Tortoise wrote:
Police officers are trained, but they're not superhuman. Don't expect superpowers from them.
More than 95% of all police officers get zero handgun training outside of what little they learn in the academy. They shoot their guns every 6 months for a few minutes to "qualify" which in many departments entails hitting a 2 foot by 2 foot target at 10 yards. A buddy of mine is a law enforcement firearms instructor who supervises this biannual training and you'd be shocked to hear that more than one police officer showed up with a gun that was rusted shut internally, because he didn't touch it in 6 months and didn't bother to maintain it at all. That's who shows up when you call 911.
Yet if a civilian wanted to pay out of pocket to go to the range and shoot 100 rounds a week and maintain excellent proficiency, they would not be allowed in NYC.
Studies have shown officer involved shootings have about a 10% hit rate. Meaning they shoot 10 times to hit the suspect once.
Are police superhuman? Absolutely not. But most do not bother training unless they have a personal interest in it, which few do. It's hard to defend them when as an aggregate, they don't bother to train.
The police state that Bloomberg is creating is terrifying. He's already been caught acting significantly outside of his jurisdiction and then claiming he has the right to fight terrorism that may attack NYC even if it's being planned hundreds of miles outside of his state. Within his city, he's installed a network of license plate scanners, CCTV cameras, given poorly trained officers access to "assault weapons" with high capacity "clips" and initiated warrantless searches of random civilians walking through the street.
This is all funded by the tax dollars generated by the $3 hotdogs in central park that 20 cents of which goes into the food, 20 cents to the vendor and the rest in permits and taxes to sell it. Boycott NYC if you like freedom.
On the flip side, we go to a 180 degree inverse place like Phoenix AZ that is as oppose as NYC as possible and Sheriff Arpaio is up to similar piss-on-the-constitution-and-don't-apologize tactics. He'll do whatever he wants and not apologize. One of his deputies stole confidential attorney-client work product, from within a courthouse, by blatantly stealing it off the defendant's table when no one was looking. The officer photocopied the material and handed it over to investigators. The judge demanded the officer return the materials and apologize. Sheriff Arpaio ordered his officer to not comply with the judge. The judge said "oh ok, sorry to bother you." In another case, Sheriff Arpaio sent his SWAT team into a civilian auditor's office who was investigating him for fraudulent fundraising and embezzlement. The SWAT team seized the evidence against him and denied access to the auditors.
On one hand we have Bloomberg, making us "free" through the Liberal path, and on the other we have Arpaio making us "free" through the conservative path, yet both are simply disregarding the constitution and doing whatever the heck they want with impunity.
