Daniel Shaver shooting

[Smitty-48]

This outcry is nothing new, you can go back, Jim Crow, Prohibition, the Old West, Americans were saying the exact same things; the lawmen gun people down without giving them a chance, they solve all disputes with overwhelming firepower; the posses can be as dangerous as the cowboys themselves, and in fact, a posse is just cowboys, with a badge.

It's not Sir Robert Peel, but it's not Col. Charlie Beckwith neither, the cowboyization of American law enforcement, is deeply ingrained.

It's not militarization, calling this "militarization", is the exact same sort of fallacy as "assault weapons". Police control advocates make the exact same sort of fallacious misdiagnoses as gun control advocates do.

Culture is destiny, it's not superficial, you won't solve the problem by trying to slap a smiley face on it or painting it a different colour, to try to make it look less scary on the surface.

[nmoore63]

It is absolutely militarization.

Because people like you insist that the operating procedure must be that any perceived risk to any officer can be meet with lethal force.

In other words, put the public at risk to protect themselves.

When the operating procedure is that of a military occupation force, than militarization is the correct word.
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Others of us think the police's job is to put themself at risk to protect the public.

[Smitty-48]

I don't insist on it, I'm a Briton, our model is Sir Robert Peel, I've worked with the Toronto Police Emergency Task Force, and they are militarized, and as such, their procedures are quite different indeed, from the operating procedures of the de facto cowboy posses that you call "SWAT Teams".

Much more likely to be shot mistakenly by some rookie beat cop, than I am by Sergeant Sharky and the ETF, fully militarized with tight operational command and control as they are.

Don't brame me, roundeye, America is a cowboy culture, and culture is destiny, but I didn't make it that way.

[Smitty-48]

Your estrogen laced screeching is exactly the same as the gun control nannies, looks scary, must be a "militarized assault weapon! Waaaaaaugh!"

An AR15 is just a rifle, but just cause you're packin' one, that don't make you militarized, lady.

A cowboy posse packs a lotta heat, and always has, but they were never in the military, nothing militarized about them, and that was actually the point.

Americans didn't trust the military professionals to enforce the law, so they gave the job to amateurs, and very deliberately.

An American cowboy posse lets you get the drop on them first, asks questions, shoots later? Oh yeah? Since when?

In either of these cases, under martial law, would JSOC have shot these guys? Yeah, I don't think so.

Charlie Beckwith is no cowboy, he's very deliberate about everything he does, Delta Force doesn't pop off on the drop of a hat.

[nmoore63]

The difference of course being that the police come in guns blazing on kids playing video games.

A bit different than responding to, you know, an actual crime.

When you desribe what you want, it is clearly military, I'm suprised you take such umbridge to calling a spade a spade.

John Wayne Cowboy would never have minced words like that.

[Smitty-48]

The military wouldn't come in guns a blazin', even if it was terrorists, that's not how the military operates, you just don't know anything about the military apparently.

The military would secure the perimeter, set up a command post, and commence hostage negotiations. If hostages were killed, or imminently about to be killed, they would execute the immediate action, but even that would be a tightly controlled and orchestrated maneuver, with precise application of proportionate force, against only those were clearly posing an imminent threat.

In the military, slow is smooth, smooth is fast, the military doesn't do anything quick and dirty.

[nmoore63]

Stop ! Stop!

The strawman is already dead....

[Smitty-48]

What else is there to argue against? Your knee jerk anti-government "ZOMG Occupying Power!" hysteria?

Well, that's culture as destiny too, dating back to the military occupation of the South in the Civil War, them Blue Coats are coming for yea, better get to your bunker and prepare for them Yankees, eh wot?

Where do you think Posse Comitatus comes from?

The only flaw in your assessment, is that the "occupying power" here, is not militarized, it's public sector unions not soldiers.

[The Conservative]

The difference of course being that the police come in guns blazing on kids playing video games.

A bit different than responding to, you know, an actual crime.

When you desribe what you want, it is clearly military, I'm suprised you take such umbridge to calling a spade a spade.

John Wayne Cowboy would never have minced words like that.

The person killed wasn't a gamer. He was wrong place wrong time because the address given was not of the gamer.

[Smitty-48]

Militarization has nothing to do with this, it's a confluence of the deeply ingrained cowboyization of American law enforcement, populist hysteria about violent crime, and entrenched interest public sector unionization to evade accountability in a self perpetuating revenue seeking exercise at gun point.

It's all about the civilianization of the application of force, the polar opposite of militarization.