough is rarely a productive direction to take a conversation. It's better to deal with people individually where possible, and easier to find out what people think about concrete examples.

But also, yes, I think it's not unreasonable to expect that people might show more outrage for murders than for property damage, even if they disagree with both.

Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#228

Post by mcantelon »

kybernetikos wrote: post #227
mcantelon wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If so, why are many people hesitant to condemn the left wing extremism that does exist? Does right wing extremism somehow justify left wing extremism?

I'm afraid I can't answer for 'many people'. But complaining that nebulous groups of people don't condemn things you don't like vociferously enough is rarely a productive direction to take a conversation. It's better to deal with people individually where possible, and easier to find out what people think about concrete examples. But also, yes, I think it's not unreasonable to expect that people might show more outra…

>But also, yes, I think it's not unreasonable to expect that people might show more outrage for murders than for property damage, even if they disagree with both.

I never mentioned property damage. Antifa's violence isn't "property damage". This is the kind of thing I'm talking about: bad faith straw manning to justify ignoring violence by leftists.

Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

#229

Post by kybernetikos »

mcantelon wrote: post #228
kybernetikos wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid I can't answer for 'many people'. But complaining that nebulous groups of people don't condemn things you don't like vociferously enough is rarely a productive direction to take a conversation. It's better to deal with people individually where possible, and easier to find out what people think about concrete examples. But also, yes, I think it's not unreasonable to expect that people might show more outra…

>But also, yes, I think it's not unreasonable to expect that people might show more outrage for murders than for property damage, even if they disagree with both. I never mentioned property damage. Antifa's violence isn't "property damage". This is the kind of thing I'm talking about: bad faith straw manning to justify ignoring violence by leftists.

The last conversation I was in on this topic was highlighting that the data shows very high numbers of events from some ecological and animal rights groups and considering them as left wing violence, and from that arguing that there was much more left wing violence than right wing violence. Almost all of those events were property damage. This is all in the https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/ dataset.

The dataset that I mention above doesn't contain any references to antifa. This is probably because 'antifa' isn't a specific group, but an umbrella term for a number of groups, some of which are entirely nonviolent or target only property.

> This is the kind of thing I'm talking about: bad faith straw manning to justify ignoring violence by leftists.

This is pretty unfair. I'm not in a position to do anything about any particular act of violence, but there's a strong chance that if you suggest a concrete example to me I'll state that I disagree with it. For example, I don't believe that you should punch people you disagree with in the face, regardless of whether they are fascists or not.

You should not be surprised however, that people are more aware of violence resulting in fatalities and more vocal in their condemnation of it than other violence (even other violence that they also disagree with).

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