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really? is it me or is this getting increasingly common lately? seems like every few days or week or 2, i see something like this on the news.

Police killings aren't becoming more common, it's just being covered more. This is the hot thing right now.

I get so tired of this stuff. :\

This one's a bit closer to home.

Still, I don't care what side you've taken, and I certainly don't oppose protesting, but I'd say that vandalizing police cars and looting stores isn't the best way to bring about change.

MLK would just be shaking his head.

see CNN for coverage of the rioting happening right now.

and my aunt was surprised i was interested in something like this. *facepalm* it's not that i'm not interested, it's that "news" typically translates to social media which i care VERY little for.

this? this is stupid. i thought they were protesting, not rioting. first i see them talking about protests, then not long after that i start hearing sirens, next it's riots in the streets. certainly escalated quickly over the course of just 1-2 hours or so, huh? or maybe this has been going on all day and i only first saw it mid-way.

Pretty sure there were peaceful protests earlier, but some degenerate rioters have ruined any chance of making progress at this point.

Like they always do.

Do they really believe that they're the good guys as they terrorize unaffiliated citizens and damage property indiscriminately? I don't know if it would be better or worse if they did.

just got back from hauling off some trash and geez, what next? my aunt said 3 gangs have grouped together against the cops while we we're gone. it sure is a war zone in baltimore now.

go away 50* error message, let me post here.

edit: "maryland governor activates national guard"

sheesh, it's already 7pm there, hope they get it under control soon.

http://i.imgur.com/ocGggCU.jpg

looks like theres another massive fire now. senior citizens home or something, i'm not sure.

wth is wrong with people? that's just crazy. AND i think there STILL cars getting set on fire and STILL more looting.

i don't normally watch the news much but this is just crazy.

treos said:
looks like theres another massive fire now. senior citizens home or something, i'm not sure.

wth is wrong with people? that's just crazy. AND i think there STILL cars getting set on fire and STILL more looting.

This is america were talking about wtf do you expect?

Cutedementia said:
This is america were talking about wtf do you expect?

well, yeah, but i would've thought they'd have it under control by now. i mean, this could have been stopped early on, right?

I've been saying for a while now that I am surprised there haven't been more riots.

So yeah. This doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Just the opposite: it cures my surprise.

Peaceful protests: Take longer to make an impact, receive lots of criticism and insults but it gets the message across with a higher success rate. (Ex. Martin Luther King Jr.)

Violent protests: Quicker way to make an impact, receive lots of criticism, insults, and does not get the message across with a lower success rate. (Ex. What's happening in Baltimore)

After over hundreds of years of constant mistreatment, via cops or an entire race in general, it's reasonable to be mad but violence is not going to solve anything. It will make things worse.

Ex. Say you want to get that promotion at your job really badly. Which will produce better results? Spitting in your boss' face until he gives you a promotion or ask politely and telling him how hard you have worked throughout all the time you've been there?

Ippiki hit it right on the nail. There has been a ton of police killings but they haven't been "newsworthy" in the past. Today, the media will try to make any police killings national news. Justified or not.

Plus, this is making others look bad. For example, cops. Not all cops are bad. I know some cops and they are professional and nice. Not all cops are nice though. Proof is in the recent events. Another example is blacks. I was walking into a store and a lady literally called the cops on me because she thought I "was invite my friends to tear down the store." Like wtf?

tl;dr Stay peaceful

/rant

Cutedementia said:
http://i.imgur.com/ocGggCU.jpg

I'm not sure if you're serious. But if you ware, I want to say that shooting anyone, anywhere, is almost certain to kill them, at least eventually. It isn't like the movies. You don't shoot somebody unless you want them dead, full stop. A shot to the leg can kill you as quickly as a shot to the neck depending on where it hits.

Cutedementia said:
This is america were talking about wtf do you expect?

Super_Hornet said:
I'm not sure if you're serious. But if you ware, I want to say that shooting anyone, anywhere, is almost certain to kill them, at least eventually. It isn't like the movies. You don't shoot somebody unless you want them dead, full stop. A shot to the leg can kill you as quickly as a shot to the neck depending on where it hits.

Wait, you mean that you can't just hide behind a wall for a few minutes to wait for your life to heal? I've been lied to!

But seriously, this is very much correct. Along any bones in the limbs is likely to either hit an artery or even shatter a bone, which can easily be lethal without prompt treatment due to massive blood loss and infection.

For instance, one of the things that happens when you get shot is you break your body's natural barrier to the elements, your skin. The bullet itself is, for all practical purposes, sterile (due to the amount of heat that is produced when it is fired) but your skin and clothing have a natural bacterial flora which essentially gets injected deep into muscle, fat, bone, etc. when you get shot. This can easily cause lethal blood and bone infections if not treated properly. And even with prompt treatment and recovery it can easily render an arm or a leg useless for the rest of that person's life, either due to local blood loss or damage to bone, nerves, etc.

I'm not saying that police (or anybody else) should or shouldn't use guns, but there is almost always going to be consequences to getting shot.

parasprite said:
Wait, you mean that you can't just hide behind a wall for a few minutes to wait for your life to heal? I've been lied to!

But seriously, this is very much correct. Along any bones in the limbs is likely to either hit an artery or even shatter a bone, which can easily be lethal without prompt treatment due to massive blood loss and infection.

For instance, one of the things that happens when you get shot is you break your body's natural barrier to the elements, your skin. The bullet itself is, for all practical purposes, sterile (due to the amount of heat that is produced when it is fired) but your skin and clothing have a natural bacterial flora which essentially gets injected deep into muscle, fat, bone, etc. when you get shot. This can easily cause lethal blood and bone infections if not treated properly. And even with prompt treatment and recovery it can easily render an arm or a leg useless for the rest of that person's life, either due to local blood loss or damage to bone, nerves, etc.

I'm not saying that police (or anybody else) should or shouldn't use guns, but there is almost always going to be consequences to getting shot.

I see you're very knowledgable on this subject...

It's also worth noting that aiming a gun at an unpredictable moving target that could potentially be trying to kill you is not a situation where you can calmly aim for a limb of your choosing. You'd be lucky if you hit them at all. That's why police are trained to aim for the center of mass, i.e. where the heart, lungs, cerebral column, and other vulnerable internal organs that you don't want ruptured are. And they will not stop firing until the target is down, which does not always happen as quickly as you'd expect.

Firearms are not designed to send people to the hospital, they are designed to send them to the afterlife. And "Less than lethal weapons" is an oxymoron.

Qmannn said:
Anyway, weapons have varying degrees of effectiveness. It'd be nice if there existed a way to quickly incapacitate a threat as safely as possible.

Cops were given tasers. They were using them for everything since it was less controversial then using the gun. Until they started killing people with the tasers anyways

CamKitty said:
Until they started killing people with the tasers anyways

That's what I mean. Any technology we have today reliable and practical enough to bring someone down quickly without killing them is still very dangerous. I'm sure that will change in the future, but obviously we aren't there yet...

Was Freddie Gray important before his death? Because outside of the fact that he's African-American, and outside of the fact that he was brutalized by the police to the point of them inadvertently breaking his neck, I'm having difficulty comprehending how all of this started because one man died.

Police officers shouldn´t shoot anyone.
And criminals shouldnt do so eighter.

My thoughts on the topic.

Super_Hornet said:
I'm not sure if you're serious. But if you ware, I want to say that shooting anyone, anywhere, is almost certain to kill them.

Ah yes but shooting someone directly in the chest is probably more likely to kill them then a shot to the lower leg (See: reports of victims shot in the leg living to tell the tale which there are plenty) and see: Victims shot in the head/chest and compare how many live.

Yes you might die either way, but you're probably less likely to die from a bullet to the foot then a bullet to the fucking lung.

Cutedementia said:
Yes you might die either way, but you're probably less likely to die from a bullet to the foot then a bullet to the fucking lung.

While that is true, police officers are not cyborgs. I'm no dead-eye, but I shot competitively for four years and it's still hard just hitting a target at ten meters. That's when I'm in a shooting range aiming at a stationary, obvious target as opposed to being in a highly stressful situation in which for all I know somebody could be trying to kill me and I'd have to decide whether or not it's worth ending a life. Hitting somebody in the legs is almost impossible unless they are standing perfectly still (which somebody doing something worth shooting them over probably is not doing). Arms and legs flail around, the torso does not. And if they miss, suddenly that shot is a lot more likely to ricochet and hit a bystander. And, of course, if the target is armed, shooting them in the legs could give them time to retaliate. The people who write shooting regulations know what it means to shoot somebody.

tl;dr: Police are trained to shoot to kill when using ballistic weaponry and there's a reason for that.

The advancement of less lethal weapons is a better alternative than changing basic tactics.

Anyway, glad to see the chaos in Baltimore has died down.

Rioting is fun, tho.

Moon_Moon said:
Rioting is fun, tho.

post #406624

What's so amusing about these stories every time is all the commenters you can clearly tell from what they say who simply have never handled a gun or ever been around one in their entire life. Their concept of gun-handling comes entirely from watching movies and videogames.

Amusing until you realize their proposals are ACTUALLY SERIOUS SUGGESTIONS that they think will work.

And they wonder why people riot against police force...