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questions on Ny thing

Started by billy rubin, May 20, 2021, 08:35:17 PM

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Icarus

^ that is an unsettling statistic to be sure.  The overwhelming statistic is the number of people who have been shot by gun nuts who are not police.  In Chicago alone, there were more private party murders by gunshot than all the police shootings in the nation.

So please explain to me how the cops are more murderous than the gang members and independent crazies like the school shooters.  Has it occurred to the police critics that the cops cannot know whether the gun crazy dumbfucks are carrying?  We live in a wild west nation of gun freaks, some of whom are inclined, even anxious, to use their weapons.  To protect their freedom or to prove their manhood? 

Our president, this very day, addressed the problem in his speech. One of his points was to provide some counseling psych personnel to police departments.  The idea is to have expert people attempt to de- escalate situations rather than resort to main force.  We have a long way to go, but we need to begin somewhere.

It would not hurt to have fewer licensed carry permits issued.  My state, Florida, will issue a carry license to damned near anyone who will pony up the $49 to get a concealed carry permit. I am a senile old fool who can easily get his carry permit for 49 dollars and less than two hours of questionably adequate instruction.  Never mind the criminal element who have no need or desire to get a permit. Better for them to avoid any such public record.

   

billy rubin

#106
good  points, all of them, without a doubt.

ohio is the final stages of abolishing all restrictions on concealed carry--training, licensing all of it.

we ll see how that changes anything.

still, i think theresifference between being killed by a criminal whose act is a crime for which he will be held accountable, and being killed by a public emplyee who has no restrictions on his use of lethal force and is reckless in his use of it.

george floyd wasnt murdered with a gun, after all. its their lack of accountability thats the problem, not the gun. if theit were consequences for their egregious misuse of lethal force there 2ould be fewer abuses



"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

Tom62

Quote from: Magdalena link=topic=16922.msg419096#msg419096 dThere is so much I want to say, but I know you don't live in the US, so I'll just let the numbers speak for themselves:

b]1,037 people have been shot and killed by police in the past year[/b]
Updated March 25, 2022
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/

That looks like it is a lot, but you have to put it in perspective. If you compare it with other countries and by population then the US ranks 33rd with a police killing rate of 28.5 per 10 million residents (source: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-killings-by-country). For a developed county that is still very high and the causes of this are matters of considerable debate. Worst country on the list is Venezuela with 1829.9  police killings per 10 million residents.
The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.
Robert A. Heinlein

Magdalena

Yes, we can talk about how many people the gang members and independent crazies like the school shooters kill each year as well.

We can compare the Venezuelan Po-po and the LAPD, but that still doesn't answer my question. Can a cop immobilize instead of kill? So far, I got the best and most honest answer from billy rubin:
Quote...

give a cop a gun and a license to kill and he will shoot people to death. thats where we are now. theres no motivation to change.

DL said it was not easy.

If the po-po doesn't want to or find it too difficult, then like billy said, let's talk about, "their lack of accountability."
But to tell you the truth, I would rather continue to find a solution to immobilize instead of kill. For now.

"I've had several "spiritual" or numinous experiences over the years, but never felt that they were the product of anything but the workings of my own mind in reaction to the universe." ~Recusant

Icarus

Mags I agree with you wholeheartedly.  Can we find a way to immobilize an armed bad guy or even a disturbed, armed, good guy, without killing him?  Almost every one of us would rather that be the case

So far there have been some good attempts to rig up a non lethal deterrent.  The taser is good for some but not anywhere near all cases. That is a start but it is only useful at close range and it does not work well enough on some of the aggressors.  It is especially insufficient in winter, when thick clothing is worn by the suspect.

The sidearms that the cops use are good for short range only. At 30 feet or more it will be most difficult for a cop or any other pistol shooter to direct his/her shots into non critical parts of the human anatomy. A little bit of basic trigonometry will help explain the difficulty in aiming and reliably hitting non lethal parts of a human body. If the barrel of the pistol varies as little as one half inch from perfect aim, the bullet will miss the entire body by 12 inches or more.  Trying to hit a body part that is maybe nine inches wide, such as a leg, is the stuff of Dirty Harry movies not reality.

To be sure there are some cops who are expert marksman with their handguns.  They can hit a 10 inch diameter target from 30 feet away.  But that is at the pistol range not at the scene of a life or death situation with a deranged shooter. Damned big difference when the cop or other good guy has to react with careful aim within a fraction of a second, or risk dying.

I do hasten to agree that there are some rogue cops out there that need to be forcibly sent to the funny farm ....without their godamned pistol or any other lethal weapon. I also claim that the vast majority of cops have no desire to use their firearm. In fact that is one of the things that keep them awake at night.  They do not want to shoot anyone and have to deal with the hellish aftermath both in their conscience and in the course of official investigation of their actions.

Ecurb Noselrub

Can't they set their ray guns to "stun" like Star Trek?

Magdalena

#111
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on March 30, 2022, 12:53:38 PM
Can't they set their ray guns to "stun" like Star Trek?
There you go!
We could arrest people Klingon style...





"I've had several "spiritual" or numinous experiences over the years, but never felt that they were the product of anything but the workings of my own mind in reaction to the universe." ~Recusant

billy rubin

that aurora borealis thing. i have seen it here in ohio on two occasions but we dont get the shimmery curtains like they do up north. either just glowing red blobs in tbe sky or long white prismatic shafts of light, both motionless but chamging shape sliwly.

my question is, are tbe wavy moving curtains of light i see in motion pictures actually movong that fast, or are tbey speeded up? theyre quite dramatic in video but ive never been able to tell whether they eere enhanced


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

billy rubin

why can i tear a piece of paper more easily when its wet than when its dry? why do sawyers soak logs in water prior to debarking them?

i used to think that it was because the water dissolved some of the plant carbohydrates and such that were glueing the fibres together, and so when it got wet those adhesives were lost.

then i realized that a piece of paper gets stronger again after it dries out, so whatever made it get weak when it was wet wasn't because it was losing something, else the dried paper would be as weak as the wet paper. but its not.

are there natural things that get stronger when they get wet?


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

hermes2015

Quote from: billy rubin on August 23, 2022, 10:04:20 PMwhy can i tear a piece of paper more easily when its wet than when its dry? why do sawyers soak logs in water prior to debarking them?

i used to think that it was because the water dissolved some of the plant carbohydrates and such that were glueing the fibres together, and so when it got wet those adhesives were lost.

then i realized that a piece of paper gets stronger again after it dries out, so whatever made it get weak when it was wet wasn't because it was losing something, else the dried paper would be as weak as the wet paper. but its not.

My guess is that the dry paper is stiff owing to intermolecular hydrogen bonds between the cellulose molecules. When the paper is wet, the very polar water molecules form strong hydrogen bonds with the cellulose, thereby breaking the cellulose-cellulose bonds. This allows more relative movement between the cellulose strands. So there isn't any real "glue" that is lost. When the paper dries, the inter-cellulose bonds reform to cause hardening of the paper.

Quote from: billy rubin on August 23, 2022, 10:04:20 PMare there natural things that get stronger when they get wet?

I don't know.
"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames