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When the government fears the people...
Submitted by Jon Henke on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 09:41
We've written about Tea Party protesters needing to focus on local activism. So here's a useful project for the Milwaukee Tea Party protesters. Get Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn fired. After the Wisconsin Attorney General affirmed the 2nd Amendment, pointing out that it is "legal to openly carry a gun", Ed Flynn said I am above the law...
"My message to my troops is if you see anybody carrying a gun on the streets of Milwaukee, we’ll put them on the ground, take the gun away and then decide whether you have a right to carry it,” Flynn said.
Tea Party protesters - and many others besides - ought to insist upon a number of things immediately.
- Milwaukee citizens should demand that Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen uphold the law, immediately having Ed Flynn arrested and charged with intentional violation of the law. Citizens should also insist that charges be filed against any police officer, chief or politician who violates the open carry rights that Van Hollen has recognized (and "following orders" is no excuse). If Van Hollen will not do that, citizens should file a suit against him and/or Wisconsin.
- Milwaukee citizens should file a civil suit against Police Chief Ed Flynn (and perhaps the city, as well) for depriving them of a basic civil liberty (protected under both the Constitution and Wisconsin law.)
- Milwaukee police should openly and vocally refuse Police Chief Ed Flynn's orders - and perhaps file charges against him for ordering them to commit a crime. They might also include Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in that lawsuit, since he supports Flynn's decision to ignore State and Federal law.
- Protesters should find and rally behind a strong candidate to replace Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.
Government would be better if politicians and beauracrats were a lot more worried that they might be prosecuted or sued. Milwaukee protesters can accomplish that.
- Jon Henke's blog
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Comments
Where was the outrage?
If armed citizens were all it took to insure responsible government, then Iraq and Afghanistan, the most heavily armed societies in the world, must also have the most responsible governments.
I guess you can see where the analogy fails.
Some people think that if everyone carried guns, we would all be safer. Because if a criminal pulled out a gun, then a dozen other citizens could pull out theirs, and the situation would immediately be brought under control.
Sure.
(Disclaimer: I am a US Army veteran, I have shot my share of firearms, and I do not care to have my patriotism questioned by people who have never given anything back to their country.)
Because Americans have the Second Amendment right to own firearms, we lead the civilized world in gun deaths. Since 9/11, forty times as many Americans have died at the hands of other Americans as were killed that day by terrorists.
Forty times. 120,000 Americans, killed by other Americans since 9/11. Terrorists are pikers, and we have no reason to expend blood and treasure over 3000 dead Americans as long as we accept greater damage from our own people. These 120,000 dead Americans are as much the "price of freedom" as 3000 on 9/11.
Where was this Constitutional outrage when Mr. Bush was ignoring the First and Fourth Amendments? If the clowns who think an armed march on government will effect a positive change didn't march any time in the last eight years, then they are all talk.
Mr. Henke, HOW OLD ARE YOU? This is high-school writing about a gesture even emptier than a teabag rally. Surely you have a serious subject to attend to. You like guns? Fine. Tell me where you live and I will send a recruiter.
Perhaps you have heard, our people tortured helpless prisoners, and the orders came from the very top echelons of government. Is that somethng you might get upset about?
So local police chiefs will decide what rights citizens have?
Absurd.
I'm no fan of firearms or the NRA, but I will not support any local law enforcement office deciding what is and isn't consttutional.
I have no problem with the guy asking for your license...
but putting the people on the ground seems... absurd.
Count the logical fallacies!
It's interesting that Repack Rider brings his usual nonsense that he uses over at Oliver Willi's blog to another comments section and as I've done over there, it's time to lay the smack down here as well. Repack, does your inability to debate something with even a scintilla of intellectual honesty ever bother you? Your response to Jon's entry is nothing short of a miracle as you use one logical fallacy after another. Let's count:
1. An irrelevant comment about heavily armed countries bringing up Iraq and Afghanistan. Nothing to do with what Jon wrote.
2. Then we get to the "You better not question my patriotism because I served" nonsense. Having your d**k knocked in the dirt because of the drivel you write is not questioning your patriotism so get the hell over it and get over yourself. I don't understand why liberals who served in the armed forces always need to remind people as if they've compensating for something.
3. Irrelevant statistics about gun related deaths. Again, it has nothing to do with what Jon wrote.
4. Another red herring. Introducing President Bush into a discussion about the actions of a Milwaukee police chief. Huh?
5. Oh and then we get to the ad hominem. Repack has nothing thoughtful to say, so he just attacks. This is typical of Repack. SOP for him.
6. More red herrings with an introduction of torture. Again...relevance? Oh I know. "IT'S ABOUT THE HYPOCRISY!!" Of course, even IF Jon is being hypocritical, it doesn't mean he is WRONG. That's something people like Repack cannot understand for whatever reason.
Try again dude.
Doing my part
OMG, it's almost like ethics, culture and the form of government play a part too. This will surely be a shock to people who want to uphold individual rights.
The deterrent effect of guns doesn't require that the situation immediately be brought under control. When criminals are the only ones with guns, the control is pretty much all theirs, which makes things much safer for criminals. When criminals don't know who might have a gun, the risk involved in crime rises considerably.
Your service was supposed to be to the Constitution of the United States, and your nation was founded on a creed of individual liberty. Neither your service in the armed forces at one point in your life nor your familiarity with certain firearms is sufficient to make your every belief or action for the rest of your life patriotic, and we need not have served in the military to have standing to question you.
The Founding Fathers believed that all mankind had a natural right to keep and bear arms. They enumerated that right in the Constitution you swore to protect and defend.
But, rewording your claim, you believe that because our governments often tolerate the exercise of that right, we lead the civilized world in gun deaths (and just to ensure that you're using a meaningful number, let's assume you mean "per capita"). Got any proof of that claim?
Well, most of the deaths on 9/11 occurred within 102 minutes, in which a small number of our enemies luckily had nothing more unconventional than box cutters and four passenger jets to use against us, and 300 million Americans have had almost 2800 days since then to commit homicide. What does it take to get you out of bed to support an overseas operation?
Americans are also free to do lots of other stuff. More Americans die by unintentional falls (or unintentional poisoning, for that matter) than by homicide every year, and more than twice as many die in vehicle accidents. And that's all homicide, not just firearm homicide.
I looked up the stats from the CDC, and if you combine the number of Americans who intentionally kill themselves by suffocation or poison, that's greater than the number of firearm homicides. Boy, that freedom is a real pain. Just imagine, to drop the number of poisoning deaths, we could heavily regulate and ban drugs--oh wait.
Please consider that there might be other reasons besides guns for the murders and suicides accomplished with guns. Otherwise you'll soon find yourself supporting knife bans to prevent the tens of thousands of knife-point muggings in the UK every year, or the 6% of violent crimes in the US perpetrated by people armed with knives (as opposed to the 10% with guns).
You should really look at the things people have written in the past before assuming where they stood during the Bush administration. That way you don't make yourself look like an ordinary incurious fool.
Why, do youth and inexperience bother you?
How old are you, that you've joined in the adolescent chorus of snickering at the word "teabag"? Is the use of police powers to violate people's rights merely a trifling matter? Is upholding the Constitution not a serious subject to you?
Bryan, Bryan, bryan
Guns are an ineffectual deterrent, because they are an OFFENSIVE weapon. That is to say, you need to be
1. Awake and aware
2. Able to locate the agressor
3. Able to free your gun, and take aim before you are shot at yourself.
I can tell you ten ways to disable you, that I would take if everyone was carrying a gun.
Bottom Line: Guns Don't Help Shit.
You want to help? Try carrying around some sound grenades, set to go off if your pulse rate and skin conductance exceeds normal by a few standard deviations.
Of course, you'd have to deal with having blown your own eardrums out too...
Bottom Line: Guns Help
Defensive gun uses are even more common than offensive gun uses, without even counting the general deterrent effect of not knowing who has a gun. You do not necessarily need to land a killing shot to defend yourself -- usually brandishing the gun does the job, occasionally you need to fire, rarely you need to hit, and very rarely do you need to kill.
Sure, if someone successfully sneaks up behind you and puts one in your head without warning, a gun on your hip isn't going to protect you, but then, nothing else is going to protect you either. But most violent crimes are not straight-up hits. They're simple assaults, muggings, burglaries, rapes, escalating crimes of passion, and the like. My guess is, most crimes are committed by people with the bully's mentality -- not seeking a fight, just a victory.
And if you have any warning at all, a gun goes a very long way toward evening the odds of any confrontation -- particularly if you're not physically as strong as your attacker. Plus, I'm sure you can imagine ten ways you might disable a victim, but in the real world, things are often messy -- someone sees you preparing/committing/leaving a crime, or there's a struggle, or a momentary slip-up that exposes you to risk.
And many victims know their attackers -- think about how that changes a person's calculation.
The point here is not that a gun will successfully defend you or your neighbors every time. The point is that it raises the risk for aggressors to do pretty much all types of violent crime and many kinds of property crime, for that matter.
You may have heard gun-rights advocates use the example of "hot burglaries" -- burglaries committed while a home is occupied. Suffice it to say that these dangerous crimes (with obviously much greater potential for violence) are much more common in countries that are disarmed than in countries where burglars don't know if there's a gun in the home. Breaking into an occupied home in a country with guns is a good way to get shot, so they usually wait until they're confident that no one is home.
Guns help.
there are much better ways to defend you and your stuff
than a gun.
I'm not arguing against defense, but against a particular form of defense, which is rather ineffectual.
With the advent of cellphones, the modus operandi of muggers has changed dramatically. You'll find it's much more violent nowadays, more likely to be a strike from behind.
More people get hurt defending themselves with a gun, than they do if they don't have a gun.
You're begging lots of questions with this vague language.
Such as?
Again, name the more effective form of defense.
Evidence of this phenomenon? Are more people hurt than previously?
I've heard variations of this claim from a lot of folks, and none of them ever have evidence that stands up to the slightest scrutiny. They all end up having to amend their previous statements, or make claims that go far beyond the evidence provided.
And even if escalation did result in a greater incidence of victims getting hurt per crime committed, how about the effect on criminals? Gun defenses can deter criminals from future crimes, or stop them from committing crimes by getting the criminal shot and/or locked up.
such as actual defensive weaponry.
I noted one above -- a sonic weapon. Defensive weapons are characterized by their ability to defend things -- they don't require alertness, or the ability to locate your attacker.
"faulty" electrical wiring, traps in general, are more effective than a gun. You have to actually be present for the gun to work, you know -- of course you know!
google's fun! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1739392.stm
That statistic was from my high school debate time, and it was specifically in reference to muggings. stats are easily available from DoJ.
How often do you think you could defend yourself using a gun from an unarmed robbery? I'd say about zilch, because most of them occur with multiple assailants. You ain't shooting all ofthem, particularly when you're outflanked.
Odd definition of defensive weapon
My idea of a defensive weapon is anything that wards off an aggressor's attack by threatening or delivering harm to the aggressor.
I assume that flashbangs and similar devices aren't cleared for civilian purchase. They can cause lasting harm if they go off too close to you. And if anything, they're far more commonly used offensively (right before storming a room) than defensively. They're no better than a gun at stopping the kind of violence in that BBC article.
I've also heard that booby-trapping your property is illegal. And quite dangerous.
And yes, I know you have to be present for a gun to work. That's the presumed explanation for why American burglars are more likely to avoid occupied homes. But in the matter of defending yourself (or your family), you are present and there's nothing quite like a gun for deterrence. In our country, we really have situations like this and this.
I was almost shocked to see that, in your linked BBC article about a girl who is believed to have handed over her phone to the mugger before being shot in the head, without any indication that she tried to struggle, they finish with authorities advising people to just hand over their property and not try to fight back, because their personal safety is worth more than their property.
I try not to use fiction as evidence, but a scene in "Stand By Me" illustrated the operative principle nicely:
Suffice it to say, Ace backs down. Something kinda similar happens in "Wyatt Earp" when Wyatt tells an angry mob that they have the numbers to overpower him, but he can take several of them down with him, and asks who wants to die first. Nobody's willing to make the first move.
Those are both fiction, but they're great lines because they play on an intuitively true aspect of human behavior: ask yourself if criminals, even in groups, tend to be suicidal "heroes", throwing themselves to their deaths so that their buddies can finish a mugging.
And while conditions may favor the assailant(s) in many cases, they won't always preclude self-defense. We know this because defensive gun uses are quite common. Don't assume conditions in every crime that uniformly favor the assailant.
(And by the way, can you point me to where you got the data on resisting victims getting hurt more often, as well as backup for the claim that most unarmed robberies are committed by multiple assailants? I don't know how to search for that, and I'd just as soon get it from someone more familiar with the DoJ site.)
It's a strategic definition -- which makes sense
considering I got it from a master strategist.
America tends to have laws outlawing the Oddest Things. Antipersonnel grenades are illegal, but mortars are not. Dynamite is perfectly legal as well.
It depends on the booby-trap, honestly. No law against raspberry bushes five foot high. Likewise, no law against kudzu or poison ivy. I'd favor the raspberry bushes, as navigating through them is likely to cause a lot of noise -- which is likely to wake you up (thus activating other forms of theft-prevention. hell, just turning on some noise and lights).
Yes, if you're defending your family, you're there. But you're also conscious, which isn't something that you should assume. You also have access to your gun, which has not been removed in the meantime (or stolen. guns are valuable things). This is also not something to assume lightly, unless you are a light sleeper and sleep with the gun under your pillow. 3% of victims of house robberies are able to defend themselves (link cited later, from that googlebook). 40% of houses have a gun. This means that it is fairly unlikey that you will be able to defend yourself, in the case of a house robbery. In the case of a rape, it's probably even less likely, as the robber would probably target one of your kids -- who is rather likely to already be a hostage by the time you are awake.
Yes, in real life you do have goddamn stupid motherfuckers who don't know enough to fucking not get themselves killed defending a poor innocent girl. Am I supposed to be impressed by someone without enough tactical sense to keep their fucking kid out of the gunfight? That's about as fucking impressive as the unarmed man fucking disarming a guy pulling a knife at the fucking amusement park! God damn fucking idiots!
How many times has a criminal thought about mugging you? If you can't answer this with a certainty, assume that you've missed about half, or more than half, of the dangerous people who might mug you. I Certainly Have. And it's those folks who will get the drop on you, and already have their gun pulled. Will you chance them shooting you, in order to defend your property? Seems dumb, doesn't it? This is a hardened idiot, possibly high on PCP -- your gun might only enrage him, particularly if you can't shoot worth shit (ten bonus points if you can name five points likely to disable someone).
Your "big beefy" friend Failed. Yes, he prevented a robbery. But he didn't prevent the robbery from starting, and committed several steps towards it being a problem. He was lucky that neither of the kids had a gun. What he did was change the problem from :"robbing the guy" to "robbery that has gone wrong." That's the general contention that you've got... "robbery that has gone wrong" is a better idea than "tossing him some cash"
Oddly enough, even with a full on ban on guns, criminals would still have guns. Therefore, all you need to do to be safe is to look like a criminal. So it's still possible to defend yourself using the threat of a gun, even if guns are banned.
Re: large packs of teenagers -- The general point is that nobody needs to be a fucking hero. All they need to do is hit the deck, and count on one of their friends to use a blackjack on you (or a punch). Figure that they're already on a hairtrigger, and if they see a hint of a gun, you're likely to be pissing blood for a week. Figure you don't have it drawn, and they're within easy tackling range. Also, bear in mind that shooting one of them could wind you up in prison (remember: they will tell the police that "crazy man drew a gun"...
Perusing the DoJ site (I'll look more as I've got time later), I find it interesting:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus/current/cv0666.pdf
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/wuvc01.txt
seems like an unarmed assailant is more likely to hurt his victim than one using a gun. (we're looking at around 3% chance of getting shot, if you're being robbed by someone with a gun). Which makes sense -- a gun, or even better yet, a knife, makes a potent psychological weapon. Muggers don't want to shoot you -- they want your money, quickly and effectively.
Likewise, most people trying to rob a house are Making A Mistake if they do it when someone's in there (if nothing else, you can call the fucking police on your cell phone, that you keep near your bed). You're better off making some noise, and maybe yelling up "I just called the police, better run", than trying to confront someone. They're just there for some loot, mostly, not to hurt you... But you don't corner a rat.
Okay, so let's look at this: say you've drawn and pointed it at one assailant -- the other guy, behind you, says "drop it or die". Do you shoot?
Here's a better link than the DoJ (looks like they've changed their stats recently, so I can't get what I was wanting:)
http://books.google.com/books?id=3xi31fs1y-oC&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=gun+se...
There are certainly worse ideas than carrying a gun around. Like carrying a knife... that's a skill-fight, and when up against a criminal, you won't be as skilled. (the person carrying a knife around for self-defense should be SHOT for bringing a psyops weapon to a gunfight).
But there are also better things, and to think that "I've got a gun" is the magical "therefore I wont' be mugged" is really falacious.
In order to not be mugged, you need to stop the mugging. This can either be by "nah, he looks intimidating" or it can be by causing a "failed mugging." The first one is far safer, and should be tried at all opportunities, as it's the far safer approach, as it Falls Within the Criminal's Paradigm. The mugger decides not mug many people... he doesn't deal with "failed muggings" very often.
It's my general concern that most people who carry guns around aren't aware of their general danger. This increases the likelihood of them being robbed.
Here's where I got the link on "strongarm tactics":
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/robbery_types.html (the site as a whole isn't bad...)
I'm not finding the resistance thing on the DoJ website, but it seems like general police observation (with attendant biases, of course) backs it up...
http://www.secretsofsurvival.com/survival/armed_robbery.html
Understand that a mugger or a robber has goals... they are about getting money. If you get in the way of those goals, Things Will Happen. These can be good things, or they can be bad things... but they are Far Far less predictable than what the Mugger wants to happen -- which is for you to give up your money, and then let him leave. This is why a policeman will say, 100% of the time, to not try to defend yourself. A mugger is NOT out to get Murder 1. (that nononsenseselfdefense site has an important caveat: do NOT leave the area. moving to a secondary area with the mugger is deadly).
I know someone who has been in urban gunfights. He has repeatedly given up his wallet to muggers... It's just not Worth It.
But some advice... if you want to resist someone who has shown a gun, Assume They Will Use It. Either make it likely that they won't shoot you (eliminate light, otherwise break their eyes) or dive for cover.
I doubt people even think things through, truly. It's fine if you're going to say--
1. I have a gun, and I will use it in the preliminary stages of a mugging to bluff, but I won't use it in a latter stage.
2. I will use a gun against a knife, but only if i've got enough clearance to draw and successfully shoot a charging man.
3. I will attempt to defend myself against some crack addict, who already has his gun drawn, by:
A. attacking via stealth
B. going to see if I can draw before he shoots me.
Can't respond to everything
But I'll try to respond to what I can.
First: please avoid profanity. It doesn't help your case. Along with excessive use of exclamation points, capitalization and multiple question marks, profanity almost always makes the writer look unstable.
Re: the "strategic definition" of a defensive weapon, I think you're mixing up "defense"/"offense" with "passive defense"/"active defense."
Passive defenses, like fixed fortifications, obstacles and booby traps, are not an option for most of us. Not everyone is a landowner, not everyone can afford (or wants) prickly and poisonous bushes, and these passive defenses could all prove dangerous for guests, children and pets in addition to being dangerous for any owner.
A gun is for active defense. It's mobile, fairly simple to use, and can be deployed in a very short period of time even in cramped quarters.
The more people have guns, the greater the risk to most types of criminals. Just as you can't assume you'll always be awake, criminals can't assume their victims will always be asleep. You may not be able to assume that you'll have access to your gun (though you can improve the odds of that with a little thought), but criminals can't assume you don't have access to a gun.
And I'm suspicious of the NCVS, and of the conclusions drawn from the NCVS estimates. The Gun Violence book you cited said,
The authors suggest that being able to do something and doing it are the same. It doesn't account for the probability that the homes being targeted are the ones that don't have guns. It also doesn't question to what extent laws requiring gun safes, keeping weapons dismantled, trigger locks and the like were responsible for lowering the rate of armed home defense.
And you mis-cited the work by saying that only 3% of victims are able to defend themselves.
Again, you're assuming lots of things about the situation. If you have to make a lot of assumptions to construct a situation that makes a gun worthless or a liability, try using your imagination to think of all the situations in which a gun is not worthless. I haven't claimed that a gun on your hip will defend you against all crimes.
Unfortunately, police are often not fast enough to respond to a robbery in progress. (And remember, you have to be conscious to use a phone, too.)
Y'know, open carry makes people look intimidating. Common use of concealed carry makes every potential target a bit more intimidating.
Maybe you're right, maybe you're not. But lots of unarmed people aren't aware of the danger to them either. A person with a gun might become overconfident that he can handle whatever he doesn't see coming, but he might not -- a carried gun may serve as a reminder of why he carries.
I'm not suggesting that everyone start a gunfight rather than make a calculation about personal safety. I would suggest, however, that law-abiding citizens being better armed would make things more risky for criminals. Maybe some of those law-abiding citizens will be the Hero types who escalate a situation that doesn't have to be escalated, but that too makes things more risky for criminals. Crime is less attractive when potential victims are unpredictable and possibly deadly.
Funny, you don't think criminals will heed this advice?
It does very little good to take Rising Tide
seriously because RT makes things up.
And throws in off the wall assertions like that using sound grenades would be better than guns--though noting that they would have to be rigged so that anytime you thought you were in danger they would go off (maybe a near miss in a traffic accident).
And then you and everyone around you (maybe your spouse and kids in the car) would go deaf, but hey what's the problem with courting permanent deafness for your and a whole crowd of people around you whether you really are in danger or not or whether the sound would have any effect in saving you or not.
That's Rising Tide for you.
Responding to the troll
I wrote quite a lot about it - and other things the administration did wrong - at the time. Your abject and embarassed apology is accepted.
Are we being consistent here?
I take it you're in favor of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's use of torture--I'm sorry, enhanced interrogation techniques?
Sure
I would be fine with that.
How about investigating first
and then prosecuting.
I seem to remember reading something about "due process" back in college. You know, get all the facts together first.
Sounds like four redacted memos is more than enough evidence for you.
hell yes! we need the full investigation FIRST.
but I want that done by the Legislature. the Executive Branch has a conflict of interest here...
(do note that now that that has been released, we have multiple whistleblowers who have stepped forward, so it's no longer just the memos. we still have a very incomplete picture, of course)
Police must enforce the laws
If it is legal to openly carry a gun in Wisconsin, then the police must enforce the law and only stop somebody who it no doing so peacefully, or only stop folks who are threatening others.
I think I need to do some research on Mr. Henke's prior posts... I am curious as to his posts about the illegal wiretapping Bush&Co did back when they were evading the FISA court (and the requirements of getting warrants). Did Mr. Henke post that Bush&Co. be fired/removed from office? I hope so..... I'd hate to think he was a hypocrite (at least on this subject) or a tool of Pajamas Media...
Jon used to write at QandO.net
Feel free to check the old archives (we recently moved to WordPress), and actually report back here what you find, with context.
I'll be very disappointed if this was just a drive-by.
Open Carry
The AG of Wisconsin did confirm that and there is speculation it was done to indeed get a backdoor to concealed carry here.
An I still laugh at people who get upset over FISA because unless you were a terrorist, you weren't on the radar.
Now of course, if you speak one syllable bad about the White House, you're getting tracked down and harassed, not to mention if you're a talk show host. Funny how the left turns the cheek now when things they were only fantasizing about under Bush are coming true under their President.
I look forward to the list of links of examples you are going to
I look forward to the list of links of examples you are going to post here to demonstate that this statement is not just something you made up.
The tea parties will save us!
By deliberately restricting their appeal to the "kulaks" [1] and only about taxes (rather than spending, no matter what anyone wants to say), the partiers aren't a force to be reckoned with. And, their only technique for affecting change to date has been standing around on street corners with loopy signs. They don't have the numbers and their leaders don't have the brainpower to get things done, and - aside from lawsuits - I don't think they're going to be effective in this or any other case.
[1] legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2009/02/revolt-of-kulaks-has-begun.html
Then why worry about them?
I would hope I would never waste my time blogging about how insignificant something is.
On the other hand, if you have to spend a lot of time trying to convince everyone that something is insignificant, it would seem to me that in your mind it is . . .significant.
I need to make this easier for people!
I hereby pledge that in the future when discussing that when discussing the tea parties in the future, ll be sure to link my coverage of them as I just did. The top part of that explains my concerns. Read it through a few times and see all the links.
Thanks for making it easier
to see that you are really afraid of the effect that the tea parties may have.
You see, when I am unconcerned about something, I don't discuss it. Human nature, if you get my drift.
If you stand on a street corner and scream "I am not crazy!" People may start to think you are crazy.
I know I'm starting to wonder. :)
Apparently a few times wasn't enough
Clearly, you don't understand my criticism of the parties. I don't know whether you read the linked page or not, but if you did then the next step is for you to find someone else to explain it to you. The bottom line is that I have a far superior way to oppose Obama, and instead of pursuing that a small number of Randroids and Beltway hacks are wasting others' time by encouraging them to engage in ACORN- and Code Pink-style activities. And, while they're wasting their time partying, the Dems are pushing a current amnesty in Congress.
And, on an ironic note, almost all the major leaders of the parties don't care or support amnesties. Those millions of new Democrats will vote to raise taxes on the partiers.
Find a smart friend to explain all of this to you.
If I had to
...patrol a street in the early AM in a bad part of Milwaukee, I think I might want to follow my Police Chief's suggestion. Better safe than sorry.
If I had to
You can tell that the person who wrote this has never lived in Milwaukee, or spent serious time there. That he's never stood on Locust Street witha gun to the back of his head. Cops in Milwaukee have a hard enough time without frivolous lawsuits eating up their resources. It's a fairly small city, but has one of the highest rates of gun deaths. Murders happen on an almost daily basis there, sometimes including police officers. What's good for ivory tower conservatives might not be good for people who actually have to live among the violence, or those tasked with stopping it.
Ah...
I see. The police can only uphold the law by breaking the law.
police can only uphold the law by breaking the law
I thought that had replaced E Plurbis Unum as our national motto.
They way he said it was stupid, but I understand his point. People who get shot at on a daily basis have little tolerance for little men waving around guns to make themselves feel bigger.
Openly wearing a gun in a large urban area is basically an act of provocation, daring someone to start shit with you. We've got enough shooting each other in the streets every day. Open carry laws are a good symbol of what's wrong wiht the republican party today - empty of solid ideas and heavy on feel-good theatre. It doesn't really do anything to deter crime, since the criminals that carry concealed weapons are more likely better armed than your .22. (Maybe if they see you carrying a weapon, they'll just shoot you BEFORE they take you money, and your gun) But it makes scared people feel better about themselves. Instead of working on solutions to the state's sky-high crime rate, they give everyone something meaningless to feel good about.
On the other hand, now we get to be like Minneapolis with tacky signs in front of every building telling you to leave you gun outside.
Drama
Nobody gets shot at on a daily basis. Look at the actual statistics regarding how much more dangerous it is to be a police officer than, say, a construction worker. Today, more officers are killed by accidents (especially automobile/motorcycle) than by attacks of any kind. IIRC, more officers are killed by automobiles and motorcycles (intentionally and accidentally) than guns these days, although that hasn't always been the case.
Back during Prohibition, police were much more likely to be shot. After Prohibition ended, things quickly became much safer for police. Perhaps if we're really concerned about police officers, we should take a lesson from history and end the prohibition of other drugs. I can give you several reasons why this should work, if you're not already aware.
And it makes me furious that you try to cast everyone who wants to carry a gun as a psychological pygmy. Have you even considered that some civilians might genuinely need something to help deter criminals? I bet you'd swallow your words pretty hard if you took a second to think through the implications of preventing women from showing their capacity to defend themselves.
You might be less understanding of the general atmosphere created by the knowledge that many law-abiding civilians are carrying firearms.
It's the exact opposite: it implies that you're willing to defend yourself, and that "starting shit with you" comes with lethal risks.
And what does a "large urban area" have to do with it? Please, explain the principle.
This isn't about feeling good. This is cold calculation with a realistic appraisal of criminals, and it's defending individual liberty. Notice how often you have to assume a special level of malice and ability on the part of criminals to construct situations in which guns are useless to a law-abiding citizen.
Misuse of statistics statistics
Statistically true (just barely), but also irrelevant - what is the ratio of officer deaths per hour of being in their vehicle compared to the ratio of officer deaths per hour of being fired upon?
Ridiculous
"Per hour of being fired upon"? Exactly how is that relevant? If you were even trying for a modicum of fair comparison, you would compare death per hour of dealing with an armed public.
WI-Matt said, "People who get shot at on a daily basis have little tolerance for little men waving around guns to make themselves feel bigger." Police officers, with all due respect to the risks they do take, are not shot at on a daily basis, and in fact, their jobs are not spectacularly dangerous. And of the dangers that officers do face, guns are not the primary danger today. I think that's perfectly relevant to the comments Matt was making.
You are saying that more police officers are killed by cars
Top 10 in terms of fatalities - for the year 2007 the average was 21.8 deaths for 100K officers employed, compared to an average of 3.8 for the nation. (link to PDF). I'd say that is pretty damn dangerous.
You are saying that more police officers are killed by cars and motorcycles than by guns. I am saying that police spend one hell of a lot more time in their cars and motorcycles that they do getting shot at.
Think
First, in that PDF, those are selected dangerous professions, not necessarily the top 10.
I don't think 21.8 out of every 100,000 is spectacularly dangerous, especially for a male-dominated profession. You may disagree, but think about this: if we extrapolate your statistic to a 20-year career, that means a 0.436% chance of death in your whole career - less than 1 in 225. And how many of those are caused by guns?
Again, with all due respect to police officers for this elevated risk, it's not what I'd call spectacularly dangerous, and it calls into question this justification restricting or even banning guns.
Indeed, but police officers spend a lot of time dealing with an armed public, too. Not every minute in an automobile is spent getting into an accident, and not every minute dealing with armed citizens is spent getting shot at.
oh, stop now!
seriously, you've gone into silly mode.
Ah...
...Police Chief is not saying you can't carry your gun openly. He is saying his patrolmen are going to make damn sure they are not going to take any chances in asking for the carrier's license.
I live in NYC, and although I graduated Ivy League, I grew up on some mean streets. I have a lot of friends in justice and law enforcement, and relatives in the military They've told me when you're on the job, your first responsibility is to make it home safe after your shift. They tell me all their training on proper Police procedures is designed to make damn sure their daily risks are minimized.
It's all well and good to "stand for the 2nd Amendment", until it's your ass on the line in a split-second decision with some civilian. You can either be home safe with a cold Bud after your shift, or you can be lying in a Critical Care Unit with tubes in your nose and throat fighting for a breath while your wife and kids and mother cry their eyes out next to your bed.
Which would you pick?
Hint: Almost all Police Departments nationally are FOR gun control, and cannot wait for the Assault Weapons ban to be revisited.
Interesting
That's funny, I thought their first responsibility was to protect the public and allow us to do what we have a lawful right to do. If they put force protection above our rights, it's time for a change in their priorities.
Even if that's true, why are you putting the preferences of police over the liberty of the people they are supposed to serve? That's scary.
I pay their salary. and I pay for retraining
because of dead policemen. So it's a certainly fair argument to put their preferences in it.
Of course the absolutely awful "Scary Weapons Ban" should be redesigned to actually do something useful... so that I don't lose any more policemen from my city due to ambushes from "lawful" gun owners convinced by Glenn Beck that Obama is going to steal all their guns.
You're not just "putting their preferences in it"
You're suggesting that the preferences of police trump individual rights. Let's be clear about that.
no, I'm not Jim.
that's not my contention, but someone else's. Before we go outlawing any sort of gun, I'd like to see mortars restricted to people who have actual blasting licenses.
And I'm way more in favor of licenses, with periodic tests, for guns, than I am of outlawing them.
You're a gunowner, so I could use your insight -- in many urban places, people from out in the boondocks are known to simply drive in with a pickuptruck worth of guns, and sell them off for some cheap cash. They aren't doing background checks, and a lot of these guns wind up in the hands of criminals.
How can we best prevent situations like this? I get that out in rural areas, a gun is a lot more consistent of a defense than a policeman...
My bad.
My sincere apologies for confusing you with Jim.
I don't think you can really prevent smuggling. Experience tells us that criminals will find ways to get their hands on guns, one way or another, even if the whole country bans them.
If you try to throw up administrative roadblocks, you're going to disarm peaceful people without disarming most real criminals. Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer that everyone who buys a gun learn how to use and maintain it properly, but criminals often ignore licensing and testing. If they need to, they'll simply buy them on the black market or steal them.
Careful not to overstep
While I agree with the notion that the police shouldn't be arresting people for doing something legal, I think gun rights advocates need to be careful not to overstep their bounds. Face it, openly carrying a gun is an aggressive thing to do. Most people, when they see a gun strapped to someone's hip, stay away. Having a gun on your hip in today's society is like having a pitbull bark at you when you're walking down the street. You look at it and say to yourself, whoa, stay back, this could be dangerous. Most of the time, if you approach the dog, it will sniff your hand and let you pet it, but you can't reliably tell the difference between the vicious guard dog and the house pet, so you err on the side of caution. Regardless of it's legality, this is what people are going to do. The police need to protect people from threats, be it a vicious loose pitbull or a psycho with a gun. The police are going to want to err on the side of caution when they see either a gun or a pitbull, and by forcing them not to, you are putting them in an awkward position. If they do just ignore people carrying guns on the street, the next time a cop gets shot in Milwaukee, the public is going to become less keen to the idea that everyone should have the "right" to carry around a loaded gun in a busy city. A few more times, and this type of thing can backfire. Many communities have tried to, and successfully banned pitbulls for this reason. Similarly, in my home state there was a push a few years back to ban indoor smoking in commercial establishments. The smoking lobby got greedy and put an initiative on the ballot to ban smoking everywhere except any place that served alcohol, which includes many family restaurants. The anti-smoking people wanted it banned everywhere. Well the initiative that won was to ban it everywhere. Everyone knew which way the wind has been blowing on this issue, and something was going to happen. Had the smoking people not been greedy, and limited to only places that served primarily alcohol (read bars), I think smokers would still be allowed to smoke in bars today. I think the gun lobby is making the same mistake with instances like these. Sometimes compromise is the better solution than cramming your idea down someones throat and having it backfire later.
Secondly, I'm so sick of hearing about how the second amendment was put in place so you can walk around with a gun strapped to your hip and wander into an inner city bar like it's the wild west. The founding fathers were not even thinking about that when they wrote the second amendment. Sit down and read the first ten amendments and there's a very clear theme to them. They were worried about people either inside or outside of the government taking control and turning the US into a monarchy, dictatorship, fiefdom, etc. Everything in there is about making sure that it's hard for that to start happening, and if it does starts happening, making sure the citizens can stop it. The founding fathers were worried about the use of propaganda, religion, military might, false imprisonment, fear mongering, etc. to make that happen, so they installed what were, in the day, ways to stop those techniques from being used. All in all, what they provided was a pretty timeless list, but it's not perfect. Nobody quarters soldiers anymore, so, while still valid as a law, it's probably a bit overkill to have a constitutional amendment devoted to it - it's a bit outdated. We have advanced command vehicles and mobile military bases and warships the size of entire cities; no one needs to use your bedroom and horse stable to conduct war. Likewise, the ability of individual citizens to rise up against a mechanized army with fighter jets and long range missiles is probably also a bit outdated. The second amendment was about gathering up your neighbors and guns and fighting the aspiring dictator's army, who also had similar military might. That can no longer work today. Sorry, even you're entire town coming out with their Smith and Wessons aren't going to stop a few M-1 Abrams. And the idea that citizens should be allowed to obtain long range rockets, nuclear warheads and tanks is absurd. The second amendment was effectively dead as soon as the military was allowed to have things that citizens weren't. So stop claiming that it's your Second Amendment right to carry your gun around the street to protect you against some petty criminal. No, that's the police's job. If you feel unsafe in your city, donate more to your law enforcement officials, or move out to somewhere you feel safe, but stop claiming it's your right to serve as judge, jury and executioner for petty crime. The second amendment was never about protecting yourself from petty criminals. I agree that citizens should have the freedom to own guns, but it needs to be regulated. If the NRA wants to keep guns legal and relatively accessible, then they would be better served finding reasonable compromises than to insist that the right to keep and bear arms means that you should be allowed to own machine guns, then rockets, then cluster bombs, then nuclear warheads. The line needs to be drawn somewhere, and I think it's a big mistake to keep pushing the boundaries on pointless fights like this, because it's bound to backfire sooner or later.
Really?
Have you EVER actually seen someone just walking around in public with "a gun strapped to [their] hip"?
Really?
Even in the states which allow open carry, very few people avail themselves of this course of action.
How many criminals and/or gangbangers -- knowing that their clothes, cohort, and conduct label them as such and make them cop-magnets -- are likely to openly carry firearms? I would bet that number is indescribably small.
Someone who is openly carrying a firearm, and thereby inviting increased LEO observation, is unlikely to be a criminal. They might be, but really . . . what are the odds?
So long as they are acting in a responsible manner and not exhibiting threatening behavior to others, the cops do not have the right to "put them on the ground."
Finally, some people who might open carry would actually prefer that other folks leave them alone in the first place. Pehaps that is exactly the point.
poplawski did.
your last point is fun and hilarious.
How often can you tell when someone is carrying a concealed weapon?
Sometimes I Can Spot Concealed Weapons
As someone who carries as much as possible, and who pays attention to his surroundings, I can sometimes tell if a person is carrying concealed.
But who knows how many times I have mssied it?
I guess all those times I got shot up by gun-wielding psychos should have tipped me off.
Oh wait...
Turning on the outrage
The news often features police violating the rights of demonstrators. This includes arresting protestors at political conventions, particularly Republican ones, then lying about the circumstances. New York City is still dealing with the legal mess created by police "exuberance" at the 2004 Republican convention.
Henke claims to be an equal opportunity grouse, complaining about Republican fiscal mismanagement as much as Democratic. Let's see him complain about police misbehavior that doesn't direct impact his homeboys.
Tunnel Vision
Ed Flynn is by far the best chief the Milwaukee Police Department has had in the past 50 years. He has been tough on gangs and tough on officers that have gotten out of line. He is well-respected by conservative, law-abiding citizens and has finally given them hope that law enforcement in their city might actually be on their side. Flynn has shaped up a previously horrible Milwaukee PD and deserves praise rather than disdain.
Jon, ripping Flynn without doing a little research doesn't serve you well. Talk of firing Flynn is ill-advised and ill-informed.