I dare, nay, double dare you to fit Hubble into a Soyuz capsule:
Why would you want to?
Launch cargo(like satellites) on cargo rockets. Life people in capsules designed for people.
As others have pointed out, there are a number of rockets capable of lifting a similar payload as the shuttle - for half the launch cost of the shuttle.
I've seen figures of $500 million for a shuttle launch, $50M for a soyuz(including the capsule), $250 for the Delta IV.
That means we can duplicate the shuttle for about three launches - 2 soyuz(a shuttle can hold more people) $100M total, and a Delta IV for $250M. This totals $350M, leaving me 150M off the launch costs alone to use for other purposes. Like building a space station that's actually useful.
For rather less than the cost of a shuttle, you should be able to design a 'soyuz/apollo heavy' capable of lifting the same number of people as the shuttle.
And this is the heart of the problem. The NYPD has, basically, the same rules of engagement that the military is using in Baghdad, as if NYC was a war zone.
You have a better chance of being murdered as a citizen of Washington DC than a soldier has of being killed in combat in Iraq.
Crime rates were higher back then as well. Also as a result of this case, NYC changed it's operating procedures.
You think that is justified. I don't.
I don't think that it's justified, just understandable. Police go above and beyond every single day. Sometimes some of them stumble. That doesn't mean that there shouldn't be consequences when they mess up, but we do need to look at the situation and what the officers could reasonably know at the time - remember, they have less than a second to react, while the investigators can take weeks, months or even years to second guess them.
Most well trained police wouldn't have shot just because the suspect has a gun(or at least what the police think are a gun), they'll wait until the suspect presents them with the suspicion that he's going to use it, or will have it in the position to use it to cause harm. IE going to point it at somebody. Meanwhile they'll be yelling 'drop the gun'.
Sure - aquit the police officers who did the shooting. Fine them, demote them, fire them, send them back to the academy for supplimental training, transfer to permanent desk job. Something. Meanwhile send the whole department back to usage of force training.
If I remember correctly, there are things like waiting periods that have been proved to reduce crimes of passion with guns.
That's the thing though. Waiting periods had no statistical benefits - they didn't prevent any crimes. Or they may have only delayed them a bit.
Actually, there's some anecdotal evidence that it cost lives - Women who were in the waiting period, with a restraining order out against a known threat, the police not guarding them because it hadn't been determined that the threat was high enough. Murdered by their violent husband, boyfriend, whatever.
blatantly biased reference Waiting periods extend a potential victim's "period of vulnerability," sometimes with tragic consequences. For example, in 1991 Wisconsin resident Bonnie Elmasri, seeking to purchase a firearm for protection from a husband who had repeatedly threatened to kill her, was told she would have to wait 48 hours to obtain the weapon. Unfortunately, 48 hours was too long to wait; the abusive husband killed Bonnie and her two children the next day.[iii]
We also ought to psyche-test people for firearms ownership, get them all certified in gun etiquette, et cetera. You should be sane & clean; know how to operate, maintain and use a gun properly; and know all the relevant regulations before you can own a gun.
Hearkens back to the old literacy tests to vote; You know, the ones nobody could pass? Psyche tests can disqualify anybody - it'd be absurdly easy to turn it into a catch-22 situation.* Besides - it's already illegal for people who have been committed to own or possess firearms. That's at least a high enough standard that the average joe can't be disqualified.
As for the safety part - I'd have gun safety taught in schools again. Start with the eddie eagle type 'don't touch, tell an adult' stuff in elementary, graduate to shooting BB guns in jr high, and rimfires (maybe centerfires) in HS.
Tracking weapons after they leave factories might be interesting (a certain variety of gun has become very popular with thugs in Cleveland, but many collectors don't like it,) though likely wouldn't prove that effective.
Bingo.
*You want a gun? Wanting a gun is a syndrome, so you're crazy, so no gun
Quite correct. Most tactical body armor will *not* protect against common civilian-owned weapons such as the M1 Garand or Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) and their civilian variants which are commonly chambered for the Springfield 30-06 round.
I'm afraid that I'd have to disagree with some of this - while I own a M1 Garand, it IS a battle rifle, and civilian 30-06 rifles far outnumber it. Many of them are bolt action. The BAR, while fairly common with the machine gun crowd, is still a machine gun - placing it in the realm of only people capable of spending more than $10k on a single weapon.
I usually use a different caliber in my examples - the humble 30-30, the most common deer hunting cartridge for at least a century. It's most commonly chambered in lever action rifles. And even with soft lead round noses it will cut through any soft body armor like a hot knife through butter.
Other common calibers -.308, 7mm, 8mm, various magnum rounds will all, even with non-'AP', non FMJ hunting ammunition will ruin the day of any but the most heavily armored man in a rather serious way even if it hits and is stopped by the trauma plate.
Bring out some of the hotter hunting ammunition - such as the.45-70* or my.300 weatherby magnum would do even worse - the.45-70 fires a round better than 10 times the weight of many common 'assault rifle' cartridges, while my weatherby fires a round ~50% faster than common military cartridges. That's a lot of energy(it's brutal on my shoulder).
Nothing makes a tactical team member sweat more than learning that the target(s) is/are armed with these type weapons, especially if it's also learned he/they have military (especially Marine Corp.) training.
The old hunter hiding out in the woods does it as well. Frequently situations like this result in the cops entering 'siege' mode where they wait and try to talk the guy out. They can't just sniper him(he knows about cover and concealment), odds are decent he has a gas mask, especially it he was intending trouble, so their gas grenades are no good, and he's armed with weapons that are substantially more powerful and lethal.
Sure, they can take him out - but he's almost sure to take at least one of them with him, more likely two or three. Their goal is to go home alive - all of them. It's not worth the risk if he's forted up - he's not going anywhere. Especially if he doesn't have any hostages, it's just not worth it.
Armor still gives them a hefty advantage, but there's plenty of area not covered by it - such as the arms, legs, and face. They can still take a fatal injury with a single shot.
So their goal is no shooting, but the fallback is to be the first if there is going to be shooting - they're on a hair trigger.
It gets more interesting if the occupants have rifles - then only trauma plates will save them, if they're lucky.
Yeah, people don't seem to realize that SWAT was created specifically for dealing with likely or already occurring firefights, particularly those in which regular police forces are likely to be out-gunned. In fact several departments started their SWAT programs after their revolver-and-shotgun-toting regular police got in prolonged shootouts with men with fully automatic rifles.
Bingo.
It's a testament to their skill and training that nobody was hurt. As far as I'm concerned they did everything right. The hacker, though, should have the book thrown at him, and the department needs to work seriously with the telephone companies to address this issue.
Agree, 100%. It still doesn't change my position that being anywhere near a SWAT raid is dangerous, because SWAT is dangerous. Justifiably dangerous - used right, trained right, equiped right. It's just that you use them when you expect people to be killed or seriously injured - using SWAT increases the likelyhood of it being the bad guys.
Well, Oleg Volk is from the USSR, and his feelings are quite strong about the matter. I think he's used to propaganda being heavy handed.
The questions are designed to make you think, the results are not stored or used.
Which question do you have a more nuanced answer for? Would it fit in the multiple-choice type system?
A spiffy tag for my beliefs would be 'I believe in criminal control, not gun control'. It's not perfect, but I believe that we would be better off going after criminals - not firearms.
He was running from a bunch of guys in plain clothes wielding guns.
This is a tossup. Having people chasing you with guns is always dangerous. If they aren't police, letting them catch you is highly likely to be fatal. Running away is dangerous regardless. I won't make a call here.
When he realized they were police officers he stopped and tried to produce his ID
Like I said, stupid move. The correct action would have been to keep bare hands in sight and follow their spoken instructions. There are guns that can look like wallets, there are guns that can be fired in holsters shaped like wallets, heck, there are guns disguised as wallets, pens, and cellphones.
I do have concerns about the use of plain clothes police. There's a reason that police and military have distinctive uniforms. This is for identification - there have been multiple police officers killed by other police officers when they attempt to arrest somebody while in plain clothes - and a uniformed police officer shoots and kills him because he's a threatening man with a gun.
Heck, I'm a CCW permit holder, I realize that I could get shot by responding police, so if I have to use my weapon, my goal is to use it as quickly as possible, then get it back into the holster. If I'm forced to use it, I also expect a felony arrest to be made - at least the initial stages(IE taken to ground and handcuffed).
Even if I were to accept the idea that shooting him under these circumstances was justified, doing it 47 times makes it look like an execution, don't you think? Even mafia hit men show more restraint when they kill.
Actually it makes it look like a messed up self defense situation. Execution actually tends to take fewer bullets than combat(self defense) shootings.
Here's a little hint: Mafia hit men tend to be more restrained because they fire because it's not a combat situation for them. There also tend to not be four of them, or if there are, only one is assigned to be the 'shooter'. The target may be restrained.
The shooting you linked to was 4 officers, and a total of 41 rounds fired. That's 10 rounds each, with one extra*. The most common magazine for a.40 caliber semiautomatic pistol* is 10 rounds. It takes ~2 seconds to fire those ten shots.
The thing about police is that once shots are fired they tend to follow along, as they figure if one's opening fire he's doing it for a reason. The yell 'Gun!' works almost as well, especially if the officer yelling it is also opening fire. The second tendency is that they will empty their magazines and assess whether the threat is still existent while reloading.
There have been other circumstances where more than 41 rounds were fired by NYPD, resulting in no injuries to the target. This obviously wasn't one of them.
The city admitted they were wrong - they paid the $3million settlement. The police officers acted as they were trained and taught, that's why they were aquitted.
*IE 3 of the officers insert 10 round magazine, cycle slide to load round. One officer, slightly more 'tactical', either pre-loads a round by hand or pulls magazine and loads a tenth round back into the magazine, resulting in a gun with 11 rounds loaded. *A very common police caliber
Sure, during a routine traffic stop or such they'll ask for ID.
Once it's moved into 'felony arrest' territory they're going to restrain you first, then look for ID themselves. Your hands will be behind your back in cuffs.
I really doubt that, where'd you hear it? I wouldn't be surprised at all if they're asked to swear an oath, but I doubt that it included:
'I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.'
Why is it that the NYPD and US Marines hold joint training sessions in the practice building down at Floyd Bennet Field?
Probably because as a result of the drug war, gangs and such are almost military forces; presenting the police with the same problems?
Room clearing is pretty much the same, whether you're a marine clearing a building overseas or SWAT clearing a drug house.
Up here in ND, I know the Minot Police department, and the Ward county sheriff's office work closely with Minot AFB. The local bomb squads work with the people on base. It makes sense to share training and facilities sometimes.
Now, while I don't necessarily object to the existence of SWAT, I DO object to their usage for every little thing; you had many areas stand up teams where they may only get a truly SWAT worthy task once a year or more, yet said SWAT team costs money continuously. In an attempt to justify the costs they end up using SWAT where normal officers would be better - such as the city who uses SWAT for all their warrants.
In many of these areas they'd probably do better to take some regular officers and give them extra training - pick one of the better shooters to double as a sniper if necessary. Pick a few of the others to learn how to use a MP5, M4, or other assault rifle/submachine gun and advanced building clearing tactics. Those officers get a little extra pay in exchange for being 'on call' for the serious stuff.
Going by the officer's story, he attempted to run, and was reaching for something against their orders.
You don't reach for your wallet when officers are pointing guns at you. Officers aren't interested in your wallet when they're pointing guns at you. You empty your hands and hold them up. You don't move quickly, you follow their instructions to the best of your ability.
Perhaps people just didn't want to overload their servers?
I've done this before. When they released the first C&C as freeware, I initially went to download it from the site. After seeing the download proceed at 1kbps, I found a torrent of it, which gave me ~200kbps.
The 'accident' occurred because proper procedures were either not developed or enforced. Fingers shouldn't be on the trigger until you're ready to fire.
There have been multiple instances where the shooting has been deliberate - catching people half asleep and shooting them because they don't have both hands visible soon enough, or there's a shadow, or something.
Of course if it was anyone other than a cop, they'd be arrested for murder.
Exactly. I tend to hold police to a higher standard, because just like doctors or surgeons, the consequence of a mistake can be death or lifelong disability.
While they might do it, my point was that SWAT are trained to shoot first and ask questions later; much more so than police officers.
Most officers can justify quite a bit of force. I'll note that the officers you pointed to DID go to trial. While they were ultimately acquitted, I'd tend to say that the fact that it went to trial indicates that it was exhaustively investigated.
It varies by department and jurisdiction; there can be huge differences between county and city police in the same area. One city's SWAT might be more restrained than another city's street officers. But, on average, SWAT are much more likely to resort to lethal violence than normal officers.
Sure, this is the sort of thing they use to get drug lords all the time.
After all, once they're that high they tend to stop commiting obvious crimes themselves, as they're too big of a target. While they're out at the golf range some hired thugs are beating/killing some dealers who were caught skimming.
There are states that would view this the same as deaths involved with something like a bank robbery - there are criminals that end up with murder convictions because a police officer or guard kills their partner.
The 'kid' committed a several criminal acts that resulted in death - it might be 2nd degree murder, but it could still carry a murder rap.
"Sure, SWAT is trained not to shoot first and ask questions later, "
I'm afraid that I'd have to disagree with this. At least compared with normal officers, SWAT is indeed trained to shoot first.
This can be considered acceptable if SWAT usage is restricted to high risk situations, where not using these tactics is likely to result in more deaths, but some areas have them serving most of the warrents - even on unarmed, non-violent dentists moonlighting as bookies.
SWAT are paramilitary - just like soldiers in Iraq, they're generally much more primed to 'shoot first and ask questions later'. This, while acceptable in high risk situations like clearing buildings with terrorists in them, hostage situations, and active shooter cases, you don't want them running around in active mode in normal areas/situations.
SWAT has been known to kill people when stuff like this happens.
How many people without broadband internet are going to be purchasing games online through steam*, where all content is downloaded, not installed via disc?
If you don't have home internet, or it's too slow to be usable in downloading patches - that's what removable media and traditional patches would be for.
Now, if you lost your access to the internet for a good period of time, regardless of reason, then you might have a problem. Still - at least for Steam most people have a stable game already. They might not get new content, playing online multiplayer's right out, but they'll be able to play their single player games in their current condition for as long as they like.
*Or equivalent, Stardock comes to mind, though they're definitly second rate compared to valve/steam.
Is this any different then the stats of the dead tree style of spam that appears in my mailbox every day?
Good point. I'd estimate it at ~75% for me, defining SPAM as 'unsolicited commercial package that I'm not interested in'. Near 0% for fraudulent letters, which I got about a half dozen of when I was a teen. Near 90% of the spam caught by my filters is fraudulent and illegal in nature.
At least I can heat my house a bit with the dead tree spam.
I say major fines backed up by labor camps if they can't pay. CIA kidnappings and visits to Gitmo for major out of country spammers. Maybe contract with Russia for one of their old siberian prison camps.
Then again, I might be a tad irrational with my hatred of mass spammers.
Good luck with that. Particularly with the avoiding spam part. If you come up with a foolproof method that actually involves using e-mail... I'm sure you'll be a lot richer than I am.
I have a modest proposal: Hitmen. And Hitwomen. It's simple enough. Everybody using email who are frustrated with spam donates a buck or so a year. The millions of dollars are used to hire teams of investigators who track down those sending spam, then you hire somebody to dispose of them.
This includes programmers that write worms that use email, people who operate illegal botnets* to send out spam, etc...
Not to mention that you should be able to get any computer to understand them - but downconverting them to 128kbps might be desirable to double the effective capacity of your portable music device - I'd guess that the vast majority of the time you're going to be limited to listening situations where you won't notice the compression losses anyways.
Except that the courts generally regard the right to vote as being fairly universal - there is a great reluctance to invalidate votes, hence all the argument over hanging chads
I think that most people will admit that the punch card machines are ultimately flawed(or at least worn out). That doesn't mean that a paper ballot can't be dead simple, with the simple instructions 'Fill in the bubble completely', and 'if you don't darken it at least 50%, it doesn't count.'
Don't go with stupid butterfly ballots either - nice large font, circle by each name. Simple.
Throw them out. If the voter doesn't have enough brains to fill a circle in front of a name then chances are he is too stupid to vote.
After a certain point, I have to agree with this - if they're too stupid or lazy to fill in a bubble, they're probably not paying much attention to who they're voting for. I'd rather have the voting public be informed and interested. IE they've researched the candidates enough to form a preference, other than 'I've been a republican/democrat for all my life, so that's how I'm voting'.
Gets a bit tough with low level positions like dogcatcher - I don't know the guys, there's no party affiliations* or advertising.
Abstaining is perfectly fine - an abstained vote is NOT an ambiguous vote. A computer-generated ballot would allow voters to abstain, and when they do so it would unambiguously generate a ballot that indicated that they did so.
If they bother to set it up this way - not all were. Then you start getting into things like your name can decide the election. Being listed first can be of benefit, as can having a 'good' name - kinda like the apartment discrimination ads - where apartments are suddenly full if you have a 'black' name.
For that matter, not all allow write-ins anymore.
For me, I view it simply - currently touch screen machines are less secure, less reliable, and actually harder to use for many people. Sure, have a few to print out ballets for disabled people who's disabilities make them easier, but paper ballots have an excellent record around the world. Oh, and I'd have the machines act simply as fillers - the machine would simply print the selections on a preprinted ballot form identical to the ones being filled out by hand.
I might reassess that if they did something like designed to Nevada's gaming commission requirements. But that'd be expensive - as is we have far too many corners cut.
Like others have noted, paper's cheap, especially when printed by the box. A box of paper ballots the size or weight of one of these machines can 'take' many more votes during a day. Tables and chairs can usually be had on site.
Slashdot Mirror
I dare, nay, double dare you to fit Hubble into a Soyuz capsule:
Why would you want to?
Launch cargo(like satellites) on cargo rockets. Life people in capsules designed for people.
As others have pointed out, there are a number of rockets capable of lifting a similar payload as the shuttle - for half the launch cost of the shuttle.
I've seen figures of $500 million for a shuttle launch, $50M for a soyuz(including the capsule), $250 for the Delta IV.
That means we can duplicate the shuttle for about three launches - 2 soyuz(a shuttle can hold more people) $100M total, and a Delta IV for $250M. This totals $350M, leaving me 150M off the launch costs alone to use for other purposes. Like building a space station that's actually useful.
For rather less than the cost of a shuttle, you should be able to design a 'soyuz/apollo heavy' capable of lifting the same number of people as the shuttle.
And this is the heart of the problem. The NYPD has, basically, the same rules of engagement that the military is using in Baghdad, as if NYC was a war zone.
You have a better chance of being murdered as a citizen of Washington DC than a soldier has of being killed in combat in Iraq.
Crime rates were higher back then as well. Also as a result of this case, NYC changed it's operating procedures.
You think that is justified. I don't.
I don't think that it's justified, just understandable. Police go above and beyond every single day. Sometimes some of them stumble. That doesn't mean that there shouldn't be consequences when they mess up, but we do need to look at the situation and what the officers could reasonably know at the time - remember, they have less than a second to react, while the investigators can take weeks, months or even years to second guess them.
Most well trained police wouldn't have shot just because the suspect has a gun(or at least what the police think are a gun), they'll wait until the suspect presents them with the suspicion that he's going to use it, or will have it in the position to use it to cause harm. IE going to point it at somebody. Meanwhile they'll be yelling 'drop the gun'.
Sure - aquit the police officers who did the shooting. Fine them, demote them, fire them, send them back to the academy for supplimental training, transfer to permanent desk job. Something. Meanwhile send the whole department back to usage of force training.
If I remember correctly, there are things like waiting periods that have been proved to reduce crimes of passion with guns.
That's the thing though. Waiting periods had no statistical benefits - they didn't prevent any crimes. Or they may have only delayed them a bit.
Actually, there's some anecdotal evidence that it cost lives - Women who were in the waiting period, with a restraining order out against a known threat, the police not guarding them because it hadn't been determined that the threat was high enough. Murdered by their violent husband, boyfriend, whatever.
blatantly biased reference
Waiting periods extend a potential victim's "period of vulnerability," sometimes with tragic consequences. For example, in 1991 Wisconsin resident Bonnie Elmasri, seeking to purchase a firearm for protection from a husband who had repeatedly threatened to kill her, was told she would have to wait 48 hours to obtain the weapon. Unfortunately, 48 hours was too long to wait; the abusive husband killed Bonnie and her two children the next day.[iii]
We also ought to psyche-test people for firearms ownership, get them all certified in gun etiquette, et cetera. You should be sane & clean; know how to operate, maintain and use a gun properly; and know all the relevant regulations before you can own a gun.
Hearkens back to the old literacy tests to vote; You know, the ones nobody could pass? Psyche tests can disqualify anybody - it'd be absurdly easy to turn it into a catch-22 situation.* Besides - it's already illegal for people who have been committed to own or possess firearms. That's at least a high enough standard that the average joe can't be disqualified.
As for the safety part - I'd have gun safety taught in schools again. Start with the eddie eagle type 'don't touch, tell an adult' stuff in elementary, graduate to shooting BB guns in jr high, and rimfires (maybe centerfires) in HS.
Tracking weapons after they leave factories might be interesting (a certain variety of gun has become very popular with thugs in Cleveland, but many collectors don't like it,) though likely wouldn't prove that effective.
Bingo.
*You want a gun? Wanting a gun is a syndrome, so you're crazy, so no gun
Quite correct. Most tactical body armor will *not* protect against common civilian-owned weapons such as the M1 Garand or Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) and their civilian variants which are commonly chambered for the Springfield 30-06 round.
.308, 7mm, 8mm, various magnum rounds will all, even with non-'AP', non FMJ hunting ammunition will ruin the day of any but the most heavily armored man in a rather serious way even if it hits and is stopped by the trauma plate.
.45-70* or my .300 weatherby magnum would do even worse - the .45-70 fires a round better than 10 times the weight of many common 'assault rifle' cartridges, while my weatherby fires a round ~50% faster than common military cartridges. That's a lot of energy(it's brutal on my shoulder).
I'm afraid that I'd have to disagree with some of this - while I own a M1 Garand, it IS a battle rifle, and civilian 30-06 rifles far outnumber it. Many of them are bolt action. The BAR, while fairly common with the machine gun crowd, is still a machine gun - placing it in the realm of only people capable of spending more than $10k on a single weapon.
I usually use a different caliber in my examples - the humble 30-30, the most common deer hunting cartridge for at least a century. It's most commonly chambered in lever action rifles. And even with soft lead round noses it will cut through any soft body armor like a hot knife through butter.
Other common calibers -
Bring out some of the hotter hunting ammunition - such as the
Nothing makes a tactical team member sweat more than learning that the target(s) is/are armed with these type weapons, especially if it's also learned he/they have military (especially Marine Corp.) training.
The old hunter hiding out in the woods does it as well. Frequently situations like this result in the cops entering 'siege' mode where they wait and try to talk the guy out. They can't just sniper him(he knows about cover and concealment), odds are decent he has a gas mask, especially it he was intending trouble, so their gas grenades are no good, and he's armed with weapons that are substantially more powerful and lethal.
Sure, they can take him out - but he's almost sure to take at least one of them with him, more likely two or three. Their goal is to go home alive - all of them. It's not worth the risk if he's forted up - he's not going anywhere. Especially if he doesn't have any hostages, it's just not worth it.
*Old buffalo hunting caliber.
Armor still gives them a hefty advantage, but there's plenty of area not covered by it - such as the arms, legs, and face. They can still take a fatal injury with a single shot.
So their goal is no shooting, but the fallback is to be the first if there is going to be shooting - they're on a hair trigger.
It gets more interesting if the occupants have rifles - then only trauma plates will save them, if they're lucky.
Yeah, people don't seem to realize that SWAT was created specifically for dealing with likely or already occurring firefights, particularly those in which regular police forces are likely to be out-gunned. In fact several departments started their SWAT programs after their revolver-and-shotgun-toting regular police got in prolonged shootouts with men with fully automatic rifles.
Bingo.
It's a testament to their skill and training that nobody was hurt. As far as I'm concerned they did everything right. The hacker, though, should have the book thrown at him, and the department needs to work seriously with the telephone companies to address this issue.
Agree, 100%. It still doesn't change my position that being anywhere near a SWAT raid is dangerous, because SWAT is dangerous. Justifiably dangerous - used right, trained right, equiped right. It's just that you use them when you expect people to be killed or seriously injured - using SWAT increases the likelyhood of it being the bad guys.
Well, Oleg Volk is from the USSR, and his feelings are quite strong about the matter. I think he's used to propaganda being heavy handed.
The questions are designed to make you think, the results are not stored or used.
Which question do you have a more nuanced answer for? Would it fit in the multiple-choice type system?
A spiffy tag for my beliefs would be 'I believe in criminal control, not gun control'. It's not perfect, but I believe that we would be better off going after criminals - not firearms.
He was running from a bunch of guys in plain clothes wielding guns.
.40 caliber semiautomatic pistol* is 10 rounds. It takes ~2 seconds to fire those ten shots.
This is a tossup. Having people chasing you with guns is always dangerous. If they aren't police, letting them catch you is highly likely to be fatal. Running away is dangerous regardless. I won't make a call here.
When he realized they were police officers he stopped and tried to produce his ID
Like I said, stupid move. The correct action would have been to keep bare hands in sight and follow their spoken instructions. There are guns that can look like wallets, there are guns that can be fired in holsters shaped like wallets, heck, there are guns disguised as wallets, pens, and cellphones.
I do have concerns about the use of plain clothes police. There's a reason that police and military have distinctive uniforms. This is for identification - there have been multiple police officers killed by other police officers when they attempt to arrest somebody while in plain clothes - and a uniformed police officer shoots and kills him because he's a threatening man with a gun.
Heck, I'm a CCW permit holder, I realize that I could get shot by responding police, so if I have to use my weapon, my goal is to use it as quickly as possible, then get it back into the holster. If I'm forced to use it, I also expect a felony arrest to be made - at least the initial stages(IE taken to ground and handcuffed).
Even if I were to accept the idea that shooting him under these circumstances was justified, doing it 47 times makes it look like an execution, don't you think? Even mafia hit men show more restraint when they kill.
Actually it makes it look like a messed up self defense situation. Execution actually tends to take fewer bullets than combat(self defense) shootings.
Here's a little hint: Mafia hit men tend to be more restrained because they fire because it's not a combat situation for them. There also tend to not be four of them, or if there are, only one is assigned to be the 'shooter'. The target may be restrained.
The shooting you linked to was 4 officers, and a total of 41 rounds fired. That's 10 rounds each, with one extra*. The most common magazine for a
The thing about police is that once shots are fired they tend to follow along, as they figure if one's opening fire he's doing it for a reason. The yell 'Gun!' works almost as well, especially if the officer yelling it is also opening fire. The second tendency is that they will empty their magazines and assess whether the threat is still existent while reloading.
There have been other circumstances where more than 41 rounds were fired by NYPD, resulting in no injuries to the target. This obviously wasn't one of them.
The city admitted they were wrong - they paid the $3million settlement. The police officers acted as they were trained and taught, that's why they were aquitted.
*IE 3 of the officers insert 10 round magazine, cycle slide to load round. One officer, slightly more 'tactical', either pre-loads a round by hand or pulls magazine and loads a tenth round back into the magazine, resulting in a gun with 11 rounds loaded.
*A very common police caliber
NO, they don't.
Sure, during a routine traffic stop or such they'll ask for ID.
Once it's moved into 'felony arrest' territory they're going to restrain you first, then look for ID themselves. Your hands will be behind your back in cuffs.
sworn in under the same oath
I really doubt that, where'd you hear it? I wouldn't be surprised at all if they're asked to swear an oath, but I doubt that it included:
'I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.'
Why is it that the NYPD and US Marines hold joint training sessions in the practice building down at Floyd Bennet Field?
Probably because as a result of the drug war, gangs and such are almost military forces; presenting the police with the same problems?
Room clearing is pretty much the same, whether you're a marine clearing a building overseas or SWAT clearing a drug house.
Up here in ND, I know the Minot Police department, and the Ward county sheriff's office work closely with Minot AFB. The local bomb squads work with the people on base. It makes sense to share training and facilities sometimes.
Now, while I don't necessarily object to the existence of SWAT, I DO object to their usage for every little thing; you had many areas stand up teams where they may only get a truly SWAT worthy task once a year or more, yet said SWAT team costs money continuously. In an attempt to justify the costs they end up using SWAT where normal officers would be better - such as the city who uses SWAT for all their warrants.
In many of these areas they'd probably do better to take some regular officers and give them extra training - pick one of the better shooters to double as a sniper if necessary. Pick a few of the others to learn how to use a MP5, M4, or other assault rifle/submachine gun and advanced building clearing tactics. Those officers get a little extra pay in exchange for being 'on call' for the serious stuff.
Going by the officer's story, he attempted to run, and was reaching for something against their orders.
You don't reach for your wallet when officers are pointing guns at you. Officers aren't interested in your wallet when they're pointing guns at you. You empty your hands and hold them up. You don't move quickly, you follow their instructions to the best of your ability.
Perhaps people just didn't want to overload their servers?
I've done this before. When they released the first C&C as freeware, I initially went to download it from the site. After seeing the download proceed at 1kbps, I found a torrent of it, which gave me ~200kbps.
The 'accident' occurred because proper procedures were either not developed or enforced. Fingers shouldn't be on the trigger until you're ready to fire.
There have been multiple instances where the shooting has been deliberate - catching people half asleep and shooting them because they don't have both hands visible soon enough, or there's a shadow, or something.
Of course if it was anyone other than a cop, they'd be arrested for murder.
Exactly. I tend to hold police to a higher standard, because just like doctors or surgeons, the consequence of a mistake can be death or lifelong disability.
While they might do it, my point was that SWAT are trained to shoot first and ask questions later; much more so than police officers.
Most officers can justify quite a bit of force. I'll note that the officers you pointed to DID go to trial. While they were ultimately acquitted, I'd tend to say that the fact that it went to trial indicates that it was exhaustively investigated.
It varies by department and jurisdiction; there can be huge differences between county and city police in the same area. One city's SWAT might be more restrained than another city's street officers. But, on average, SWAT are much more likely to resort to lethal violence than normal officers.
Sure, this is the sort of thing they use to get drug lords all the time.
After all, once they're that high they tend to stop commiting obvious crimes themselves, as they're too big of a target. While they're out at the golf range some hired thugs are beating/killing some dealers who were caught skimming.
Depends on the state.
There are states that would view this the same as deaths involved with something like a bank robbery - there are criminals that end up with murder convictions because a police officer or guard kills their partner.
The 'kid' committed a several criminal acts that resulted in death - it might be 2nd degree murder, but it could still carry a murder rap.
It's happened.
"Sure, SWAT is trained not to shoot first and ask questions later, "
I'm afraid that I'd have to disagree with this. At least compared with normal officers, SWAT is indeed trained to shoot first.
This can be considered acceptable if SWAT usage is restricted to high risk situations, where not using these tactics is likely to result in more deaths, but some areas have them serving most of the warrents - even on unarmed, non-violent dentists moonlighting as bookies.
It's a potentially lethal prank.
SWAT are paramilitary - just like soldiers in Iraq, they're generally much more primed to 'shoot first and ask questions later'. This, while acceptable in high risk situations like clearing buildings with terrorists in them, hostage situations, and active shooter cases, you don't want them running around in active mode in normal areas/situations.
SWAT has been known to kill people when stuff like this happens.
How many people without broadband internet are going to be purchasing games online through steam*, where all content is downloaded, not installed via disc?
If you don't have home internet, or it's too slow to be usable in downloading patches - that's what removable media and traditional patches would be for.
Now, if you lost your access to the internet for a good period of time, regardless of reason, then you might have a problem. Still - at least for Steam most people have a stable game already. They might not get new content, playing online multiplayer's right out, but they'll be able to play their single player games in their current condition for as long as they like.
*Or equivalent, Stardock comes to mind, though they're definitly second rate compared to valve/steam.
Is this any different then the stats of the dead tree style of spam that appears in my mailbox every day?
Good point. I'd estimate it at ~75% for me, defining SPAM as 'unsolicited commercial package that I'm not interested in'. Near 0% for fraudulent letters, which I got about a half dozen of when I was a teen. Near 90% of the spam caught by my filters is fraudulent and illegal in nature.
At least I can heat my house a bit with the dead tree spam.
I say major fines backed up by labor camps if they can't pay. CIA kidnappings and visits to Gitmo for major out of country spammers. Maybe contract with Russia for one of their old siberian prison camps.
Then again, I might be a tad irrational with my hatred of mass spammers.
Good luck with that. Particularly with the avoiding spam part. If you come up with a foolproof method that actually involves using e-mail... I'm sure you'll be a lot richer than I am.
I have a modest proposal: Hitmen. And Hitwomen. It's simple enough. Everybody using email who are frustrated with spam donates a buck or so a year. The millions of dollars are used to hire teams of investigators who track down those sending spam, then you hire somebody to dispose of them.
This includes programmers that write worms that use email, people who operate illegal botnets* to send out spam, etc...
Word of the day: Defenestration
Not to mention that you should be able to get any computer to understand them - but downconverting them to 128kbps might be desirable to double the effective capacity of your portable music device - I'd guess that the vast majority of the time you're going to be limited to listening situations where you won't notice the compression losses anyways.
Except that the courts generally regard the right to vote as being fairly universal - there is a great reluctance to invalidate votes, hence all the argument over hanging chads
I think that most people will admit that the punch card machines are ultimately flawed(or at least worn out). That doesn't mean that a paper ballot can't be dead simple, with the simple instructions 'Fill in the bubble completely', and 'if you don't darken it at least 50%, it doesn't count.'
Don't go with stupid butterfly ballots either - nice large font, circle by each name. Simple.
Throw them out. If the voter doesn't have enough brains to fill a circle in front of a name then chances are he is too stupid to vote.
After a certain point, I have to agree with this - if they're too stupid or lazy to fill in a bubble, they're probably not paying much attention to who they're voting for. I'd rather have the voting public be informed and interested. IE they've researched the candidates enough to form a preference, other than 'I've been a republican/democrat for all my life, so that's how I'm voting'.
Gets a bit tough with low level positions like dogcatcher - I don't know the guys, there's no party affiliations* or advertising.
Abstaining is perfectly fine - an abstained vote is NOT an ambiguous vote. A computer-generated ballot would allow voters to abstain, and when they do so it would unambiguously generate a ballot that indicated that they did so.
If they bother to set it up this way - not all were. Then you start getting into things like your name can decide the election. Being listed first can be of benefit, as can having a 'good' name - kinda like the apartment discrimination ads - where apartments are suddenly full if you have a 'black' name.
For that matter, not all allow write-ins anymore.
For me, I view it simply - currently touch screen machines are less secure, less reliable, and actually harder to use for many people. Sure, have a few to print out ballets for disabled people who's disabilities make them easier, but paper ballots have an excellent record around the world. Oh, and I'd have the machines act simply as fillers - the machine would simply print the selections on a preprinted ballot form identical to the ones being filled out by hand.
I might reassess that if they did something like designed to Nevada's gaming commission requirements. But that'd be expensive - as is we have far too many corners cut.
Like others have noted, paper's cheap, especially when printed by the box. A box of paper ballots the size or weight of one of these machines can 'take' many more votes during a day. Tables and chairs can usually be had on site.
*At least in my area.