7 ms·

> There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military become

by djaque 6y ago

> There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people. - Commander Adama

farseer 6y ago
The American population is heavily armed so that comparison is not valid. You need police to be well equipped to handle a 300lb man in body armour and fielding an AR-15 style rifle.
- rhino369 6y ago
  See the North Hollywood Shootout for a good example of what happens if the cops are outgunned.
  - craftinator 6y ago
    Yes, and that has happened... One time. N=1. The police need less gear, and if confronted with a crazy dude in Level 4 body armor with an automatic, their job is to call SWAT, then clear all civilians out of the area.
- nkozyra 6y ago
  I think this is begging the question a bit. We assume a lot of inevitables in this case, specifically that an interaction with law enforcement will likely end in conflict
- oneplane 6y ago
  So your solution is to just keep escalating?
  - almost_usual 6y ago
    When there is an active shooter in body armor wielding a high powered weapon you’re deescalating and saving lives.
    - numpad0 6y ago
      Terrorists don’t wear body armors, and “power” of guns don’t matter as well. In fact, it gets weaker and weaker as guns improve because the required amount to “stop” a human had been grossly overestimated. .308 hunting rifle cartridge, still deemed necessary to stop charging wild animals, has muzzle kinetic energy of 3.5kJ. .223Rem for AR-15, used in wars against humans, is 1.8kJ, 9mmx19 used in latest “tactical self defense” PCCs is just 0.5kJ. Bullets are all deadly if it hits and when it hits.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - op03 6y ago
      What about if Godzilla is real and shows up?
      - almost_usual 6y ago
        Go back to Reddit. Between the technical incompetence of commenters on here and the substance of dumb comments like these I’m ready to take a break from HN.
      - numpad0 6y ago
        Conventional military weapons aren’t effective against a Godzilla, and nukes only strengthen them. Effective means are strong basic chemicals, another Godzilla class monster, or fricken lasers. It’s kind of a tangible realization of sense of grave defeat from WWII among Japanese population immediately post-war, hence weakened emphasis on militaristic means in its plot.
        op03 6y ago
        Interesting points. I didn't make those connections, watching the 2019 American version King of Monsters yesterday. Bailed out one hour in feeling too much sensory overload. Might go finish it now.
  - farseer 6y ago
    Do you have a choice? Either water down the second amendment and disarm the population or give the police what they need. I am not taking a side, simply stating the dilemna of law enforcement.
    - henriquez 6y ago
      Watering down the second amendment would work to the extent that people wielding the guns were behaving lawfully in the first place, which is not relevant when we’re taking about armed confrontations with police. I have yet to see any statistics showing that militarizing the police makes them any more effective or safe.
      - petre 6y ago
        The obvious solution is to tax ammo proportinal to its military use. You want military grade armor piercing rounds to shoot tin cans at your birthday party? Fine, that's taxed 1000%. Normal 9 mm rounds suitable for handguns should obviously be taxed lower. It doesn't ban firearms, it just creates a supply problem for nutcakes and preppers buiding arsenals. Security companies and firing ranges could recover their ammo tax at the end of the fiscal year. Hobbists could shoot assault rifles at firing ranges, as opposed to their back yard. The police won't need surplus military gear then. Your neighbour won't be wounded from a stray bullet shot from an assault rifle ten buildings away.
        numpad0 6y ago
        I think you guys have laws forbid civilian possession of military AP rounds in the US.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - tertiary 6y ago
      > Either water down the second amendment ... or give the police what they need That's a false dichotomy and misses the main point of the argument to reduce police militarization. Nobody is upset when SWAT responds to a school shooting or a terrorist act. The problem (I suppose a really good problem to have after all) is that those things almost never happen, even though they are the ones we see on the news and can quickly retrieve in our minds. You're more likely to die in a plane crash than in a terrorist act in the US. That begs the question: if militarized units don't have enough violent crime to respond to, but are still a full time unit then what do they respond to? The answer is why people are upset and it's because we are sending them to respond to drug offenses and to execute search warrants instead. Situations thay they inevitably end up escalating (on average) and killing people in. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053168017712885 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20531680177128...
- tertiary 6y ago
  That's not true in the 80% use case of SWAT teams which is drug offenses and executing search warrants. This is the core argument for demilitarization, not the straw man of "I don't want police to have the equipment needed to respond to school shooters." Showing up with militarized teams to mostly non-violent situations just causes escalation after escalation and is why militarized units kill at a far higher rate than just the police alone. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053168017712885 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20531680177128...
- craftinator 6y ago
  > You need police to be well equipped No; no I don't. I need police to be better equipped upstairs, maybe take some queues from the British or German police. A slim portion of the American population is heavily armed, and police don't deal with armed suspects in something like 99% percent of 911 calls. In that <1% of cases, we can call SWAT. That's why SWAT exists, to be a highly trained, militarized version of the police.
  - hourislate 6y ago
    >I need police to be better equipped upstairs, maybe take some queues from the British or German police. British Police When they are not arresting mothers or 80 year olds for not wearing a mask or holding a sign. https://www.dumpert.nl/?selectedId=7998859_cd38b070 https://www.dumpert.nl/?selectedId=7998859_cd38b070 German Police They actually called in Jet Fighters, Helicopters and a few thousand active military. After have at least 1000 police looking too. In total over 5000 personal to find one guy in a forest. Seems excessive. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/17/german-police-capture-black-forest-rambo-after-six-day-manhunt https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/17/german-police-...
    - craftinator 6y ago
      Oh good, I love a good cherry picking competition! As a Portlander, I can tell you first hand our police are regularly doing much worse than "arresting" mothers and grandmothers, they're first shooting them with tear-gas, impact munitions, then batoning and pepper spraying them on the ground. Watched it, first hand, just a few days ago. As a former Marine, until watching our cops in action this year, I was all about them. Now I'm disgusted with them, and will do everything I can to take the toys away from these children. Until you've seen them first hand (or you are one... Just quit and live a better life), it's actually really hard to believe just how awful they are. Are cops are the "war on drugs" cops who bend or disregard every rule so they can "come down hard" and "make an example". That's the attitude. And if you think that's okay... Wait till your kid gets pulled over, or stopped for riding a bike through the wrong part of town. These people are thugs, and operate where no laws will touch them.
vsareto 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24745471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24745471 I'm starting to think it was more than just sitcoms

by djaque 6y ago

farseer 6y ago

The American population is heavily armed so that comparison is not valid. You need police to be well equipped to handle a 300lb man in body armour and fielding an AR-15 style rifle.

rhino369 6y ago
See the North Hollywood Shootout for a good example of what happens if the cops are outgunned.
- craftinator 6y ago
  Yes, and that has happened... One time. N=1. The police need less gear, and if confronted with a crazy dude in Level 4 body armor with an automatic, their job is to call SWAT, then clear all civilians out of the area.
nkozyra 6y ago
I think this is begging the question a bit. We assume a lot of inevitables in this case, specifically that an interaction with law enforcement will likely end in conflict
oneplane 6y ago
So your solution is to just keep escalating?
- almost_usual 6y ago
  When there is an active shooter in body armor wielding a high powered weapon you’re deescalating and saving lives.
  - numpad0 6y ago
    Terrorists don’t wear body armors, and “power” of guns don’t matter as well. In fact, it gets weaker and weaker as guns improve because the required amount to “stop” a human had been grossly overestimated. .308 hunting rifle cartridge, still deemed necessary to stop charging wild animals, has muzzle kinetic energy of 3.5kJ. .223Rem for AR-15, used in wars against humans, is 1.8kJ, 9mmx19 used in latest “tactical self defense” PCCs is just 0.5kJ. Bullets are all deadly if it hits and when it hits.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - op03 6y ago
    What about if Godzilla is real and shows up?
    - almost_usual 6y ago
      Go back to Reddit. Between the technical incompetence of commenters on here and the substance of dumb comments like these I’m ready to take a break from HN.
    - numpad0 6y ago
      Conventional military weapons aren’t effective against a Godzilla, and nukes only strengthen them. Effective means are strong basic chemicals, another Godzilla class monster, or fricken lasers. It’s kind of a tangible realization of sense of grave defeat from WWII among Japanese population immediately post-war, hence weakened emphasis on militaristic means in its plot.
      - op03 6y ago
        Interesting points. I didn't make those connections, watching the 2019 American version King of Monsters yesterday. Bailed out one hour in feeling too much sensory overload. Might go finish it now.
- farseer 6y ago
  Do you have a choice? Either water down the second amendment and disarm the population or give the police what they need. I am not taking a side, simply stating the dilemna of law enforcement.
  - henriquez 6y ago
    Watering down the second amendment would work to the extent that people wielding the guns were behaving lawfully in the first place, which is not relevant when we’re taking about armed confrontations with police. I have yet to see any statistics showing that militarizing the police makes them any more effective or safe.
    - petre 6y ago
      The obvious solution is to tax ammo proportinal to its military use. You want military grade armor piercing rounds to shoot tin cans at your birthday party? Fine, that's taxed 1000%. Normal 9 mm rounds suitable for handguns should obviously be taxed lower. It doesn't ban firearms, it just creates a supply problem for nutcakes and preppers buiding arsenals. Security companies and firing ranges could recover their ammo tax at the end of the fiscal year. Hobbists could shoot assault rifles at firing ranges, as opposed to their back yard. The police won't need surplus military gear then. Your neighbour won't be wounded from a stray bullet shot from an assault rifle ten buildings away.
      - numpad0 6y ago
        I think you guys have laws forbid civilian possession of military AP rounds in the US.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - tertiary 6y ago
    > Either water down the second amendment ... or give the police what they need That's a false dichotomy and misses the main point of the argument to reduce police militarization. Nobody is upset when SWAT responds to a school shooting or a terrorist act. The problem (I suppose a really good problem to have after all) is that those things almost never happen, even though they are the ones we see on the news and can quickly retrieve in our minds. You're more likely to die in a plane crash than in a terrorist act in the US. That begs the question: if militarized units don't have enough violent crime to respond to, but are still a full time unit then what do they respond to? The answer is why people are upset and it's because we are sending them to respond to drug offenses and to execute search warrants instead. Situations thay they inevitably end up escalating (on average) and killing people in. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053168017712885 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20531680177128...
tertiary 6y ago
That's not true in the 80% use case of SWAT teams which is drug offenses and executing search warrants. This is the core argument for demilitarization, not the straw man of "I don't want police to have the equipment needed to respond to school shooters." Showing up with militarized teams to mostly non-violent situations just causes escalation after escalation and is why militarized units kill at a far higher rate than just the police alone. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053168017712885 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20531680177128...
craftinator 6y ago
> You need police to be well equipped No; no I don't. I need police to be better equipped upstairs, maybe take some queues from the British or German police. A slim portion of the American population is heavily armed, and police don't deal with armed suspects in something like 99% percent of 911 calls. In that <1% of cases, we can call SWAT. That's why SWAT exists, to be a highly trained, militarized version of the police.
- hourislate 6y ago
  >I need police to be better equipped upstairs, maybe take some queues from the British or German police. British Police When they are not arresting mothers or 80 year olds for not wearing a mask or holding a sign. https://www.dumpert.nl/?selectedId=7998859_cd38b070 https://www.dumpert.nl/?selectedId=7998859_cd38b070 German Police They actually called in Jet Fighters, Helicopters and a few thousand active military. After have at least 1000 police looking too. In total over 5000 personal to find one guy in a forest. Seems excessive. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/17/german-police-capture-black-forest-rambo-after-six-day-manhunt https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/17/german-police-...
  - craftinator 6y ago
    Oh good, I love a good cherry picking competition! As a Portlander, I can tell you first hand our police are regularly doing much worse than "arresting" mothers and grandmothers, they're first shooting them with tear-gas, impact munitions, then batoning and pepper spraying them on the ground. Watched it, first hand, just a few days ago. As a former Marine, until watching our cops in action this year, I was all about them. Now I'm disgusted with them, and will do everything I can to take the toys away from these children. Until you've seen them first hand (or you are one... Just quit and live a better life), it's actually really hard to believe just how awful they are. Are cops are the "war on drugs" cops who bend or disregard every rule so they can "come down hard" and "make an example". That's the attitude. And if you think that's okay... Wait till your kid gets pulled over, or stopped for riding a bike through the wrong part of town. These people are thugs, and operate where no laws will touch them.

vsareto 6y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24745471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24745471 I'm starting to think it was more than just sitcoms