Forbidden Donut

you tell those bootleggers from the 20s!!! /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

Holy fucking christ the last couple of posts made me sick to my stomach. Are you guys just saying this retarded nonsense to put me in physical pain?

You're succeeding, by the way.

Edit: Police checkpoints in New York. Really? /vomit

Alrighty... despite me being one of the "least qualified to discuss the merits" of Police/arming them in such a manner, I want to bring up a few points.

First off, that news article has one error in it that I find immensely annoying, and it relates directly to this issue. They say that police are going to be armed with M4s, and then state that the M4 is a fully automatic rifle. This is incorrect. The M4A1 is fully automatic, and the M4 is not. Personally, I would hope that NYPD would be armed with M4s, as there is no real reason for FNGs to be carrying fully automatic rifles. It should be painfully obvious to anyone that full auto and crowds of innocents don't mix.

I also need to address this whole "police being armed more the the citizenry" thing. Why exactly is that such a bad thing. In Canada, no citizen can carry a loaded firearm of any sort. Period. However; all police carry loaded firearms. This has not produced an aura of fear, and my country is far from being a police state. I would argue that it is much further from it then the USA, but perhaps that is for a different thread.

Further; I do not see how heavily armed police will produce a state of fear. I just don't agree with this. Maybe its a fundamental difference in the way our countries work, but I am not afraid that if I commit some sort of infraction that I will get peppered by the cop with the BBR (thank you to Pheylan for bringing up the BBR factor). Personally I would be more concerned with the possibility of the drunk I am arguing with having a nine in his pocket.

Gov, you argue about equality, but I'd love to see the mandatory training courses on the law and firearms that private citizenry is forced to undergo before they are handed a firearm. Perhaps its a Canadian perspective, but I do NOT find NYC's gun laws ridiculously prohibitive. Under the current laws I could easily (if I were to live in NYC) get a concealed carry permit.

My next issue is the reliance on SWAT. It is time to face facts that SWAT teams are becoming drastically outdated and ineffective for response to a true emergency. Even a force like NY does not have enough members of SWAT to effectively position during new years eve to provide quick access to any area where there may be an active shooter. If these units are not pre-positioned, they face the issue of just GETTING THERE in NYC during new years eve... right... that's not happening in a timely manner. We all remember columbine and the ineffectiveness of the "let SWAT handle the bad stuff" mentality. Arguing that the system will work better on a much larger scale is... odd, to say the least.

Check points wouldn't work either. Its just not practical to search everyone coming into an open celebration like that. With the number of people and the time limit of being in and drunk by 11:59PM, it wouldn't be physically possible. There's the additional problem with heavily armed checkpoints in that it makes the average person the bad guy. Putting people in a situation where they believe that the police believe that YOU are potentially the bad guy is the path towards a police state IMO. Taking a police approach that says "We know you're the good guy, and we're here to protect you from whoever the bad guy might be" is much more effective, and will see much more appreciation (or at least acceptance).

I agree that cops are people and that they make mistakes. I do not agree with using that as an excuse to disarm them or take away the tools required for them to do a job effectively. This has happened to a certain extent in Canada, and is a slippery slope. Yes, I understand that giving the police more and more power is also a slippery slope. A balance is difficult to obtain, I am sure. Going on the argument that police make mistakes and should therefor not be armed in such a manner is "unfair" for lack of a better word. If you really want to implement something like that, you better start training your American "military" on how to use their fists effectively to end war.

All that said, there are things I disagree with about this proposal.

Three days is not an effective time allotment for full training with a rifle such as the M4. Either not enough will be taught, or not enough will be retained. This is not enough training. Period.

First assignment for those just recently given their 3 day training allotment is new years eve in New fucking York. What the fuck is that? Are you kidding me? This smacks of desperation, or the whole thing being a political move. They are banking on shit NOT going down in order to tout this as success in preparation for something larger... like perhaps putting M4s in all patrol cars (good move imo, but controversial. BBR syndrome again.)

Needless to say: Cops with M4s on new years even in New York? Yes.

Stacking the fucking newbies with the big guns and putting them out there for new years eve in NY? Idiocy. No experience + little training + intense stress + big guns = Nothing I'm overly fond of.

Great idea in theory. Piss poor implementation.

Thanks for the clarification on the automatic thing. Misrepresenting semi-auto rifles as "assault rifles" is a growing problem for both the media and average citizens, and it gets to be even more of an issue when discussions like this come up.

The police are citizens. In the US, every citizen deserves equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their status in society, race, gender, etc. That means that whether you are the congressman, a janitor, or a police officer, you have the same rights as the everyone else. No exceptions. That is the single defining characteristic of this entire country. It's not about avoiding an aura of fear (although that is always a good goal), it's about preserving the very foundation for our own existence.

In the US, rights should always trump security.

Oh, and Pheylan, you keep making the citizens-can-purchase-almost-the-same-thing argument, and that is entirely irrelevant if not direct support for my argument. We're not almost free, and I don't almost have rights. If a cop is allowed to carry an M4, I want to be able to carry an M4. I don't know why people think separate-but-equal is an OK policy except in the case of race relations.

I guess the way I'm looking at it is, you have to draw the line somewhere. In most of the country, it is possible for your average citizen to own a fully automatic rifle, given enough patience, paper work, and lack of a criminal record. Does that mean that everyone should? Why not grenade launchers? Just because police departments can get them, does that mean that you and I should be able to buy them? RPGs? Abrams tanks? Attack helicopters? I draw the line at automatic weapons. For one, they are useful in 1% of gun uses. In the other 99% they are a waste of ammo.

The other thing is, I fully support people being able to buy an m4. In most states in the US, you can go and buy an m4 identical to the ones the police will be armed with. That doesn't mean you should be able to walk down the street with it. I entirely support the ability of the people to arm themselves for a militia, but keep the rifles in the home or car. There's no advantage to walking around with them down the street, into the market, at the bank. All that does is create a mood of fear among your citizens and in all likelihood would end up with many of the police horror stories with misread intentions on their part. The reason I don't mind police carrying a rifle down the street, yet I mind a civilian doing the same is that a cop is a known entity; you know they aren't about to go ape shit on everyone and you know they are there to protect and serve. You can't say the same for every Tom, Dick and Harry wanting to try to carry theirs. There's right to bear arms, and then there is chaos.

I just can't get over this concept that people have that the police, or the government, or whoever are out to get us. It's got me baffled that people feel that way to the point that I just made an argument for gun control. I've never done that before.

I'd like to argue the fundamentals that this argument is based on, but that would require arguing the merits of the constitution your country is based on. I'd rather avoid that can of worms. I also don't deem myself sufficiently knowledgeable about the subject matter to take that step.

If you've got to change your argument maybe your premise is faulty? For example, maybe you *shouldn't* trust the government and police. Then you don't need to argue for gun control anymore. It's not that people are out to get you, it's that they are out to help themselves, and there's people in power and authority that are permitted to look out for number 1 to a greater degree than the "average citizen". Doesn't matter if they use or abuse that power; they have it and they shouldn't.