Why heavily arm the Police?

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"Why heavily arm the Police?"

One of the main reasons is because asinine drug prohibition laws have created an entire class of well-armed, hardened criminals who have little, if any, regard for human life. They also have, thanks to drug prices being inflated due to their illegality, tons of cash to buy almost any weapon they'd like.

There have always been callous thugs around, but a large illegal market to serve seems to breed them at an exponential rate. (Think of the failed attempt at alcohol prohibition and the rise of gang activity/violence it fostered.) I only see the situation changing if one of two things happens. One, drugs are legalized and the (adult) individual, not the dealer, is held responsible for their use or overuse (but harsh penalties are given to those who sell drugs to minors). Two, we become a total police state, because it's impossible to stop something as big as the illegal drug trade in a (relatively) free society such as ours. Even more freedoms will have to be curtailed if the War On Drugs is to be won.

Of the two scenarios presented above, which do you think is most likely to happen?
DAL

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Reading "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal," by Ayn Rand, should be required of every politician and in every high school.
GOA, JPFO, PPFC, CSSA, LP, NRA

[This message has been edited by DAL (edited April 29, 2000).]
 
While, granted, I don't think that we need to be arming the thin blue line with .38 Short Police Positives, the dangers of 'overequipping' are also real and valid.

Remember, if the only tool you have is a hammer, all your problems begin to look like nails.

We need to return to the days of stricter physical and mental hiring standards. Obviously, I'd be the last person to say women can't be LEO's, but why degrade the physical standards to guarantee some mythical 'gender parity' on the street. There would be far fewer female officers, but they'd be far better female officers. Unfortunately this will require a courtroom victory against those who would ask a 5'5" 115 lb woman to physically corrall a 6'0" 225 lb crank fiend. Maybe some department somewhere can persuade a jury to see the light and provide the magic ingredient of 'precedent'.

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"..but never ever Fear. Fear is for the enemy. Fear and Bullets."
10mm: It's not the size of the Dawg in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog!
 
Traffic tickets do indeed generate ill will towards the police. Last summer I worked at a local fast food resteraunt with a drive through. One night we finished at 3 AM. On the drive home I slowed down real slow and made a right hand turn at a red light. The only other car around was about 75 yds away going the other way so there was no danger of a collision or anything. Well, of course that was a police car and he stopped me and made me wait and then wrote a citation even though I still had on my fast-food uniform and he goes through the drive-thru and gets food for half-price every week. I was steamed. He could have let me off with a warning. So sometime later he came to the drive through late at night. I rubbed his Gordita all over with an intimate body part and wrapped it up. Then I started to giggle about sweet revenge. Then I started laugh. Then I guffawed and dropped the freakin' Gordita on the floor. Well, you know its really unsanitary to give someone food that fell on the floor so I threw the Gordita away and made another without the "special treatment". That guy had better be nicknamed "Lucky".

Believe it or not I got the idea from a Joseph Wambaugh novel.

Anyways, I think that the LEOs are pretty reluctant to just rush in on something like Columbine because they don't want to get hurt and they genuinely really would feel badly about shooting someone. 99.99% of the time that is a good thing. If the LEOs didn't feel badly about hurting another human being they would be sociopaths or psychopaths. Not a good thing. Probably in Communist Russia and Red China the police DO try to find those types. Who wants to live in a society like that? Not me.
 
The dangers of "over equiping"? So if they have deadlier weapons they are more likey to use them?
So if I have an SKS instead of a Marlin .22 I am more likey to use it?
If it isn't true for us, it isn't true for Policemen. You're using the same arguments the antis use.

And when was last time someone was killed by a suit of Cover-6 or Scott protective goggles?
Come on, guys! It isn't weapons and equipment that cause bad police operations, it's bad policy. Just like guns don't cause crime, criminals do.
 
I see no problem with arming the local police with something other than their handguns and shotguns. There are times when the BG is out of effective range of either of the two 'normal' guns, whereas a .30 carbine, Mini-14, Mini-30 ir AR-15 might prove to be the deciding factor in taking out the BG. I would rather have the BG holding me hostage taken out with a .30 carbine that can be aimed with a greater degree of precision than the LEO trying to guess at a sight picture with a 9mm or .40 cal handgun.

For this exact reason, a small carbine-- whether it be a .30 cal M1 Carbine, a Mini-14, Mini-30 or AR-15-- is beginning to replace the standard issue 12 ga shotgun. An added benefit of a small, lightweight
rifle is that it can, if needed, penetrate the soft body armor of a prepared BG.

I once called the sherriff (I live out in the sticks) when I saw someone trying to kick in the door of a neighbor's house. While I was still on the phone, giving up-to-the-minute intel on the situation, I armed myself with a scope-equipped light rifle, told the dispatcher I was doing so, to back up the responding LEOs from a hundred yards away from my upstairs window. I was told by the LEOs afterwards that they appreciated my efforts.

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Remember, just because you are not paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you!
 
Dave,

I'm 3rd gen LEO and I definitely see your words echoed in my father's thoughts. He sees the the more frequent shootings and more exotic weapons as a very bad thing.... but, I also hear stories form that Generation (yours, I presume, late 60's to early 80's) about how civil rights violations were MUCH more frequent. It was not uncommon for an uncooperative suspect to be treated in a way that would land me in federal court and on the cover of the weekly "news" magazines. back in the 70's criminals didn't think about civil lawsuits and supervisors didn't crawl up line officers butts whenever a citizen cried "abuse!".
Now, I admit that I am generalizing a bit, but so is anyone who says that all of us out there on the street today are over-equipped delta force wannabees with itchy trigger fingers.

Siggy,

That shot at the revolver was from less than 100 yards, not 300. Think about, the cameraman was only 50 yards from the guy! The average police sniper shot is around 70 some yards. Inner perimeters in urban LE environments are seldom more than 1 city block. It was still a great shot, don't get me wrong, but the shot didn't even require 2 MOA.

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Speaking of perimeters, standard training for line officers is to establish a perimeter to contain the suspects. That is why you see the "wait for them" posture most of the time. Let's look at a typical alarm call. If the first responding unit notices evidence of forced entry, it would be fool hardy for him to go in alone and blind. The first unit arriving cannot hope to secure a building himself, so the first couple units will usually set up a perimeter to make sure no one gets out or into a building. As more units (and supervisors) arrive on the scene, the decision will be made for several units to enter, for K-9 to be sent in, or.. if shots are fired or armed suspects are spotted, SWAT may be called in and the suspects contained.
If we went back to the days of 2 officers per car and we trained everyone to SWAT standards, maybe we wouldn't have so many "stand-off" situations.. but we would also probably have a lot more people with gunshot wounds.. on both sides.
Look at the Baltimore situation from last month. They waited and waited for the right time to make their move, even with all the proper training and equipment. Perhaps some luck was involved in the timing, but when the opportunity/necessity to make entry presented itself, the officers acted instantly and effectively. Wait and See, doesn't mean Wait and Hope.

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-Essayons
 
I don't know how much the abuse cases are seen vs. "years ago." I do remember recently hearing a new recruit kind-of bragging about how she held a gun to a guys head while the other officers were kicking him. Grrrrr.

Ya know, I hear a lot of bad stuff from the police themselves, like a guy at a party telling me how he got hammered one Thursday night, went home, slept for an hour, and then showed up for work at 5am, still hammered, and then found a secluded spot in his cruiser to go take a nap.

And the retired cop who complained about the attitude of the new recruits...

I could go on.
 
Police should only be armed with what the average citizen can buy legally and no more.

Remmember the right of a policeman is the same right any citizen has. No more and no less. The policeman is a civilian.

The policeman deals with civil crime.

Anything more; and the military or national guard needs to be called in.

There is nothing worse than a platoon of civilian police shirts marching down with automatics and grenades to enforce the civil authorities whims. Sounds like Germany, Korea, and Salvador in my ears.
 
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