champu

It would be an interesting exercise to parameterize how the situation escalated in each of the shootings in that spreadsheet. Or maybe just pontificate here on how one might approach that... Note that this would be different from (perhaps orthogonal to) concluding "justified" or "unjustified." Something like... 1 - Shots had been fired at people by the suspect prior to police arriving 2 - ... 3 - ... 4 - ... 5 - Police initiated contact on suspicion of a crime only and with no particular reason to suspect the suspect was armed

He's rambling and he's an nit-wit but she he's talking about beating the shut out if anyone that does behaves in a way he doesn't like but couches it in the vague, deniable phrase of 'taking into the woods' isn't well meaning and isn't honest, that's being a thug and a bully. After getting a couple critiques for having written this I read the article again and I see where you and Don are coming from (e.g. he joined the Army and his go-to example of coming together as a team is being in bar fights together.) To me, though, he still comes across as more of tool than a thug or a bully, just kinda spinning his wheels in a bog of bravado. I have in the past, however, expressed my disapproval of the kind of people with whom you could reach a moderate agreement in conversation and yet they'd go off and vote a straight ticket on social issues. So in that sense I concede that "well-meaning" may have been too generous, as he very much strikes me as such a person. Also, for someone who claims as much manliness as he does, he uses the word "metrosexual" too frequently.

We've just circled back around to this post. (or one nearby it) I blame a combination of political face-saving and aversion to litigation. It's apparently quite difficult to divorce the idea of an officer or a department being at fault and subject to prosecution and/or lawsuits and the idea that maybe the policies and procedures that were held up against the officers' actions when determining the shooting was justified need some reviewing themselves. As you point out, to continually go back to the moment of the shooting and say "cops are human..." and "you don't know what making split second decisions is like" is to completely miss the point. If (yes... in hindsight) a situation would have almost certainly resolved itself better had the cops just completely ignored the call and just gone and done something else that day* then to not review the encounter with an extremely critical eye towards procedures is to discourage people from calling the police. (* thinking of this kid, the kid with the replica AK, wallet guy in the gas station, the baseball player's son in Texas, the guy rummaging in the back seat of his car, the guy in the stairwell, the teenager who locked himself in the bathroom with scissors, and the deaf guy moving boxes out of his friend's house as specific examples)

[rant]This I have a harder time with. The author strikes me as a narcissist who wraps himself in the cloak of his religion in order to denigrate the capabilities, ambitions, and accomplishments of anyone who doesn't happen to have a pair of testicles. Perhaps I am overly sensitive to this malignant world view because I happen to live in the "buckle" of the "bible belt" and encounter it too often. I see not the ramblings of an honest nit-wit, but the ravings of a person who would impose their religion on all Americans (the "founding fathers/King James Bible crapola) but also use that to put themselves and their intellectually inbred kin in charge. The "well-meaning" part was to say I'm sure things are going fine for him, he sees things like a perceived decline of personal accountability and sense of duty amongst men, and he honestly thinks it should be turned around for the betterment of society. The "rambling nit-wit" is because the piece is littered with anecdotes of his own upbringing and life and he doesn't really show the critical thinking skills to seperate wheat from chaff.

I change the oil in my car myself but I buy LED light bulbs. I own both firearms and seperate soap for my face. I drink my coffee black and ride a bicycle to work. My wife cooks and cleans, I take the trash out and fix things when they break, and yet I have no trouble voting for pro-choice and women candidates for public offices.

The author strikes me as a well-meaning, honest, rambling nit-wit. Speaking up when people you know are being idiots and having a sense of personal responsibility for supporting your family and friends is great. Thinking you can only get there by having your face shoved in the mud as a kid, joining the Army, and having a pastor scare you straight every week is foolish. It's okay to talk about behaviors you'd like to see more of, but you need to spend more time talking about positive results of those behaviors and why you think those things will emerge rather than about why an ancient book demands them or how to whip people into conforming to them.

This becomes a problem as the number of things "you don't have to do if you don't like it" grows. It becomes pretty easy to boil frogs that way. The sum total of politicians will collectively argue that there is a public interest in regulating and permitting just about everything you can imagine doing outside of your property (and some things you do on your property) and if allowed to attach what would otherwise be violations of 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, or 14th amendments to all that permitting and regulating, then you'll wind up hollowing out those amendments. As Andy mentioned, court decisions over the last few decades have enabled that, and you see more and more regulations copy and paste phrases and clauses from court decisions right into the text of the law. Kind of like how the federal government stamps "blah blah blah ... interstate commerce" on things to say, "we totally swear this is constitutional... scout's honor..."

The Cold War has my vote as well. For a more abstract answer... I think what has had the most influence on US culture is the number of poll options.

there is no connection as most are not idiots But half of all Americans have IQ < 100. Somehow I don't think Ms. Sabine was using "idiot" to mean "IQ < X, where X varies depending on whether you're using the historic or modern definition of IQ calculation." I'd actually feel safer around an idiot that has basic firearms safety training than around politicians (who are generally not idiots) that like to hold up firearms when they talk about laws that someone else wrote for them.

I think it's interesting to consider that the courts have ruled that police investigators don't have any obligation to effectively collect nor preserve any particular piece of evidence, particularly exculpatory evidence, so long as there wasn't a bad faith action, yet at the same time these investigators enjoy exclusive physical access to the immediate crime scene and much of the evidence gathered from it. The latter bit driven, admittey, by fairly strict chain of custody requirements for inculpatory evidence. So long as DAs are motivated by getting convictions and police investigators share a sense of team with those DAs, it's going to simply really suck to get indicted for something you didn't do.

"Citizen's Academy" was intended to be a ridiculous concept. It's a place where everyone besides police would have to go to learn each and every thing LEOs are taught to watch for in terms of actions and body language when determining ill intent, thereby allowing them to avoid doing all those things. It makes no sense to claim that all the things you shouldn't do are "common sense" (a lazy term term I don't care for regardless) because if that were the case then police wouldn't require any training on when to draw their weapon or when to fire it, it would also be "common sense" right? Compliance is great, but if you think police are on edge because everyone they talk to might have a weapon then how do you think many people are starting to feel knowing that every LEO that talks to them does have a weapon... and is on edge. Compliance is non-trivial if you've got the stress of someone pointing a gun at you and said LEO doesn't ask for what he or she actually wants. Consider the two scenarios... "Get your hands above your head! Let me see your driver's license!" "Get your hands above your head! Where is your driver's license?"

I'll put it this way... she was old enough to vote in this photo from the '80s.

According to the grand jury who matched the pysical evidense with testimony The grand jury that convened over potential charges against Wilson delivered absolutely no conclusions, statements, nor remarks that could be considered findings of guilt, non-guilt, nor innocence of Brown. It can not be stated in less uncertain terms. The grand jury did not convene for that purpose and thus it is fundamentally impossible for them to have achieved that purpose.

According to what court? If the grand jury / DA deciding not to bring charges against Wilson means that he was innocent, then what does it mean that no grand jury ever convened over accusations of shoplifting and assault against Brown? The problem here is you're jumping back and forth between "the truth of what happened" which is often an elusive thing, and everyone's going to have their own version with details filled in by their imagination and "court proceedings" which are clear cut in terms of what they determine and what they do NOT determine. And get out of here with this "liberals and the seriousness of the charge" thing... are you really going to pretend that "indicted on the front page and acquitted on page six" isn't just a crappy thing humans do?

See Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/82d_Aerial_Targets_Squadron

I neither advocate nor am saying there's anything wrong with this... https://www.google.com/search?q=ar+unicorn+paint+job&tbm=isch

Given where the courier was located and the people I would imagine he was communicating with, I'm skeptical that any individual provisions of the PATRIOT act were as instrumental to that operation as you are claiming; never mind using that operation to justify the act as a whole.

That's not just a Louisiana thing? yay! hahaha

Do you have any other USB ports on your computer besides the ones near your on-board sound card outputs (e.g. on the front of the computer?) If so, try connecting to those. Also, make sure the audio cable to the speakers (I'm assuming it's just an analog cable with 3.5 mm plugs on each end) and your mouse cable aren't wrapped together / sharing a long parallel run together. /edited to add: if your speakers are also usb try, again, plugging your mouse into ports somewhere else on the computer if you have them, that may connect them to a different USB controller which may help.

It shows a lack of back bone and a lack of decision making ability. We need people who rely on truthiness and make a decision and stick with it. Regardless of wether it is right or wrong. That simply doesn't matter. I agree, there's nothing wrong with discussion. (...he said... obviously... to an internet forum...) But when politicians and pundits get on television they want to have "conversations" about the same as used car salespeople want to have a "conversation" with you when you walk onto the lot, or a Jehovah's witness wants to have a "conversation" with you when they ring your doorbell. It's very inviting language, but you shouldn't take it at face value from "lefties" any more than "righties."

Well, first the prosecutor would have needed to have a desire to indict him and present evidence accordingly. Agreeing or disagreeing with the outcome aside, from what I've read the proceedings were unorthodox for a grand jury.

Not exactly... that should read... "Man is found by 12 people not to have had enough evidence presented against him by the DA as to warrant a trial to determine if he had done his job illegally"

I agree, attached photo is from a couple years ago when I was there. (from a cell phone, but I think it gets the point across.)

Carrying a gun around without training is, indeed, a bad idea. Personally, I think open carrying as a civilian/non-LEO or disregarding how fast you can do a 100 m dash just because you have a gun are bad ideas too. As far as training goes, I don't know how extensive the weapon-retention training LEOs have to go through is, but with their job involving hands on suspects, I think they'd generally be at greater risk of having their own gun turned on them. A good CCW course should cover the topic on at least a basic level, if nowhere else during the discussion of when not to pull your gun out. All laws I'm familiar with regarding safety features and "personalization" requirements for firearms, both enacted and proposed, whose proponents claim would prevent incidents like the one linked, exempt all law enforcement.

I suppose this is a risk you take when you bump threads to post an update to the topic...