Earlier today Baton Rouge Police came under fire from what is being reported out as 3 suspects. Seven Six officers have been shot, with three of them killed as a result of their injuries. One suspect has been reported being shot and killed with two still at large. And one of those reported as being holed up/barricaded into an abandoned building. Here’s the WAFB Chanel 9 Baton Rouge live feed.
This is an ongoing event, many of the initial information is most likely fragmentary and incomplete, and will change over the next 24 to 48 hours.
Update at 12:45 PM EDT
WAFB is reporting, based on an eyewitness posted video, that at least one shooter was dressed in black, with a balaclava/ski type mask, like a ninja or military.
Update at 12:50 PM EDT
An eyewitness being interviewed now by WAFB has indicated that the shooter was wearing a black T shirt and shorts, not in a ninja or military style black outfit, and that he was out walking with a rifle.
Update at 2:25 PM EDT
WAFB Chanel 9 Baton Rouge is reporting as an update that 2 men have been taken into custody in West Baton Rouge Parish. Someone reported two men, driving a car with Texas plates, went into a Walmart dressed all in black, then came back out a short time later in different clothes to police. They have been detained and they are being brought back to Baton Rouge to be questioned by police and the FBI.
They are now replaying the eyewitness video of the woman describing the shooter as dressed all in black, like a ninja, with a black mask. Other reports at this time that are being reported out is that the police responded to shooting between two groups in a parking lot and when attempting to intervene the shooters turned on the cops. So the situation is still very unclear. There is a press conference set for 3 PM with the Governor of Louisiana and the Baton Rouge Chief of Police.
Update at 3:35 PM EDT
Here’s the President’s statement on the shootings of police in Baton Rouge earlier this morning. Just a reminder: the President will address the Nation on this immediately after Governor Edwards press conference, which is scheduled for 3:00 PM CDT.
The White HouseOffice of the Press Secretary
For Immediate ReleaseJuly 17, 2016
Statement by the President
I condemn, in the strongest sense of the word, the attack on law enforcement in Baton Rouge. For the second time in two weeks, police officers who put their lives on the line for ours every day were doing their job when they were killed in a cowardly and reprehensible assault. These are attacks on public servants, on the rule of law, and on civilized society, and they have to stop.
I’ve offered my full support, and the full support of the federal government, to Governor Edwards, Mayor Holden, the Sheriff’s Office, and the Baton Rouge Police Department. And make no mistake – justice will be done.
We may not yet know the motives for this attack, but I want to be clear: there is no justification for violence against law enforcement. None. These attacks are the work of cowards who speak for no one. They right no wrongs. They advance no causes. The officers in Baton Rouge; the officers in Dallas – they were our fellow Americans, part of our community, part of our country, with people who loved and needed them, and who need us now – all of us – to be at our best.
Today, on the Lord’s day, all of us stand united in prayer with the people of Baton Rouge, with the police officers who’ve been wounded, and with the grieving families of the fallen. May God bless them all.
Update at 4:30 PM EDT
At the press conference, the Baton Rouge Sheriff clarified the events. At approximately 8:40 AM CDT a call came in of a man dressed in black was seen near Airport Highway while carrying a rifle. About 2 minutes later law enforcement arrived to check out the situation and a firefight ensued. More officers responded within ten minutes. As a result of the shootout the non police shooter was killed, as well as three law enforcement officers – one sheriff’s deputy and two police officers. There is no active shooter in Baton Rouge. Here’s the remarks on the timeline from the press conference:
State Police Col. Mike Edmonson explained that the initial call came in at roughly 8:40 a.m. Sunday morning for a male armed with a gun wearing all black who was standing behind a beauty supply store on Airline Hwy.
The scene later shifted to the nearby B Quick gas station, which is located less than a mile from BRPD Headquarters.
During the shooting BRPD officers and East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s deputies were struck during gunfire exchange. Five of the officers were transported to Our Lady of the Lake Hospital. Three of those have died. A 41-year-old officer and a 32-year-old officer were from the Baton Rouge Police Department. The other was a 45-year-old officer with the Sheriff’s Office.
The two remaining officers at OLOL hospital are being treated. Officials say a 41-year-old deputy is in critical condition and the other is in fair condition.
A 51-year-old East Baton Rouge Parish Deputy was transported to the Baton Rouge General with non-life threatening injuries and is in fair condition.
During a call to dispatch an officer said, “unknown where the shots are coming from.”
Officials confirm that officers shot and killed one suspect. However, they noted that they believe two additional suspects were involved in this shooting.
Investigators are currently questioning two men who were detained in West Baton Rouge Parish. Officials say members of the public called 911 about two suspicious men who were seen entering the WalMart in Port Allen. They say the men were dressed in all black, they changed clothes inside the store, then left in a silver Nissan with a Texas license plate.
Police Officers located and detained the men. They are currently being questioned by the FBI at a location in Baton Rouge.
Law enforcement officials are asking the entire community to remain indoors if possible.
In the hours following the shooting, officials say there were reports of gunfire in several areas around the city, but so far those reports have all been unfounded. Law enforcement agencies throughout Baton Rouge are on high alert, including the LSU Police Department.
Update at 4:45 PM EDT
Joy Ann Reid of MSNBC/NBC, via her twitter, as well as CBS News, is reporting that the shooter has been identified as Gavin Eugene Long, 29 years old (today was his birthday), from Kansas City, MO and that he may have ties to the sovereign citizens movement.
President Obama is expected to address the Nation momentarily:
cmorenc
We have too many armed crazies with grudges afoot in this country, who are immune to the pressure of sensible folks demonstrating for community togetherness and reform. More of them are thuggish private citizens than cops, but there are too many armed cops afoot with bad temperaments as well.
Not once so far has any of these alleged “open carry” good citizens intervened to prevent or mitigate any of these incidents, nor have the circumstances of any of the incidents so far even made it feasible for such intervention to have occurred, had any of these “open carry” citizens been conveniently handy.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
I expect Clinton will lead bigly among Latinos.
Emma
I think it’s obvious to say but important to remember that eyewitness reports in situations like these are always uncertain unless independently corroborated. Your standard “fragmentary and incomplete” warning is very welcome.
Mandalay
@cmorenc:
“Thuggish”???
dr. luba
Saw this in my twitter feed; no idea how accurate:
bill quigley @bqnola
Baton Rouge. Witness says police not targeted but arrived in scene of shootout between regular people w assault weapons
SiubhanDuinne
@dr. luba:
This makes my brain hurt.
Trentrunner
Goddammit the FOP asshole was already on CNN by phone blaming Obama for not being sufficiently supportive of cops.
Fuck the police.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Mandalay: The word “thug” predates gangsta culture by many decades. Not every word is a dog-whistle.
The Thin Black Duke
@Mandalay: The last I heard, white people can be “thugs” too.
Adam L Silverman
@Emma: I’m going to hold off on any eyewitness based updates for a while. The second guy seemed a lot more squared away than the lady that was taking video with her phone. She was clearly panicked, and rightly so, and because of that the video was so shaky you couldn’t see the person she was actually describing.
p.a.
Forgive me for pointing this out before those unfortunates are even cold, but this insanity can only help the ‘law and order’ candidates. Fascism loves fear.
raven
@Comrade Scrutinizer: How about “fuck the police”?
Adam L Silverman
@dr. luba: This was what WAFB was reporting with that second eyewitness I referenced above. I’ve also seen that reported out in a couple of other places.
Trentrunner
@Comrade Scrutinizer: Yes, but words change and get skunked. Why are you so niggardly in your understanding of language?
Ridnik Chrome
@Mandalay: Cut him some slack. Some people haven’t yet gotten the memo that “thug” and “thuggish” have been added to the list of forbidden words.
cmorenc
@Mandalay:
In retrospect, I realize I used a term that has unfortunately acquired racial overtones. That wasn’t the sense I intended it – rather I meant the original meaning, as anyone prone to resort to predatory violence when frustrated, angry, or trying to dominate others.
Substitute “prone to violent solutions” to my original post, instead of my original wording, and it conveys what I actually intended.
wenchacha
@Trentrunner: Yeah, Harry Houck. He needs to STFU. I am swearing a lot, mostly just in my head.
raven
@p.a.: Why not, everyone else is chiming in with their perspective.
Doug R
@SiubhanDuinne: Yeah, regular people don’t carry assault weapons. I hate the ammosexuals trying to normalize psychotic behavior.
The Thin Black Duke
@Trentrunner: He’s a goddamned idiot. Unfortunately, his attitude is a big part of the problem. Not to sound too callous, but a lot of this escalating gun-related lunacy is happening because the police unions are foolishly directing their political clout at the wrong people. For example, they need to stop getting pissed off at WNBA players wearing “Black Lives Matter” t-shirts and start picketing outside the offices of the NRA. The 2nd Amendment ain’t doing the cops any favors these days.
Mai.naem.mobile
Ugh, Trumpy Dumpy is going to go on and on about law and order.
D58826
@Trentrunner: Somehow the ultimate facts of the case will disappear into the large pre-defined narratives.
LanceThruster
Life has become an episode of “Upright Citizen’s Brigade.”
So often it feels lime we’re being played.
Cui bono?
Marc
@cmorenc: Nope; cold-blooded killers are thugs, and using it about them is completely proper.
Mandalay
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
No, but “thuggish” certainly is, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years:
dr. luba
@SiubhanDuinne:
I know. Makes you wonder why the police aren’t stronger proponents of gun control and assault weapons bans.
Mandalay
@cmorenc: Gotcha – no worries.
jacy
Amazing to me how many people are out on Airline. There is a stand-off, but I can’t tell where from here.
rikyrah
So……the police arrive in the middle of a shootout, and they’re outgunned……
America…what a country…..
Trentrunner
@dr. luba: Well, maybe if enough of their blood is spilled by these weapons, they’ll get the message. Sometimes that’s what it takes. :(
Cleos
@Ridnik Chrome: You just said the forbidden words. Off with your head.
We have it on good mind-reader authority that thugs can never be anyone with blonde hair. Pass it on.
raven
@Trentrunner: right
D58826
@The Thin Black Duke: yep. Would seem like the police would have a vested interest in good community relations because the community can be the most effective eyes in the neighborhood for criminal behavior.
dr. luba
Removed because unable to edit.
Adam L Silverman
@The Thin Black Duke: The real question is is he really like that and really believe this stuff or is CNN paying him to be the heel and the heavy and the foil when these things happen? I don’t think we’ll know. On the other hand everyone seems to still have Mark Fuhrman on, so it appears that the producers for these shows seemed to be wired for a certain set of biases.
Adam L Silverman
@Mandalay: Some have now started using “Dindu” instead. As in a caricature pronunciation of “I didn’t do (dindu) nothing.” I’m not really sure who they think they’re fooling.
dr. luba
Appropriate cartoon from Danziger.
Trentrunner
@Adam L Silverman: It was the national president of the Fraternal Order of the Police, so I doubt he’s a paid CNN contributor.
ETA: He really believes this. He’s not tarting it up for ratings.
The Thin Black Duke
@Mandalay: I’m sorry, but you implying that cmorenc is racist is lame.
Adam L Silverman
@dr. luba: A lot of them are. It depends on where and what type of law enforcement. Also, there is often a split between the senior leadership and the rank and file.
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
A query and an observation sure to bring howls, BUT
Was it going to be abject, cringing compliance with orders and organized thuggery? Fear?
When young adults get mired in a cycle of low wages because of multiple convictions wrought by petty policing, neighborhoods will deteriorate and some will want to take vengeance into their own hands. Broke and desperate people look for avatars to shake the box, and asymmetric warfare starts. It isn’t dissimilar to what happens in Gaza and Palestine proper.
It doesn’t excuse it, but it does explain it.
? Martin
That ‘good guy with a gun’ theory isn’t holding up very well.
The police are in a no-win situation here. They aren’t the ones who get to say which insane NRA policy will be implemented but they’re stuck with the consequences of it. How do you serve the public when you have to assume everyone one of them armed, that every stop will be an ambush?
raven
So the dude is sick, has a gun in his car and pulls into the hospital parking lot where the wounded and dead are. Oh yea!
Adam L Silverman
@jacy: Stay safe!
scav
@SiubhanDuinne:
It’s clearly all just a mistake and over-reaction. Just a reemergence of traditional Good old American Civic Politeness.
Fair Economist
The scary thought about the conflicting descriptions is that there might be multiple people walking around with assault rifles. This could like the Dallas situation, where the normalization of military weaponry on the street makes it harder to identify somebody using military weaponry for malicious purposes.
Adam L Silverman
@Trentrunner: I thought you all were referring to their regular law enforcement analyst retired NYPD detective Harry Houck. My bad.
Kryptik
@Adam L Silverman:
You can thank the toxic /pol/ subset of chan-culture for that lovely coinage. Motherfuckers.
Ridnik Chrome
@Mandalay: The word acquired its racial overtones largely because black gangster rappers started using it to describe themselves. People like Bill O’Reilly picked up on it later. And now nobody can use it. Thanks, guys…
jacy
@Adam L Silverman: next door neighbor just called to make sure I had my doors locked. Weird that I’ve become used to helicopters over my house.
Adam L Silverman
@Kryptik: I am not surprised at all.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Trentrunner: Oh, I understand the evolution of language and jargon. I also understand that not everyone is au courant with the latest list of Proscribed Words and Usages ™. Besides, thug is a perfectly good word, used by the labor movement as a pejorative to describe strikebreakers hired by companies to violently disrupt labor actions (see “gun thug”).
Gun thug is the best description I know for the weapon-clutching assholes who have made incidents like the one in the OP a daily occurrence. I prefer that to “ammosexual”, personally. Thug in one of its original meanings referred to a cult who worshiped Kali and offered her victims through violence; ammosexual may cover firearms as fetish, but in my opinion it has overtones of homophobia that are offensive as well.
Mandalay
@The Thin Black Duke:
Oh do fuck off. My entire post consisted off “Thuggish???”.
I have a lot of respect for cmorenc’s posts, and was surprised to see the word being used, and responded “Gotcha – no worries.” when cmorenc explained. So don’t go accusing me of implying cmorenc is a racist. I did nothing of the kind, you shit stirring asshole.
Adam L Silverman
@jacy: Sorry you’ve found yourself in the middle of a bad B movie. Again, stay safe. We’ll keep good thoughts on this end.
Shawn in Showme
Why do we pay people only 50k a year to get shot at? You’d have to pay me at least six figures to even consider it.
raven
@Shawn in Showme: 50k my ass
Elizabelle
Airline Highway in Baton Rouge is the very highway 61 of which Mr. Bob Dylan sang. Runs from Minnesota to New Orleans.
I think we are going to get an assault weapons ban out of this. It is madness to allow them floating around with civilians. Once police are being killed by assault weapons, the equation has just changed.
The police are afraid of the public, sometimes rightly so. We don’t need to live in a society like this. We are not Somalia or Iraq.
The Thin Black Duke
@Mandalay: You’re a goddamned liar, asshole. Everybody here knew what you were doing when you brought up your lame-ass bullshit which didn’t need to be brought up in the first place, you stupid motherfucker. Then again, this what usually happens when you bring your cowardly passive-aggressive nonsense to whatever thread you decide to drop a turd on.
OGLiberal
@? Martin: I know a lot of cops. Grew up with them. Almost all of them are Second Amendment absolutists. Makes no sense. They are also all white guys who despise Obama. Maybe it does make sense.
scav
@raven: I rather believe that his friends and acquaintances might very well, in fact, stump up more for the opportunity.
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
@Marc:
And “gay” means carefree and joyous, right?
raven
@scav:
Rank <2 Years Experience 4 Years Experience
Private (E1) $18,378** —
Private (E2) $20,602.80 $20,602.80
Private First Class(E3) $21,664.80 $24,418.80
Specialist or Corporal (E4) $23,994 $27,936
scav
@raven: (I think you missed my point.)
Comrade Scrutinizer
@OGLiberal: And it’s weird that the cops have, in general, turned into supporters of Second Amendment absolutism. I can remember a time when the FOP, the IACP, and other police organizations were firm gun control supporters. Seems like self-preservation would have kept them in that camp.
Cmm
@Trentrunner: normally I phrase things more gently around here but today, Trentrunner (and Cole too, if he opens his yap in a similar way) Fuck you right back.
I hate this. I hate hearing about police being killed anywhere. I hate hearing about citizens killed by police and I hate all the goddam posturing around it. I hate most of all that next time some moron cop kills someone in cold blood more of the chest beaters are going to be able to excuse it. The more this happens the more cranked up police are gonna be and the less anyone will consider anything to ratchet down the tension with trying different approaches. And the more innocent people will be killed.
I was a good goddam cop and I have had enough. If I wasn’t already halfway out the door, I’d probably be ready to go now. A lot of us will be. We can’t seem to make a difference and I’m not willing to die trying.
We’ll be goddam lucky if one or more cities doesn’t burn, 60s style, by the end of this summer. Fuck, we’ll be lucky if Cleveland isn’t by the end of next week. Something has to change, and soon.
Off to cry on my dogs. Fuck all you fuck the police people. At least let them get the bodies off the street before you start.
raven
@scav: Not really.
Mandalay
@The Thin Black Duke:
Well fuck off again asswipe.
I queried the use of the word “thuggish”, and accepted the poster’s explanation that it was unintentional. End of story.
But you choose to personalize it, and accuse me of implying another poster is a racist? Really, just fuck off you shit stirring asswipe.
scav
@raven: Then how do the actual income figures enter into it? We’re discussing an entirely different price point.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
Not to mention those on the Watch List.
Adam L Silverman
@Cmm: If you want to do a guest post, at any time, in regards to policing issues, please just push it to me and I’ll post it up for you.
Shawn in Showme
@raven:
Police are getting screwed on pay. The military is getting screwed even worse.
Villago Delenda Est
I am so glad I live in a country where there are lots of “good guys” with firearms to prevent these sort of things from happening.
Oh, wait…
GregB
Has anyone asked Sharon Angle what she thinks about so many people taking her advice and using Second Amendment remedies on their percieved problems?
D58826
@Cmm:
A vicious cycle. Irony of course is the cops simply want to go home at night and so do the people in the community. They have a shared interest but there is so much history that neither side can see it.
‘We can’t seem to make a difference and I’m not willing to die trying.’ And like teachers you are being asked to solve problems that are way outside your area of expertise.
Emma
@Cmm: I hate it too. I wish it never happened, but if it did, that it would be treated like a monstrosity, not like another day at the office.
However
Maybe if so often lately police have been caught putting the bodies there in the first place, people wouldn’t be so angry. Good cops (the majority) are covering up for bad cops (the minority). Stop that, show citizens that you’re committed to the rule of law and not walking around Fallujah, and things will calm down.
Schlemazel Khan
2 things.
I know most police used to be strongly in favor of gun control, has that changed?
How about we cut each other some slack & instead of immediately going into snotty attack mode we assume no bad intent unless the intent is made obvious or the message is repeated? I don’t see the need for everyone to turn it up to 11 at the drop of a hat.
Villago Delenda Est
@jacy: Stay safe. Not easy to do in a country filled with idiots with firearms.
Shawn in Showme
@Cmm:
Thank you for your service. It can be a brutal job. I couldn’t do it, not for the going rate.
debbie
Sigh. Ironic that I started my day listening to this.
Adam L Silverman
@Elizabelle: @debbie: We won’t get a ban out of this. Even in CA were they’ve done de facto bans: no more than 10 round magazines and bullet button requirements for removing the magazine and reloading, now revised by recent legislation to no bullet buttons and fixed magazines, a gun smith has already developed a work around not prohibited/envisioned in the recently saw CA statute. Even the assault weapons ban from the 90s didn’t really ban a lot of what people think of when they hear assault rifle. I’ll put the criteria below. A lot of it is definitely cosmetic only stuff that doesn’t really apply to how the firearm works, whether handgun or long gun. Finally, there are so many of these out there now that it would be almost impossible to actually enforce a ban without doing things that are going to be viewed as severely forceful by the government. Passing laws that are hard to/unenforceable because it makes one feel better is not a good solution/resolution to a problem set. We’ve seen this in NY and CT, where it is estimated that up to 90% of firearms owners are not complying with the post Newton statutory restrictions.
Here’s what was covered in the 94 and 89 bans:
Under the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 the definition of “semiautomatic assault weapon” included specific semi-automatic firearm models by name, and other semi-automatic firearms that possessed two or more from a set certain features:[11]
A semi-automatic Yugoslavian M70AB2 rifle.
An Intratec TEC-DC9 with 32-round magazine; a semi-automatic pistol formerly classified as an assault weapon under federal law.
Semi-automatic rifles able to accept detachable magazines and two or more of the following:
Folding or telescoping stock
Pistol grip
Bayonet mount
Flash suppressor, or threaded barrel designed to accommodate one
Grenade launcher mount
Semi-automatic pistols with detachable magazines and two or more of the following:
Magazine that attaches outside the pistol grip
Threaded barrel to attach barrel extender, flash suppressor, handgrip, or suppressor
Barrel shroud safety feature that prevents burns to the operator
Unloaded weight of 50 oz (1.4 kg) or more
A semi-automatic version of a fully automatic firearm.
Semi-automatic shotguns with two or more of the following:
Folding or telescoping stock
Pistol grip
Detachable magazine.
The ban defined the following semi-automatic firearms, as well as any copies or duplicates of them in any caliber, as assault weapons:
Name of firearm Preban federal legal status
Norinco, Mitchell, and Poly Technologies Avtomat Kalashnikovs (AKs) (all models) Imports banned in 1989*
Action Arms Israeli Military Industries UZI and Galil Imports banned in 1989*
Beretta AR-70 (SC-70) Imports banned in 1989*
Colt AR-15 Legal
Fabrique National FN/FAL, FN-LAR, FNC Imports banned in 1989*
SWD (MAC type) M-10, M-11, M11/9, M12 Legal
Steyr AUG Imports banned in 1989*
INTRATEC TEC-9, TEC-DC9, TEC-22 Legal
Revolving cylinder shotguns such as (or similar to) the Street Sweeper and Striker 12 Legal
Bush’s 1989 ban was on the importation of foreign-made, semiautomatic assault rifles deemed not to have “a legitimate sporting use.” It did not affect similar but domestically manufactured rifles.[12]
Hal
I’m always amazed military pay hasn’t been a more galvanizing issue with folks running for office. Seems like a no-brainer to run on doubling or tripling base salary for military personnel. Hell, you could probably get away with a defense budget cut and redirection of funds to cover wage increases if you really pushed the issue in public.
Trentrunner
@Cmm: Sad. Ask yourself what YOU are doing to improve the horrible, murderous state of your own profession.
Right now police remind me of the Catholic Church when all their childrape came out: As an institution, they turn away and cover up and blameshift the crimes and pervasive corruption.
Your FOP leaders are doing you no fucking favors, either, btw. But reform will start at the bottom, so again, I ask you: What are YOU doing to stop this corruption?
Shawn in Showme
@Emma:
A bunch of cops breaking the Blue Wall of Silence would literally put their families in danger.
Elizabelle
@Adam L Silverman: Thank you. I want to hear more from Cmm.
Cmm’s wonderful essay over the weekend, published in Raw Story.
Betty Cracker’s thread about CMM’s article (and missed the whole thing; must read). Unconscious Bias and the “Oh Shit” moment
Anoniminous
Some background.
Note: the police are mostly white in a city of mostly black citizens.
schrodinger's cat
@cmorenc: The original meaning is full of racist overtones too, the Victorians used it to label any Indians they didn’t like, especially the ones who put up any kind of armed resistance.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
My understanding is that the guns issued have hair triggers, which would seem like an easy thing to fix.
rikyrah
Ed GallekVerified account
@edgallekfox8
Cleveland Police union asking OH governor for temporary end to legal open carry of weapons w Republican Convention here
Villago Delenda Est
@Fair Economist: Time to dust off one of the old Villago war stories:
In 1985, I was selected to fullfill a tasking by someone way up the chain (FORSCOM, IIRC) for six months of TDY in Honduras. One of the things I had to bring with me was an M16. How I was to do this while flying on commercial air was left up for me to figure out. I called the post MPs and asked them, they said “break the weapon up into the upper receiver group, lower receiver group, and bolt, and transport it in your checked baggage”. I confirmed this with security at Miami International Airport. The option of just carrying an assembled M16 was not on the table. In fact, security at the airport advised me NOT to inform the airlines I was doing this…it would just complicate matters needlessly. Security through obscurity.
So, with my orders in hand (which authorized me to be transporting an M16 off post in a POV) I set out to Sea-Tac (I was stationed at Fort Lewis at the time) with the upper receiver group in one duffel bag, the lower receiver group in the other, and the bolt in some American Tourister luggage. This way if one piece of baggage got lost, someone would not have access to a fully operational M16…which at the time was the A1 model with full rock and roll available at the flip of a switch.
The story here being that I would not DREAM of wandering around with a fully assembled M16A1 anywhere but in uniform so people would know that, yes, odds are pretty darn good I’m a good guy.
We can’t know that now with assault rifles being casually brandished by any doofus who has small dick issues.
scav
@Anoniminous: Interesting asymmetry there.
debbie
@rikyrah:
Too late. A Cleveland FB friend posted a photo of an open carry guy already stirring up the shit.
Elizabelle
So I guess President Obama gets to write yet another speech.
This is getting fucking old.
Adam L Silverman
@Hal: The bulk of pay and benefit issues are in the US Army’s budget as they have the biggest personnel footprint. The Navy and Air Force’s big expenditures are equipment and tech. The Army leadership is well aware of the problem, but faces pressure from Congress to control and contain costs. Basically, Congress doesn’t want to pay more for salary and benefits. F-35 procurement dumps more money into more Congressional districts than all the Soldiers buying things and spending money out in the local economy.
patrick II
@SiubhanDuinne:
“regular people” = white people
Trentrunner
@rikyrah: Why? Don’t they believe in their own principles and laws? The courage of their own convictions?
Let’s just let everyone have their fucking open carry assault weapons, let the heated convention protests get out of hand, and let’s just see what happens here in our glorious 2nd-amendment-steeped heartland.
Very Smart People have assured us in the last week that 2016 is not 1968. Fine, as far as it goes.
But America is way, way more armed than it was in 1968, so fewer people can do far more damage.
Hello, Cleveland!
Matt McIrvin
Are these cop-shooters trying to elect Donald Trump? “Eliminate the greyzone”…
sukabi
@dr. luba: it’s being reported that the cops responded to idiots shooting at each other in a parking lot, which turned into an “us against them” situation resulting in bodies dropping like flies.
Adam L Silverman
@Anoniminous: It doesn’t help that the white portions of the parish tried to split off and form their own municipality a few years back. Though all the leaders involved assured everyone it had nothing to do with race.
Villago Delenda Est
@Hal: The components of the military who actually win wars (soldiers) are not nearly as important as sweet sweet Uncle Sam sugar for Defense Contractors. There are no lobbyists for soldiers, sailors, airmen, or Marines on K street.
Eric U.
Single shot, bolt action only, how about that? Can “only” kill one innocent at a time
Timurid
@Matt McIrvin:
At least so far the terrorists are respecting some minimal rules of engagement. If somebody pulls off an Orlando or Nice style attack against white civilians, then it’s really going to hit the fan..
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
@GregB:
Second Amendment Remedies are only allowed to white folks aggrieved by lost lofty status.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: I don’t blame the police for wanting to prevent open carry in Cleveland.
Although the Republicans sold their asses to the NRA, so they fully deserve to be at a convention and city awash in guns. The police protecting them, not.
Although so many Republicans have found other things to do this week. Campaigning in their own districts/states if they’re in polling trouble, mowing lawns, washing their hair, what have you.
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
@Adam L Silverman:
There’s a solid case for scrapping Key West and giving all fixed wing tactical air back to the Army, Navy and Marines.
MattF
My main complaint with this NYT article about DJTs lies is the headline. But it’s worth reading.
redshirt
@Timurid: Plenty of rich white kids died at Sandy Hook. Didn’t make a damn difference.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
I had not paid attention to this stuff before, but a couple of YouTube videos popped us as recommended, of guys in Michigan, I think, walking around with weapons slung around their backs, and taking a video as they “school” police officers about their right to bear arms, and their apparent ability to refuse to identify themselves.
In some cases, the officers claim (plausibly) that they received a call about a person with a weapon. But these people don’t seem to care about or consider the larger issue of public safety. They only care about their right to parade down the street with their weapons.
Anoniminous
@scav:
There are several
Shell
Its like a National Nervous Break-down.
Villago Delenda Est
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill: Just abolish the damn zoomies and be done with it.
Amir Khalid
@Hal:
You’re talking about extra money for the defence budget that defence contractors, the people who make donations to politicians, will never see, right? That could be a flaw in your idea.
Elizabelle
@debbie: Truly.
The world is changing this summer, at warp speed.
I think our side will prevail, but talk about living in interesting times.
Timurid
@redshirt: They weren’t killed for being white.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: And get your god damned hands out of your pockets while you’re at it.
Elizabelle
@redshirt:
Yet. I don’t think that one is played out yet. It would have made a huge difference, if Congress was not full of NRA whores.
Vote them out. I think it’s great Hillary is out front on gun safety. The ammosexuals only have so many votes, and the public is beyond sick of all the carnage. I don’t know who responds to these polls, but who wants to wonder if their kid’s school is going to get shot up this week. Or church, or shopping, or the cinema?
Anoniminous
@Adam L Silverman:
The Mississippi delta, which starts at Baton Rouge, has a 200+ year history of active racism.
trollhattan
@Hal:
Why spend DOD money on living wages when you can instead spend it on breathtakingly expensive flawed weapon systems like the F35? After all, those GIs get three hots and a cot, they’re practically spoiled.
Our gun culture is eating us whole and we just play along. I don’t have an answer, just know the response will primarily be increased gun sales just like every other time something like this occurs.
ETA I see several beat me to the punch. Eisenhower articulated this trap half a century ago and we did bupkis with the knowledge.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: To police? No. Stock GLOCK triggers are an approximate 5.5 lbs of force pull. And a lot of departments use them. A lot also use SIG SAUER P series, specifically the P 226, though as that’s a .40 S&W (the FBI round) and its being moved away from they are moving to the 9 mm P 229, which is available in 9mm, .40 S&W, and/or .357 SIG chamberings. Some are also moving to the now completely modular SIG P 320 platform. Others use the Beretta 98 (civilian M9s). Others use different HK Law Enforcement configured pistols. Some departments have moved to the Smith and Wesson M&P striker fired pistols.
The P 226s and P 229s are Double Action/Single Action (DA/SA) firearms. As is the Beretta and the Hechler and Koch. These have a long initial pull for the first shot, followed by shorter reset single action shots. The initial pull is usually between 7 and 10 lbs, with the Single Action follow up between 5-7 lbs depending on the gun.
The GLOCK, as I already wrote, is a 5.5 lbs trigger pull, though the ones used by NYPD have the special NYPD trigger which is a 16 lbs trigger pull. The SIG P 320 platform has an average 6.5 lbs trigger pull, as, if I’m recalling correctly, is the Smith and Wesson M&P. These are all striker fired (either DA striker or SA striker depending on the platform).
A final point: the longer and heavier the trigger pull, the harder it is to control the firearm and shot placement. The NYPD is universally pointed out as the reason that NYPD seem to be terrible marksmen when they have to shoot. While it is true that you don’t want a hair trigger for a patrol pistol, what you want is a smooth, reliable, the pull is the same every time for consistent accuracy. My understanding is that modification to a duty pistol, beyond simply adjusting something like the grips (either tape, side panels, grip sleeve/glove) requires departmental approval and certification by the department’s armorer – even when the department allows the officer to own their duty pistol. This is to standardize the equipment specs across the force within a given jurisdiction.
Ridnik Chrome
Is there any further word on what this attack was all about? Was it a deliberate ambush on the police, or was it, as someone said upthread, a shootout in progress that the cops walked into?
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator: There’s a YouTube video out there where some white guy is carrying an AR-15 slung on his back, and he’s quietly and politely asked by some cop in Jackson County, OR what he’s doing with an AR-15 slung on his back. Then there’s some footage of an African American doing the exact same thing, and he’s ordered to get on the ground and put his weapon on the ground at gunpoint.
Open carry and the Second Amendment are only for white people, but we all knew that already.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: These days, as my two green suiters were issued their weapons at CRC Benning, they go in a rifle and pistol case. With locks, TSA required forms filled out. Add at least an extra hour to your check in for both the airline ticketing staff and the TSA to review the forms, then the firearms, before the case is locked when being transferred to TSA with the other checked baggage. Personal pick up is required on the arriving end – they won’t go on the baggage claims. We civilians (we were all contractors at the time because the program was a proof of concept) did our weapons draw from our brigade’s armorer at the headquarters and headquarters command company.
Amaranthine RBG
Thank heavens they didn’t use a big truck instead of guns.
Adam L Silverman
@Eric U.: AR 15s for civilian ownership are single shot. They are simply self loaders. There are some bolt action rifles that are also fed from a box magazine – some integral, some detachable. And there are lever action rifles that have internal/integral magazines. These designs go back to the 19th century for the lever actions.
Tom Q
OK, somebody help me out here. I haven’t had access to TV, and may be missing some key facts. But, from what I seem to be reading/heariing, this was a case of some shooting going on that had no police involvement at all, and that the police deaths occurred only when they stepped in to try and stop the situation.
This is an awful thing, I’m very sorry for the officers involved, it underlines the danger police face every day, for which we all ought to have respect.
But…apart from the fact this is taking placing in “already in the headlines for a shooting by police” Baton Rouge, how does any of this fit into the “unfolding narrative” of the past few weeks? Why is it any more than a standard police/criminal situation? How can touting it as something bigger than that anything but pure opportunism?
If there’s some detail I’m missing that makes my take erroneous, please enlighten me.
Adam L Silverman
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill: Yes there is. I don’t think, given the Air Force’s political, logistical, and acquisitions savvy that it will happen. If it was up to the Air Force we’d have a Department of the Air Force that has offices that oversee the Army, Navy, and Marines instead of a Department of Defense composed of each service.
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
The public is also consumed with fear. They may be sick of the carnage, but rush to buy more guns after hearing these stories of gun violence.
Mandalay
@Anoniminous:
A white cop in Baton Rouge was allowed to resign (and presumably get his pension) after texting these hate messages in 2014:
I guess the police unions would fight it, but it would be a useful step to improving things if cops were not allowed to resign while they were on “administrative leave”, and their conduct was being investigated.
? Martin
@redshirt: Yes it did. It moved a LOT of democrats either into, or deeper into the gun control camp and it brought some real financial support to the issue with Bloombergs group and some of the tech guys. That the GOP went the other way is just Cleeks law playing out. Right now you’re seeing CA steadily implement gun control, including stepping up gun seizures. It doesn’t look like much but at some point the right coalition will be in place to act.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: LOL, brings up a fond memory of my platoon sergeant laying in to some errant soldier from 2nd platoon (I was 3rd platoon leader) casually making his way through the motor pool a cold January day in Bad Kreuznach.
Adam L Silverman
@Shell: I’ve repeatedly written here that the US lost its mind as a result of 9-11 and has yet to recover.
Adam L Silverman
@Anoniminous: I am aware.
Anoniminous
@Ridnik Chrome:
AFAICT what we know is: 3 police officers dead, 3 wounded. Police were called to the scene by a report (telephone call?) of a man with an assault rifle walking along Airline Highway in Baton Rouge. One suspect is dead, police are searching for two other suspects.
Cmm
I’m not sure where the discussion of police pay was going and what the 50K my ass was all about, but here in the suburbs of Atlanta the starting pay at my agency is around 37k, one of the reasons we have a big officer retention problem. The newest agencies started in recent years (all in more affluent areas) start at 50ish. We lose our better and more experienced officers every time a new agency pops up. I’m retiring after 13 years, as a sergeant making 53K base pay. OT adds a few thousand more but I’ve been riding a desk for the last 2 years so it doesn’t accrue as easily as it does in the field. And I choose not to work EJs for various reasons. So that’s a real world figure for you.
What have I done to try to change the culture? I’ve been open about my beliefs in the face of even more conservative than usual cops since I live in ga. I’ve been openly liberal, openly opposed to stereotyping, openly queer, openly trans friendly, openly willing to discuss my struggles in recent years with depression and anxiety because being stoic and tough ends up with too goddam many good people eating their guns.
I’ve treated suspects and arrestees and bystanders and the people who called me for help with respect. I’ve given money out of my pocket for bus fare, food, and once storage space for a woman illegally evicted inte middle of the night. I bought a weeks worth of food for a mom with 2 sons who was waiting for her first pay check to come and who had nothing to get thru til it did. I’ve watched kids so moms could run in the restroom while I was working the door at a store. I knew people on my beats, I checked I with my business people all the time. I supervised officers and screamed uselessly about the ones who were a danger to themselves and others and a liability to the department. I taught the ones who could be taught. I gave what I had to help people in my town til I didn’t have anything left. In my last assignment I worked with people applying for expungements for arrests that were dead docketed, plead out with an expungement agreement, found not guilty etc. It’s a tedious paperwork ridden process.one of the places we get applications from is the Georgia Justice Project and I’ve been planning to offer my services there as a volunteer to help people on that end of the expungement process as soon as my retirement is finalised. I’ve been looking forward to finding other ways to help in my town (I live and work I. The same place) once I’m fully out. Except right at the
Moment I’m with all those other
People who get chewed up and spit out by this job who want to do nothing but go to some place where there aren’t any people and look at trees and mountains and birds for the rest of their life and let the idiots kill each other. I don’t feel like I have anything for anybody right now. I want to dig a moat, fill it with gators, and pull up the drawbridge.
So how bout you? How have you helped
Solve these problems, besides saying fuck the police on the Internet?
father pussbucket
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
I like this. It turns the hijacking of the t-word back on all the right people.
Adam L Silverman
@Ridnik Chrome: It appears to be that police came up on a couple of people shooting at each other in a parking lot. When the cops went to intervene the shooters turned on the cops. But everything is still just speculation at this point.
Mike in NC
Maybe Drumpf will make “Law & Order” the theme for at least one night of his coronation. Also, too, invite Wayne LaPierre to address the audience and urge them to stock up on guns and ammo.
Adam L Silverman
@Tom Q: That seems to be what is being reported out, but it is still not completely clear yet what happened.
Ruckus
A lot of talking past each other here. This is obviously a tough subject, from any angle.
1. Probably very few here want to see cops get shot.
2. And yet we see cops shooting people all the time, often for nothing at all, especially black men.
3. We don’t all think that all cops are bad, but we know that some absolutely are. We’d like to respect cops but many don’t feel that there is any respect shown by cops. In my case I looked into being a cop decades ago but had ride alongs that chased that idea right out of my head, because the people I rode along with had no respect for the law or the citizens they dealt with. And when asked they acknowledged it like it was normal. I also have a friend who did 30 yrs with the CHP and he said he was so glad that he got out because the people getting in now are nothing like the people who did decades ago.
4 Cops and guns. People question how they can be for absolute gun rights, they are on the front lines in the battle of all guns all the time. Think for a moment about poor people voting for republicans against all their interests. Racism may not be the only explanation but it obviously can not be left out of the discussion.
5. Humans are fucked up. We supposedly have government to keep check on the real loonies and to help them live without hurting others, as best as we can and to smooth out the normal bumps along the road. But that hasn’t been working for a few decades if it ever really did.
6. We are all on edge about so many things, because we see them in almost real time now. We overlay our prejudices on what we see and we get pissed when they aren’t accepted as fact.
I’m no different for sure but if we don’t at least have reasonable discussions among people with friendly ideals, we’ve got nothing, especially when those discussions are painful. I have no problem with telling someone to fuck off, but some topics deserve more.
Cmm
@patrick II:
Only in this fucked up country does any definition of “regular people” include non military, non law enfircement people “armed with assault guns.”
father pussbucket
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
I was about to say much the same thing. Maybe it’s become more important to despise whatever Obama / liberals / whatever stand for.
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: I have to agree. I had never seen so many flags on any and every thing before then. Also, the Iraq misadventure. I just couldn’t believe it as it was unfolding. The stated reason for the war seemed so patently made up.
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
@Villago Delenda Est:
Only uses I can come up with for the USAF are operating refueling and recon platforms, space ops, STRATCOM and transport.
? Martin
@Brachiator:
They actually don’t. Plenty of data showing that the % of the public that own guns is continuing to decline. What you have is (roughly) half the population with no guns, a quarter with 1, and a quarter with 8 or more. Almost all of the gun sales are in that last quarter, and it shows. Colt filed for bankruptcy. Smith & W and Ruger are both in trouble with falling sales.
The gun industry as it is went from hunting/personal security to selling barbie dolls to an ever-shrinking consumer base. When your addressable market is shrinking, you’re pretty fucked as an industry. That’s why the AR-15 is so popular – you can dress it up to your hearts content, but that kind of hobbiest market is not a sustainable one. That’s really what the NRA has done – they’re telling a bunch of fat old white guys that liberals want to take away their barbies and prevent them from showing them off in public.
Hal
@Cmm:
Is fuck the police a common sentiment around these parts? I just haven’t seen that here at all.
Ridnik Chrome
@Adam L Silverman: Okay, so apparently this is NOT a case like Dallas, where someone went out looking for cops to shoot. But you wouldn’t know that from the news reports.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: There’s something happening here.
What it is ain’t exactly clear.
There’s a man with a gun over there.
Telling me I got to beware.
For what it’s worth.
Matt McIrvin
@? Martin: The gun-hoarders rush to buy more guns, though.
? Martin
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Terrorist is probably a more apt term, given that is precisely their aim.
Cmm
@Adam L Silverman:
What he said. My duty weapon is a Glock 22, .40 cal, 5.5 lb trigger pull. Any mod has to be made by the dept armorers and screwing with your gun on your own is a firing offense if caught. Ditto carrying any backup you are not authorised and qualified on. We have department issued less lethal stuff too, and we are not allowed to modify or replace them either. With good reason.
raven
@Hal: Sure it is.
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: Please help, I am stuck in moderation. Again.
Elizabelle
@? Martin: well said. Killer barbies.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: I’d hold off on that for now.
Villago Delenda Est
@? Martin: As far as I am concerned, the NRA is a terrorist organization. The most powerful in this country. And fully aligned with Daesh’s agents in this country, men such as Donald Drumpf.
Villago Delenda Est
@Matt McIrvin: A friend of mine works for an ammosexual, who in the wake of the 2012 election bought a pallet’s worth of ammo, to “be prepared” for the inevitable confiscation of firearms that was sure to happen.
Then all that ammo wound up missing. Someone broke into his storage and took it.
? Martin
@Matt McIrvin: Oh, absolutely. But recognizing that a smaller share of the population has an increasing share of the guns if nothing else changes a bit how to approach the problem. Are we more worried about a guy with 12 guns than when he only had 10? (I’m pretty equally worried about both). But recognizing that fewer people have guns is also helpful to know and that there isn’t some societal rush to up-arm. Now, the NRA would like you to believe the opposite because rush-to-bottom isn’t an unproven theory. If you believe you are outgunned, it’s not unreasonable to be fearful of that and try and compensate. Police killings are wonderful for the gun industry because it illustrates that citizens need to self-protect. That’s what they are after.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
I know nothing about guns and I don’t pretend to. The only time I’ve seen one was decades ago in the Montgomery Ward sports department in the Newmarket, NH shopping mall, and I ran the hell out of there. That’s as much of guns as I ever want to see.
Five and a half pounds doesn’t seem like a lot of pressure. I’m thinking specifically of the cop in Saint Paul, clearly agitated and very jumpy. Do you think he could have pulled the trigger without meaning to?
(ETA: This is by no means trying to justify his actions.)
Ridnik Chrome
@raven: The last thing we need is people running around saying that this was another deliberate ambush on the cops, like Dallas, if it wasn’t.
Cermet
@Cmm: Just an amazing job you are doing there! Thanks for your post! It brightens a very terrible day!
Anoniminous
Head of Cleveland Police Union on Baton Rouge: Obama Has ‘Blood on His Hands’:
debbie
@Anoniminous:
Some union guy somewhere says that after every shooting. I think it’s them who have blood on their hands.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: As the Chief of the Cleveland PD (I think) said in an interview last week: we don’t have any more police involved shooting than ten years ago, what we have is everyone has a video camera. So everyone knows about it as its happening and that makes it seem more urgent. He was very clear this was not meant to excuse bad shootings or other forms of unacceptable behavior.
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: IIRC, the Mayor of St. Petersburg asked for the same thing in 2012, and Scott, being an asshole and a cretin but a dedicated fluffer of ammosexuals, turned him down.
jacy
@Tom Q: it’s a block from the police headquarters, for one thing. At the scene of last week’a protests. Some witnesses say there were shooters in all black tactical gear. Other witnesses say, no, people in street clothes shooting at each other. Nobody really knows yet, so take everything with a grain of salt. (I am a block away.)
Villago Delenda Est
@Anoniminous: This piece of shit needs to be asked to resign, and without pension or any other benefits.
I’m sick and tired of police blaming Obama for their own fuckups.
? Martin
@debbie: But isn’t that the same Cleveland Police Union that just asked for a suspension of open carry?
SiubhanDuinne
@Hal:
See comment #7.
Adam L Silverman
@Ridnik Chrome: Its not clear. It doesn’t appear that any official account has been released yet. So we have competing eyewitness statements and, in some cases, shaky cell phone video. And as we know eyewitnesses are notoriously inaccurate and shaky video is shaky video. For all I could tell, and not to make light of the situation, the aggressor in the woman’s video was a Sasquatch or Rugaroo.
sigaba
@debbie: @debbie: A full purse is about 6 pounds, depending. Put the strap at the tip of your finger, holding your hand downward Now try to adduct your finger and make a fist. It’s not really heavy but it’d be hard to do completely by accident.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ridnik Chrome: As I pointed out over at yr Wonkette, this is CNN, the “Don Lemon asks if it’s space aliens network”, calling it an “ambush”.
lamh35
Some of my thoughts in general in regards to how these things seem to be covered lately
IJS but the possibility of getting shot at in the line of duty as a police officer is part and parcel of the job yes?
Contrary to media narrative and propaganda from interested parties, the number of police officer killed in the line of duty is NOT on the rise.
Now it’s big news EVERYTIME an officer get shot at while policing? Or does the media and TPTB have a narrative to fuel? #StayWoke
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: CSN for the interlude.
Adam L Silverman
@Cmm: I sent you a message offline. So provided the email you use here is accurate, you should get it. Just wanted to give you a heads up. And glad you came back.
Anoniminous
@debbie:
It’s a good example of why we can’t have a public adult conversation in this country.
About anything, it seems.
lamh35
Oh and I saw a breaking news that PBO was briefed on this latest shooting.
Got me thinking…is this a new “presidenting while Black” phenomenon. Or have POTUS in the past always been briefed on police killed in line of duty.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: done! I blame your nym. WP takes it literally and decides you both are and are not commenting.
Cmm
@Hal: not as much here as in other lib hangouts which is why on the whole I like being here better than those. But the person who originally set me off today said it upthread in response to breaking news about 3 more dead cops who appeared at that time to have been killed in another Dallas style ambush. And our gracious host, who I genuinely do have deep respect and affection for, says it or variations of it every time there is another police incident.
Which is distressingly often and I generally agree with his take on most of the individual incidents. There are almost none of the infamous incidents in the past few years that I would say were justified or that I would even give the cops the benefit of the doubt in an unfilmed situation like Ferguson. The most I can say is that I can see, as an officer, why an officer made a wrong assumption in a particular instance that sent things off the rails, as in the warrant story the other day.
The vast majority are completely unjustifiable and inexcusable and I have no use for anyone who says otherwise. I’m disgusted that more of these officers aren’t at least charged, and I’m disgusted by departments and DAs who collude in hand waving it all away. Also, I don’t work in a union state and while I support the concept of unions in general and police fraternal organisations in theory, since I am a big ol lib, I 100% agree that the union and PBA/FOP spokespeople aren’t doing a damn bit of good and a
Lot of damage.
I don’t know how to fix this mess. All the good that police do (and there is LOT of it, cynics) is cancelled out by this crap and it’s infuriating. I guess I’ll dust off and get my back back into it a day or two. Right now I’ve just had e-fucking-nough of all of It, which is why I haven’t been my usual bystander or polite 2 cents putter-inner today. Everyone gets to have a bad day and throw a comment tantrum once in awhile, today’s my day. Thanks for
Listening.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh35: My guess is that the president is informed about whatever he asks to be informed about
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks much.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: I am being cautious, I’ve done one update since 12:50 and that’s it.
jacy
@Adam L Silverman: i think that reporters are jumping to conclusions because of the location — i.e. at the site of the protests and basically at police headquarters. If you wanted to lure cops, it would get immediate response, but that doesn’t mean that’s what happened. They also picked up suspects in Port Allen with Texas plates who went into a walmart wearing black tactical gear and came out in street clothes — again, who knows?
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: I didn’t have this problem before the latest “upgrade”.
Anoniminous
@lamh35:
From what I can find the number of police officers shot while on duty is down.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat: No one did. This is new behavior above and beyond using the medical term for the primary male sexual organ tossing you into the spam bin.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: I reckoned, which is why I provided an explanation. A 5.5 lbs trigger pull isn’t a hair trigger. That said is it possible he panicked and pulled the trigger regardless of the set up of his duty pistol? Sure. Do we know that yet? No we don’t. I can tell you from the training I’ve taken to keep my skills up in case I were to deploy again and have to requalify that a consistent, smooth pull enhances accuracy.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill:
Air shows and flyovers at sportsball events.
? Martin
@lamh35: A big part of the challenge with guns is the failure for some to recognize that guns are a first-strike weapon that cannot be defended against. If someone can get close to you with a gun and wants to shoot you, you’re dead. Period. The only variables here are: access (can they get a gun close to you) and intent (do they want to shoot you).
Police have largely had to deal with the former and not the latter. They know they routinely are moving closer to the people with guns, as that is their job. But historically the view has been that shooting at police was a reaction, not premeditated. That meant that the police had the initiative in the situation -they could assess danger, they could prepare for it, they could take appropriate risks. Once shooting police becomes premeditated – as happened in Vegas a few years ago, and Dallas – then all bets are off. The ability to assess, prepare, manage risks are completely out the window. Now the only remedy is to control access. If the police adopt the mindset that they are being widely hunted, things are going to go to shit in all kinds of new ways.
eyelessgame
@sukabi:
So what you’re saying is that some private citizens were expressing a disagreement, exercising their Second Amendment rights and in the process of resolving their dispute thereby, when the tyrannical forces of the State attempted to impose a nanny state upon the event, and some number of said private citizens have vigorously objected, again through the exercise of their Second Amendment rights.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: Tampa actually. The RNC was in Tampa. That’s were all the strip clubs are, so that’s where that type of thing gets held.
Eric U.
@Steeplejack (phone): I would say the navy can do flyovers, but they keep crashing
D58826
Trump put out a tweet – ‘We are trying to fight ISIS and now our own people are killing our policed. Our country is divided and out of control’
While not to outrageous by Trump standards, the comments are racist and basically evil.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: The President just issued a statement condemning the shooting and asking for (morale) support for law enforcement. As soon as I can find a printed copy of the statement I’ll post it up top.
SiubhanDuinne
@Villago Delenda Est:
He is the same one who said that Tamir Rice’s family should use their settlement money to educate children on playing with “look-alike” guns.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: By space aliens or black holes? Also, will someone, for the love of someone’s, anyone’s Deity adjust Blitzer’s hearing aides so he’ll stop yelling?
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
Exactly.
Police were worse in LA 40 yrs ago. Because not so many people had guns, mostly a person got the shit beat out of them, Rodney King would be a good example. (And as I used to point out, one cop arrested the passenger in Rodney’s car without incident or problem. The gentleman went peacefully.) I owned a business a few blocks southeast of downtown LA back then and the LAPD used to drive around in the neighborhood, 6 guys in one car, all easily over 6 ft, looking for people to beat the shit out of. They called it gang control but having seen them in action a better term would be the beat down squad. The LASO had the SEB or special enforcement bureau. They did similar duty and still exist today, although the job description has changed.
But the big difference was that very few carried cameras around and even then the film had to be developed. Now? Basically instantaneous, often from several angles.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: Ah. I thought the big convention center was in St. Petersburg, but OK, there you go.
lamh35
Also too… my lil sis and her husband are heading back to Texas today and they have to drive though BR. At the time they were checking for suspects with Texas license plates so she was a bit shook up. But they’re all good now.
D58826
I don’t remember the anger at the white 2nd amendment types after the Vegas shootings as there is about BLM.
Cmm
@Cermet: I’m really not. I’m pretty average and have been able to be more outspoken because there is only me and my partner to support, not a whole family, and I don’t care about moving up the ranks.
A lot of officers, most of them do the stuff that I have done regularly. Hell we had a drunk who got locked up all the time in our town, who everyone knew and knew his story and tolerated him and only locked him up when he was out of control…he wandered into the next county by mistake one day where they give serious jail time and ended up serving 18 months. The field ops officers sent him a Christmas card in jail and we all signed it saying we hoped to see him back in our town soon. We meant it. He was found dead outdoors winter before last (natural causes- he was pushing 80 and had been a hardcore alcoholic and mostly homeless for decades) and we took up a collection to send a flower arrangement to his funeral. I honestly don’t know a lot of
The charity other
Officers have done on the spur of the moment; most of them don’t know
Most of what I told you upthread. I haven’t told anyone other than my partner most of those because I generally subscribe to the don’t let the right hand know
What the left hand is doing school of good works and charity.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: Have you sent Alain home made baked goods? Maybe that would help?
Villago Delenda Est
@SiubhanDuinne: In an open carry state, mind you.
/rolls eyes
Frankensteinbeck
@Elizabelle:
I really don’t think the NRA has much to do with it. Maybe once upon a time they were powerful, but the lines are drawn clearly now. Put Democrats in power, and they will enact gun control. Republicans will fight tooth and nail to stop gun control that they personally think is the right thing to do, because No Compromise With Liberals. The main mass of Republicans will support their completely fucking insane gun fetishist brethren zealously, even while disagreeing with them.
Villago Delenda Est
@D58826: That’s because right wing ammosexual types in the Vegas incident were the perps.
Cmm
@Anoniminous: ugh. Fuck that guy. Obama is not at fault for any of this except that his being a black president has apparently made a shockingly large portion of our population lose their damn minds.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: Who knew that The Shield was actually a documentary?
sigaba
@Ruckus: Where was this? Skid row? Or more Washington St./ Boyle Heights?
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: Also, too, I see what you did there.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: St. Pete has one, but St. Pete itself isn’t that large. Pinellas County is fragmented into two larger municipalities – St. Pete and Clearwater – and a bunch of smaller to medium sized ones. Hillsborough is basically just Tampa, unincorporated Hillsborough County of which most is treated like its Tampa because a lot is Tampa here, unincorporated county three feet over there…, Brandon, which has become a large bedroom community, and Temple Terrace to the east of USF. And then you have Lutz hard up against the border with the next county.
Cmm
@Adam L Silverman: chief of the Cleveland PD, should know what blood on his hands looks like. if they had done their due diligence the moron who killed Tamir Rice would never have been in a CPD uniform to be responding to that call. I can’t even say how infuriated I still am over that one. The officer should have been charged.
jacy
Dead suspect from Missouri. No word on the two detained in Port Allen.
hovercraft
@Matt McIrvin:
I think it may cut both ways, the white majority may buy into the “law and order” bullshit, but a significant portion of white population as well as the minority population will recognize that these attacks on police are being perpetrated by people with weapons that have no place in society. It’s true that weapons bans can be circumvented by gun manufacturers, but at this point with the second amendment we have limited options to fix this, maybe bans plus severe restrictions on ammunition are the way forward.
The FOP and the unions out there blaming BLM need to understand that they are the ones endangering their members, refusal to emphatically come out against ever looser gun restrictions combined with their reflexive defense of every officer related death, is dangerous. I would venture that upwards of 90% of the police out there are true public servants, but the balance who are not are not shunned by their brethren and that is a problem. There is no justification to kill police, period. The problem is that as many of you have said, people with nothing to lose may see ‘suicide by cop’ as the way to get back at their oppressors and go out in blaze of ‘glory.’ The fact that these people are able to assemble high powered arsenals is at the root of the fear many cops have, especially when you throw in that racial element where a black person with a gun is inherently a threat.
Basically we are just fucked. I’m tired of this shit.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Eric U.:
I rest my case.
Cmm
@Villago Delenda Est: more specifically, when I looked at it when the news first broke, they were calling it an AMBUSH!!! In giant red letters across the top of the screen, like they are the NY Post or something.
scav
That culture of personal responsibility is pretty stunning. Have we heard the cries about the videos may not show everything and maybe they were scared, ground-standing, or there is more evidence and there should be no rush to judgement and politicizing before bodies are cold? What about that legislator going about about pointing guns at LEOs if they pointed them at her? (Because, clearly, it’s all Obama’s fault.)
D58826
@Villago Delenda Est: Yep. There are some black radicals who advocate for violence just as there are the white reactionaries. The right wing echo chamber magnifies the former and ignores the later. Hoping into the way back machine to early in the Obama administration the government issued two reports. One dealt with the danger from left wing extremists and the other dealt with right wing extremists. Both studies were started under the Bush administration and simply released under the Obama administration. The RW echo chamber went ballistic about the right wing report. Eventually the government disavowed the report.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: I wasn’t joking. The strip clubs are where they are because they’re within a short distance, especially the better ones, from the airport and the nicer hotels in Westshore where businessmen would stay when brought into town for meetings. When Mayor Tom “I collect spatulas as a hobby and used to be a real estate developer” Greco was in office, and he got behind a City of Tampa attempt to crack down on the strip clubs, the owner of the largest one Joe Redner basically threatened to release years of his CC security video to the news media showing Mayor Spatula bringing his business contacts into his club. As you can imagine this was amusing local politics.
Cmm
@Adam L Silverman: thanks. I need to get off here. I have writing for money to get back to. I was never gonna flounce, that’s not my style. I am staying off the rest of social media and news sites because I’m just so fucking done with all of it right now.
I’ll check my email in a bit. I’m glad you are here as a front pager, you add a level of technical knowledge about a lot of these issues that is important and I’ve been enjoying your posts for the last bunch a months. I read here much more than I comment.
Ruckus
@sigaba:
Newton precinct, around Washington and Alameda. Skid row was/is a few blocks northwest. Haven’t been there in years but the last time I was in the area, a lot had changed and for what looked like the better.
hovercraft
@redshirt:
The difference is that Adam Lanza was one of them, rich kid with issues. If he had been a black guy from an urban area who had gone into Newtown and done it there would have been more of outcry. Violence in the inner city that does not impact wealthy neighborhoods is sad but not an urgent problem. Exhibit 1 Chicago, since the shootings are confined to certain areas like the south side it’s okay, but if it bled over into Lincoln Park or Michigan Avenue, it would be an entirely different situation.
D58826
Profiles in courage – in a statement Gov. Kaisch will do nothing to suspend open carry in the Cleveland area. According to the governor he doesn’t have the power to suspend constitutional rights. Ok lawyers isn’t there something called a state of emergency? And he was considered a reasonable republican
Cmm
@Adam L Silverman: @Adam L Silverman:
Someday soon, maybe next week in honor of the RNC, remind me to retell or maybe dig up the original telling of the famous-in-my-circles Wolf Blitzer story from a friend who covered the San Diego convention in 1996. It deserves to be more widely known.
MattF
@D58826: ‘Republican’, ‘reasonable’,’courageous’. Pick one out of three.
rikyrah
@Shawn in Showme:
ONLY 50k a year?
Where is this, Mayberry?
In Chicago, they advertise when they’re looking for recruits:
” After 18 months, you will be earning 70k.”
WITH Benefits.
AND, you can retire after 20 years – full pension.
Plus, I don’t know a Chicago Police Officer, on the job 3 years – that DOES NOT make $100,000.
We’re not hiring the amount of new policemen that we SHOULD be hiring. Hiring only a pittance of what we need, and giving all the rest in OVERTIME to current cops.
Raven Onthill
Ah, eyewitness evidence, that most reliable thing.
MattF
@Cmm: Note that Dave Barry has written the first installment of his report from Cleveland in the Miami Herald. It’s very funny. I was going to post a link, but Adblock Plus got 1200 hits in the time it took me to read the article, so I decided not to.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: Wow. Just wow. It’s derp all the way down, isn’t it?
Tom Q
@jacy: Thanks for providing details. I can now see why there was a lean in the direction of “this could be part of the same big picture”, though it was still beyond irresponsible to label it Ambush!
I know this doesn’t come as news around here, but our news media is officially part of the problem…not only jumping to the worst possibility, but in essence actively rooting for it.
Cmm
@Ruckus:
All true. One of the things I need to write about is the differences between generations of officers–the people who were easing into retirement when I came in would tell stories that would make me squirm but would openly horrify many of our newest officers because we have moved so far from that whole environment.
Also, if you want to get a feel for how horrifying police could be even further back, read some James Ellroy some time. In the 1950s, a legit detective tactic was “let’s go down to the fruit bars and slap some fags around, see if anyone has anything to tell us.”
Pogonip
@Adam L Silverman: 16 POUNDS? Is that what the police dogs are for? When you need to fire your weapon, you fasten the dog’s leash to the trigger and show him a squirrel?
mike in dc
Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey
Look at the sky turnin’ hell fire red
Somebody’s house is burnin’ down down, down down
Down, down, down.
Well I asked my friend, “Where is that black smoke comin’ from?”
He just coughed and changed the subject and said, “Oh well, I think it might
snow some.”
So I left him sippin’ his tea and I jumped in my chariot
And rode off to see just why and who could it be this time.
Sisters and brothers, daddy,s mothers standin’ ’round cryin’
When I reached the scene the flames were makin’ a ghostly whine.
So I stood on my horse’s back an’ I screamed without a crack
I said, “Oh baby why’d you burn your brother’s house down?”
Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
Look out the sky turnin’ hell fire red, Lord
Somebody’s house is burnin’ down down, down down
Look out the sky turnin’ hell fire red, Lord
Somebody’s house is burnin’ down down, down down down.
Well someone stepped from the crowd, he was nineteen miles high.
He shouts, “We’re and disgusted so we paint red through the sky.”
I said, “The truth is straight ahead so don’t burn yourself instead,
Try to learn instead of burn, hear what I say.”
So I finally rode away but I’ll never forget that day
‘Cause when I reached the valley I looked way down cross the way
A giant boat from space landed with eerie grace
And came and taken all the dead away.
Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
What’d I say.
Look at the sky turnin’ hell fire red, Lord
Somebody’s house is burning down down, down down
Look at the sky turnin’ hell fire red, Lord
Somebody’s house is burning down down, down down
Look at the sky, look at the sky.
Ooh, ooh, ooh
Ooh, ooh, ooh
Oh baby.
Read more: Jimi Hendrix – House Burning Down Lyrics | MetroLyrics
Adam L Silverman
@Cmm: No argument there.
Ruckus
@D58826:
At this point I believe we can end this charade. Anyone who claims to be a republican who supports the current party is not reasonable. Not in any way shape or form. They just are not.
Eric U.
@Adam L Silverman: any gun that has a magazine should be illegal. Otherwise we’ll end up with workarounds. 60 people in Orlando died because of a single shot rifle, turns out it’s not important, the magazine is
Adam L Silverman
@Cmm: No worries, just wanted to reach out and doing so, make sure I was reaching out to a live email address.
Villago Delenda Est
@Eric U.: When the weapon is semi-auto and magazine fed, the time between single shots is negligible. You can still send a lot of lead downrange very quickly with one of those.
Tokyokie
@Adam L Silverman: It seems to me that with the possible exception of Kosovo, the Air Force has oversold its capabilities in every conflict in which the country has been involved since it became a separate department. I believe the AF’s attitude toward the A-10 (the finest close ground support plane ever deployed) is what turned me to the position you articulate. The AF’s reasoning for ditching the A-10, basically, is it’s not cool to fly. Were the Air Force still part of the Army, such a grievance would never be raised.
And although my experience is limited, I would say the Air Force has far and away the worst officer corps of any of the service branches.
Adam L Silverman
@Cmm: Will do.
hovercraft
@Brachiator:
Yes, but it’s those same ammosexuals who rush out to buy more guns, most of the public are content to rely on the police to protect us. Gun household numbers are down.
Pete Williams just said this may be Sovereign Citizens.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: City of Tampa and Hillsborough County politics are somewhat unique. Greco actually quit during his first stint as mayor because he wanted to go back to being a developer. He was universally panned for not thinking that through before he ran. When he ran years later all was seemingly forgotten/forgiven. The current mayor is pretty good. One of the city councilman is a friend from kindergarten.
D58826
(SIGH) According to Pete Williams of MSNBC, NYPD is telling all of its officers to travel/eat in pairs. Not sure how that helps. Just gives the ambusher 2 targets rather than one. He also is reporting that there is some information (still very speculative) that may tie this shooting to a sovereign citizens group. Now if that turns out to be true will really turn things upside down
oops Hovercraft beat me to it
Pogonip
@? Martin: We have 3 (just inherited one, unfortunately). I guess we’re the .0000000001 %! :D
Thomas
@D58826: very thoughtful response, and right on the mark as usual. I really enjoy reading your comments
Barb2
@Adam L Silverman:
Never work with the Navy.
Once when I was a kid (Navy brat) our dad’s took us to a movie, on base – Barbers Point. Kids bonding with dad’s before they deployed.
The movie: The absent Minded Professor, 1961
Key scene: The flubber fueled VW bug is flying over DC. All the top ranking military brass are yelling at the Professor to land his car on the Air Force, no the Marine base etc. The the Navy Admiral yells – “NOW HEAR THIS”. Everyone of us brats jumped to our feet and cheered. We knew the Navy must be in control of Flubber, the new energy source.
There was not much love lost between the military branches. Navy Air knew that they could do anything the Air Force did – better.
That movie showed the rivalry between the Navy, Air Farce, Army and Marines. That scene was why all the kids on base went to a free showing of the film. NOW HEAR THIS. Just those three words. The dads weren’t prepared for that spontaneous reaction.
Adult writing now. It would be cheaper to have a single military force – like what was done in Canada. But it is confusing for Canadian military brats.
Cmm
@Tom Q: the whole “gotta be there first even if we jump the gun” thing is so toxic, especially since the “legit” news sites occasionally get scooped by the blog sites that are more eager to speculate wildly and occasionally get it right, so the big ones feel like they have to do the same thing or have TMZ or Buzzfeed getting all their precious, precious pageviews.
Adam L Silverman
@Pogonip: My apologies, its a 12 lbs trigger:
http://www.glockforum.com/A-Year-in-the-Life-of-the-NYPD-Glocks.html
http://forums.officer.com/t172751/
https://www.reddit.com/r/guns/comments/yxx0w/nypd_officer_ama_all_questions_regarding_12lb/
Baud
@hovercraft:
@D58826:
Holy cow! Sovereign citizens. It’s like no group of crazies wants to be left out right now.
Adam L Silverman
@Tokyokie: They over appreciate and over sell what strategic air can do. At the end of the day people live on the ground and war has to be resolved in and on the Land Domain.
Cmm
@D58826: that was actually my early thought on the Dallas shooting, sovereign citizens or white supremacists trying to start that race war they are always masturbating about. Things are
Feeling so powder keggish and the alt right types have been so emboldened by Trump that I would be completely unsurprised it they do try to add to the chaos in the hopes of bringing on the race war.
Eric U.
@Tokyokie: I am not sure that air force officers are the worst, it’s a race to the bottom.
Tokyokie
@Adam L Silverman: Exactly. And they have been allowed to do so because too many see the death that the Air Force deals as being bloodless, which, for the side with the huge warcraft fleet, it largely is. But is often ineffective and always inefficient.
Adam L Silverman
@D58826: Actually that’s a good idea. One of the suspected contributing factors into negative police interactions with the community is the funding cuts that have led to only one officer per patrol vehicle. The dynamic changes when the responding officer has a partner with them to watch out for their welfare/have their back.
Brachiator
@? Martin:
True enough. From one recent survey:
But the survey also notes that ” there’s actually been an increase in the number of background checks being run, suggesting the total number of firearms being purchased is going up.”
I suspect there may be some under reporting here, especially from those who may not have obtained a firearm legally.
But even if the fear is among many who already have guns, it is still a significant problem when they are adding to a growing stockpile of guns.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: The post WWII strategic bombing survey didn’t disabuse them of the notion, either.
The Lodger
@? Martin: Your point about AR 15s as Barbie dolls is well taken.
Eric U.
@Adam L Silverman: the fact that lemay wanted to start WWIII because he thought we could win shows this is not a new problem. The Air force needs a relatively conventional war to stay relevant. I suspect the navy can handle what’s left of that mission. As an af officer, I feel like a traitor to my service
Villago Delenda Est
@Eric U.: The USAF academy has been publically reprimanded for allowing Christianist types to openly intimidate those who do not share their religious beliefs, in open defiance of clauses in Article VI.
rikyrah
J.M. Berger @intelwire
CNN citing Baton Rouge police statement saying they do not think the officer shootings are “race related.”
1:18 PM – 17 Jul 2016
D58826
La. Gooper congressman is blaming the situation on outside agitators. That was the excuse they used during the civil rights marches of the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Tokyokie
@Eric U.: The joke among Air Force personnel is that its officers, not its enlisted men, are the ones who die in combat. But the joke has its roots in a dichotomy that doesn’t exist in the other branches, in which the officers are the knights nobly offering valorous service to their country, and the enlisted personnel are the vassals who provide them the support to do so. As a result, my impression is that Air Force officers’ first instinct is always to affix blame on the lowest-ranked service member on whom blame could plausibly be affixed, whereas the culture of the Marines tends to be for the highest-ranked service member to accept responsibility. And I think these attitudes come from the different levels of danger that the services face in combat. If an F-35 is shot down, the pilot is dead, but if a V-22 goes down, pretty much the entire unit dies.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: @Eric U.: I’m not saying they were going to put facts above their parochial service needs. That would be crazy talk!
Ruckus
@Cmm:
And back then you carried a 38 or 357 revolver with maybe two speed loaders for a total of 18 rounds, and a shotgun in the car. Now it’s a semi-auto 9 or 40 with 12-15 rounds and at least 2 extra clips but a lot of times I see 4 clips, pepper spray, tazer. Decades ago I saw cops with blackjacks, have seen cops open a switchblade they pulled out of their pocket. Didn’t you write the other day about the seal on the shotgun that required a report if broken? Now we see motorcycle cops with assault rifles and cars with assault rifles and shotguns. Who knows what’s in the trunk? Side note – Saw a CHP motorcycle on Friday with a switch labeled Missiles. I like a sense of humor.
So while cops were, IMO more violent, they were less deadly and less ready to shoot you dead. I think it was the crime level of the day and the next decade. Most cop houses seem to be more on the conservative side, maintaining law and order, and all that. Mostly with a emphasis on order rather than law. Once again please understand my position, my interactions with police, even in LA have all been fine. I once called to report a break in at the business next door, on a weekend. I’d seen a guy climb the fence, which had a double roll of razor wire on top and they’d been broken into before. When asked if the man was armed I said I didn’t know but I was as I was working alone. They sent 6 cars and the helicopter. On officer came to talk to me in the yard and through my locked gate and asked me if the pistol on my side was loaded. I stated it wouldn’t be of any use if it wasn’t. Was asked to unload it and I did of course, all was nice and pleasant and they caught the guy. A side note. That was the last time I put on a gun. I figured it just wasn’t worth the possible issues and problems that might arise from not only it’s use but just wearing it or even owning it. Have spent the last 40+ yrs without and haven’t suffered at all for that.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
Help! I’m in moderation and I can’t get out!
hovercraft
@Baud:
If it is them the Fox’s and blame Obama crew will have to recalibrate, it will become the fault of misguided gun owners who’s actions have no bearing on responsible gun owners. If only the heavy hand of government had not oppressed them this would not have happened.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Cmm: Thank you for all you have done and tried to do to help. You’re an example to be emulated.
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: You have been freed. We temporarily detained you for all the weaponry your comment was openly and concealed carrying. We had to check you papers!
The Lodger
@Adam L Silverman: Amusing Local Politics could be a new post category, couldn’t it?
? Martin
@Brachiator: No, the number of guns bought is definitely going up, but they’re multiple purchases from a diminishing number of people.
My point is that it’s important to differentiate from number of guns to number of gun owners. At a minimum it demonstrates that this is clearly a political/cultural thing, but it also illustrates that it’s a trend at least slightly in favor of gun control advocates.
Gelfling 545
@Amaranthine RBG: That would be unamerican!
Adam L Silverman
@The Lodger: Yes. I had a lot of these true stories. When I was at UF among my normal teaching duties of Terrorism and Counter-terrorism; International Security; Religion and Politics; Middle Eastern Politics, etc someone decided I should teach State and Local Politics. So I did a lot of Florida content because everyone was someone familiar with it.
Uncle Cosmo
@Villago Delenda Est: A couple of years back I went out with some 2nd-Amendment-loving friends to a shooting range. I’d never fired a weapon before & I wanted to know what it felt like & whether I could manage it. (I could, but not accurately enough to aim for anything but the CM if I should ever have to target some other human being.)
I briefly considered buying a handgun for “home defense”–more precisely, for deterrence, because I had/have no interest in pumping slugs into another human being. When I gave it 10 minutes’ thought I realized you can’t deter someone who doesn’t know you’re armed. But once I let it be known I had a gun in the house (so that I wouldn’t need to trade shots with an intruder to establish its existence) I’d be much more likely to be burglarized when I go out–in order to steal the gun. And if I carried it with me I’d be a target for muggers. All in all it didn’t seem to make sense.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Eric U.:
LOL. My late father was career Air Force (Medical Corps), and I felt a twinge when I made my joke above.
Adam L Silverman
The law enforcement briefing has started!
Ruckus
@Barb2:
Our military is much bigger than the Canadians and much more diverse as goes to equipment. Not that some consolidation might not be in order. But being a foot solder and maintaining and operating a ship are two quite different tasks. Many of the people could be trained to do either but that training is expensive and time consuming and once done there isn’t much crossover. However I’ve heard of stories of the army and marines now having common training and repair shops for common vehicles, with both working along side.
I think the bigger problem is that each branch of the service thinks theirs is the one that can do the job best. And they are all wrong, there is a need for most of the jobs done. However there also needs to be a better understanding that a lot of times, one piece of equipment can not be all things to all people (F35 is a prime example) and that while we need a strong military, we most likely don’t need anywhere near what we spend today. There is a lot of one-upmanship between the branches, always has been and if they stay separate there always will be. So given all my blather maybe you are right.
Pogonip
@Adam L Silverman: Oh, good, you can fire it with a smaller dog. :P
Brachiator
@? Martin:
Not as long as the number of guns available and circulating keeps increasing. Not as long as gun violence continues to be a problem.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Ruckus:
Blackjack! It’s not just a club.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
If you OK’ed me you didn’t check the papers very close then.
Shawn in Showme
@rikyrah:
Thanks for the info about Chicago. But the shooting today happened in Baton Rouge. And the headline cop shooting before that was in Dallas. The typical cop salary in those cities is about 50K.
hovercraft
I’m sorry, but saying that it’s not about gun control, but what’s in peoples hearts, is bullshit. Evil intent did not kill or injure anyone, bullets did.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Raven Onthill: Count how many times the white-shirt team throws the ball…
Cheers,
Scott.
The Lodger
@Cmm: @Adam L Silverman: Thanks to you both for all you do here. Cmm, I hope you can find a good income-producing gig quickly enough. We need your perspective. It sounds like you take being a peace officer seriously. Wish they all would.
D58826
@hovercraft: 22 minutes and they said almost nothing. Race should not be a consideration but given the events of the past couple of weeks it is vitally important, for rumor control if nothing else, the bio of shooter is important.
Adam L Silverman
Just updated with the timeline of events from the press conference and an embedded video feed for the President’s forthcoming address to the Nation.
The Lodger
@hovercraft: Evil intent can kill one or two people at a time, but you need high-capacity weapons to kill 50.
Adam L Silverman
@The Lodger:
— Frederick II of Prussia
hovercraft
@D58826:
The anchors are no longer chattering about BLM and black hate groups, so I guess the mention of sovereign citizens will dictate the coverage. Is it Obama inciting hatred of the police. Or is it Obama’s heavy handed oppressive government regulations causing citizens to fight back.
@The Lodger:
You can’t legislate evil intent/ peoples hearts, but you can cotrol ewapons.
His name is Gavin Long
Edit from Kansas City
Robert Sneddon
@Ruckus:
This picture was taken in 1918 when Socialists and Anarchists were thought to be a serious threat to the United States. It makes today’s police MRAPs look tame by comparison.
D58826
They have a name of a guy from Missouri (no race yet) who with maybe 2-3 friends are responsible. May be related to sovereign citizens. but no confirmation. Maybe I’m just cynical but I suspect if the guy was related to BLM or a Muslim group that would have been leaked by now.
Shawn in Showme
@The Lodger:
Or a van.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I have that poster. Of course.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I would be disappointed if you did not.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Robert Sneddon:
Bad link.
Robert Sneddon
@Steeplejack (phone): Try this link.
If that doesn’t work, it’s the wonderful timesink site, Shorpy’s with pictures from the past century or so of news and art photography, often from glass plate negatives and library collections. This picture I linked to is of a police motorcycle and sidecar in 1918 New York. The sidecar has a belt-fed Colt-Browning machinegun mounted on a tripod, a true war weapon ready to defend the peace on the streets of America.
Ruckus
@Robert Sneddon:
Some things never change. Recall a pic from Ferguson
J R in WV
@Cmm:
Be careful, even though you have a desk job, you never know what you will run into just driving to or from work.
Hang in there, Cmm.
And be careful…
Cmm
@Ruckus: on the street I carry a total of 46 rounds. A Glock 22 with a magazine holding 15 plus 1 in the chamber; and 2 additional magazines. I carried pepper spray and initially carried an Asp baton but used it rarely and got tired of it wearing a hole in my uniform shirts so it’s in the drawer. As an investigator and later as admin I had a pancake holster with same gun, just the 16 rounds. Oh and I had a boot knife. I cut a kid out of a baby seat once after a wreck. I think that’s the only time I used it other than as a letter opener….
Never got qualified for taser; I did take the ride once to see what it felt like and it was not fun. Never had my schedule line up when the training class needed for certification to carry was being offered; if it had I would have carried it. Never carried a backup; most officers thought I was nuts not to. I am enough of a klutz that having it fall out of my holster during a scuffle was a far more likely scenario than my needing it in an emergency.
The most reassuring thing I carried was my maglite with the 4 C batteries. Why? Because for most of my time on the street I worked the midnight shift and most of the volatile calls I went to were drunken domestics which can turn crazy in a split second. One of my training officers said, you can’t walk up to the door with your gun out or your pepper spray or baton in your hand, but you are always holding your flashlight so you can see where you are going, and you have something in your hand if you need it. I never needed it but it was good to know I had it when going into some of these houses full o’ crazy. My captain did get grabbed from behind and had someone trying to choke him out in a brawl on a domestic once. He had his flashlight in hand and that got him out of it. He said he couldn’t reach anything on his belt the way the guy had him so it was a damn good thing he had the light.
Cmm
@J R in WV: I’m currently out in medical leave and I retire on my birthday next month. I can go at 50 on a partial pension and that’s what I’m doing. There’s no way I can take this til I’m 55. I’ve already effectively had my last day at work and every day like today I’m more thankful for it. Thanks for the good wishes, you guys.
Cmm
@J R in WV: also, I stayed strapped at work. Aside from the concerns of random pissed off citizens shooting up the place, I had some….concerns about some of our former employees and I was personally high on the shit list of a couple of them.
I’ve turned in my duty weapon (required if you are out for more than 30 days) and I currently don’t have a firearm in my house. I consider having one from time to time but I would most likely only keep it at home. See above, e.g. klutz,likelihood of dropping or losing weapon vs likelihood of needing to stand my ground. I still might get one for just in case at home but it’s not a huge priority. I’m pretty unusual among officers in that I never have carried off duty and am comfortable enough without a gun in the house.
J R in WV
@Pogonip:
That’s a large reason NYC cops miss what they’re aiming at a whole lot more than most LEOs.
A 16-pound trigger pull is crazy. It is intended to help prevent un-intentional discharges with duty pistols that have no positive safety switch – specifically Glocks. It makes your hand shake as you squeeze harder and harder trying to get it to shoot.
I won’t ever own a Glock. I don’t even like holding one, really.
One murder trial where I was on the jury, the weapon was a single-shot single action Thompson Contender 7mm magnum pistol with what the ballistics guys determined was a 20 ounce trigger pull. We all got to handle the weapon in the jury room, and it seemed a lot lighter than that to me. Hair-trigger was the only way to describe it. Touch it and it went off.
Nearly everyone on the jury had dome some shooting, rural community, and we were all amazed that someone wanted a hunting weapon with a 20 ounce trigger pull – crazy!!
Ruckus
@Cmm:
A good customer of mine was an officer in a small dept in a very wealthy town. He worked traffic on a motorcycle, investigations and just a patrol officer. IOW most everything. He went on a domestic call once, husband was beating on the wife. As they approached the house the guy came running out from the side of the garage with a very large kitchen knife towards the two officers and attacked my customer and knocked him to the ground on his back. Did I forget to mention that the cop was about 6’3″ and in very good shape. He had to pull his weapon and shoot the husband at very close range. Hit him in the chest, dead before he hit the ground. I talked to the cop about 3 days after it happened and he was still very distraught that he had killed someone. This might not have happened if the wife had told 911 that her husband had a knife and that she had locked him out of the house.