The News Thread
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Einherjar86
Active Member
Buffalo yesterday, California today. The tactical gun culture in the U.S. is really a fucking nightmare.
Einherjar86
Active Member
no country for old wainds
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Einherjar86
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rms
Active Member
no country for old wainds
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and yet, in a small strange way, it’s comforting to know that somewhere, someplace, the ozzman is talking about the second amendment.
rms
Active Member
MasterpieceMesias
Professional Asshole
CiG
Dimension Hatröss
rms
Active Member
Seeing this shit about the Texas cops just sitting outside for 47 minutes...wild
Einherjar86
Active Member
I mean, the cops sit around during an active shooter incident, but then draw guns and fire on a pregnant woman (caveat: the story is developing, so we don't know details--but the main eyewitness report is damning).
https://www.motherjones.com/crime-j...he-was-pregnant-and-had-her-hands-in-the-air/
I understand the anxieties that must come with engaging an active shooter, but my sympathies dwindle rapidly when I read about cops shooting unarmed victims. We apologize for their cowardice and their aggression, it seems. Fucking pick one.
https://www.motherjones.com/crime-j...he-was-pregnant-and-had-her-hands-in-the-air/
I understand the anxieties that must come with engaging an active shooter, but my sympathies dwindle rapidly when I read about cops shooting unarmed victims. We apologize for their cowardice and their aggression, it seems. Fucking pick one.
CiG
Dimension Hatröss
You might need to spend some time looking up articles about cops doing good things, because these two incidents are barely comparable imo. You're doompilled on the police and drawing pretty bogus parallels as a result.
I get the frustration, but a police force with a terrible school shooting response protocol and officers who fired on a pregnant woman, both in totally different states, is tenuously connected at best.
The contrast in escalation vs de-escalation is certainly stark, but (and I could be wrong) there is a shitload of policy variation with the police from location to location.
The way you expressed yourself makes it seem like there's a contradiction in protocol. Don't save kids from a gunman but gun down pregnant women, as if this all happened under the same state police commissioner.
Remember the Knoxville school shooting last year? Cops entered the school while he was hiding in the bathroom, he opened fire on them, they shot and killed him. It doesn't seem like there's a nationally enforced response to these incidents whatsoever.
I get the frustration, but a police force with a terrible school shooting response protocol and officers who fired on a pregnant woman, both in totally different states, is tenuously connected at best.
The contrast in escalation vs de-escalation is certainly stark, but (and I could be wrong) there is a shitload of policy variation with the police from location to location.
The way you expressed yourself makes it seem like there's a contradiction in protocol. Don't save kids from a gunman but gun down pregnant women, as if this all happened under the same state police commissioner.
Remember the Knoxville school shooting last year? Cops entered the school while he was hiding in the bathroom, he opened fire on them, they shot and killed him. It doesn't seem like there's a nationally enforced response to these incidents whatsoever.
Einherjar86
Active Member
To be fair, I’m not saying there’s a logical connection between the two incidents—i.e. that cops not engaging an active shooter informs an entirely different situation in which an entirely different set of cops gun down an unarmed pregnant woman.
I’m saying that officers feel culturally protected enough in wildly various scenarios to act in absurdly contradictory ways. These are two different situations, with different officers in different jurisdictions; but somehow, their abstract identity as police officers justifies their behavior in each situation. To take a politically charged maxim, the “blue lives matter” crowd would find themselves in the conflicted position of having to defend both incidents. So it’s not that the events are logically connected but that they reflect contradictory impulses within the militarized police culture that characterizes virtually all precincts across the U.S.
I’m saying that officers feel culturally protected enough in wildly various scenarios to act in absurdly contradictory ways. These are two different situations, with different officers in different jurisdictions; but somehow, their abstract identity as police officers justifies their behavior in each situation. To take a politically charged maxim, the “blue lives matter” crowd would find themselves in the conflicted position of having to defend both incidents. So it’s not that the events are logically connected but that they reflect contradictory impulses within the militarized police culture that characterizes virtually all precincts across the U.S.
rms
Active Member
CiG
Dimension Hatröss
Well, most of the rightoids I know are calling those cops cowards, but that's anecdotal. All I'm saying is, yours seems to be a worldview completely lacking in nuance.
I've seen this already. Wasn't sure of the context those training guidelines were applied.
Einherjar86
Active Member
I'm not calling the cops cowards, though--or rather, that's not the point of my comment. I think you may have taken my "we apologize for their cowardice" comment as indicative of my personal view. I'm using the language of others to highlight an inconsistency.
I'm saying that police occupy a sociocultural position of such privilege that they can behave in wildly different ways and enjoy continued legal protection in almost all circumstances. Maybe the Uvalde shooting is a tipping point, given all the vocal opposition, but I doubt it; and honestly, I'm not sure I think the police should be punished for their hesitation. I'm more sympathetic to police hesitating than I am to them eagerly gunning someone down; but when they get pushback for what amounts to murder and claim they deserve leniency because their job is dangerous, and then don't jump into action during an active shooter scenario... there's a contradiction that requires attention.
It doesn't matter whether the "cowardice" (as people are calling it) is a rare occurrence, which is what I think you're saying. It might very well be a rare occurrence; but the fact that it happened and that a representative element in American is trying to justify/rationalize it leads to a bit of cultural dissonance.
CiG
Dimension Hatröss
I think you've misunderstood what I've said.
You're randomly pivoting from culture and the "blue lives crowd" to legal protection in almost all circumstances. The latter might be true, but your original point was that the pro-police culture would contradict themselves by defending both incidents (hence my anecdote).
My main point was just that you seem to have this dismal doompilled view of police, that when cops aren't blowing away pregnant women they're refusing to rescue children from a shooter, and that for your own mental health you should try to also acknowledge positive policing incidents, especially if you're going to try and string these stories together in order to make some greater point about the police. It's missing so much nuance.
Or don't lol. Just bugs me to see such one-sided narratives regardless of the subject, which I suppose is my problem in the end.
You're randomly pivoting from culture and the "blue lives crowd" to legal protection in almost all circumstances. The latter might be true, but your original point was that the pro-police culture would contradict themselves by defending both incidents (hence my anecdote).
My main point was just that you seem to have this dismal doompilled view of police, that when cops aren't blowing away pregnant women they're refusing to rescue children from a shooter, and that for your own mental health you should try to also acknowledge positive policing incidents, especially if you're going to try and string these stories together in order to make some greater point about the police. It's missing so much nuance.
Or don't lol. Just bugs me to see such one-sided narratives regardless of the subject, which I suppose is my problem in the end.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Huh. I mean, positive policing incidents ("copaganda") are fed to us pretty consistently in American popular culture and in the Facebook production mill of cops being nice to kids, playing with their dogs, saving people who fall into wells, lakes, etc.--ultimately harmless incidents that promote an image of wholesome bravery. I don't think anyone needs to be reminded that cops sometimes do good things. I do think we need to be reminded that the institution is fundamentally flawed, often poorly managed at local levels, and cultivates a lot of "bad apples." You're probably right that I've been "doompilled," but I wouldn't associate that position with the negative connotations the term implies. I think being generally critical of the police is the healthier attitude.
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