Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: jr2 on July 05, 2014, 06:51:04 pm
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My thought process leans more towards heavier caliber and fewer shots, but then there's this :
Why one cop carries 145 rounds of ammo on the job (http://www.policeone.com/patrol-issues/articles/6199620-Why-one-cop-carries-145-rounds-of-ammo-on-the-job/)
Before the call that changed Sergeant Timothy Gramins’ life forever, he typically carried 47 rounds of handgun ammunition on his person while on duty.
Today, he carries 145, “every day, without fail.”
He detailed the gunfight that caused the difference in a gripping presentation at the annual conference of the Assn. of SWAT Personnel-Wisconsin
At the core of his desperate firefight was a murderous attacker who simply would not go down, even though he was shot 14 times with .45-cal. ammunition — six of those hits in supposedly fatal locations.
The most threatening encounter in Gramins’ nearly two-decade career with the Skokie (Ill.) PD north of Chicago came on a lazy August afternoon prior to his promotion to sergeant, on his first day back from a family vacation. He was about to take a quick break from his patrol circuit to buy a Star Wars game at a shopping center for his son’s eighth birthday.
An alert flashed out that a male black driving a two-door white car had robbed a bank at gunpoint in another suburb 11 miles north and had fled in an unknown direction. Gramins was only six blocks from a major expressway that was the most logical escape route into the city.
Unknown at the time, the suspect, a 37-year-old alleged Gangster Disciple, had vowed that he would kill a police officer if he got stopped.
“I’ve got a horseshoe up my ass when it comes to catching suspects,” Gramins laughs. He radioed that he was joining other officers on the busy expressway lanes to scout traffic.
He was scarcely up to highway speed when he spotted a lone male black driver in a white Pontiac Bonneville and pulled alongside him. “He gave me ‘the Look,’ that oh-crap-there’s-the-police look, and I knew he was the guy,” Gramins said.
Gramins dropped behind him. Then in a sudden, last-minute move the suspect accelerated sharply and swerved across three lanes of traffic to roar up an exit ramp. “I’ve got one running!” Gramins radioed.
The next thing he knew, bullets were flying. “That was four years ago,” Gramins said. “Yet it could be ten seconds ago.”
With Gramins following close behind, siren blaring and lights flashing, the Bonneville zigzagged through traffic and around corners into a quite pocket of single-family homes a few blocks from the exit. Then a few yards from where a 10-year-old boy was skateboarding on a driveway, the suspect abruptly squealed to a stop.
“He bailed out and ran headlong at me with a 9 mm Smith in his hand while I was still in my car,” Gramins said.
The gunman sank four rounds into the Crown Vic’s hood while Gramins was drawing his .45-cal. Glock 21.
“I didn’t have time to think of backing up or even ramming him,” Gramins said. “I see the gun and I engage.”
Gramins fired back through his windshield, sending a total of 13 rounds tearing through just three holes.
A master firearms instructor and a sniper on his department’s Tactical Intervention Unit, “I was confident at least some of them were hitting him, but he wasn’t even close to slowing down,” Gramins said.
The gunman shot his pistol dry trying to hit Gramins with rounds through his driver-side window, but except for spraying the officer’s face with glass, he narrowly missed and headed back to his car.
Gramins, also empty, escaped his squad — “a coffin,” he calls it — and reloaded on his run to cover behind the passenger-side rear of the Bonneville.
Now the robber, a lanky six-footer, was back in the fight with a .380 Bersa pistol he’d grabbed off his front seat. Rounds flew between the two as the gunman dashed toward the squad car.
Again, Gamins shot dry and reloaded.
“I thought I was hitting him, but with shots going through his clothing it was hard to tell for sure. This much was certain: he kept moving and kept shooting, trying his damnedest to kill me.”
In this free-for-all, the assailant had, in fact, been struck 14 times. Any one of six of these wounds — in the heart, right lung, left lung, liver, diaphragm, and right kidney — could have produced fatal consequences…“in time,” Gramins emphasizes.
But time for Gramins, like the stack of bullets in his third magazine, was fast running out.
In his trunk was an AR-15; in an overhead rack inside the squad, a Remington 870.
But reaching either was impractical. Gramins did manage to get himself to a grassy spot near a tree on the curb side of his vehicle where he could prone out for a solid shooting platform.
The suspect was in the street on the other side of the car. “I could see him by looking under the chassis,” Gramins recalls. “I tried a couple of ricochet rounds that didn’t connect. Then I told myself, ‘Hey, I need to slow down and aim better.’ ”
When the suspect bent down to peer under the car, Gramins carefully established a sight picture, and squeezed off three controlled bursts in rapid succession.
Each round slammed into the suspect’s head — one through each side of his mouth and one through the top of his skull into his brain. At long last the would-be cop killer crumpled to the pavement.
The whole shootout had lasted 56 seconds, Gramins said. The assailant had fired 21 rounds from his two handguns. Inexplicably — but fortunately — he had not attempted to employ an SKS semi-automatic rifle that was lying on his front seat ready to go.
Gramins had discharged 33 rounds. Four remained in his magazine.
Two houses and a parked Mercedes in the vicinity had been struck by bullets, but with no casualties. The young skateboarder had run inside yelling at his dad to call 911 as soon as the battle started and also escaped injury. Despite the fusillade of lead sent his way, Gramins’ only damage besides glass cuts was a wound to his left shin. His dominant emotion throughout his brush with death, he recalls, was “feeling very alone, with no one to help me but myself.”
Remarkably, the gunman was still showing vital signs when EMS arrived. Sheer determination, it seemed, kept him going, for no evidence of drugs or alcohol was found in his system.
He was transported to a trauma center where Gramins also was taken. They shared an ER bay with only a curtain between them as medical personnel fought unsuccessfully to save the robber’s life.
At one point Gramins heard a doctor exclaim, “We may as well stop. Every bag of blood we give him ends up on the floor. This guy’s like Swiss cheese. Why’d that cop have to shoot him so many times!”
Gramins thought, “He just tried to kill me! Where’s that part of it?”
When Gramins was released from the hospital, “I walked out of there a different person,” he said.
“Being in a shooting changes you. Killing someone changes you even more.” As a devout Catholic, some of his changes involved a deepening spirituality and philosophical reflections, he said without elaborating.
At least one alteration was emphatically practical.
Before the shooting, Gramins routinely carried 47 rounds of handgun ammo on his person, including two extra magazines for his Glock 21 and 10 rounds loaded in a backup gun attached to his vest, a 9 mm Glock 26.
Now unfailingly he goes to work carrying 145 handgun rounds, all 9 mm. These include three extra 17-round magazines for his primary sidearm (currently a Glock 17), plus two 33-round mags tucked in his vest, as well as the backup gun. Besides all that, he’s got 90 rounds for the AR-15 that now rides in a rack up front.
Paranoia?
Gramins shook his head and said “Preparation.”
Lessons learned from facing an “invincible” assailant (http://www.policeone.com/columnists/charles-remsberg/articles/6199938-lessons-learned-from-facing-an-invincible-assailant/)
Sgt. Timothy Gramins who fired 17 .45-cal. rounds into a hell-bent suspect before putting him down offers these lessons learned from his extraordinary fight for his life:
1.) Beef up your ammo reserves. “A lot more rounds are being exchanged in today’s gunfights than in the past. With offenders carrying heavier weapons, going on patrol with just a handgun and two extra magazines no longer cuts it. Carry more ammo. Always have a backup gun. Carry a loaded rifle where you can reach it. I can’t express how quickly your firearm will go empty when you’re shooting for real. There’s no worse feeling than pulling the trigger and hearing it go ‘click’.”
2.) Practice head shots. “When you fire multiple ‘lethal’ rounds into an attacker and he keeps going, you don’t have the luxury of waiting 20 or 40 more seconds for him to die while he can still shoot at you. Don’t waste time arguing the relative merits of various calibers. No handgun rounds have reliable stopping power with body shots. Pick the round you can shoot best and practice shooting at the suspect’s head.”
3.) Get addicted to self-improvement. “I realized very quickly after my incident that I wasn’t as good as I ought to be. You should never consider yourself ‘good enough.’ If you have a chance to get to any school, even on your own dime, study what’s going on out there and how to deal with it. Most of the training entries on my resume came after my shooting. I’m constantly thinking, ‘When is my next one?’ And ‘Will I be as prepared as I need to be?’ ”
4.) Fight for something. “To overcome the evil that wants to defeat you, you have to have something you’re fighting for. What do you care most about? You have to want to win for that more than anything else in the world. It’s going to come down to the strength of motivation: the subject’s determination to kill you versus your determination to stop him. Your turn will come — there’s no doubt in my mind about that any more — and you can’t afford to lose.”
5.) Read for recovery. “After my shooting, I had some hard days, some things in my head that I had to get sorted out and work my way through. There were two books in particular that were tremendously helpful: Deadly Force Encounters: What Cops Need to Know to Mentally and Physically Prepare for and Survive a Gunfight, by Dr. Alexis Artwohl and Loren Christensen, and On Combat, by Lt. Col. David Grossman. They’re mandatory reading if using or receiving deadly force is part of your job description, because they bring clarity to what’s going on in your body and your brain.”
6.) Bonus tips. Wear glasses when you’re on patrol, even if they’re just clear lenses. They’ll help protect your eyes. If you can’t see, you can’t fight.
Shoot at targets that have clothes on them. Hits are sometimes harder to see with clothing than when you’re shooting paper. Knowing that in advance will keep your confidence up in a gunfight.
Seek out force-on-force Simunitions training. Get accustomed to seeing guns pointed at you and fired at you — and firing back to win without hesitation. You’ll be better prepared than officers who experience this for the first time on the street and scramble to comprehend that their life is actually on the line.”
About the author
Charles Remsberg co-founded the original Street Survival Seminar and the Street Survival Newsline, authored three of the best-selling law enforcement training textbooks, and helped produce numerous award-winning training videos. His nearly three decades of work earned him the prestigious O.W. Wilson Award for outstanding contributions to law enforcement and the American Police Hall of Fame Honor Award for distinguished achievement in public service.
Buy Charles Remsberg's latest book, Blood Lessons, which takes you inside more than 20 unforgettable confrontations where officers' lives are on the line.
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meth: every time you fight the cops
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The thing is, the guy apparently didn't take drugs. Adrenaline alone can do that, when in a tense firefight, you might not even notice being hit until later. He was using a .45, which surprises me (it's a pretty hefty round, one that I'd trust in a firefight), but he's right about the stopping power. The only commonly used round that would reliably stop the target on the first hit is .50 BMG, and that's because of it's tendency to disintegrate whatever it hits. Even if he did use his AR-15, he'd probably have a problem, it was sometimes reported by soldiers and marines in Iraq and Afghanistan that people managed to survive soaking up a mag of 5.56 rounds just because of adrenaline and religious zeal (some advocated bringing 7.92 battle rifles back because of that).
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That's why 10mm and .44 magnum rounds exist, but the fact of the matter is that people just aren't good at reliably dying quickly.
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Even with .44 Magnum hollowpoints, you don't have a 100% chance of dropping a guy with one-two shots, and at this point, you have to start thinking about magazine capacity. Big guns don't hold too many rounds, so unless you want to carry one of those clumsy extended-cap mags, you need to consider that you'd have less rounds per mag, and probably less of them on your person, too. 150 9mm rounds is about what an average MP5-equipped trooper would carry (5 standard MP5 mags hold that many), but 150 .44 rounds sounds like a hefty load to carry around on partol. Also, this guy was very highly trained with his gun even before the shootout. This level of skill with the gun isn't exactly representative of what police officers can do. And with a larger round, it's somewhat harder to hit your target, especially multiple times. I think it's more important to be able to reliably hit in the first place. I'm hardly good even with a 9mm (though I suck with handguns in general), but some use the .50 S&W and seem to like it.
Overall, it boils down to what you're trying to do. For personal defense, a large-caliber handgun would probably be best, since you're probably not going to last long in a prolonged firefight anyway, nor can you reliably hit the head if you're not into pistol marksmanship. Carrying a lot of rounds can be inconvenient, too. An average mugger probably isn't excited enough to have adrenaline drown out the pain when shot, making him more likely to go down fast (not to mention the very fact of having a .44 and a Dirty Harry quote shoved in their face might be enough to reconsider). A police officer, though, might deal with people who know they're coming, expect a fight or even want it. He/she can also spend more time on a firing range, though, and thus can practice more and on realistic targets. In that case, it might be good to go with a lower caliber, but better accuracy, and practice headshots on the range.
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Head shot dominance is all well and good. But I go for repetition. Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
If a clear head presents itself and I can take the time to line it up.
All well and good.
If it meant I carry eight 30 round mags and have to deal with the weight on ops. So be it. I'd normally be in an eight man section as a minimum... but assume self sufficiency as a minimum. I always have a p38 *can opener* on me too.
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Head shot dominance is all well and good. But I go for repetition. Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
If a clear head presents itself and I can take the time to line it up.
All well and good.
If it meant I carry eight 30 round mags and have to deal with the weight on ops. So be it. I'd normally be in an eight man section as a minimum... but assume self sufficiency as a minimum. I always have a p38 *can opener* on me too.
The obvious difference being that you're a soldier in a more-or-less hot warzone, in which case packing as much heat as you can is a reasonable thing to do. For a cop, who won't be shot at for most of his days out on patrol, heading in with that much firepower is .... questionable, to say the least.
IMHO, the first thing police should do is try to deescalate. Packing an entire armory is not deescalating in the slightest; and this whole narrative about american policing having to be militarized is highly bogus.
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He already had an ar-14 and a remington in his patrol car. I see it as matching the biggest potential threat they might encounter.
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Head shot dominance is all well and good. But I go for repetition. Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
Body shot
If a clear head presents itself and I can take the time to line it up.
All well and good.
If it meant I carry eight 30 round mags and have to deal with the weight on ops. So be it. I'd normally be in an eight man section as a minimum... but assume self sufficiency as a minimum. I always have a p38 *can opener* on me too.
You're a soldier, carrying a rifle or a carbine on your person (as opposed to in a car), operating in an eight-man section (as you said), equipped with military grade body armor and facing completely different opponents. There's little commonality between tactics of a soldier and policeman. Policemen who do use similar tactics to you are called Special Weapons And Tactics teams for a reason (and even then, there are some notable differences). Your usual cop will have to travel much lighter, probably wouldn't be issued the armor at all, and will have one-two buddies at best (and in that case, he was alone), and might not even have an automatic/burst rifle like you probably do and will certainly not carry it at all times - those things are somewhat cumbersome, especially if you get in and out of a car a lot (and not a ginormous HMMVV truck, we're talking sedans here).
Packing an entire armory is not deescalating in the slightest;
Well, just having the guns and armor certainly doesn't hurt anything but your mobility (not to say that's not important, though. Policemen sometimes have to just chase the crook on foot). And yeah, police should attempt to deescalate. But they should also be prepared to fight should attempts at mediation fail. In this particular case, the guy outright stated he will kill policemen if stopped. Try deescalating that without an EOD-grade suit of armor... Police definitely should have enough equipment (not only guns) to be able to respond to any situation they might encounter - afterall, that's what they're for. While they might not be able to fully contain any situation, they'll typically be the first authorities on site of any emergency, and should be capable to exacting proper first response. I don't mind police carrying a lot of guns. Indeed, they sometimes get killed when they don't, as is the case in Poland. The Mafia does have illegal guns and isn't afraid to use them. There were a few cases of policemen being under-equipped and paying for that dearly.
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Police definitely should have enough equipment (not only guns) to be able to respond to any situation they might encounter - afterall, that's what they're for. While they might not be able to fully contain any situation, they'll typically be the first authorities on site of any emergency, and should be capable to exacting proper first response.
In the overwhelming amount of situations a police officer is called upon to respond, guns will not be necessary at all. In at least some situations, increasing the amount of guns on the scene does not help at all, and there have been far too many accidental shootings by police officers in the past to make a good case for having officers on patrol being armed at all times.
There were a few cases of policemen being under-equipped and paying for that dearly.
This will always happen. Even if you kit out your police officers in the latest in personal armor, equip them with Land Warrior-type integrated combat information systems and let them drive around with M1A1s under heavy drone cover, you will always lose at least some to the actions of criminals. But that's beside the point. I am more concerned about losing civilians to some cops' itchy trigger finger, because someone decided to call in a prank SWAT call.
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Me too. Complete agreement there.
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@The E: what exactly do you mean by deescalation?
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In the overwhelming amount of situations a police officer is called upon to respond, guns will not be necessary at all.
Of course. In that case, guns simply won't be used. Police are not allowed to shoot at a petty thief stealing a head of cabbage from the stand, and they don't do that. That's why I said "equipment". It applies to things like fire extinguishers and medical kits, too - police can encounter any sort of situation (remember, they're usually first trained response of any kind on site). However, situations involving guns are the most dangerous, because in that case, somebody deliberately wants to kill either them, or someone else.
This will always happen. Even if you kit out your police officers in the latest in personal armor, equip them with Land Warrior-type integrated combat information systems and let them drive around with M1A1s under heavy drone cover, you will always lose at least some to the actions of criminals. But that's beside the point. I am more concerned about losing civilians to some cops' itchy trigger finger, because someone decided to call in a prank SWAT call.
Of course it will. It's a dangerous job, there was a case two SWAT guys got blown up by a mine set up by the criminals (holed up in a fortified house, no less). However, it's possible to significantly reduce those events by just giving the police proper equipment. A gun, a shotgun and a rifle will ensure that except for truly pathological situations (like large-scale organized gangs), the first-response patrol will be capable of at least calling backup and surviving long enough for it to arrive. If they're unarmed, any punk with a gun (or even a knife and lots of muscle) could kill or seriously wound a cop, which can and does happen on occasion. The whole point of police is that they're not there to just ask you nicely to stop whatever mischief you're up to. That's the first thing they usually do, but they definitely need to be able to back their words up if need arises. Criminals are a diverse lot. Sometimes they go quietly, sometimes they will attack the cops, or someone else, meaning that if they're not stopped right now, somebody will die. Don't know about you, but for me, if you have to chose between the life of criminal and innocent person, I'd chose the innocent person any day. It's always preferable to capture the crook alive, but if he has to die to protect someone else, so be it. And I'd rather have police capable of making that happen than standing idly/ducking for cover waiting for SWAT to arrive (with the crook possibly killing someone or escaping during that time).
And TBH, if someone prank-calls in such a way that'll result in a SWAT team showing up at the door, that idiot deserves everything that's coming to them. Which, BTW, will probably be flashbang+tear gas, then a solid clobber and a harsh, effective subduing, because that's how they usually roll, despite being armed to the teeth. To quote SWAT4: "SWAT is a life preserving organization", and their approach reflects that. In fact, I have a feeling that accidental shootings by police are more often than not the result of people doing stuff they really shouldn't be doing, like fooling around with fake guns, making sudden moves (bad idea in any tense situation, guns or not) or failing to do what they're told (really bad idea in any emergency in general). If police's on the scene, it usually means the situation is serious, because the police will definitely treat it as one. People sometimes forget that.
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And TBH, if someone prank-calls in such a way that'll result in a SWAT team showing up at the door, that idiot deserves everything that's coming to them. Which, BTW, will probably be flashbang+tear gas, then a solid clobber and a harsh, effective subduing, because that's how they usually roll, despite being armed to the teeth.
Or, it can end up with someone being killed for the crime of showing up at the door with a wiiMote in hand (http://www.wtvm.com/story/24768102/ga-teen-shot-by-police-officer-after-wii-remote-mistaken-for-gun).
Once you militarize your police, they will respond to calls with a more aggressive mindset than necessary or desirable for a police force. That guy in the OP? That dude who believes he has to carry 3 guns and lots of ammo on his person at all times? That's exactly the kind of person who will have a predisposition to respond to something he perceives as a threat with lethal force, even if the situation does not warrant it.
To quote SWAT4: "SWAT is a life preserving organization", and their approach reflects that. In fact, I have a feeling that accidental shootings by police are more often than not the result of people doing stuff they really shouldn't be doing, like fooling around with fake guns, making sudden moves (bad idea in any tense situation, guns or not) or failing to do what they're told (really bad idea in any emergency in general). If police's on the scene, it usually means the situation is serious, because the police will definitely treat it as one. People sometimes forget that.
Yeah, I can read the PR stuff police departments put out too. However, did you know that police officers are really good at manufacturing excuses for why their behaviour was actually justified? Especially when there are people out there who want to get a bit of justice for their lost daughter, son, parent, or dog?
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A Georgia SWAT team recently executed a no-knock warrant in search of a suspect they believed might be a drug dealer. After picking their way through a front yard with children's toys and past a minivan, they entered the target building, leading with a flashbang. The flashbang landed in a two-year-old's crib. The hole the grenade left was apparently deep enough that you could see his bare ribs.
The parents were kept away from the child and told he'd lost a tooth. The SWAT team searched the building and found no drugs and no suspect. Afterwards, they claimed there was no way they could have known there were children in the house. The kid survived with a hole in his chest and possible brain damage.
This was not an unusual outcome.
The use of militarized police units in the 'War on Drugs' is an insanity. Police denial of responsibility or culpability for the tragedies that result is a regularity. No-knock warrants and dynamic entries are military tactics, meant for military situations, and they habituate officers to kill while positioning innocent civilians as expendable. The victims have no effective recourse. Less than one percent of brutality complaints lead to disciplinary action.
I've edited out the last paragraph as it's inappropriate and undermines what is an otherwise sensible post. // G5K
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In fact, I have a feeling that accidental shootings by police are more often than not the result of people doing stuff they really shouldn't be doing, like fooling around with fake guns, making sudden moves (bad idea in any tense situation, guns or not) or failing to do what they're told (really bad idea in any emergency in general).
Most SWAT deployments are for searches for drugs - no reports of armed suspects, no certainty there is even any criminal activity happening.
You 'have a feeling' and your feeling is wrong. Accidental shootings by police are more often than not the result of heavily armed paramilitary units being deployed where they do not belong and aren't necessary.
If police's on the scene, it usually means the situation is serious, because the police will definitely treat it as one. People sometimes forget that.
People 'forget' this because it's factually untrue. SWAT is a special unit. If they are on the scene, it usually means - 80% of the time, in the case of SWAT rollouts - that they are serving a drug warrant, a direct or indirect result of America's policy in the War on Drugs, border militarization, and military contractor profits. Most of these warrants do not need tactical response. Certainly a $1000 civil fine that is 15 days late doesn't require a dynamic entry and the beating of every family member in the building.
So we come to the last, and greatest, factual untruth:
Of course. In that case, guns simply won't be used. Police are not allowed to shoot at a petty thief stealing a head of cabbage from the stand, and they don't do that.
http://the7thpwr.wordpress.com/accidental-police-shootings/
Cops **** up. The way that they **** up is a result of their training and priming. When cops **** up, they get away with it. Minority communities disproportionately bear the brunt.
Stop blaming the victims. Your position is unsubstantiated by the facts on the ground, and your attitude that anyone who gets killed by a wrong-address no-knock raid somehow deserves it because they made a sudden wrong move is morally repugnant. That situation should never have arisen in the first place. The burden of survival under the gun of a heavily armed paramilitary cop is not on the innocent citizen, it is on the cop.
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You know, Batts, double-posting is discouraged around here. :rolleyes:
But, more on-topic, maybe we need a split, I don't know. Or a lock, whichever. :yes:
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Ahahah, please fact check this for me, I have to write but I almost can't believe this:
Kenneth Chamberlain Jr. with a picture of his father, Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., who was shot and killed by police responding to an aid call after he inadvertently activated his LifeAid pendant. Chamberlain requested that the police leave but an officer can be heard on the LifeAid recording responding "I don't give a **** nigger, open the door!" A LifeAid dispatcher requested that the aid call be cancelled but was told "We don't need any mediators." Chamberlain stated "This is my sworn testimony. White Plains officers are coming in here to kill me." Police then entered Chamberlain's apartment, tased him, shot him with a beanbag round, then shot him to death. A grand jury declined to indict the officers involved.
Wearable cameras seem like a good and available step to take to guard against abuses.
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But, more on-topic, maybe we need a split, I don't know. Or a lock, whichever. :yes:
Why?
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Seems legit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Kenneth_Chamberlain,_Sr.).
And yeah, fitting Officers with cameras is a really good way of making sure those officers don't do anything stupid. It's also a really good way of losing a lot of cameras.
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I would urge everybody to keep level heads about them as they engage in discussion. You can make your points without resorting to hyperbole, personal attacks, ad hominems, and other fallacies.
But, more on-topic, maybe we need a split, I don't know. Or a lock, whichever. :yes:
Well, the opening post was specifically about the level of force police use when responding to threats. So the other posts appear to be on topic. If you wanted to compare ammunition caliber, or capacity, or various firearms for hunting or shooting practice, that would be better served by starting a new thread.
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Just so my stance is clear. I'm for police bing able to RE TURN APPROPRIATE FORCE.
But s.w.a.t raids on unconfirmed hostiles just makes me :nono:
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I would urge everybody to keep level heads about them as they engage in discussion. You can make your points without resorting to hyperbole, personal attacks, ad hominems, and other fallacies.
But, more on-topic, maybe we need a split, I don't know. Or a lock, whichever. :yes:
Well, the opening post was specifically about the level of force police use when responding to threats. So the other posts appear to be on topic. If you wanted to compare ammunition caliber, or capacity, or various firearms for hunting or shooting practice, that would be better served by starting a new thread.
You appear to have addressed the issue I was referring to.
EDIT:
And, yes, this thread was about ammunition amounts & calibers. Hence tactics in the thread title. Police brutality isn't a tactic; it's a crime and should be treated as such. Heck, if you did some of the things mentioned here as a soldier in Afghanistan you'd probably be in some (understatement there, don't miss it) hot water (court martial), I don't know how civil servants get away with it here in the CONUS when there's evidence to back up what happened. Just corruption in the justice system I would say.
But, referring to the OP, some here seem to advocate just rolling over and "oh, well, you know, if I can't stop a crook from shooting at me, at least it wasn't my fault that he did 'cause I'm as helpless as a cute little kitty cat" -- really, officers do need to be ready to inflict deadly harm. As long as they don't respond with inappropriate levels of force, they should be equipped to respond to anything that they might face in their area, and maybe a step or two above. That's my thoughts. I mean, if you have a couple of hardened criminals in a fortified house, you could either:
1) Spend all day plinking at them with handguns
2) Spend hours sniping with semi-auto rifles
3) Spend a few minutes with a grenade launcher
(Although, to get to #3, that's probably in SWAT territory, however, that increases your time of regular arms fire exchange, and the resulting probabilities that bystanders or responding officers will be hit.)
Anyone here watch 44 minutes?
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I believe the correct answer for "hardened criminals in a fortified house" is to cut their power and water and then lob tear gas for days until they either give up living or give up and come out.
Tear gas ****ing sucks.
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Indeed, if hardened criminals are fortified inside a house and you're considering using a grenade launcher on them, then obviously you have to be absolutely certain there's no one else in the house (and I don't know how you could know that), which means that you're in no hurry whatsoever to flush them out in the first place because no one's in danger.
Anyone who thinks a sensible response is to just (likely) kill them all whether it's with handguns, rifles or grenade launchers should be massively unqualified to be in a position where they actually get to make a call like that.
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I was also presuming an ongoing firefight, I'm not sure if I made that clear.
Fortified house meaning, while you're trying to break down the door, you're soaking up AK rounds.
I was also assuming they had provisions for lack of power and water. You don't think so? They took the time to fortify the house, but not prepare for an assault which would almost definitely include cutting utilities? Unlikely.
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Interesting to hear how it works in other countries.
We do have had a couple of times when armed person fortifies himself inside a house, and when that happened, the police simply surrounded the house and waited for him to fall asleep - or to surrender, since those hours tend to get long and you sort of can't help but think about what you're doing.
Last time they raided a motorbike gang hideout, they did it with a special team and armed personnel carriers. No shot was fired, though. They confiscated a light bazooka from the hideout. The incident was related to some kind of fighting in between two motorbike gangs where the other gang fired a light RPG to the hideout of the other. Police prevented further escalation by just raiding the hideout of the other, and the court slapped quite heavy penalties for this sort of stupidity, probably to make the point. Haven't heard of this sort of incidents after that.
There was an incident a couple of years ago, when a police officer was forced to shoot a person aiming his shotgun towards him when he was sitting in a car. I think he did that with a single shot to shoulder, but that lead to quite an examination of whether even that use of force was justified. Given the description of events, general public was very supportive of the police in question. The Finnish police usually does not carry loaded weapons, keeping the clip in a separate pocket from the gun - I suppose this is because there is rarely need to use the gun and to increase the safety of the officer in question. In the rare events the gun IS needed, there's typically plenty of time to do what's needed. From what I can see, Finnish police uses the gun roughly 40 times in a year, including intimidation cases.
Does the officer in the original post use a Kevlar vest now?
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I was also assuming they had provisions for lack of power and water. You don't think so? They took the time to fortify the house, but not prepare for an assault which would almost definitely include cutting utilities? Unlikely.
What can the average gangbanger procure that will withstand extended "cutting attempts" cutting by what exactly? Oxy acetelene is substantially effective. Hydraulic cutters equally so. I'm no sure of the capabilities of the various agencies that would get involved / ATF, FBI, S.W.A.T etc, but unless the crims had ablative ceramics over some heavy duty stuff. They'd last hours at best. Short af an APC with ram taking out a back wall.
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But, referring to the OP, some here seem to advocate just rolling over and "oh, well, you know, if I can't stop a crook from shooting at me, at least it wasn't my fault that he did 'cause I'm as helpless as a cute little kitty cat" -- really, officers do need to be ready to inflict deadly harm. As long as they don't respond with inappropriate levels of force, they should be equipped to respond to anything that they might face in their area, and maybe a step or two above. That's my thoughts.
I think that's a mischaracterization of the argument. The argument isn't that police forces should be made incapable of responding to armed threats, it's more that the default assumption that an officer needs to be armed at all times is one that isn't exactly leading towards correct behaviour. The problem is that police officers are just as fallible as anyone else, and that assuming they'll do the right thing in a stressful situation is probably not safe.
As for your original intended direction for this thread: Given that the amount of people on this forum who are actually in law enforcement (or wanting to get into it) is pretty low (never mind the amount of people who have actually fired a gun at another person with intent to kill or harm), the actual utility of discussing the best ways to kill people is dubious at best. Discussing inappropriate uses of force by police forces is more interesting, and probably more fruitful, than wanking off about calibers.
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I don't like this kind of mindset, that you can't have an opinion about something if you're not involved in it. You can't have an opinion about football if you're not a football player or coach? You can't have an opinion on movies if you're not a movie director or an actor? You can't have an opinion on politics if you're not a politician? It doesn't work that way. Let people talk about what they want to talk about.
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I did think "General discussion" covered the bases.
I know that Nuke, Deathfun and myself shoot quite regularly. But nobodys being forced to chat or not chat.
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Ha, as for my opinions, I should clarify that they are just that - I'm discussing what I (loosely) think, based on what limited real world info I happen on. (44 minutes was based on real world events, btw).
Regarding waiting until they were asleep, I'm surprised they didn't sleep in shifts (because, well, otherwise you get caught) :D of course however, no shots fired would be the best solution. If there were no civilian homes nearby, police could (and should) I suppose, back off and create a perimeter. Dunno how long you could wait for though.
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I don't like this kind of mindset, that you can't have an opinion about something if you're not involved in it. You can't have an opinion about football if you're not a football player or coach? You can't have an opinion on movies if you're not a movie director or an actor? You can't have an opinion on politics if you're not a politician? It doesn't work that way. Let people talk about what they want to talk about.
That's not the message here at all. Please try again. Also do note that while the moderation staff does try to prevent flame wars and outright abusive language, we are not here to make sure no one gets their feelings hurt. Dissenting opinions will not be moderated for disagreeing with the OP, nor (despite earlier issues) is being snarky an actionable offense.
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I don't like this kind of mindset, that you can't have an opinion about something if you're not involved in it. You can't have an opinion about football if you're not a football player or coach? You can't have an opinion on movies if you're not a movie director or an actor? You can't have an opinion on politics if you're not a politician? It doesn't work that way. Let people talk about what they want to talk about.
That's not the message here at all. Please try again.
Well you're going to have to tell me then. Because the message I got from the whole post is essentially this thread is trash, that the people in it don't have what it takes in his eyes to discuss it, and telling us what we should be discussing instead.
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I think the error here might be in assuming that since I lean more towards a conservative viewpoint, I must be a gun crazy, bloodthirsty lunatic.
So can I assume that since others here lean liberal ("reality has a well-known liberal bias" [/smug tone]), that they are all secretly communists who wish for all governments to unite, and take over every aspect of our lives and lead us into eternal human misery and suffering.
Now, do we need to dispel more stereotypes, or can we just crack on? [/Sherlock Holmes]
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Well you're going to have to tell me then. Because the message I got from the whole post is essentially this thread is trash, that the people in it don't have what it takes in his eyes to discuss it, and telling us what we should be discussing instead.
Most of the thread, the part discussing excesses of police violence, and the limits to which we can trust the police to use its powers responsibly, is pretty fine, and we had a good discussion going (at least, that's what I feel).
The original intention, to kick off a discussion about the best ways to kill someone, that's what I object to. I would like to think that most of us never have had reason to find answers to this, and I think it's a discussion that's fundamentally stupid and filled with misconceptions from games, TV shows, films and propaganda of all sorts. As such, I question the reasoning behind posting this, something jr2 hasn't yet elaborated on, I think.
That I despise people who glorify real-life violence, or who think that they're in some sort of war against the civilian populace, is certainly part of this.
I think the error here might be in assuming that since I lean more towards a conservative viewpoint, I must be a gun crazy, bloodthirsty lunatic.
No, not at all. Your general conservativeness doesn't create that impression, your posting of a thread dedicated to finding the best options for killing people does.
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Well as long as you're talking like in this post, I have no objection at all. It's all about tone and respect for me, and bringing hostility into what has been a civilised and interesting thread. This thread as far as I can tell is not about the best ways to kill someone, it's about police safety, and about where the line of reasonable force is to be drawn and questioning current doctrine and tactics.
At this point, I too think it would be prudent to have clarification from jr2. We could both be wrong.
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I honestly not once read it as a how to kill thread. If JR2 meant it as that, i'd have objected immediately.
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My thought process leans more towards heavier caliber and fewer shots, but then there's this :
First post, first sentence.
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I don't read that as an intent to kill. Just weight reduction.
Maybe it's my non civilian background but I just didn['t read any malice into it.
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I don't read that as an intent to kill. Just weight reduction.
Maybe it's my non civilian background but I just didn['t read any malice into it.
There is no malice. I'm absolutely confident of it. He's already said as much anyway with his post about assumptions, but just the way the thread has gone says to me there is no malice, and I am a civilian, and am not comfortable with guns.
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If I had malicious intent, I would not be posting on a game mod forum. There are plenty of nefarious sites out there that you could discuss such things on.
Ask Nuke, he probably trolls them for teh lulz and to piss off the NSA. :lol:
As for my original intentions, you have to separate intending to kill someone because you are full of hate and ill will, and intending to kill someone because THEY are full of hate and ill will and are actively attempting to kill YOU. There is a major difference between the two. And, if you must kill someone who is actively trying to kill you, I would kindly suggest that you not attempt to do so with the least force possible, unless you are CERTAIN of your success. Else you will quite likely find yourself in mortal danger.
One more thing. I like how it was automatically assumed that the officer in the OP is overreacting after he had a brush with death at the hands of a violent criminal bent on killing him.
I would like to say I believe that he simply had a reality check. Preparing for the worst does not make you deranged, although, deranged people sometimes do prepare for the worst. I firmly believe that the officer made sensible adjustments to his routine, providing he still only responds with appropriate levels of force as per his training. I would also like to say that anyone who paints this officer in a bad light because of the precautions he is taking may be applying stereotypes and may wish to carefully re-read the article without mentally referring to instances of police overreach and brutality.
Edit:
I was also assuming they had provisions for lack of power and water. You don't think so? They took the time to fortify the house, but not prepare for an assault which would almost definitely include cutting utilities? Unlikely.
What can the average gangbanger procure that will withstand extended "cutting attempts" cutting by what exactly? Oxy acetelene is substantially effective. Hydraulic cutters equally so. I'm no sure of the capabilities of the various agencies that would get involved / ATF, FBI, S.W.A.T etc, but unless the crims had ablative ceramics over some heavy duty stuff. They'd last hours at best. Short af an APC with ram taking out a back wall.
Bahahaha I just got that. I meant cutting off service utilities, like power and water.
Edit2: if anyone is wondering why police should have semi-auto rifles and shotguns with them on patrol, go back and watch the video I linked.
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The part we keep going back to doesn't seem to be sticking. Militarizing police has the desired effect of greater likelihood of taking down a single heavily armed criminal, nor has that ever really been contested in this thread. The rebuttal to that is the clear and definite trend that militarized police kill significantly more civilians. This is unacceptable.
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Well, I hadn't gotten to that yet, but I agree with you on militarized police forces. HOWEVER, I disagree that simple semi-auto rifles and shotguns + body armor counts as "militarizing" -- I think it has far more to do with training. I don' t know WHY police departments would be training their officers to use a more soldierly / aggressive stance, but that's the only thing I can think. Equipment does not equal mindset.
So, you SHOULD be able to have ready access to a variety of weapons platforms to deal with threats, but if the threat is SO SEVERE that it requires a shoot-anything-that-moves team of professionals, then you need SWAT.
But that brings us to the unnecessary use of SWAT for drug raids etc.
The only time you should need SWAT is if there are known violent, hell-bent criminals that are well-equipped and either
A) they are putting civilian lives in jeopardy
or
B) they are in a place where civilian lives WON'T be put in jeopardy and you need to intercept them THERE, before they move to a location that WILL (put civilian lives in jeopardy).
-- of course, other situations for SWAT probably apply, but you get the idea. This sending in the SWAT team every time you feel like it deal is NOT acceptable.
You might think my views a bit contradictory, but they're actually not.
Regular officers need access to weapons to respond to violent threats should the need arise, with the provision that they respond appropriately (and don't get me wrong, some deranged freak throwing 9 mil pistol rounds DOES NOT IN ANY WAY mean he (the responding officer) should have to limit himself to the same response (pistol fire), as ANY ONE of those rounds can end the life (literally or effectively) of ANYONE within the effective range of the weapon being used, so IF the officer thinks he can take the criminal down with a few well aimed 5.56 rounds (rifles are a HECK of a lot more accurate if you have room to bring them to bear), then he should be perfectly justified in doing so.
ON THE OTHER HAND, if, for some reason, the officer happily happens upon a position where he can bring a tazer to bear WITHOUT anyone else being threatened, then, with firearms as a backup choice, he should go for the non-lethal option, of course.
AND, if he can cover the criminal AND no one is in immediate danger, he should wait for backup, as he would be in far less danger if he is covered by his fellow officers (both from civil lawsuits and from lethal response).
SWAT (overwhelming militarized force) response should be limited to special situations and should require judicial or some other civil oversight's approval, and if that makes response time unacceptable, then we need a special on-call set of judges / whatever civilian oversight gets put in charge of SWAT response that can be reached at a moment's notice.
My 2c.
So, in summary, you could probably cast me as "moderate" in my opinions on police response. MRAP vehicles, full-auto .50 cal machine guns, that should be either SWAT only (and remember what I said about SWAT above), and/or require approval and a crap load of paperwork and authorization for use.
Semi-auto, less-than-hunting caliber rifles (not excluding the possibility of larger rounds, just pointing out that the dreaded tacticool AR-15 / M16 / M4 whatever you call the ArmaLite 5.56 semi-auto weapon fires, for all intents and purposes, a high-velocity .22 round!!) with fancy ease-of-use attachments (yeah, that's what hand grips, heat shields, recoil compensators / muzzle brakes, and rail systems to mount attachments amount to) shouldn't be treated as "militarization". If anything, they would reduce the risk of collateral damage thanks to their higher accuracy (provided the user has the proper mindset and training, of course).
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I still disagree. A patrol officer should not need anything more powerful than a sidearm for day to day operation. If an officer encounters something against which a handgun will not carry the day, said officer should withdraw and call for backup - not hurry back to his or her trunk armory and re-engage. Having anything else available for easy use promotes needlessly aggressive behavior.
A police officer on patrol's duty is not to kill a violent criminal, or to go looking for violent criminals to get into a confrontation with.
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I work in law enforcement. I live in Canada. I read Popehat.
The whole notion of militarized police forces scares the crap out of me. Doubly-so in places where there are not nationally-consistent, highly-trained, professional police forces whose primarily objective is de-escalation. I regard Policeone with extreme skepticism as to both the accuracy and validity of some of the claims posted there. The site, like many policing 'tactical' resources and primers, is heavily influence by groupthink. Policeone exists to entrench the notion of 'tactical' needs into policing generally, and its a philosophy I highly disagree with. Their premises are usually more force, greater force, faster force, more expensive force, overwhelming force, or why anything without force will likely fail.
In short, I reject the original premise of the thread based on its source material in the first place. That said, the discussion on militarization of policing is interesting, but can be generally summed up in two words: it's bad.
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MP-Ryan, out of curiosity, have you read any incident reports of Scandinavian or Finnish police firearms usage?
By their latest report, Finnish police seems to have fired about ten rounds last year, including warning shots. Finland has a population of roughly six million, are the Canadian statistics similar?
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MP-Ryan, out of curiosity, have you read any incident reports of Scandinavian or Finnish police firearms usage?
By their latest report, Finnish police seems to have fired about ten rounds last year, including warning shots. Finland has a population of roughly six million, are the Canadian statistics similar?
I haven't looked at the Scandinavian numbers, nor have I looked in-depth here... but Canadian police do not fire "warning shots," and the number of rounds expended is above 10 in several single incidents I'm aware of from just the media reports alone, so I'm going to venture a guess that if those numbers you're quoting are accurate, no, the stats are nowhere near the same, even accounting for the fact that we have a population that's 5 times greater than Finland.
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This (http://www.cato.org/raidmap?type=1) may be of some interest.
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This (http://www.cato.org/raidmap?type=1) may be of some interest.
Very interesting. More than just a map showing incidents, you can click on all the little icons to learn about each particular incident.
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Well, I hadn't gotten to that yet, but I agree with you on militarized police forces. HOWEVER, I disagree that simple semi-auto rifles and shotguns + body armor counts as "militarizing" -- I think it has far more to do with training. I don' t know WHY police departments would be training their officers to use a more soldierly / aggressive stance, but that's the only thing I can think. Equipment does not equal mindset.
{etc}
I pretty much agree here.
Now, I've seen a lot of reasonable arguments here against equipping policemen with military-level weapons. But what about military-grade protection?
For instance, imagine that a sizable percentage of the police were equipped with Kevlar vests. (Which might be impractical to wear all the time, but could be stored in the car). That kind of protection would decrease police casualties and increase their ability to engage armed criminals. However, as a non-aggressive piece of equipment, it doesn't seem that it would increase the threat of civilian casualties.
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Wouldn't that entice criminals to switch to more expensive weapons specifically designed to take down armored vests, which as a result decreases the net effectiveness of the SWAT?
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I can't speak for any other country, but all police officers (and the majority of other law enforcement) in Canada are both issued and wear kevlar, yours truly included. They're only really useful against pistols and shotgun pellets, though these are by far the most common things people shoot at police with. The ballistic plate armour for rifle rounds is too heavy and unwieldy to be practical for daily wear.
There aren't really weapons - or ammunition, Hollywood notwithstanding - designed to take down armoured vests. Most standard rifle calibres (which are reasonably cheap, seeing as they're the most common hunting firearns) will penetrate Level 2A kevlar, though it may slow the velocity somewhat.
The nonsense you see on TV of special vests being thrown on in certain situations is exactly that. I'm not aware of any actual professional police forces in the US with uniformed officers that don't wear kevlar. Maybe some of the tiny community police departments?
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Interestingly enough, Cracked also had an article on police militarization yesterday.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-reasons-police-are-starting-to-look-like-supervillains/
I can't say Cracked is a prime source of information, but it was an interesting read as to why police have become more militarized. Mainly as a result of post 9/11 mentality and federal grants
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I can't speak for any other country, but all police officers (and the majority of other law enforcement) in Canada are both issued and wear kevlar, yours truly included. They're only really useful against pistols and shotgun pellets, though these are by far the most common things people shoot at police with. The ballistic plate armour for rifle rounds is too heavy and unwieldy to be practical for daily wear.
There aren't really weapons - or ammunition, Hollywood notwithstanding - designed to take down armoured vests. Most standard rifle calibres (which are reasonably cheap, seeing as they're the most common hunting firearns) will penetrate Level 2A kevlar, though it may slow the velocity somewhat.
The nonsense you see on TV of special vests being thrown on in certain situations is exactly that. I'm not aware of any actual professional police forces in the US with uniformed officers that don't wear kevlar. Maybe some of the tiny community police departments?
Very interesting, especially coming from a police officer. It seems the popular impression of police equipment in the US is pretty inaccurate (like you said, probably Hollywood's fault).
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Just so I'm not misrepresenting myself by omission, I'm not a police officer, actually; I do federal law enf in Canada for a department that deals with different types of law than typical policing (though still criminal offences), which shall remain nameless for the purposes of my internet postings.
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I've got the opposite reaction. I'm surprised that US people didn't know this. I thought it was common knowledge.
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(whereas I live under a rock and don't know anything about what is or is not common knowledge) What is this "popular impression of police equipment", and how does it differ from MP-Ryan's description?
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Well, basically, it seems that if you don't actually research this stuff, you get several misconceptions about Kevlar, in particular that it's A. less-used and B. more resilient than it really is. I can't speak for people outside the US.