Ok, So I'm Just Asking...

[bum]

emotion > reason

 

[argon]

No cut and paste here, I typed it all up myself.

And I'm not arguing for or against the shootings, just discussing them and asking others what they think.

Stand corrected mate... apologies.

Part of the reason why police have guns and are trained a certain way is tied up with the police establishment wanting to protect themselves. It's very difficult to mandate to the cops on the street to use "reasonable force" For example the police will not take the stance to tell an officer to only shoot/tazer/baton/whatever, to only maim or injure the assailant. This would open up a whole lot of litigious activity if an officer was ever injured or killed on the job, because the establishment told them to do something lesser than fully protecting themselves. They are taught to use the tools at their disposal to stop the threat, not slow down, not partly disable... to STOP the threat.

A few years ago there was an incident involving a disturbed individual on the Gateway motorway... essentially he stopped traffic and was waving a samurai sword around threatening anyone who came close, as well as threatening to cut himself up. The police got on top of it pretty early and the motorway was closed down and the public were kept a safe distance.

The guy ended up getting more and more enraged and started to hurt himself and was charging and threatening the police waving the sword around. There were guns drawn and it looked like they were going to have to shoot him.

One of the officers on the scene... who i had the pleasure of working with in a past life. Holstered his weapon, grabbed a large chunk of steel barrier from the adjacent construction site approached the guy, swung this girder at him, hit him, disarmed and disabled him. They were able to safely subdue the guy and get him into a mental facility... and don't know what happened from there.

Anyway the officer, who essentially saved this guys life, ended up being severely reprimanded and discharged from the force. All for not shooting this guy and "stopping" the threat.

They're told to do what they do... if they don't they face losing not only their life if they're attacked, but they're livelyhood if they take more "reasonable" matters into their own hands.

 

[manticle]

emotion > reason

Bum, you're capable of articulating much more than that.

 

[pk.sax]

Bum, you're capable of articulating much more than that.

Bum p(articulate) matter:

Sane person facing gun, drop your **** and raise your hands into the air
Insane person facing gun, oh boy! It's not likely to change either is it.... tasers sound good in that case.

 

[bum]

Bum, you're capable of articulating much more than that.

Yeah but nah.

 

[manticle]

You made me do it in regards to the whole boat people shebang. I'm upset now.

 

[Pennywise]

Yeah but nah.

 

[bum]

Oh well, I couldn't have anyone's nose out of joint. h34r:

This is clearly a very emotive issue. This is a very complex issue that gets into pretty deep human rights stuff. This is a culture that is essentially raised to think of cops as arseholes until you need them. This is a society that thinks it appropriate that commentary on the justice system should come from victims or victims' families. There is little chance for reasonable debate on such an issue. Before anyone starts, I'm not talking about this specific conversation in this environment - I'm talking about in the community in general. The arguments against police carrying firearms are generally pretty weak: "it doesn't stop violent crime" - how could it? They're only supposed to come out once violent crime is already occurring. "Bobbies don't have guns!" - yeah? Then why are their violent crime statistics worse than ours? (obviously the US experience is a counter to my counter but I'm talking semantics here, not laying down absolutes); "They should only have tasers/capsicum spray" - uh, and the individuals who are known to be able to just shake these things off should be allowed to keep threatening harm to others? And even if this is a very small percentage of the community how do these tools work in situations where it is unsafe for a police member to get in close quarters to use them? On the other hand, the people who are most likely to be talking in strong defence are most likely to take one of two positions: if a cop pulls a gun on you you're an idiot (implying that you probably deserve to be shot and thus there's no problem); or cops have a very difficult job and upholding the safety of the entire community is paramount but uh they just killed a member of the community when maybe there was something else they could have done and I just divided by zero.

 

[manticle]

Generally, I think, I agree. Both perspectives more often tend to be reactive, rather than thoughtful.

Hoping my earlier points have actually suggested that.

 

[pk.sax]

The worse part about it, as pointed out by argon above is that these are issues with no definite answers. The human element in the decision of an individual officer is pretty big BUT the tendency to 'insure' against failure means that those cops out there are more and more just tools expected to use less and less judgement and go more and more by the 'book'. And that is scary. I definitely won't want to be at the recieving end of a demotivated robotic policeman in any situation. When it really matters, do you want to stare down the barrel of a robot or a someone that can think for themselves.

 

[argon]

the answer...

 

[yardy]

And I was responding to you responding to OP. Round and round it goes.

All calm this end - Just pointing out there are situations of many different types and relating one of which I had some kind of personal experience.

Fence sitting reference was tongue in cheek enough too. Just giving you a bit of **** back.

good for you manticle

 

[manticle]

If you've got a problem with me send me a PM. I can't be ****** trying to second guess whatever it is you're on about.

 

[Peteoz77]

I have to say that I am very much enjoying ALL the discussion raised on this topic. I agree with most of it on both sides....

 

[goomboogo]

Bum, you're capable of articulating much more than that.

His comment may not have been verbose but it was definitely articulate.

 

[Zizzle]

 

[yardy]

If you've got a problem with me send me a PM. I can't be ****** trying to second guess whatever it is you're on about.

:lol:

wtf are you on mate

 

[manticle]

:lol:

wtf are you on mate

I read (maybe misread) this

good for you manticle

as sarcasm. Revealing part of the story of an old girlfriend who didn't make it to the age of thirty maybe made me a bit sensitive.

I am as interested in a squabble with you as I am in lying in the middle of the road and pissing on myself. I've always seen you as a more helpful kind of bloke than a ****-stirrer anyway so I guess I'll leave it at that.

 

[philw]

I find it disturbing that on the one had they are saying that Tazers are only used as an alternative to using a gun, and therefore they are a much preferable option, but on the other hand they seem to be using tazers whenever they please. As much as I hate the St George Dragons and their fans one of them being murdered by tazer was ridiculous. I think I'd rather the cops just had guns because they know that pulling the trigger probably means death, where as with Tazers I reckon the tazer company says BS about them being perfectly safe.

the Big issue I have with Tazer is there are too many incidents where they use them as compliance tools not for self defence .

 

[pk.sax]

Hey, don't you starsan every last thing?! Just saying... Poor bacteria.