And, as usual, when you point a finger at others, at least three others are pointed at yourself. How many people have you encountered who can shrug off a tazer? How many have you met who could simply walk through a cloud of the pepper spray issued to LEOs? (ETA, I bet $100 that I could knock Anderson Silva on his a$$ with a tazer) The answer is somewhere between few and none. Lethal force should be the LAST option, not the first. ETA: The previous sentence is the case with unarmed persons. Armed individuals are a different story, as are people doing stupid **** like trying to grab an LEO's firearm. No, you're not. You're too tied up in your job to be a reasonable voice.
Just take their guns away and get the same effect. All cops don't need guns. Just look at the PCSO in the UK.
Pepper spray doesn't cloud when used from a personal can. That is from grenades used for crowd control. Pepper spray is ONLY effective if it hits the eyes which is a hard target to make. Also it often hurts the user, from spray back, when in a close fight. Tasers can be used anywhere on the body but because they are so expensive per shot (hundreds of dollars) and inaccurate, AND limited to one shot they are not effective in one on one self defense situations.
678 in 2010, according to the FBI. How far does a taser work from? How close to a person do you have to be for it to be effective? When talking about THIS (Brown) case, I don't think a taser or pepper spray is appropriate. A man punching an officer, reaching for his gun, firing that gun in a struggle, then bum rushing an officer, is a clear threat. How does anyone see otherwise? It's so simple for people to sit back at their desk and demand that cops risk themselves even more. We should look at cases like this, see the evidence (the physical evidence, not the BS spewed by the media/protests/lying witnesses who claim things that are impossible given the forensic evidence), and support the cops -- send a message to our troubled youth that we don't support their stupid behavior and it's going to get them killed. Instead, we pick cases like this, and cry foul -- even when the kid was clearly at fault -- and it gives our troubled youth even more support for their reckless behavior. This is why race baiting is so ignorant. There are real cases of racism by police, but the media, and political leaders use these situations as fundraising scenarios. Something to get behind, to show your "with" the people. Eric Garner, you have a case, but it too doesn't appear to be at ALL racially motivated. There was a black cop ON THE SCENE WHEN IT HAPPENED. It was a poor decision by the officer, and he SHOULD have been punished, IMO. But was it race motivated? What proof do you have it was? None? Exactly. Proof that the system is racist? None. Showing that more blacks are prosecuted doesn't prove anything. Correlation is not causation. I would like to see someone try and prove that the system is singling out blacks. When do people become responsible for their own actions?
Honestly, cops in America do need guns. There are north of 300 million guns in this country and nearly any yahoo is capable of acquiring one. Short of an effort like Australia put forth back in the '90s, cops in the US need the guns to protect themselves.
Meter maids often get in arguments when they dish out tickets, why don't they need guns? Why does a cop doing a report on a vehicle accident need a gun. Why does a cop telling someone to get off the street need a gun? Dash cam him and pick him up later if he hits your car.
Meter maids do one thing. They issue parking tickets. Officers respond to anything from a car accident to mass murders/hostage situations -- do you want them to check out their weapons when they leave the station and then return if they are called to a dangerous situation? Leave the gun in the car and approach people AFTER they're attacked/assaulted? The point is, you don't KNOW who/what you're going to encounter each day. These men and women are legitimately putting their lives on the line. Some of them go overboard and abuse their power -- guess what? They're human. Humans are flawed, and there will always be a few evil rats in each pack. We should focus on making sure those people don't BECOME cops, not limiting the safety options for the majority of good cops.
I said before I want something similar to the PCSO. Traffic accident, enforcement, etc send a PCSO. Cops are human and flawed so remove ability to kill people where you can. To say all cops need a gun is really silly. Most of their job is doing paper work.
So what about cops who make stops at night on deserted roads? Should they just walk up all willy nilly and expect compliance? Should they come out with their gun unbuckled from the holster? No, i don't think anyone believes that, but why shouldn't they have the same protection any citizen has? We are allowed to carry, yet now we are trying to restrict the rights of officers to carry because a few bad apples shot too soon? In reality, we are talking about this because of 2 high profile cases. One of which appears to be completely justified. The other (the twelve year old) is a little harder to tell, considering the kid has a realistic looking gun -- still the officer probably shot too quickly. The Garner case didn't involve a gun at all and he still died. There is no way in hell I would join the police force if they tried to tell me I couldn't carry a weapon. You don't ever know who you're going to encounter, whether it be a traffic stop or a cat in a tree (although that's the fire department's business )
I'll just assume you didn't pull that number out of your a$$, even though you could have linked to it and chose not to... However, if we use the number I was able to find, about 13,500 murders were committed in 2013, so that 678 number represents 5% of the total murders. This is a tenth of a percent of aggravated assaults, which proves my point, it isn't anywhere near as easy to kill someone with your bare hands as you seem to assume. http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/uc...16/table_16_rate_by_population_group_2013.xls 15 feet, according to the manufacturer... http://www.defenseproducts101.com/tasers_introduction/taser_questions.html I completely agree, assuming Wilson is telling the truth 100%. I'm pretty sure they're aware of this, which is a large part of the reason they avoid the cops at all costs, even when they are in a situation where calling the cops should be the first thing on their minds. Sadly, the police have failed many of our communities. It used to be "to protect and serve," but far too many these days see the police as punitive officers rather than peace officers. This isn't entirely the communities' fault. In THIS case, the kid was at fault. In others, that isn't the case. You seem to be parroting a narrative here, I wonder where you heard it. When your standard of "proof" is as high as yours seems to be, you are correct that it isn't possible. At least, not to you. To many others, the dramatically higher arrest and incarceration rates of minorities shows at the very least some problems, but to you, the amount of proof that the statistics and numbers show is "none." People are responsible for their actions. Sadly, black people seem to be responsible for their actions along with the actions of every other black person who has ever walked the planet.
It seems unlikely that someone would escalate an argument over a ticket to the point that they pull out a gun on the meter maid. Because, in America, there is no telling which of the people involved in the accident or walking in the street has a gun. As long as we allow nearly unfettered access to guns in this country, the police will have to have them as well.
Bull**** and bull****. http://www.mace.com/mace-pepper-spray-gel/mace-brand-families/pepper-gun.html I'd much rather the cop used hundreds of dollars worth of taser rather than a single $0.20 bullet that also takes a life.
Just as likely as giving them a speeding ticket or telling them to get off the street. I disagree. I don't think most cops need guns. Some cops do. I also don't think postal workers need guns. This is a problem much deeper than racism. Cops think they are deployed military.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/uc...able_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2008-2012.xls Sorry, I searched "deaths by fists" and just grabbed it from the first article that appeared -- that's the link which is the same as yours but a year prior. Just because it doesn't happen as often, doesn't mean it isn't "easy." Is this officer supposed to assume he won't be one of those statistics? Is he supposed to just hope and pray he only gets his ass beat? People don't think it is fair to take Mike Brown's size into consideration, how ridiculous is that? The police officer can't help his size, he was the responding officer, he has a duty to stop crimes and criminals. If a man is holding a knife and is 20 feet away, he isn't as dangerous as a man with a gun 5 feet away. But when a man is 300 pounds, twice your size, is fighting for your gun, and then bum rushes you, he is a clear threat. I still don't see how anyone can dispute this. It's really not even about the fact that he COULD have beat up the cop, it's the fact that he already tried, AND fought for his gun. Perhaps if he had just hit the cop, then MAYBE you could say he wasn't a threat, but this huge man (oh apparently that's racist to point out according to some posters) DID fight for the cops gun, so you add his size, the fact that he had just robbed a store, the fact that he had just assaulted the police officer, and the fact that he fought for the gun and it's very clear this officer had two choices, do the sure thing and stop this guy, or HOPE he goes easy on him when he pummels his ass. I've heard they aren't that effective and difficult to fire on target, but I have very little knowledge of these devices and effectiveness. It's not Wilson, it's the evidence. The physical evidence. That's why I noted that Wilson claimed Brown said he was going to shoot him with the gun -- as that can't be proven by forensics. And it's not entirely the police's fault. When people refuse to assist them, and they are put in an extreme amount of danger by going into some of these communities, they're going to be weary about their presence there in the future. Again, this is equally the fault of the community. Exactly. So pick out cases that fit your narrative, don't change the goal posts once it's proven to reflect the opposite of your intended narrative. I didn't hear it. I notice it. What was the first case that made these protests blow up? Once it was proven to be all wrong, did any of them revise their statements? No. They continued to bring race into the equation, despite there being ZERO evidence of such -- they didn't start pointing to other cases, they continued to fight for "justice for Mike Brown." There is no proof in the statistics to prove what you are suggesting. It's interpreted. Apparently it's acceptable to have a low standard of proof, so long as it fits your narrative. Huh? Who is saying blacks are responsible for other blacks? And why doesn't that apply to officers? Let's pretend one of these incidents was solely motivated by race --- why does that then lead you to believe there is a widespread issue of discrimination in police?
Which is within the 21 feet as described in the Tueller Drill. Unlike a bullet which only loses precision from in that distance from the radius cone (wind, slower velocity, and angular momentum don't have a major role within 25 meters) a taser is dragging wire. The further range, the more wire, the less accurate. Also as noted unlike a handgun where one might shoot thousands of practice rounds a cop is lucky to get one shot of practice on a taser. They aren't gun replacements.
You are so blinded by your racial agenda that it renders you dumb. Forget Michael Brown for a moment. Random white nazi wannabe, random white dude that has trained MMA, random white dude that works out, random white dude that has learned anything about where to hit people... One of those random white guys gets into a confrontation with a cop. He is unarmed. The cop is trying to deescalate the situation. Guy loses his mind. Cop pulls out pepper spray, dude covers his eyes and lands a blow to the side of cops head. Game over.
In this scenario, the cop's feet are bolted to the floor and the world is a turn-based rpg where the white dude gets multiple turns in a row.
No, it wasn't. There are pepper spray guns that shoot from a reasonable distance and cloud effectively, I linked to one such option. Saying that a taser isn't effective as a personal defense option is just plain bullsh!t. That kind of situation is the primary use case for a taser.
With the example of a speeding ticket, there is no telling whether the person being pulled over is armed and/or a fugitive. Since, in most traffic stops, an identity check will be made, such a person might very well represent a threat to the cop. If we were to drastically reduce the number of guns possessed by the general populace, I would agree with this statement. Unfortunately, the comparison you draw is with the UK, where gun ownership is a very different proposition from here in the US. This I agree with. The police have been militarized to the point that they have ceased to be "peace officers."
