Neighborhood lockdown!

I would certainly not hide in my basement, what do I have to be afraid of?
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Errant rounds from high-powered rifles zipping through your walls.
My main point is not the loss of freedom to go out for a walk, but the authoritarian attitude of the police department that they feel they can totally lock down a whole neighborhood at their command with no thought that the citizens of said neighborhood may be quite able to take care of themselves.
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Nothing authoritarian about it. The dispatch gave you good advice to improve your safety. As for taking care of yourselves, vigilante justice went out of favor long ago.
He is probably the last generation of real men, real Americans, that believes in self reliance.
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I've got at least two generations of experience that would disagree with that idea.
 
My neighbor, an 82 yr. old WW II Marine sure wouldn't hide in his basement. He is probably the last generation of real men, real Americans, that believes in self reliance.
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:) tell him thanks for his service. Not to many ww2 folks out there. MyGrandpa was a Bataan survivor, look it up. Lost 3 or 4 uncles depending on if you count insanity after normandy a casulaty.

Nephew is a marine, he would go look for em and he is trained for that stuff. My family will be in the basement so no errant bullets kill em off. I care a lot for em you see and safety if always first and foremost.
 
RIGHT! 911 should have told him to grab a couple guns and run across the street to confront them!

Seriously, with police on the way what do you expect the 911 operator to tell someone to do?
 
Nephew is a marine, he would go look for em and he is trained for that stuff. My family will be in the basement so no errant bullets kill em off. I care a lot for em you see and safety if always first and foremost.

Marines are trained for combat and not law enforcement. He should go in the basement and defend it. Besides, if he just totes a gun and starts searching in the street - guess who might look like a bad guy.
 
Besides, if he just totes a gun and starts searching in the street - guess who might look like a bad guy.
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I will tell him thatwhen he comes back home :) Cousins got out of the service went right into the local police force after attending the school in Nebr.

He is trained to clear a house, they do that a lot. I do belive he would be in the house protecting the ones there, I was being a little silly there. :)

I also have some training but would not leave the house as my first job is to protect those I love first and foremost. Let my dogs have em :) they need the protein :)
 
I remember this anecdote in a mixed exercise with soldiers and cops. They go to clear a house in training. One guy goes forward and says cover me.

The cops aim their guns at where he is going. The marines shot the crap out of that direction.
 
The marines shot the crap out of that direction.
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Less casualities thatway.Yep they need a bit O retraining there. Weapons suck too Iwas told compared to what the marines are now using.
See that around the corner rifle? I need one of them. :)
 
Nope, we don't have many basements in Austin, either. I have a wife and 4 year old daughter. They are my responsibility. I will grab our Mossy 12ga and give it to my wife, send her to the "safe room" then grab my AR and follow her, have everyone keep low until everything cools down. Cowardice? not at all. Good sense? I like to think so.

--Dave
 
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I think the basement thing is just the police department's disclaimer. If you get hit during a firefight they can say "Well, we told him to get in the basement but he chose to sit on his porch with a Budweiser and a shotgun."
 
My cousins were dumb enough to watch the police gunfight out of their second story window in Jamaica Queens almost 20 years ago. Good thing they were on the second floor because the first wound up with some bullet holes...

Generally bullets do not go through the earth and foundation from the outside. The advice was for the safety of the people nearby and warranted given gunfire was already being heard.
 
Safer for the good guys, in general

If the police are on their way, and especially if SWAT is on the way, it's safer for everybody if the citizenry stay indoors and behind cover.

It's safer for the citizenry, in case there is a crossfire. Bullets may miss targets or go through light masonry and hit anybody nearby.

It's safer for the police, because they will have less of their attention distracted by trying to figure out if the onlookers or neighbors are BG's, and will be able to focus on the house in question. Then again, it's safer for the neighbors to not run the risk of being mistaken for BG's.

There are some places where police response is likely to take a long time, maybe too long a time. For instance, one of my cousins used to live in an area where anticipated police response was something like 20 minutes (semi-rural, and a small PD). This estimate was provided by one of her local police officers, who advised her to keep a gun at hand (since her then-teenage son was being threatened by local thugs). In such a case, assuming I knew the neighbors (so I know they aren't running a meth lab, or so I can tell resident from home invader, etc), then I might have to consider providing direct assistance. However, I am not trained for house clearing, and have to accept that I could make matters worse, by adding an armed variable to the mix.

If I did feel like something had to be done by me, and now, now, now, I'd make sure to let the 911 dispatcher know that I was going over there, and give them a good description of myself.

In any case, if I had loved ones in my own home, I'd want them in the safest room possible (IE furthest from the action), and probably have them armed with my 12ga and a handgun or two, plus a cell phone.
 
The dispatcher gave very sound advice. Period.

It's not about cowering in the basment because big brother is coming to put down an insurrection...it is about taking cover versus taking concealment. Those that you decry are public servants, not jack-booted storm troopers.

Whats more, the dispatcher gave you a recommendation, not a direct order. So, it is your perogative to stay topside to watch events unfold, but that decision is not a sound one as far as taking the defensive.

38snapcaps, it sounds to me like like you have some very misplaced indignation to work out.
 
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About 15 years ago, when I was still an active duty LEO, I guess that I "locked down" an entire neighborhood. There had been a gang-related shooting which ended up with 4 gang members dead (Believe it or not, but the incident started at a Baptismal party, when a rival gang tried to "crash" the party!)

There were numerous residents who came out to see what was going on, and since there was the possibility of the shooters still being in the area, I asked whoever I saw to PLEASE go back inside their homes and lock the doors. I didn't direct them to their "basements", nor did I even think of telling them to ARM themselves in their residences. That would have been entirely up to THEM to do! All I did was to try to "sterilize" the area to a certain extent, and to cut down on the number of victims by ASKING the residents to go inside. Later, when none of the shooters had been found, my partner and I made sure to knock on doors and tell the residents that we were going to leave the area. I also explained what had taken place, and was THANKED by many of those residents.

It's sure easy to "bash" the police! Having been a LEO, it often amazes me at how little credit is given to those who have chosen that profession! Instead, the less than 1% who are "rotten apples" get pushed into the limelight as an "example", while the 99% of the GOOD ones get NO notice at all!
 
It's safer for the citizenry, in case there is a crossfire. Bullets may miss targets or go through light masonry and hit anybody nearby.
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Yep. "It's not the bullet with your name on it, it's all the ones marked 'to whom it may concern'."

+1 for what DesertDawg said, too.
 
i'd go to the basement even if they didn't say so. Bullets can't wonder through sandstone walls. Me with the AR, boy with a shotty, wife with her pistol and thousands of rounds in the basement-- good place to be.
 
It's sure easy to "bash" the police! Having been a LEO,
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Thanks for your duty sir, I have cousins on the local force and I am told things are way different today than 20 years ago. Both can retire one will this year he is my age. We sued to go out and cause heck when younger :)

He sure does look a lot older than me tho. Way more wrinkels and creases, he also does accident investigation.
 
38 Snapped Cap: doesn't seem you got the validation you were looking for.

The responses on this one really brought out the reasonable level-headed folks on the TFL.
 
Well, having lived in a "border" area in a major city...

I'd be on the basement steps with a shotgun... If someone's gonna start shooting, I want to be behind something that'll stop rounds...

And remember - more and more departments are buying automatic stuff, up to and including .50BMG... And I'll bet their training budgets don't have the ammo covered for training for proper fire control.
 
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