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The typical gun owner knows more about guns and can shoot them more accurately that the typical police officer. Even criminals may be better at shooting than police officers.

Police training is woefully inadequate in this area. Professional trainers know this and have discussed it openly.

Here is an analysis of the topic. So far, the question has not been addressed by the supreme court, and other courts have issued mixed decisions.

I believe that the way rulings have happened legally I could tell you to go fuck yourself with that warrant if you presented it to me. Also even if the 5th amendment argument doesn't hold up when this reaches the supreme court I don't know what legal responsibility one has to interpret data to assist the state in ones own prosecution. One of the better articles summarizing the current rulings is this one. I would think it is more akin to the safe combination or the something else going with my thinking that is interpretation of data. Also a search warrant says that you can go sort through my shit to see if you can find my stuff and that I can't stop you but I don't have to help you.

One of the effects of body cameras is complaints against the police go down:

http://www.sandiegouniontribun...

http://www.cleveland.com/cityh...

http://www.policeone.com/offic...

Policing involves dealing with people who are motivated to lie; lie to the police and lie about the police. All cops hear all day long are lies lies lies and some of those lies get pointed at them. It's true that cops are less likely to abuse their position if they know they're being recorded but that also holds true for citizens lying about cops' conduct.

The net effect is complaints go down, but there are two forces giving rise to that effect; it's not just the police changing their conduct. Just sayin'

Intimidation is a purposeful and deliberate tactic to gain compliance through fear of violence.
Everything about police is intimidating: the uniform, the car, driving tactics, visible weapons, approach and demeanor.
Here is an article delving into some of the psychology.

When the police approach you or pull you over there is always that fight or flight instinct that kicks in, even when you've done nothing wrong. Why? Because police are intimidating as hell and they have the power to either kill you or imprison you.
It is also contrary to the nature of the human male to submit: when you get pushed, you push back. This is why you see the backlash or attitudes from ordinary people against cops.

There is no profession without idiots; however in this profession someone is going to pay a heavy price for a mistake.

Swatters have been known to intentionally act irrational/hysterical, and put time pressure on the police. They could talk about how they're going to kill someone in the next hour, and perhaps talk about how they'll kill any police that they see as well. They may tell the police that if anyone tries to call them back or contacts them in any way, they'll kill a hostage.

This leaves the police in a quandary. In the case of the Columbine school shootings, the police were criticized for waiting too long before moving in, and subsequently changed their tactics. Now they're criticized for rushing in too soon.

We got a militarized police force when people started holing up in places with guns, sometimes taking hostages, sometimes just killing people randomly. You talk about how they "just go in armed to the teeth ready to shoot anything that either moves or doesn't move fast enough", yet to my knowledge, no one has actually died as a result of a swatting yet, despite *many* incidents. That demonstrates that those police teams in question are showing a significant level of restraint in what, to their knowledge, may be a life-and-death situation.

It's easy to criticize. It's a bit harder to actually figure out how to solve the problems.

Their first concern is to not get shot in the head.

That's a bit paranoid. Cop isn't even in the top 10 jobs for on the job fatalities. Also, most cop fatalities are from car accidents - yet they refuse to wear seat belts. old citation to show this has been known for a long time newer citation to show that nothing has changed. If they wore seat belts at the rate the general public did, being a police officer would be a pretty safe job. Police don't need to violate the fourth amendment to be safe.

By the way, the President of the US is THE top of the Executive branch - meaning HE is in charge of ALL the police around the country - if I remember my high school civics correctly (yeah, I'm that old and it was back when education was about having an educated electorate and not training for McJobs).

Shame on you Obama. And Double shame for being a Black guy and NOT doing something.

Bzzt! Wrong. Thanks for playing. The POTUS is the head of the Executive Branch of the *Federal Government.* He's also the Commander-in-chief of the US armed forces. He is in charge of the Department of Justice (the FBI, the ATF, etc.) and the Army, Navy, etc.

He is not in any chain of command the includes local or state police forces. The closest he *could* come to that is to federalize the National Guard (which is equivalent to a state militia), which has been done from time to time (notably in Arkansas to block the state government from halting enforcement of the Brown v. Board of Education decision).

The POTUS cannot legally give orders to local or state police, which are civilian organizations answerable to the municipal and state governments that raise and fund them, and not the Federal government. The only tools that the Federal government has to affect local police is litigation and withholding federal grants to police organizations. You'll note that this author of the linked article is decidedly not a fan of Federal power over police.

As such, your appeal to authority:

if I remember my high school civics correctly (yeah, I'm that old and it was back when education was about having an educated electorate and not training for McJobs

falls short. Please try again.

http://www.policeone.com/healt...

http://www.policeone.com/close...

https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Topi...

I read that cops are more likely to be killed by their own guns than another's. But I can't seem to find the statistics right now. www.ncjrs.gov is not responding.

Just because you heard it does't make it true. And even if it were true (which it isn't), the majority of self inflicted gun shot wounds are due to accidental (or negligent) discharge, or suicide attempt, neither of which "smart gun" technology would have any effect on.

http://www.policeone.com/close...

https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Topics/Topic.aspx?Topicid=84

I read that cops are more likely to be killed by their own guns than another's. But I can't seem to find the statistics right now. www.ncjrs.gov is not responding.

Under the current public duty doctrine (duty to all, duty to no-one); failure to act is not an actionable offense

Courts typically find that no duty has been established and deny recovery for “injuries caused by the failure of police personnel to respond to requests for assistance, the failure to investigate properly, or the failure to investigate at all, where the police had not induced reliance on a promise, express or implied, that they would provide protection.”16For example, a plaintiff was unable to establish a duty on behalf of police when police failed to respond to a plea for assistance forty-five minutes before a homicide.17

if that was the case you would expect to see a lot more mass shootings in Europe than in the States, simply based on the much stricter weapon control policies in the former.

The availability of means to gain an advantage in force (weapons, superior numbers, etc.) and environments of ensured disparate force interact, they don't exist separately in a vacuum. The history has borne this out time and time again in genocide, pogroms, lynchings, etc.

For posterity's sake, here's the full text of The Pseudocommando Mass Murderer: Part I, The Psychology of Revenge and Obliteration (PDF) in case you want to review it as I have.

just for you to have some actual research to look into

I really hope you're not implying the research I linked a few posts ago isn't actual research. It's proven very effective in saving lives, and doesn't face the severe conflicts of interest often found in academic papers, and sometimes entire journals on topics where agendas are involved. Whether it's the Joyce Foundation or the Cato Institute, the sources of funding can predetermine the conclusions and the quality of peer review, even to the point of misrepresenting sources cited. Law enforcement has no conflict of interest with finding real solutions on this topic as far as I can tell; quite the opposite.

The solutions mentioned in the Prevention section of The Pseudocommando Mass Murderer: Part II, The Language of Revenge (PDF) aren't exactly actionable in comparison.

That same section uses citation 38, which doesn't actually back up the claim it was cited for (source here). They had no issue citing the study on Australia's laws and the inferred changes, but with the US's ten times larger population sample they experience no cognitive dissonance in ignoring the number of school attacks in the 20 years preceding (9) and the 20 years following (93) the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 in the US, while the number of non-school mass shootings remained the same at 25 incidents in the same time horizon preceding and following its passing. The interaction between firearms laws and mass killings isn't as simple as they imply, and conveniently in either parts of the main paper the perceived odds of success at one's objectives before death didn't factor into the analysis of the killers' psychology.

it does suggest that toting guns around won't actually solve any problems.

Someone who is seconds away rather than minutes away with the power to stop a killer can make enough of a difference to prevent the incident from escalating to a "mass killing" (four or more dead in quick succession) [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10].

Such outcomes are relatively rare because the population that actually carries that power and responsibility with them on a daily basis is currently about 3%, bu

I find the number of Americans who don't mind this invasion of privacy amazingly high. Perhaps I should adjust my expectations. So many gun "enthusiasts" are worried about a government database of gun owners. I wonder how many of them are OK with blanket surveillance. Now the government can make a database for anything-- gun owners, church goers, lefties, righties, anyone who who has had an abortion, wants a girlfriend, has a girlfriend, has two girlfriends, two girlfriends and a wife... You name it, the government can make a list.

Given the track record for how power corrupts, this is a dangerous road to travel. Power over prisoners -> Abu Ghraib. Police database ->
http://www.itpro.co.uk/634774/police-database-abuse-hugely-intrusive
http://www.policeone.com/police-products/software/Data-Information-Sharing-Software/articles/5360910-Cops-criticized-for-misuse-of-databases/
Power to wage war -> Iraq, Afganistan.

I think you would be hard pressed to come up with a government power that has not or will not be abused. This "total information awareness" carries the risk of even more abuse. If the government wants to quiet a dissident, what embarrassing information can they find out about him/her. What about family members? The governments ability to suppress dissent will become even greater-- imagine a world where the government "reminds" you the consequences of not toeing the line. America can become that.

What happened to the country where men would say "Give me liberty or give me death!" or "I'd rather die on my feet than live upon my knees" (OK he was actually Mexican but same sentiment).

No more criminals stealing service revolvers from cops and shooting them with their own weapons.

Still shady dealers selling weapons without "smart" tech, or with overrideable tech.

Interestingly, up here in NH there was an incident where a cop was shot at a traffic stop.

A passerby stopped to help the cop, the assailant pointed his gun at the passerby's son, so the passerby pulled the cop's own gun and shot the assailant. (link)

Speaking as a student of statistics, I wonder how many times a cop has been shot with their own gun, as opposed to (this one) incident where the assailant was shot using the cop's gun.

And a related observation: the congresscritters are hot to allow a system to disable guns, which has no statistical imperative, yet won't force phone manufacturers to allow owners to disable stolen cellphones, which is itself the root cause of much crime.

you are claiming its impossible to look excited about killing some one. Because that's what he was saying and if you missed it int the comment about the "crazed glint" then I would say that says more about you then the GP. And yes there is a chance though very slim that the one shot from an excited concealed weapons carrier.But take into consideration that the police miss far more often then then hit when they fire their weapons and there are constantly training unlike the civilians with ccw's.

The discussion was prompted by the fact that during the latest round of FBI suspect interviews conducted for the third book in the Officer Assaulted and Murdered trilogy (“Violent Encounters”), it was revealed that those suspects believed that police officers trained between two and three times a week with their firearms. In reality, most police departments only train about two times a year, averaging less than 15 hours annually. In contrast to our frequency of training, those same suspects revealed that they practiced on average 23 times a year (or almost twice a month) with their handguns.

Police are training constantly? Really? Are you sure about that? Given anecdotal 'evidence' says that police actually don't practice or train anywhere near as much as you might think, which google searches backup, I'm not sure you can say they train constantly. On the other hand most CCW people tend to go to the range at least once a month if not more frequently than that.

I don't know if it is because of corrupt assholes, but this article here seems to show quite a bit more when completely outfitted for the police.

http://www.policeone.com/police-products/vehicles/articles/1359987-Police-helicopters-becoming-commonplace/

The bell 407 in the pic is said to cost 1.5 mil outfitted and ready for service. I doubt they go for the luxury copter but they probably do look for the air duty equivalent of a surplus military copter with some comforts not generally involved in a military helicopter like a cushioned seat. Helicopters used to be provided relatively cheap on a surplus offering from the military. I guess after 9/11, demand for them shot past the availability of the surplus crafts and private suppliers started offering specially outfitted helicopters for law enforcement purposed.

• Sneak and Peek: https://ssd.eff.org/your-computer/govt/sneak-and-peek
• Stop and Frisk http://www.nyclu.org/stopandfrisk
• Warrantless Wiretapping http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/07/federal-appeals-court-says-warrantless-wiretapping-is-legal/
• License Plate Readers http://www.policeone.com/police-products/traffic-enforcement/license-plate-readers/
• Civil Seizure http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20091112/METRO/911120388
• Forfeit without Trial http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/07/megaupload-judge-recusal/
• Extraordinary Rendition http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/rendition701/
• Assassination without trial http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/world/middleeast/secret-us-memo-made-legal-case-to-kill-a-citizen.html?pagewanted=all

Many people are laughing all the way to the morgue.

Above all: I realize we are all participating in a thought exercise in the comments today. My thoughts are with the people harmed in this incident and their families.

Now...
Can we please begin blaming the perpetrator and NOT the tool they used to commit their crimes?

Can we craft laws that give family members the ability to report troubling behavior to authorities, possibly forcing a doctors' consultation? How is it that in the U.S., you can be jailed and forced to take treatment for Tuberculosis, but persons who walk around month after month, year after year exhibiting a dozen classical red flags for behavioral illness are left to their own devices? - Maybe they'll never harm anyone. Maybe they'll shoot up a movie theater.

Please stop blaming guns. Where are all the guns in Western Europe, where Britain has a violent crime rate higher than the United States, or for that matter even South Africa?

SOURCE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html
SOURCE: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/696036-britain-more-violent-than-us-and-europe

10 killed - 63 seriously injured - CLEARLY we need a background check and 30 day waiting period to buy AUTOMOBILES. What happens when a tragedy like this is intentional and not an accident? What could a sick person do with a Chevy Suburban in a crowded parking lot?

SOURCE: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,222924,00.html
SOURCE: http://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-05/justice/farmer.market.crash_1_movsha-hoffman-molok-ghoulian-brendon-esfahani?_s=PM:LAW

I'd rather gamble my life rushing a gunman to grapple their weapon away. The Tueller Drill / 21 Foot Rule says I'd probably win:
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill
SOURCE: http://www.policeone.com/edged-weapons/articles/102828-Edged-Weapon-Defense-Is-or-was-the-21-foot-rule-valid-Part-1/

According to a number of sources, gunshot wounds - with access to medical treatment - are survivable nearly 95% of the time. Fate is cruel; survivability has everything to do with where you are shot and what is damaged internally.

SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/nyregion/03shot.html?_r=1

This just in!
Another human being can pick a fight with you, or sucker punch you in the head, AND KILL YOU BARE HANDED.

SOURCE: http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Man__bleeding_in_brain__after_club_fracas-139265238.html
SOURCE: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/02/27/20120227california-girl-dies-after-fight.html
SOURCE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9PoXH_-tUE
SOURCE: http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2011/04/teen-killed-in-fistfight-near.html/
SOURCE: http://abcnews.go.com/US/TheLaw/fist-fight-left-miami-tourist-dead-caught-video/story?id=11445914#.UAnc_oa-zUY
SOURCE:

So many problems with this...number one, killing sprees for the past century have only happened in "gun free zones", areas where the law forbids the carrying of firearms, whether you have a permit or not. This is no coincidence. Number two, it's actually the killer that folds nearly every time when confronted with armed resistance, not the other way around. Three, once a killer starts his spree, people die at a rate of about 1-5 per minute. Cutting short the killer's spree by just one minute is 100% guaranteed to save at least one life. Thus it's best to send someone to stop the killer ASAP.

This is all backed by extensive research done by police on such killings over the past century. As a result, they've modified their response protocol from waiting 30+ minutes for SWAT to sending in the nearest patrol car.

The most recent example of this new protocol in action was the Ft. Hood shooting, where guess what, soldiers on base were required to have their weapons locked up in the armory. They were defenseless.Though the killer in this case did not immediately fold, as his motivation differed from most mass murderers, the two officers in the nearest patrol car were enough to stop the killer.

For further reading, I suggest you check out these articles:

Overview on mass murders in the USA

The Stopwatch of Death, Pt. 1

The Stopwatch of Death, Pt. 2

So many problems with this...number one, killing sprees for the past century have only happened in "gun free zones", areas where the law forbids the carrying of firearms, whether you have a permit or not. This is no coincidence. Number two, it's actually the killer that folds nearly every time when confronted with armed resistance, not the other way around. Three, once a killer starts his spree, people die at a rate of about 1-5 per minute. Cutting short the killer's spree by just one minute is 100% guaranteed to save at least one life. Thus it's best to send someone to stop the killer ASAP.

This is all backed by extensive research done by police on such killings over the past century. As a result, they've modified their response protocol from waiting 30+ minutes for SWAT to sending in the nearest patrol car.

The most recent example of this new protocol in action was the Ft. Hood shooting, where guess what, soldiers on base were required to have their weapons locked up in the armory. They were defenseless.Though the killer in this case did not immediately fold, as his motivation differed from most mass murderers, the two officers in the nearest patrol car were enough to stop the killer.

For further reading, I suggest you check out these articles:

Overview on mass murders in the USA

The Stopwatch of Death, Pt. 1

The Stopwatch of Death, Pt. 2

So many problems with this...number one, killing sprees for the past century have only happened in "gun free zones", areas where the law forbids the carrying of firearms, whether you have a permit or not. This is no coincidence. Number two, it's actually the killer that folds nearly every time when confronted with armed resistance, not the other way around. Three, once a killer starts his spree, people die at a rate of about 1-5 per minute. Cutting short the killer's spree by just one minute is 100% guaranteed to save at least one life. Thus it's best to send someone to stop the killer ASAP.

This is all backed by extensive research done by police on such killings over the past century. As a result, they've modified their response protocol from waiting 30+ minutes for SWAT to sending in the nearest patrol car.

The most recent example of this new protocol in action was the Ft. Hood shooting, where guess what, soldiers on base were required to have their weapons locked up in the armory. They were defenseless.Though the killer in this case did not immediately fold, as his motivation differed from most mass murderers, the two officers in the nearest patrol car were enough to stop the killer.

For further reading, I suggest you check out these articles:

Overview on mass murders in the USA

The Stopwatch of Death, Pt. 1

The Stopwatch of Death, Pt. 2

I will acknowledge that a small object, longer than it is wide, somewhat silver in color, crossed from somewhere off the left side of the screen behind the cop and landed on the platform near the upper right corner of the screen.

You mean, one of the two knives?

The CNN video and news coverage is very clear about what happened. The 911 caller said the man was armed with multiple knives. BART officials and several police officers all confirmed this, the man was uncooperative. He was hit with a taser TWICE, and attempted to charge officers.

Officers are in communication with each other, and the officer's backup shot the man down.

So what is the silver object? Dunno, but this video doesn't show any weapons, or the status/demeanor of perp. So he looks entirely innocent and unarmed according to the video.

So you have no idea what it is, but you ignorantly assume it couldn't possibly be a weapon. I would say you are in denial.

Online games are often an used for money laundering, by putting all the ill gotten money into the

OH YAH, I can just imagine some hard looking mafia types trading gold on Runescape, with the FBI monitoring them and hiding as a noob while waiting for the transaction to complete. How totally ridiculous.

Actually, that's not as utterly ridiculous as you make it out to be: http://www.policeone.com/police-technology/articles/3115040-Online-games-are-new-choice-for-money-laundering/

While in uniform or while otherwise on duty you need the cameras for your protection and ours.

See, that sounds great and wonderful, if you assume that cameras are an unerring way of knowing exactly what happened. They're not. While cameras "don't lie", they certainly can and do present an incorrect impression of the circumstances, and lead to incorrect beliefs amongst the general public even when context is later provided to explain the situation. You only need to look at this comment to see that effect in action. So no, cameras certainly don't protect cops, nor are they particularly helpful to the general public.

Police frequently abuse their lack of accountability

[citation needed]

Again, with additional rights there must come additional responsibilities.

This is already the case. You're not arguing for extra responsibilities - you're arguing for the infringement of their rights. Your statement would be better stated as "with additional power there must come a reduction in rights". Which I do not believe is justified. Should CEO's have cameras installed in their offices? How about the president? Congressmen? Judges? Parole officers? Parking enforcement personnel? Firefighters? Where do you stop, exactly, and how do you make the distinction?

I was talking about taking the word of one person vs. another at the time, sorry I didn't specify other than via quoting.

That's fair, but then "benefit of the doubt" is the wrong phrase. Also, good luck convicting any criminals if the sworn testimony and evidence presented by a cop is considered no better than the word of the suspect. Under such a system, I agree, cameras would be necessary. I just don't agree that such a system would be either fair, necessary, or even useful.

If you don't drink alcohol at all, you can't false positive.

Yes, you can.

It certainly looks a lot more like he was angry at being passed and thought waving a gun around was the answer. That's EXACTLY the sort of person we DON'T want carrying a gun in public.

...

As for the DC detective, note that his actions were not considered appropriate either. In fact, an internal affairs review recommended a 10 day suspension for his actions.

This is the real crux of the problem. Bad cops aren't really the problem, it's the departments that support them. A good department will quickly weed out bad cops as the situations arise, while bad departments will clam up and support the bad cops, leading to the corruption of more cops.

As far as the internal investigation goes, a 10 day suspension was basically a slap on the wrist, and continuing the charges against the motorcyclist is proof of that. It might be appropriate for a rooky traffic cop, but someone at a detective level should be held to much higher standards.

Until he identifies himself as a police officer, he's just some guy waving a gun.

The big reason the police wanted the guy under the jail is that he had actual video evidence (You might want to skip to the 3:00 mark) of the police detectives dangerous and unprofessional behavior. The officer was entirely indistinguishable from a crazed road-rager. No lights, unmarked car, no uniform, no badge, just a gun. Notably, he claims it was a traffic stop, but no ticket book either!

It certainly looks a lot more like he was angry at being passed and thought waving a gun around was the answer. That's EXACTLY the sort of person we DON'T want carrying a gun in public.

The department's subsequent actions in working with the AG to twist a wiretapping law into a pretzel trying to go after the motorcyclist sure seems to be an indication that they were well aware of the problem. If they actually believed the detective's actions to be appropriate why wouldn't they publicize the video themselves?

As for the DC detective, note that his actions were not considered appropriate either. In fact, an internal affairs review recommended a 10 day suspension for his actions.

Police do have a bit more latitude in law and in practice are granted still more, but not THAT much, particularly when they fail to identify themselves first.

The protect and serve motto is a reminder of police officer's dedication to service..."knuckle dragging cowardly bullies" is absurd at best. While I would never wish for you to need the services of a police officer, if you ever find yourself doing so, I assume you wouldn't make such a statement. If you ever plan on doing so, let me know when and where so I can watch.

I'll try. The fault with the statements above is that they equate police officers with DHS guards. Despite having been on the wrong side of the law many times, I do believe that the vast majority of police officers are honest folks who foster good relations with their citizens and have honest intent(the only bad publicity seems to come from Los Angeles, with its officers up against crotch-grabbers and coked-up madmen using babies for human shields). I also agree that they're not out to cause trouble because they want to go home to their families without any bullshit.

However - DHS guards are not police officers. They are glorified security guards gone mad with the power they attained in the wake of 9/11. The vast majority of them face no danger, and the last one to be shot to death(since the '80's) passed under mysterious circumstances with his gun stolen, an obvious cover-up. This ICE "officer" drove at night with tinted windows and plowed through a stop sign, killing 3 women. Calling them "federal officers" is an insult to everybody else with "officer" in their title. They're on par with prison guards, for fuck's sake. I know because I get eye-fucked and sent to secondary on a regular basis by those assholes, because I always lose the staring contest. Why don't you try driving through a few of their checkpoints being preemptively treated like a criminal and having dogs run your car beacuse you "might" be a criminal?

you: "I already mourn for the police officer who will be killed when this system fails."

some website: "the FBI says that of the 616 law enforcement officers killed on duty by criminals from 1994 through 2003, 52 were killed with their own weapon, amounting to 8 percent."

if the system evolves to being fool proof then cops even more so than civilians would want this system.

http://www.policeone.com/active-shooter/articles/1283033-Revisiting-Va-Tech-8-minutes-after-911-call-a-rescue-from-madness/

No, this could never happen anywhere else.

Yes, but regular fingerprints are actually very good. That's why it's called "DNA fingerprints" and not "DNA shoeprints" or "DNA ballistics evidence".

Brandon Mayfield might disagree. Had he not been able to prove beyond a shadow of doubt (as in hundreds of eyewitnesses) that he was in Portland, Oregon when the FBI said he was killing people in Spain, he would have been in a peck of trouble.

Note the closing sentence of the following story: "an FBI fingerprint examiner told an expert hired by Mayfield the original print no longer exists".

Fancy that.

http://www.policeone.com/investigations/articles/88280-Newspaper-Faults-FBI-Examiner-in-Madrid-Bombing-Fingerprint-Case/

Note that it doesn't really matter whether the actual fingerprints were a perfect match or not. What matters is that the FBI lab said they were.

Costs a bit more but better quality and they will demo the light, not just the heat.
http://www.policeone.com/police-products/duty-gear/flashlights/press-releases/1357781/

Man, I wish it worked that way. But the US Supreme Court apparently thinks differently.

It sounds like the crystal itself is getting overwhelmed and doing the cancelling. This is a problem with some of the smaller microphones that are IMHO crap. It's also used as a feature on noise cancelling hearing protectors as it cuts way down on needed electronics. Police headsets

And, if you plan on using a firearm, you'll definitely want to be wearing one of these (I gave my wife a set along with her other birthday present), 'cause you don't want to spoil those ears for all that good iPod listenin' just 'cause you deliverd the old double tap to some fool.

Ironic that it was an Englishman who said that "There are lies, damned lies and statistics".

Last year, according to the US law enforcement website, PoliceOne.com, there were nearly 150 federal, state and local law officers killed in the US. (Incidentally, 60,000 officers were assaulted, and 20,000 suffered injuries as a result.)

The exact number of officers that were murdered isn't given, but it's at least 56 (52 were shot to death; two suffered fatal beatings; one was stabbed to death; one was strangled). How many of the other deaths were murders isn't clear and I won't begin to speculate how many of those who were struck and killed by vehicles were hit accidentally or intentionally, etc.

The source also states that there have been 54 consecutive years in which more than 100 law enforcement officers have been killed in the performance of duty, and that more than 1,600 officers have died in the last 10 years alone.

(By the way, that 100+ deaths per year for 54 years completely contradicts your quick googling. Either your source is wrong or the PoliceOne.com website is wrong. Somehow, I don't think that it's the PoliceOne.com that's in error.)

Now let's compare that data to that of the source you quoted, a BBC News story from early 2003.

In 30 years, 70 British officers were killed in the line of duty, 14 of them in the year that you mention, 2002. However, as the story doesn't provide a breakdown, it's impossible to say how many of those deaths were accidental and how many were considered murders. Also, in the context of 30 years' worth of data, 14 deaths in one year seems like a statistical anomaly; after all, this is a fifth of all the deaths for the 30 year period.

So, for the 30 years up to and including 2002, 70 policemen died in the UK, and during that same period at least 3,000 died in the US (of course, that figure is the lowest possible number: remember, at least 100 US police officers died every year for the last 54 years).

And for last year, 2003, at least 56 US police officers were murdered. I'm not sure what the UK figure was (and I have looked for it) but I will bet you my life savings and all my worldly possessions that it's in single figures, probably even less than five.

Doesn't look too good for your argument now, does it?

The lesson here? Next time you call bullshit, at least have some proper data to back up your claim.