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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

#811

Post by dsfyu404ed »

coryfklein wrote: post #446
kaolti wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would be infinitely better off. I don't understand this sentiment of "even with guns it's not gonna work so let's just roll over and take it". If you personally don't think you'll be better off that's fine, but surely you get that if someone WANTS to fight tooth and nail in self-defense he should be given a chance to do so.

Really?! Like somehow having Hong Kong in rubble and surrounded by the largest army in the world is a better situation? If Hong Kong had to rely on force of arms to win its independence, then it's defeat is nearly a foregone conclusion. They just do not have the capacity to stand up to the LARGEST ARMY IN THE WORLD. Maybe, MAYBE an armed conflict in Hong Kong would sway the U.S. to intervene, but the U.S. is so avers…

>If Hong Kong had to rely on force of arms to win its independence, then it's defeat is nearly a foregone conclusion. They just do not have the capacity to stand up to the LARGEST ARMY IN THE WORLD.

If they'd rather die free than old that's their choice to make and they deserve to be able to make it.

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

#812

Post by CapricornNoble »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #645
CapricornNoble wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>The dystopian military enforcers wear bulletproof powered armor, and private ownership of any weapon that can pierce that armor is a "grievous threat to public order," punishable by summary execution. Which sounds like a deterrent.....until the insurgents use autonomous vehicle technology to pilot dump trucks full of fertilizer explosives into the enforcers. https://hugokaaman.com/2017/02/14/the-history-and-adapta…

Well, it's dystopian sci-fi. Of course there's got to be some way to hit back against the oppressors. On the other hand, if your battle plan involves using up an entire truck for each enemy soldier (or squad?) neutralized, I feel like you're gonna have a hard time scaling that up to open warfare.

With the number of Ford F-150s in the US (or Toyota Tacomas in the Mid-East), it scales reasonably well when either used for targeted assassination of High Value Targets, or as the opening barrage of a combined-arms attack. Considering total costs of employment (vehicle modifications, including explosives), it's cheaper than air support and more accurate than traditional tube artillery.

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

#813

Post by coldtea »

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…

>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?

That's not how it works in several western countries. People can swing, throw rocks, even molotov cocktails at the SWAT teams, and they still don't shoot live rounds back - and it would be a huge political issue if they did...

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

#814

Post by close04 »

Clubber wrote: post #785
close04 wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You chose to ignore both the fact that the rest of the arguments are perfectly valid and that the clarification I made right below still stands. The aggressive tone you chose to use is both unnecessary and unwelcome.

>you'd be hard pressed to find one where the dictator gave up even when the insurgents were backed by strong armies like the US. Here's a list of coups. Many were successful. I'm not sure why you are trying to argue that coups don't work. The Arab Spring is a recent example of this very thing, isn't it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coups_d%27état_and_cou... >Very few (if any) shootings were ever really preve…

I hope you don't mind if I respond to your conservapedia link with a wikipedia link. This is the list of mass shootings in the US in 2019 (9 months):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...

According to it 385 people were killed and 1338 injured so far. 8 of the mass shootings were in schools. Now you're saying that if faced with the choice of having fewer or no mass shootings, and being able to stop a small fraction of them (or worse, stop a large fraction but even the small one still causes thousands of victims) while the rest cause hundreds of deaths and thousands injured you'd pick the second?

As for the coups, I never said they don't work so please don't move the goalposts. I said that the dictator rarely gave up just because his opponents had guns or even the backing of the US military. When I replied to OP's comment it said dictators would back off if faced with armed population.

But if the point you're (contrivedly) trying to make is that guns are not the problem I can only strongly agree. Guns, games, etc. seem to not be a problem in the rest of the western world. So the problem must be something or somewhere else.

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

#816

Post by wangii »

UIZealot wrote: post #358
mytailorisrich wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The situation of HK and the rights of the residents have not fundamentally changed since it was ceded to the British in 1842. In fact they have more democratic representation now than during most of their history. It's far from perfect but it's infinitely better than on the mainland. Nothing justifies "resorting to violence" in HK today. The violent actions along with anti-Chinese displays are in fact counterproducti…

[flagged]

It's the worst part of the Internet: there is really no real listening to the other side. Everybody gets an opinion and the most important thing for him on something not really in his field(s) is, get his opinion out!

I think the HN's algorithm also contribute to the problem: the fastest and most upvoted response leads the discussion, and normally not the most valuable.

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

#818

Post by coldtea »

pageandrew wrote: post #775
ridewinter wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning a gun makes it 2-3x more likely someone in your family will die by a gun. So it makes you less safe, not more. https://slate.com/technology/2015/01/good-guy-with-a-gun-myt... And it definitely makes it less safe for the rest of us in society.

If you have a gun in your house and are responsible with it, nobody will be at risk.

Yeah, sure...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am-Qdx6vky0

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/man-shoots...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nra-employee-shoots-himself_n...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-accidently-shoots-self-wife...

(I won't even mention the circular argument in the parent comment)

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

#819

Post by easytiger »

coldtea wrote: post #813
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…

> 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? That's not how it works in several western countries. People can swing, throw rocks, even molotov cocktails at the SWAT teams, and they still don't shoot live rounds back - and it would be a huge political issue if they did...

It was a few cornered officers, one of whom was having his head stamped on. Not even remotely the same thing

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

#820

Post by myxozoa »

dirkg wrote: post #817

Ah yes, if Chinese police did it, its barbaric. US cops do far worse on a daily basis and are worshiped as heroes and literally get away with murder without so much as a charge.

This is a topic of fierce controversy in america, where police shootings often result in protests

This is an example of the same disconnect you describe in the comment

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