I'm sorry, but how in the world does this qualify as EIA?

EIA= doing something that "selects you out", I'd say these two morons pretty much signed their own life-sentence when they gunned down a policeman over something they could probably gotten away with a couple of months or so..

just another calm night in Georgia

shoot, forget bootknives, them boys got boot GUNS too

so i am confused... how does arming the police help here? what's the NRA take on this?

Good thing we have Kevlar. And Mink. Police are taught to use the firearm as a last resort. The officer did pull the weapon and if the suspect did not comply he would have opened fire. Unfortunately the guy he was about to cuff pulled a gun before the officer had time to use lethal force.

What's even more sad is if the officer had opened fire and disabled both suspects he would have one hell of a lawsuit to fight.

yeah, so like i said, the gun didn't protect him, the kevlar did.
so in this case, arming the police didn't help (and is even acting as an incentive for the criminals to get guns)
i know it's a tired old lefty argument, but anyways, here's a video to back it up.

of course you could just legalise drugs and none of this would be an issue...

One example. I've known cops who the only reason they are alive is because of a gun. Take the West Hollywood shootout for example. A lot of people died because the police had underpowered firearms for the situation. 99% of the time an officer won't need his gun. But when to comes to a shootout I'd rather the officer be firing back instead of standing with a vest hoping to deflect bullets.

And on another note: I don't think criminals would stop buying guns if officers didn't have them.

well yes, i mean i don't want to start a big gun law debate. i am aware that if you reduce everything down to a 1 on 1, we'd all choose a gun. like with the death penalty, if you ask someone who's husband was just killed you get a different answer than if you consider the whole society.

but you could ask why there is less gun crime in a place like canada or the uk...

problem is the situation in the US is maybe so far gone that you can't rewind time, but in a place like the UK they often use the US as an example of why we should arm the police... which is not a fair comparison, because there is a totally different culture about guns. for example, it used to be taboo among gangsters to use guns, like a sign of cowardice or dishonour.

anyway the fact remains that having a gun "feels nice" more than it is actually effective at stopping someone shooting you.

if you were shot accidentally by a policeman or an accidental discharge, you might want to reconsider.

Mink - I don't think the problem is the guns - by either the police or the criminals. Take a look at the stabbings in the UK - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5023872.stm - The problem is lack of respect for human lives. The moment people stop seeing other people has having the same rights as they do, and don't understand what dying is, they start using lethal force. Banish guns and they'll use knives. Make blades illegal and they'll use crowbars.

And in the words of Cypress Hill -
"Didn't have to blast him but I did anyway
That young punk had to pay
So I just killed a man

Here is something you cant understand
How I could just kill a man"

http://www.videosift.com/video/Cypress-Hill-How-I-Could-Just-Kill-a-Man

haha cypress hill, yeah ok, you win

of course guns don't kill people, people do, but knives don't go off accidentally in your pocket, and don't have much range unless you are steven segal.

about the stabbings in the uk... you do realise that arming the police would have prevented zero of those tragic events, and you do realise that there are not many stabbings listed (not to say it isn't a problem, but compared to LA?) and you do of course realise that they were not shootings.

also, none of those were attacks on policemen, and definitely not 2 guys emptying clips at a policeman. (i mean the video in this thread is like WHOOOAAAAAAAAA!!!!! to a brit like me, maybe you can't picture just how freaking crazy it is to think that this happens ANYWHERE in the world)

also, the article you link to highlights the problem of youth crime... these are not criminals they're kids, it's a totally different problem. if you think legalising guns would help there, or that armed police would be a deterrent to these kids, i gotta disagree.

Mink - I'm not supporting legalizing guns. I'm just not blaming guns for what the kids in this video did. If the policeman didn't take away the guy's knife, he would have knifed him, incidentally much more likely to kill the policemen then the actual shots... The problem is that they think it is ok to take someone's life. That's why I referred to those stabbing incidents - in most places in the world, even when criminals carry guns and assault rifles, they will only use them in "organized crime assassinations" - not on bystanders or on crime victims.
But I can point you at a place where people threw someone off the roof because they disagreed with his political opinion.

It's a shame those guys were so inept; that cop deserved to die. All cops deserve to die.

Prohibition is crime in its basest and most appalling form - the wrongful deprivation of human liberty. Trespass against the fundamental, essential, undeniable right of self-ownership. There is no sufficient punishment for its perpetrators and their supporters.

^whooaaah, all cops deserve to die? whooah.

@rightwinger, i kinda know what you are saying, i am not totally against guns (was a rifle instructor) but i definitely don't think introducing them into areas where they are not common is a good idea. less guns is good, seriously, i have never been afraid of being shot in my life, even in south london during a media scare about gun crime. but you're right that a stab wound to the chest is worse than someone shooting your shoulder.

as for self defence in the US, man, i don't live there but of course i seen some scary shit on youtube, if there's no kids in the house, i think i'd be tempted to get a gun. thankfully that kind of crime is real low around where i am. The police have guns though, which actually scares me more than "criminals". A couple of times I have had the opportunity to lift a gun off them (which of course i didn't take, i just thought shit, that's physically possible) and i don't think that's a safe thing to have walking around town.

in the UK, the scariest thing are the cops at the airport with automatics. they have an extra clip. i mean, an EXTRA clip. wtf can you do with an automatic with 2 clips in a busy airport if someone decides to blow himself upor shoot from behind a bin or something? also it was pretty scary when uk cops shot a suspected terrorist who turned out to just be some brazilian guy living in the same block as the real suspect. think about that one.

Obviously anecdotes aren't evidence, but I train with many LEOs who have used their firearms to save their lives and the lives of others.

In any case, MINK, what would you suggest would be the better alternative? Two criminals attempted to kill an officer with two handguns. What would have stopped them from trying to do so if the officer hadn't been armed? One unarmed police officer, two armed perps...hmmmm....

As for Canada and Britain, it is my understanding that Canadian police carry sidearms as standard, and Britain happens to be the target of much less violent crime, even proportionally, than the US.

Anywho, I don't particularly take issue with the fact that the gun might not function well as a significant deterrent. It might, or it might not, but that's not the primary purpose of a firearm for an LEO. The primary purpose is for use in dealing with and stopping a violent, potentially deadly confrontation with a perp that is already occurring. Because this officer was unlucky enough not to have been able to stop this particular situation does not mean that guns are ineffective as tools to be used by all LEOs (watch the video again to see how the perps were apprehended), it means either that this officer was not well trained enough or, much more likely, he was very very unlucky. Two armed people versus one person, armed or unarmed, puts the odds against the one.

Scary fucking video, by the way. I can't imagine what kind of insanity drove those guys to do what they did.

perfect proof of what happens when every moron is allowed to carry a gun.

and yes i know they might not be in legal posession of the guns but nevertheless, if gun posession would be illegal the black market would be waaaaay smaller.

but hey, this discussion will find no end. i'm anti guns, some here are pro guns. that's alright, everyone makes his point, no argue, peace love and happiness :-D

nice one conan

and rembar, yes i guess your final sentence kinda negates the debate, these guys are clearly very desperate and freakin insane. it did seem odd how casual the cop was about the other guy in the car, though. maybe not a good idea to stop people like that, alone, looking for guns and drugs.

so just legalise it! that's the cypress hill song most relevant here.

Mink - I understand what you're saying and I won't rehash the guns argument, but comment about the arms of airport security - http://www.emergency-management.net/airterror_shoot.htm

The second clip is because when somebody IS behind a bin, and you emptied your gun at the bin in excitement, you don't want to be left unarmed...

yeah yeah of course, why not have 5 clips and a few grenades and a light sabre

That's Cool. Interesting that this happened in Tyler where I lived for 20 years. Must have happened right after I left. Pretty neat during the car chase I could say, OH, I know where they are at.

I sincerely hope that conan was joking. Outlawing guns would make the black market smaller? Umm... sure.

This all reminds me of a quote: "If guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns." I believe those words are from Thomas Jefferson.

@gorillaman,

I'm curious as to why you think that all cops deserve to die... that seems pretty harsh, don't you think? Sure, some are assholes that don't deserve a badge, let alone a gun... but all cops?

"it did seem odd how casual the cop was about the other guy in the car, though. maybe not a good idea to stop people like that, alone, looking for guns and drugs."

I don't really think so Mink, hindsight is 20/20, right? He was alone on duty, that's not his fault, it's the PD's. And usually LEOs are trained to immediately react strongly once a passenger exits the vehicle, or when any situation brings in a second potential perp. However, in this case, I'm not really sure if the officer could have done much better up to the point where he should have started shooting (or even past that). I mean, he moved up the force continuum as far as was legal or moral - he drew his sidearm, and gave a command for the second perp to get back in the vehicle. As I said earlier, it was a 2-on-1 situation, the odds were stacked against him from the get go. I don't really see what else he could have done to prevent the situation from going down as it did, past a quicker shot on the first man, but that's a physical reaction thing. Just an unlucky man, doing his duty.

Gonna have to agree with MarineGunrock here. If guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns.

oh, you've got a cute saying there, i guess i bow to that argument!

if guns are legal, then there's quite a few people who are not criminals who get a gun and then baaaaaad shit happens with it.

i would prefer criminals to shoot each other, rather than criminals to be worried that I might shoot THEM. I am not gonna shoot them, so they don't seem to find a reason to carry a gun and try to shoot me first.

if there's a domestic dispute between law abiding citizens, it's probably best if there's no gun around, especially if they are drunk.

if you make guns legal, kids get them. and outlaws. and corrupt police. and suicidal depressed people.

but go ahead, it's your right under the constitution to live in a country where you almost NEED to get a gun!

here's interesting article about australia:
http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/gunaus.htm

i would ask you... if you give guns to lawful people, how many of them turn into outlaws? your cute saying about "outlaws" assumes law abiding is somehow fixed and genetic and not influenced by gun laws or culture. That's obviously not true. Good guys turn bad, in bad enough circumstances. Why make it easy for every wacko and desperate poor guy to get a gun?

oh shit... the debate we didn't want started anyway!

http://www.videosift.com/video/Shooting-in-a-Casino-Elevator

In 2000, 64% of all homicides and 57% of all suicides in the United
States resulted from the use of a firearm.

Source: Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2002). National
Vital Statistics Report, Vol. 50, No. 16, September 16, 2002, p. 44.

now are you telling me that if guns were illegal, all these tragedies would have happened with a knife instead?

MINK,
I'm not sure I follow your position. In your post with the article about Australia, you seem anti-gun. But in the one above me, you seem like it wouldn't matter if they were illegal or not - people will die by them anyway.

But as for your first post: "i would prefer criminals to shoot each other, rather than criminals to be worried that I might shoot THEM. I am not gonna shoot them, so they don't seem to find a reason to carry a gun and try to shoot me first."

What, you think that criminals will only shoot other criminals just because guns are illegal?

If someone wants to kill you, they probably aren't too scared of possessing something illegal.

always reducing the argument down to a single example of a single person... out of context, out of culture, out of connection with anything else... just "if you were in a park and some dude shot you you'd want a gun man!!!!!"

society works in complex ways, if guns are legal, good people find it easier to turn into bad people.

if someone wants to kill me, but can't get a gun easily, and calms down the next day, i live. if my wife wants to kill me because she found some bullshit evidence of an affair, she shoots me when i walk in the door before i can explain, then i am dead, and she is holding a gun, looking horrified and thinking "shit, what have i done?". it's not all "bad guys" and "terrorists" out there, dude.

i could go on with a million little counterpoints, but anyway. I am OF COURSE anti gun... i mean, u have to be a total psycho to be PRO gun. you WANT to put metal through people's bodies??? No you probably don't but you are either ordered to or you consider it a self defence measure.

if you look on an individual level, yeah, it makes sense to get a gun, just in case, as long as you treat it with respect. if you look on a societal level, i think the gun laws in the US are obviously crazy and a means of keeping the black/poor population down. give em guns and drugs, see how their property prices are affected. i mean how can you see that much gun crime and say "more guns is the answer"... it's just nuts when there are other countries with less guns and therefore less gun crime (duh)

my position isn't clear, it's complex.

I do see what you are saying, MINK. But Do you think that if someone wants to kill you, they won't just because they can't find a gun?

I am all for private gun ownership, but I think that there should be very extensive background checks for people who wish to purchase one.
Some may seem unfair, but maybe something like this:
Gun ownership could be restricted to people who live in areas with low crime rates, or places that aren't densely populated.
Obviously there will be criminal checks, but it could go further to check records of family and stability in their life (numerous jobs, divorces, etc.)
Maybe set up local armories to hold the weapons for townspeople that do live in densely populated areas, so that they may have their rifles if they wish to go on a hunting trip. That way law enforcement agencies would know who (legally) has a gun in their possession at that very moment.

I believe that a system like that could provide middle ground for both parties, so that guns would be out of homes and off the streets, while allowing citizens to have their right to own guns.

Personally, I enjoy shooting for the sport, and like hunting for the meat. Mmm Mmm Mmm.... deer steaks...

yeah i am not far away from that position, even though i am vegetarian and think locking the guns up kinda ruins the advantages of having an armed citizenry... lock up the guns and you're left with all the bad stuff, just maybe a bit less of it.

but country sports i don't really feel i have a right to demand banning, so long as it's all regulated so there aren't extinctions or property damage or tresspass or whatever. i don't see why everyone should have to obey the rules of My Perfect World, i just make suggestions

I keep a gun for protection and have taken gun handling courses. I hope and pray I'll never see a day when I have to use it, even as a deterrent. People who want to hurt or kill others will find a way to do it. Guns or no. It's like the old saying goes "God made all men. Sam Colton made them equal."

Easily one of my favorite quotes there, gorgon.

I just had a really interesting conversation with gorillaman that I think is very much related to this conversation. Here it is:

Me:

I'm curious as to why you think that all cops deserve to die... that seems pretty harsh, don't you think? Sure, some are assholes that don't deserve a badge, let alone a gun... but all cops?

Him:

Prohibition is a crime against humanity, its agents are the enemies of mankind and deserve to die. This is evident truth - if you consider prohibition in the context of the rights to self-ownership and self-defence you can come to no other reasonable conclusion.

Me:

I assume that you're talking about the right to own guns?
I am all for private ownership of guns. I'm training to be a police officer. Are you saying that I deserve to die just because of my job?

Him:

I was talking about drug prohibition - the cop was arresting the guy because of the giant bag of weed he found while patting him down. In other words he was going to take his freedom away, potentially for years, for doing absolutely nothing wrong. Responding to that kind of aggression with deadly force is not only completely justified, it's downright commendable. The simple fact of prohibition necessarily earns the death sentence for every single person involved in sustaining it.

Being a police officer is not just a job; it will involve the daily initiation of force against sovereign individuals. This is all to the good if the individuals involved have themselves transgressed upon another's freedom, and you act correctly as an agent empowered by society to act in its defense. But your moral authority to act extends only as far as that of those who grant it; one cannot give what one does not already possess. Where the law exceeds the limits dictated by the necessary rights of mankind, where it initiates force against those who have not done the same to the person or property of those in its care, it is corrupt - the law itself becomes a crime.

The moment you put on that badge you will become an agent of corruption, you will inherit your criminality from those who empower you and you will deserve to die. If you support prohibition as a private citizen you already do.

Me:

Hmm.. your views and opinions are obviously very deeply rooted. While I disagree with what you say, I would fight to the death to defend your right to say it.
But surely you must admit that as a citizen of any advanced culture, that there are certain rules that one must follow? Surely you feel that someone has to uphold these laws, no matter how you feel about them? Or is it that you feel you have the rights that you want, save the right to possess and use drugs?
I am deeply disturbed that you wish death upon your fellow man, neigh, wish death upon me for wanted to enforce the laws of our society.
For that, I do feel very sorry for you.

Edit: So, after all that, let me ask you a non-rhetorical question. If your car was stolen, or you witnessed a murder, or someone broke into your house, or someone killed your wife/mom/dad/sister whatever, you're telling me that you would forgo calling the cops? You wouldn't want any law enforcement trying to capture the monster that killed your own family/significant other?
______________________________________________________________________

We'll see where it goes from there.

Woah, G-man. How the hell can you say who deserves to live and die? Where the hell do you get off calling out who has a right to life? People with that mentality make me sick! You'd gun down my family members just because they uphold laws?! I hope you get therapy for your apparent issues. It's because of nut-jobs like you I'm glad we have law enforcement.

Uh, hello? Can someone please tell gorillaman that the guy was already good to be arrested for drunk driving?????

Whether or not you believe weed should be legalized, drunk driving laws exist for a v. good reason.

Hope he also grows out of the 'kill 'em all and let God sort them out' mentality... yeeesh! And I mean, if you're fomenting revolution, is it really that smart to be writing about it in open forums? I mean, if you really believe in that philosophy, you'd be starting a guerilla war until every agent of the State who opposes your view point is dead. If you're only waiting until one of them busts you, that's either laziness or cowardice. Or you're "trolling us good."

Thank goodness for either, though, wow.

... and who the hell sold those yahoos automatic rifles?????

And the last from gorillaman:
As a member of the human race there are certain rules that one must follow, these are revealed by reasoned consideration of the facts of our existence. In simple terms, I am in possession of my life, and no-one has a greater claim to that life than me. This is the fundamental human right of self-ownership and from it stem the necessary rights to free speech, property (you cannot own anything without acknowledging the life used to aquire it belongs to you), self-defence, and all the others. No authority, however high, can legitimately curb these rights.

I believe in the value of law, but law exists to protect the righteous from those who violate our rights, not to define morality. As citizens of an advanced culture our rights and obligations are no different than those we would possess in any other circumstance, they should just be better defended.

Prohibition isn't the only so-called-law that violates basic human liberty, from public indecency to marriage licenses to the presumption that every unsanctioned killing is a murder; the whole system has gone insane. In the absence of legitimate law I do not grant the police the authority to administer my life, consequently they have no fair claim to do so. Nevertheless they make that claim, and will use force to back it up. Therefore they are my enemies and the enemies of mankind.

In answer to your non-rhetorical question, if I was the victim of a crime I would call the police if I felt they could achieve a better resolution than I could alone. As long as a resource exists it may as well be exploited, but I wouldn't stop hating them.
_______________________________________________________________
I really don't know how to respond to this, so I haven't. I just feel really sorry for him.
I guess drugs are just a basic right to all humanity. Is his argument analogous to Godwin's law?

would it be terribly wrong of me to say that i think the cop deserved to die? i don't believe in arming cops, but frankly, i just want them to die. the worst people in the world are the ones "just doing their job" when their job is to infringe on people's rights. those people in that truck never hurt anyone until they absolutely had to, in order to protect their own rights. it's not lefty or righty, i'm a lifetime republican and NRA member, i just think the cops have more power than the average person who they're SUPPOSED to work for. while pulling these guys who didn't actually hurt anyone, the cop could have been investigating a REAL crime like rape or murder or home invasion robbery. sickening

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