Shooting at the Empire State Building

The occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan had US soldiers constantly on the defensive and constantly surrounded by civilians.

Gah, I'm turning into Pan here. That's never good. I think this thread has run its course. We're back to Trayvon.

 

I asked to be corrected if I was wrong. I should have been more explicit and asked for specific corrections to my assumptions.

Really didn't expect to be ridiculed for my ignorance on the particulars while having my point about police responsibility ignored.

 

Maybe Omega or Tully can speak for law enforcement. I've never been a sworn officer so something tells me my perspective as a guy with a degree in law enforcement science ain't worth shit. And I totally didn't realize you wanted me to actually explain the differences between the two from my perspective as one of those occupations since this whole thread has been a blob with few bullet points. Probably mostly my fault. Perhaps when a thread reaches this level of Mordor we should try to keep our questions and salient points more visible by isolating them from our diatribes.

I'm dumb as hell, but something tells me this thread would be pretty boring if only Tully and KirStang chimed in. They're way too educated.

 

Have you ever read the 4th amendment, Plan?

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"Holy Ammunition, Batman! What's that word "unreasonable" mean?" ​

The Bill of Rights and body of amendments have been genetically altered to fit the needs of whomever has had the most influence at any given time.

The NRA loves to quote the 2nd amendment in defense of it's positions while the amendment itself actually fails to fully support most of the NRA's more liberal positions on gun possession (and many laws enacted by states regarding gun sale and possession). This could be disputed but it I don't want to get into the old permission by virtue of omission vs restriction by virtue of omission debate

The government has Frankensteined the 4th amendment in the same way gun advocates and gun lobbyists have Frankensteined the 2nd. This is where we are.

Maybe we should just outlaw judicial decisions in special cases where the Constitution is unclear.

Maybe we should get rid of all legal precedence as it's pertained to the evolving interpretation of these amendments.

Maybe we should go right back to the Bill of Rights and fuck the amendments altogether. I'm all for going back to basics - those guns in the hands of well-regulated militias would be a welcome change over watching my drunk neighbor shoot squirrels off his back porch with his .45. And I wouldn't at all mind going back to the time before phones and computers when protection from unreasonable search and seizure meant exactly what it said

 

If it's all so blatantly obvious, why waste the keystrokes?

 

First, could someone explain to me how holding a database of ammunition sales would be in breach of the 4th amendment? I don't see it.

Does the same apply for gun licenses? Driving licences? Car registrations? Why not? How about fingerprints?

If it's utterly unacceptable to hold such data (and I assume this only applies to governments, because financial services organisations and retailers hold MUCH more data on us), is there any reason why, at the very least, ammunition sales shouldn't be restricted to people holding a firearms license?

Note: I am all for better education, improved mental health services and sterner penalties for people owning firearms illegally (just a misdemeanour? WTF?), but I'm focusing on the database first.

Second Note: I do understand the concern that Plan9 (I think) expressed earlier about being permanently "branded". Would people support something like we have here (The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act) in which you record is considered "clean" after a certain period of time in which you have not been found guilty of anything, that period of time varying according to the severity of the offence (some offences never being sonsidered "spent")?

Maybe that should be a separate thread. If so, no worries, I won't pursue it here.

 

You know. There's that pesky thing called the bill of rights. See also, the 14th amendment. Fundamental rights are subject to strict scrutiny. Driving is not a fundamental right.

And the 4th amendment. And the right to privacy. But hey, to prevent one mass shooting, toss it all, right? Despite crime rates declining, even with lax gun laws?

 

Is that list intended to be an explanation? The Bill of Rights is basically your first 10 amendments, right? And you mention the 4th. So, how does this constitute searching your property?

How does holding a database infringe on your right to bear arms even?

Privacy is something else. I'm generally against most of these initiatives, I admit. However, I believe this could be done with minimal privacy concerns.

Nobody is saying "toss it all". I was hoping for more than a string of knee-jerk statements, but maybe that was foolish of me.

 

Here is my perspective on the NYPD shooting:

It was a justified shot and the officers *should* have used better judgment, but I would not penalize them for it personally. They are a product of the training they receive and the culture of the department.

If they were better trained, had enough firearms training experience to be considered proficient and weren't handicapped by their equipment, my opinion would be very different.

I would condemn the NYPD for it's lack of professionalism. Officer safety comes first, but it is better to let someone get away than to shoot the people you are trying to protect. If the police do not have enough training or experience to make that judgement call then it is the fault of the department, rather than the individual officers who appear to have tried to do what they felt was right in an obviously dangerous situation. They are very lucky one officer didn't kill the other considering one stepped in front of the others line of fire, which is most likely discussed on day 1 of firearms training. The 'don't jump in front of my buddy who is shooting' rule is probably the 5'th rule of gun safety, even if it isn't commonly put on the posters for it.

Gunfights are fast and frantic... Especially for people who don't get in them often. Adrenalin messes with your perception and I can understand the number of rounds they fired... Perfectly reasonable and on the video they appear to have stopped shooting when the suspect went down. In their shoes I would have shot until the suspect was no longer a threat, so basically on the ground or otherwise incapacitated which seems to be what they did. The degree of accuracy they displayed is actually far better than the police average nationwide, with police firing 16 shots and getting 10 hits on the bad guy. The nationwide average is about 20% hit rate for police. That being said, you have a responsibility to ensure your shots go where you intend them to and nowhere else; it is OK to miss when you are in a remote area or have a brick wall behind the target, but not when your target is backstopped by people.

I do not think the officers should have waited until the suspect shot one of them, but I suspect that in the 'panic' they didn't realize the suspect wasn't shooting back. Understandable considering the level of training, despite it's silliness.

How they *should* have responded, in my opinion:

1: Followed from a distance until there were less people around, if possible. Better to let this guy get away than to shoot innocent people.

2: If not possible, try to nab the guy quickly (which seems to be what they tried to do)

3: If they had to shoot: They should have aggressed, closed distance and shot fewer, more accurate shots to minimize risk to bystanders. Also implied is that they will only shoot when no civilians are immediately behind the target (slip left/right to get a good field of fire). Police training is very limited and I don't think it makes officers proficient enough to make appropriate judgement calls in this sort of situation. From what I know of police training they did what they were 'supposed' to do, which is create/maintain distance while engaging the bad guy until he is down. 'Proximity negates skill' and for your average thug vs. police shooting scenario it is in the cops best interest to be farther away rather than closer. It is different if you are in a crowded area and you (the guy with the gun, bulletproof vest and partner) need to reduce a threat without endangering other people... In that kind of situation you have to accept a bit more personal risk to reduce the overall risk to the public you are trying to 'protect'


The NY trigger is reactionary and stupid. It compensates for officers accidentally shooting themselves or others due to lack of training by making it very difficult to pull the trigger, even when you really need to. This translates into a significant decrease in accuracy, which in a place like NYC increases the risk to bystanders. The 'need' for the NY Trigger implies that police departments cannot be bothered to teach their officers to keep their fingers off the trigger until they actually need to shoot something. That is a pretty basic task and in the military 17 year old kids in basic training are taught to do this well before they are ever issued ammunition. Nobody will ever be able to determine whether the excessive trigger weight caused the officers to miss more, but heavy triggers coupled with bad-habits (anticipating, flinching) from bad training typically result in rounds striking significantly low. It looks like the bystanders who got shot were hit below the belt, so I suspect this was part of what happened. Again, the NYPD officers were deficient, but not at fault. The department's crappy training was at fault.

 

Actually I'm not that educated on this topic and as I keep pointing out my perspective comes from a very narrow experience. And even that is dated, he'll I'm old, my training was mostly completed 25+ years ago. We didn't wear vests and the thought of a suspect wearing body armor never occurred to anyone. Nor did the idea someone might video your actions, certainly not with a hands free telephone.

 

Well, those were loaded statements with a lot of law behind them. A database is not illegal. Having an overinclusive trespass due to nothing more than profiling is. A database of ammunition purchases is about as predictive of crime as potato purchases. For every one instance of a massive ammo purchase that precipitates a crime, I can probably point to the same for potatos.

I'll get more in to this later, as I wanted to get some more work done today. Keep in mind the "Search" is predicated by "Reasonable" in the 4th Amend.

 

Maybe I'm blind but I have never seen the phrase "right to privacy" written anywhere in the 4th amendment. It can be interpreted that we have a right to privacy when it comes to the government amassing data on our buying habits, and acting on that data, but it's no less open to interpretation than it ever was. For the record, I agree that this behavior violates the 4th amendment.

But I have to wonder where the outrage was when the Patriot Act was enacted for the purpose of weeding out a handful of terrorists via the largest invasion of privacy on the American public ever waged. We laid down for that but damn we'll be marching up the steps of Congress with our guns drawn if they want an ammo count. I don't get it.

 

Ok, My comments in Red

It's a soldier's job to kill an enemy unless he's got bars and such and can order others to do it. In the process, the soldier's other main concern, from a reasonable and human point of view, is to do what he can to make sure he keeps himself (and his buddies) alive while well aware of the fact that their safety and life is not the main objective. It is not his duty to make sure no civilians are killed by his actions because it ain't about them. Morally a soldier can take it upon himself to consider civilians, if the situation allows for it, but it's not in his job description to do so.


You are 100% wrong here. First, a soldiers job is to accomplish an objective. This *may* involve killing, but in actual practice usually not.

I have never seen an officer farm out 'dirty work' or avoid risk. Well, I have, but they were quickly fired. Most officers and NCO's are in positions where they are more likely to be wounded than the low-level soldiers simply because they are out front or moving around during a fight to keep things moving.

Soldiers don't throw their lives away nor those of their buddies for the 'mission.' Sometimes they get killed, but it isn't planned.

It usually is a soldiers duty to protect civilians. Specifically ordered to defend the local civilians as a matter of fact. Sometimes shit happens during a fight, but there are a lot of control measures in place to prevent civilian casualties. Many of those controls put soldiers at increased risk.

What kind of monsters do you think soldiers are? They are regular people with more or less the same morals and values as the average American. I don't know anyone that will wade into a fight without consideration to the civilians who would be affected.

On the other hand, the policeman's job is to protect and serve the public (which last time I checked had a lot civilians in it). Seems to me, based on this job description, that because the objectives are different the priorities should be as well. The lives of innocent bystanders (the public) should take priority over the life of the civil servant who signed up for the job to protect them. He didn't sign up for the job so he could chase after confrontations that could get him killed then worry about his own life over that of "civilians."

True, to a point... If police officers, firefighters and such threw their lives away to rescue or protect people, not many would reach retirement. They need to be willing to take risks to protect people, but there has to be a balance. For instance a police officer should not run away from someone shooting school children because the officer might get shot... But he shouldn't be expected to charge and tackle someone wearing a suicide vest either.

Maybe police don't get paid enough to actually consider their innocent charges when a perp pulls a gun on them. The Secret Service gets the big bucks to do that.

? I suspect it is a training issue rather than an unwillingness to avoid shooting innocent people...

Maybe they should have signed up for military service where they aren't expected to put their own life on the line to protect the public.

Again, you have no idea, not even a little bit on this one. The core principles of the military are to protect the US and defend the constitution. Also, over and over again my unit has eaten rockets/etc. because we would kill civilians if we fired back with heavy weaponry...

Having said that, I'm still of the mind that no one knows how they will react in that situation until the situation is presented to them. That includes the conceal carry types who, though they've never experienced it, are convinced that they will keep a cool head and take down the nutjob in a dark theatre filled with people, with more expertise than law enforcement officials. Why? Don't ask, just accept.

Partially agree... People often don't know how they will respond, but training largely removes that unpredictability. Particularly force on force training. Also, I have to think the average person is capable of working through basic scenarios in advance, such as whether they are willing to shoot someone if they felt it necessary to protect their families, etc.. I suspect even the Mr. Bean of concealed carry people would have at least not made the Batman situation worse...

Because guns are everywhere means it's impossible to keep them away from certain individuals? It's a people problem? So is it the challenge of figuring out who the people with the problems are or the perception that to do so requires another hit on the 4th amendment?

I don't think anyone is saying we should not try to keep guns away from nuts. I think what is being suggested is that it may prove more difficult to profile for 'nut who is about to go on a shooting spree' than you are suggesting.

The data on you is already in the hands of the federal government. Your privacy has already been invaded and your life's history carted out in official boxes and punched into databanks. Is the addition of your ammo buying habits and the fact that someone might be paying attention to them really the straw that's going to break your back?

No, but then again I am not going to condone the expansion of a crime just because the same crime is already being committed on a regular basis. I don't believe the government has any business doing pretty much anything you mentioned in the above paragraph. I also think it makes you sound nuttier than the pro-gun people.
--- merged: Aug 27, 2012 at 5:10 PM ---

Actually I am and have been 100% against the patriot act... At least those parts which have domestic implications or infringements. As long as the likelihood of getting shot by a terrorist is lower than my chances of being struck by lighting in the US, I don't see any more need to throw away my civil liberties than I do to live in a faraday cage.

 

OK, this seems to be based more on concerns about how the data is used than on the data itself. That's fair.

I don't think it would make much sense to "flag" large ammo purchases either. However, I do think it makes sense to gather data on how and where ammunition is distributed and bought.

I also think that some profiling can be done - not of individuals, but of purchasing patterns. I currently use credit cards. All of my transactions are logged. Once in a while, my credit card is stopped and I get a phone call. This is generally because something unusual has happened and the card company has been alerted that there may be fraud on the account. Let's say I make a lot of large purchases at around 4am (and that isn't something I would normally do), an alert goes off. If, however, I regularly did that, no alert happens.

I'd like all ammunition purchases to be tied to the firearms license of the purchaser.

Honestly, I'd like logs to be kept of ammunition usage, too, but haven't gone into that.

Let's take an example (and it may be a bad one!). We see an unusually high amount of ammunition being sold to a particular inner city area. This may not be unusually high in some rural areas, but for this city it is unusual. The local firing ranges can't account for where all the ammunition is going. We look closer and find it is going to a few people. The police check them out. They don't appear to have a use for this much ammunition. However, they do seem to be running a small business supplying local youths.

Right now, we have no idea about this. You don't even need a firearms licence to buy ammunition. I can buy a gun and ammunition on the day at a gun fair in Virginia and be back in New york that night. These weapons have been used illegally in New York and traced back.

Basically, I'd like there to be some intelligence available on the weapons trade. Right now, as far as I can tell, there is next to none. And why? Beats me. It seems to me that we can track a cow back to its point of destination - but this is impossible. Maybe we should provide a cow with every gun sale/ammunition sale?

 

Allistair:

I suspect your solution with regards to firearms license and ammunition logged to the license would really only be of value after a crime has been committed, rather than in a preventative way. It would most likely be partitioned from the government in the same way that firearms records are partitioned: The ATF cannot get a record without first requesting it from the dealer on a case-by-case basis and they have to demonstrate a need. For instance: The ATF cannot look up how many firearms I have purchased, but if a gun with serial number 123 shows up at a murder scene they can trace it from the factory to the person who originally bought it. In the same way the government cannot snoop on your credit card purchases without obtaining a warrant and probable cause... They cannot pull your records for shits and giggles... They have to demonstrate a need to a judge.

 

I fully understand that what is being proposed (not just here) changes the gun game as we've known it. Tracking purchases of firearms, paraphernalia and ammo, producing profiles and possibly confiscating weapons if potential threats are determined can be viewed as punishment where there's been no crime. Because of the way our Constitution has been written and interpreted, we are supposedly bound not to behave this way as assurance that these basic rights will always be protected. What is being proposed bothers me for this reason. I'm a huge advocate for a woman's right to choose so I can understand the passion of gun owners in this respect.

But this proposal, if it comes to pass, will not be setting any precedent, will not be stepping over any line that hasn't already been stepped over numerous times and it may actually end up saving some lives without a huge disruption in the life of the average gun owner.

A little thing maybe, in the shadow of Constitutional rights, but important to me for some reason.

Like everything the government decides to do, it will please some and piss off others. Fight for your rights, if you choose but hopefully you will keep an open mind.

 

the amendment that protects against illegal search and seizure would obviate a database of ammunition tracking numbers how exactly? it seems a little paranoid, unless the concern is that the information would be used to monitor your basement arsenal and maybe be turned over to the un who would dispatch soldiers from belgium in black helicopters to take away your arms and reduce you to slavery.

the problem with such a database would more likely be pragmatic. there'd be no real way to weight much of the data. but it could be used to determine if, say, people who should not for legal reasons have a gun are buying ammunition.
o i suppose it's possible that a free-thinking american who loves the fourth amendment and all the other things that the gun set likes to claim for themselves in the desperate hope that reasonable policies about the reduction of gun violence never threaten them with castration but who is not legally allowed already to own a gun might just really like having bullets around.
perhaps they build model building and ships from them.
perhaps they make trivets.
there are lots of other uses for ammunition than shooting them from guns.
but if some churl were to suggest that the only thing you can do with ammunition has some connection to a gun then it would follow that tracking ammunition sales would be a way to maybe reduce the number of people who should not have guns but get them anyway from being able to use them. or maybe the idea that it could would be enough. assuming that reasonable policy about different regulation of guns as a way to reduce gun violence is understood as a means to a desirable end.
or maybe tracking these transactions would enable connection of bullets found in a crime scene back to a transaction. and maybe that would put a damper on the underground traffic in guns because a gun isn't so awesome if you don't have the things required to put holes in things from a distance.
but the connection would still have to be established.
you know, like with any other evidence.

the irony is that i don't see such a system having any effect at all on regular gun users who just like having them around and don't jack people with them and so on.

so what's the problem?

 

There would clearly have to be separations and records would need to be anonymised. Only when there is reason to check further should it be possible to put together a case for investigation.

However, I do think it should be possible to deny the right to buy temporarily until the buyer contacts a clearance centre. In most cases, this could likely be a phone call (checking on things like identity theft).

In other cases, I think a case could be built and advised to local law enforcement and local decisions can then be made as to whether there is any reason to act (and if necessary, to apply for search warrants).

Mostly, however, I think the patterns of the supply chain would be useful, especially the supply to those who clearly are not law-abiding citizens.

I don't think it would be difficult to do, or that costly to operate. In fact, I think the costs could be covered by the arms trade itself.

Back in the eighties, I did a little work with the US army on looking at supply chains in the drug trade (finding ways to disrupt them). The difficulty there was the quality and availability of intelligence. In this case, gathering the data should be simpler.

Incidentally, arms dealers will notify (they have to) if you buy more than one weapon in a 5-day period.

In terms of guns, is there any reason why there shouldn't be a record of how many guns you have? I know there isn't. I think there should be. What's the big secret? What use is licensing?

 

I'd surmise that the large majority of these investigations would result in a gun owner purchasing ammo just to go on a range session with buddies. I spent $107 on ammo Sunday. Does that automatically make me a suspect?

Also keep in mind, there's a HUGE difference between a Bank calling you to say, "hey, we've noticed some unusual activity." Versus a no-knock warrant where police trash your house.