3107

Re: Police. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/nyregion/unarmed-man-is-charged-with-wounding-bystanders-shot-by-police-near-times-square.html?_r=0

Not only do they attempt to shoot an unarmed man in a crowd, not only do they completely miss the man and shoot bystanders, but they are charging the unarmed man for the crime of wounding the bystanders. This isn’t a police problem, it’s a “how much are we going to take?” problem.

Re: the sight. It’s actually not that big of a deal, since he has backup iron sights on that rifle. Easiest (kindest) explanation is that he or someone else put on the Eotech but he never bothered to turn it on and was just using the iron sights, which look through the Eotech.

3108

That’s pretty much like felony homicide. If you are committing a felony and police shoot at you and kill someone else, you’re guilty of homicide for provoking the police into shooting at you. I don’t think that’s reasonable either, but it’s the same logic.

3109

I respect people who choose law enforcement as a profession, but I am not sure that their job is ‘very dangerous.’ Here are the top 10 most dangerous jobs in the US, in terms of fatalities:

  1. Logging workers
  2. Fishers and related fishing workers
  3. Aircraft pilot and flight engineers
  4. Roofers
  5. Structural iron and steel workers
  6. Refuse and recyclable material collectors
  7. Electrical power-line installers and repairers
  8. Drivers/sales workers and truck drivers
  9. Farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural managers
  10. Construction laborers

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/08/22/americas-10-deadliest-jobs-2/

The militarization of today’s police departments and the sole focus on officer safety, as opposed to the safety of everyone else, is a disturbing trend.

3110

Cops run a murder rate of about 8/100,000, which makes them about as likely to be murdered as a fairly safe big city. Of course there’s a lot of damage that gets done below murder, but you’re far worse off living in many cities than being a cop, death-wise.

3111

I think there’s a clear difference between a job that routinely requires you to put your life on the line for the safety of the community and carries the expectation of violent opposition, and a job that is hazardous because the accident rate is high due mainly to workers taking shortcuts, supervisors neglecting safety rules, and generally bad working conditions. I’ve had a few of those jobs in my lifetime and the accidents I saw happened mostly because people got lazy or tried to rush through tasks.

The militarization of today’s police departments and the sole focus on officer safety, as opposed to the safety of everyone else, is a disturbing trend.

I don’t know if “disturbing” is the right word, but I do think many of these occupations could be made safer through training and drills.

3112

That picture is both instructive and dangerous. It’s easy to see how most of a SWAT deployment is just for show. But as with any bureaucracy, failure is merely an excuse to ask for more money. If the narrative is that LEO training pales in comparison to military training, keep your hand on your wallet!

3113

The 1960s data is probably pretty suspect in many cases – as noted above, rape was practically never reported back then, and chance are it was at a significantly higher incidence than today. Murder and assault among whites was probable accurately recorded, but violent crime against minorities of any stripe was probably vastly under-reported, especially in the South (not least of all because it was often done at the hands of law enforcement). If you could compare assault and murder against white males in 1960 to those crimes against white males today, that would probably be as good a comparison as we could hope to make with that era’s data.

The 1970s data is probably reasonable, though I think that the rape incidence will still be off by far too much to be useful – you wouldn’t find too many women in 1970 or even 1979 who would report “date rape” whereas it is more commonly reported today. The rise in robbery and (especially) assault from 1970 is surprising. Though since all the individual theft “rate” data like burglary rate, larceny rate and GTA rate are down, I wonder what is driving up the “robbery” statistic?

3114

Dude, you made me choke on a tortilla chip.

3115

Bwahaha, my nefarious plan worked. I posted the image, he commented, you choked!

3116

Is he even looking through that sight? It appears that he is looking straight ahead or perhaps to the left, while the gun is pointed slightly to the right. For him to be looking through the sight, it would need to be jammed up against his eye socket, which generally isn’t possible if the rifle is against his shoulder, right?

(not to excuse mounting the damn thing backwards, but still…)

3117

No, reflex sights are equally visible from any reasonable distance (as long as they aren’t backward). It’s the same principle as the reflector/collimator gunsights from WWII, for instance.

3118

That makes you a very evil genius.

3119

I pretty much agree with everything said. Unfortunately, the data we have is really all we have. I’m sure someone with more time and experience could extrapolate for those bias’s (under reported rape, the inclusion of date rape, and assaults on minoirties) alas, that’s not me. I’m not sure how detailed it is but if you have time the Uniform Crime Report tool looked pretty interesting. WWW.UCRDATATOOL.GOV It does allow you to pick and choose specific offenses and you can sort it out by state or US total. You might be able to look at some states in the midwest or northern regions where racial biases wouldn’t be as prevalent.

I can’t say for sure why Robbery would go up if Theft was going down. What are the trends for youth gangs? I know that since the 80’s that’s been a hot button issue, and even in recent times many of the Mexican drug gangs are seeping into our country. I only point at gangs because this could embolden the youth culture with enough bravado to move away from theft (breaking in and stealing) to robbery (confronting the victim directly). I suppose the misshandling of the war on drugs could also be a contributing factor to violent robbery as opposed to theft.

3120

If you missed my earlier post, he’s probably using the iron sights and hasn’t bothered to turn on the Eotech yet. As Aleck points out the stock is still collapsed as well, so he might have just hauled that gun out of a case.

3121

It still makes him and his department look like idiots.

Obviously he doesn’t check his gear and whoever does check his gear doesn’t know what they’re doing. You can pretty well assume he doesn’t bother with any sort of safety checks or the like either.
It’s like getting in your car and not noticing it doesn’t have tires.

3122

Meh, I’ve put one on backwards before. It would be closer to getting in your car and not noticing that the hubcaps are missing; it’s hardly a good example of police incompetence, especially when you have so many better examples.

3123

Well it is the primary sight for a weapon, so I’d put it above hubcaps, but I see where you are going with it.

3124

In importance but not in differentiating appearance, was my point. Until you try to use the sight it looks more or less fine mounted backwards.

3125

Time out. Purchased a Khar CW9. At EOSS on Orlando. Waitong on the 3 day. It will be in my hands on Friday. Then the CCW class.

3126

LOL!

Reminds me of this:

It takes some effort to slam a mag in backwards and make it stay.

Though he does have iron sights, the obvious thing is that they installed the eotech and never zero’d it. Makes me wonder if they ever zero’d properly installed sights, let alone iron sights.