"Instead of being reactive, we took a proactive approach."

[sirs]

Because the military and police are legally allowed to purchase and carry pistols with high capacity magazines.  Not to mention the automatic weapons they're also outfitted to carry

Can you provide a link that shows most police use magazines that are higher capacity than the public can buy?  I know several policeman that use standard 9MM magazines.

hehe......did you just read what you wrote?  MOST of the military/police issue 9MM's, such as Glocks, Sig Sauer's, Baretta's, and S&W's, have magazines that are much greater than the civilian 10 limit.  I could go thru a massive list of just the 9MM's alone that have a >10 capacity.  Do I need to?

Not to mention the automatic weapons they're also outfitted to carry

I am presuming we'll soon hear that the revolver is "just as fast" as a fully automatic too!

Naaaa, you'll hear that civilians are legally not allowed to own such weapons


 

[Michael Tee]

<<This seems to be a common theme here. You don't write what you mean and think that others should read meaning into your words, and you assume that others are writing like you (and therefore you read meanings into other's writing that isn't there).>>

Yes, there is a common theme here.  It is that some people looking to nit-pick when they run out of substantive arguments try to twist or misinterpret my words by reading more into them than was intended, and I then have to waste my time by adding unnecessary clarifications.  It's a game I'm running out of patience for.

 

[Amianthus]

It is that some people looking to nit-pick when they run out of substantive arguments try to twist or misinterpret my words by reading more into them than was intended, and I then have to waste my time by adding unnecessary clarifications.  It's a game I'm running out of patience for.

I wasn't misinterpreting your words. You said that buying semi-automatic firearms made him a "more efficient killing machine." This means that prior to buying them, he was just a "killing machine." And since you had no evidence that he had actually threatened anyone other than hearsay, nor has he ever killed anyone prior, you must think that merely owning firearms makes you a "killing machine." When this was was brought up, you said that you should have said "potential killing machine" and that most people would have read that into your statement, which means that you clearly think people should read into other's words meanings that are not actually written down. It is you advocating "reading between the lines" when your words are brought up, not others.

Kinda like just being born in the south means you're a racist, isn't that right? Or is there something that we should read in there that doesn't exist in the actual words?

[Christians4LessGvt]

MOST of the military/police issue 9MM's, such as Glocks, Sig Sauer's, Baretta's,
and S&W's, have magazines that are much greater than the civilian 10 limit.

No they don't.
"Much Greater"?
SIRS...how do you define "MUCH GREATER"?

You can buy semis on Gun Broker right now that hold 16 rounds.
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=159618451

You can buy large capacity magazines right now on-line.
http://www.impactguns.com/store/8809268071041.html

The military and the police moved to the semis because
they generally have higher capacity period than revolvers,
for them semis are easier & quicker to reload a bigger payload
and the reload magazines are easier to carry....ect

In case you didn't know the Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired in 2004.
Currently six states limit magazine capacities....but 44 do not.

[sirs]

Cu4, you're not paying attention.  Of course any civilian can purchase a pistol that COULD carry a high capacity magazine, (defined as GREATER than 10).  The problem is civilians are legally not allowed to purchase such magazines.  Not sure what states do allow that, but IIRC most do not.  Military & Police are exempt, and can purchase high capacity magazines.  Anywhere from 12 to I believe 20 rounds

For instance, my Sig Sauer holds 13rounds, but I'm no longer able to purchase anything greater than 10round magazines, here in CA.  

[Universe Prince]

<<No. They did not. They did not talk to him.>>

One of your problems, Prince, is that you can't recall the words of your own posts.  Let me help you out here:   


"They woke me up with a phone call at about 5:50 in the morning," Pyles told me in a phone interview Friday. "I looked out the window and saw the SWAT team pointing their guns at my house. ThThe officer on the phone told me to turn myself in. I told them I would, on three conditions: I would not be handcuffed. I would not be taken off my property. And I would not be forced to get a mental health evaluation. He agreed.

You complain about nitpicking and then turn around and pull this crap. Yes, it was technically talking to the man but it was clearly not a conversation about his state of mind. The police were not there, as you implied, to have a conversation. They were there to threaten use of force unless he complied with their demand. That can hardly be reasonably described as an "pertinent investigation" where the police went "to go see and talk to the man himself".

Try this:  When charged with the safety of your community and after receiving the kind of reports the police did of a certain individual, try sending one of your brother or sister officers to walk, in full uniform or in plainclothes, up to the guy's front door one morning to ring his bell.  Are you fucking nuts??? Or maybe try tipping him off with a friendly series of telephone inquiries before surrounding his home, and then try to catch up with him afterwards if you're not exactly reassured by the conversation.  Try discretely following him around and if he suddenly starts firing at the passersby, try to stop  him before he hits any . . .  or any more.

So your plan is to simply assume the worst without any real investigation and preemptively take people into police custody by force. Yes, the police might be safer but the rest of us would not be.

That's their call and it's easy to see circumstances where it's riskier to check out the first reports than to assume the worst.  Again, serve and protect.

You seem to forget, and probably the police did too, in addition to protecting individuals the police are supposed to protect individual rights, including those of the man they went to get.

<<There is a reason why one of the foundational principles of our justice system is innocent until proven guilty.>>

You are definitely a very confused little puppy.  That's the foundational principle of one particular part of our justice system, the criminal courts.  It is certainly NOT a foundational principle of good police work, which is a totally different part of our justice system.

No, I'm not confused at all. The notion of innocent until proven guilty is why police bother with investigations in the first place, rather than simply arresting people based on hearsay and rumors, and why protection against things like unreasonable search and seizure by law enforcement is written into to the law.

<<What you said is certainly absurd, however it has nothing to do with what I actually said.>>

Prince, for once, just use your fucking brain.  There is nobody in this group and probably no sane person in the world, who would believe that the calling in of a SWAT team is the literal equivalent of calling down a napalm strike.

I never said they would. Poor strawman fall down and go poof.

That was a rhetorical exaggeration of what you said, meant as such, perceived by any reasonable reader as such, the precise designation for which is a reductio ad absurdum.  If you want to persist in calling it a lie, that is your call, just as it's my call to decide if I want to continue "debating" with such a fucking idiot.

It was not any sort of exaggeration of what I said. At no point did I claim that a SWAT teams have no restraint or that they always resort to violence. You keep trying to claim that I did. Which is not exaggeration or reductio ad absurdum, but a fabrication on your part. If you refuse to acknowledge or don't know the difference, I suggest you need to reevaluate which one of us is being idiotic.

<<What do you know of my views on SWAT teams? Have you asked me? Or have you taken a handful (at best) of statements about the use of a SWAT team in one situation then leaped to an irrational, illogical and nonfactual assumption about what my views on SWAT teams are? Let's see... no, you certainly did not ask me. Hm.>>

Very simply, I saw the way that you (over)reacted to the calling in of the SWAT team and I came to the obvious conclusion.

More like jumped to a conclusion based on apparently preconceived assumptions.

<<Michael, you and I both know the SWAT team was used as a threat of force.>>

It was used to PREVENT an outbreak of violence, part of which prevention certainly involves making the individual they were protecting the community (and themselves) against aware of the existence of a lethal counter-force to any violence that he MIGHT be contemplating himself, and yes, Prince, that is a threat of force.  Comes in handy, sometimes, the threat of force.  That's why we have armed our police.  It's hard to see where threat of force leaves off and self-defence comes in, but the general perception seems to be that an armed police force will reduce the general level of violence.  Of course, in any community foolish enough to put YOU in charge of their police services, you could persuade the force to give up its guns and thereby eliminate one "threat of force" from your unfortunate community's streets.

Now you are accusing me of wanting to disarm the police. Your argument has no sense of nuance or discernment. If I follow your logic, opposition to the government simply shooting on sight anyone accused of breaking the law means wanting the government to have no means to enforce the law. See, now that is a reductio ad absurdum.

I don't accuse "those who privately own guns" as murderers and killing machines.

Yeah, you do. You called the guy mentioned in the article a killing machine, and you used your story about the murdered OPP officer to, in effect, say that that people with firearms are murderers. And your attempt to backpedal doesn't work. You're still basically saying that anyone with firearms who becomes disgruntled, i.e. discontented or unhappy, should be treated as though they were a murderer.

[Michael Tee]

<<I wasn't misinterpreting your words. You said that buying semi-automatic firearms made him a "more efficient killing machine." This means that prior to buying them, he was just a "killing machine." >>


Your "logic" has holes you could drive a truck through.  Assuming I posit a difference in killing efficiencies between gun-owners and non-gun-owners, by what logic is it decreed that "gun owners" are the top of the scale and "non-gun-owners" are at absolute zero?  A smart high school kid could have figured out that killing efficiency can go higher than mere "gun-owner" status and lower than "non-gun-owner" status.  Theoretically, on a human scale, absolute zero should be around the level of Buddha, Jesus or Mahavira and the top of the scale would be virtually open-ended, but way higher than the average gun-owner.

<<And since you had no evidence that he had actually threatened anyone other than hearsay . . . >>

Oy.  Can't you get anything right?  The "hearsay" didn't even say that he actually threatened anyone.  The only hearsay I've seen is that he was "very disgruntled."  We don't know what the guy actually said or did to generate this description, but whatever it was, the police heard it and determined that he was a potential risk to the community and/or himself.   They are not amateurs, and I'd tend to trust their judgment unless or until good reason is shown not to.

<< . . . nor has he ever killed anyone prior>>

ROTFLMFAO.   Oh, THAT'S an excellent reason right there why any cop on the force could just stroll right up to his front door and ring his bell without any fear of mishap.  Boy, I'd LOVE to see a police force run by you and Prince in action.  It'd be the perfect counterpart to "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight."   How would you stop stolen cars, by standing in front of them and waving your arms at them?

<<you must think that merely owning firearms makes you a "killing machine." When this was was brought up, you said that you should have said "potential killing machine" and that most people would have read that into your statement, which means that you clearly think people should read into other's words meanings that are not actually written down. >>

I meant that the average reader would have known that's what was meant and for a really dumb literal-minded schmuck the extra clue might be helpful.  Kind of like Prince adding "sarcasm alert" to his heavy-handed efforts, which most readers manage to deduce on their own.

<<It is you advocating "reading between the lines" when your words are brought up, not others.>>

What I advocate is reading in context, and with some modicum of common sense, if in fact you were really not able to understand the meaning of the words as originally presented, and to stop trying to bust my balls with your high-school-level sophistry if in fact you really did get the meaning of my words the first time round and are just fucking with me.

[Michael Tee]

<<You complain about nitpicking and then turn around and pull this crap. Yes, it was technically talking to the man but it was clearly not a conversation about his state of mind.>>

It was clearly not a conversation that you know anything about.  You don't know how long it was, you don't know what was discussed, you don't know how many cops were listening in to the original or a playback, you don't know what discussions later followed between the officers regarding the conversation and what could be gleaned from it.  So please don't hand me this bullshit about what kind of conversation it clearly was not.  You don't know the first thing about it.

<<The police were not there, as you implied, to have a conversation.>>

Look, Mr. Moving-the-Goalposts, the first person to mention having a conversation was YOU.  You first tried to convince me, despite what you yourself had posted, that they had never even TALKED to the guy.  It was only when that nonsense was exploded, that you began whining that they never had a conversation with the guy, when actually you don't know anything about what they talked about on the phone.

<<They were there to threaten use of force unless he complied with their demand. >>

Well, congratulations, Prince, I think you've discovered the rationale behind the modern police force , and probably while still in the prime of your life.  Why that's amazing.  Yes, Prince, the police, among their other functions, are the enforcement arm of the state, any state.  Very good.  They are there to keep the peace, and they try to do it with calming words, suggestions diplomatically phrased ("Sir, I need for you to keep your hands where I can see them . . .") but backed nevertheless by the threat of violence.  That is just what policing is - - it is not a symposium for the discussion of the conduct of the ideal citizen in an ideal society.  The degree of the police threat is more or less at the discretion of the officer, depending on the perceived degree of the citizen threat.  While they always keep their weapons holstered when dealing with a friendly, polite guy such as myself, I'm usually sufficiently aware of their potential for violence that, for example, I don't drive off at high speed when one of them says he wants to talk to me about something after a roadside stop.  When they're dealing with a "very disgruntled" individual just put on admin leave, who owns a sizeable and very recently augmented little arsenal of revolvers, semi-automatic pistols, shotgun and semi-auto-rifle, I think it's only prudent for them to have a little more firepower out, in view of some of the mishaps that have occurred when very similar aberrant behaviour was reported but treated somewhat more casually by the authorities. 

<<That can hardly be reasonably described as an "pertinent investigation"where the police went "to go see and talk to the man himself".>>

They probably felt that they had done all the background investigation they needed to do or had the time to do when they showed up at his house.  At that point the investigation proceeded in a way that THEY felt would best assure the safety of all concerned, not the way that Prince felt would best assure the safety of all concerned.  But as you can see, the investigation DID continue.  They talked to the guy, they had him examined by a shrink and when the threat was fully and finally assessed, they sent the guy on his way.  No harm, no foul.

<<So your plan is to simply assume the worst without any real investigation and preemptively take people into police custody by force. Yes, the police might be safer but the rest of us would not be.>>

I say they DID have a "real investigation" or as much of one as they felt they could safely afford before the shit hit the fan.  They can't just spin this thing out forever, you know.  At some point they have to confront the guy.  If I'd heard what they heard - - very disgruntled (with particulars), recently put on admin leave, just bought two semi-auto handguns and a semi-automatic rifle - - that's enough for me.  I do consider it threatening or potentially threatening, and I think it's better to be safe than sorry.  I'd want to confront the guy immediately.  As more time passes, he might be getting closer and closer to D-Day and H-hour.

<<You seem to forget, and probably the police did too, in addition to protecting individuals the police are supposed to protect individual rights, including those of the man they went to get.>>

I didn't forget anything, but there's a hierarchy here - - life and limb of the citizens over Second Amendment rights of gun nuts.  Stop irreversible loss before stopping reversible loss.  Use a LITTLE common sense, or try to.  In the case of a crime about to go down, do you think first of the lives of the innocent victims or the "rights" of the gun-owner, which are probably already subject to emergency police powers anyway?  (In which case they aren't even rights.) 

<<No, I'm not confused at all. The notion of innocent until proven guilty is why police bother with investigations in the first place, rather than simply arresting people based on hearsay and rumors, and why protection against things like unreasonable search and seizure by law enforcement is written into to the law.>>

The notion of innocent until proven guilty is NOT the reason for investigations or warrants, obviously, since warrants and investigations are used on the guilty and the innocent alike.  The law recognizes that rights can not be allowed to impede legitimate investigations and the law also recognizes exceptional situations where police can enter, seize and arrest without warrant, although they do have to be able to subsequently justify those actions as of the time they were undertaken and not in the light of hindsight.

<<I never said they [any sane person] would [believe that calling in the SWAT team is the same as calling down a napalm strike]. Poor strawman fall down and go poof.>>

Strawman my ass.  You seized on my rhetorical remarks about your beliefs supposedly equating SWAT teams with napalm  and tried to portray me as seriously misrepresentating your views, lying about them in fact.  Now the best evidence against your absurd accusation suddenly is a strawman.  Right.

<<It was not any sort of exaggeration of what I said. At no point did I claim that a SWAT teams have no restraint or that they always resort to violence. You keep trying to claim that I did. Which is not exaggeration or reductio ad absurdum, but a fabrication on your part. If you refuse to acknowledge or don't know the difference, I suggest you need to reevaluate which one of us is being idiotic.>>

I don't need to re-evaluate anything.  My statement that you equated SWAT teams with a napalm strike was an obvious rhetorical exaggeration or reductio ad absurdum.  If you're too fucking stupid or obstinate to understand that, it is not my problem, but I can't keep going round and round on the subject in a "did not - did too" endless loop.  I've said my last word on the subject and I don't give a shit what you have to say about it.    You are wrong and that is the end of it.

I think the rest of your arguments are either repetitions of what's been hashed out above, or were addressed when I answered Ami.

[Amianthus]

You are wrong and that is the end of it.

Must be nice to be omniscient.

[Michael Tee]

<<Must be nice to be omniscient.>>

I'll put it in a non-omniscient form:  I think you're wrong but it isn't worth another minute of my time even if you're right.  This is one of the most insignificant topics for a debate that I can imagine.

[Amianthus]

I'll put it in a non-omniscient form:  I think you're wrong but it isn't worth another minute of my time even if you're right.  This is one of the most insignificant topics for a debate that I can imagine.

Yeah, we know that you consider individual rights to be an "insignificant topic" - after all, if someone doesn't agree with you, they should be put against the wall and shot, right?

[Michael Tee]

<<Yeah, we know that you consider individual rights to be an "insignificant topic" >>

The insignificant topic that I was referring to was your attempted misrepresentation of my views, in which you claimed, based on some comically defective "logic" that any 12th-grader should be able to see through, that I had argued that all gun owners were homicidal nutcases or words more or less to that effect.  -

<<after all, if someone doesn't agree with you, they should be put against the wall and shot, right?>>

Me?  They can disagree with me all they like, who the fuck am I?   Where do you find this crap?  Where did I say that anyone who disagrees with me should be put up against the wall?  Not even Comrade Stalin made such an egotistical claim.

[Christians4LessGvt]

"Of course any civilian can purchase a pistol that COULD carry a high capacity magazine,
(defined as GREATER than 10) The problem is civilians are legally not allowed to purchase such
magazines"

Yes civilians in most states can legally purchase high capacity magazines.
SIRS....44 states do not limit high capacity magazines for pistols.
But really even though I am right about it, it doesn't even matter, because even at ten rounds
it's still more than most revolvers....thats why the police and military switched to semi's.
Even if the only magazines available to the police were the ten capacity, they'd would still be
using semis.

[Plane]

...an armed police force will reduce the general level of violence.

We always hope so , but what do we know?

Anybody have any idea how many deaths are caused by Police?

Compared to any other group per capata?


I have a little experience with revolvers and semi-autos , as a non-expert I can offer unsubstantiated opinion as wel as the next ignoramus.


   For beginners I would reccomend a revolver, its simplicity aids the user . There is no being deadly when needed and appropriate with a machine you don't understand.   Not understanding a complex wepon is likely to result in being deadly when not desired and helpless when the deadlyness is really needed. A revolver is more likely to be  simple enough to allow its user to become profecient soon.

   Simularly, moderate calibers and loads are easyer to learn to controll , hitting with a .38 is better than flinching with a .357.


  Experts pick what they like depending on what they have learned in the process of becoming expert. Don't argue with them at that point, just sit there and listen to them go.


   Being deadly  is a right reserved for extreme circumstances , there is no right to harm or threaten the harmless. There is an almost absolute right to self defence.

   What happens to a right to self defense if one is denyed the right to develop and keep handy the means of self defense? One becomes helpless in a way that most of the time doesn't matter , but in extreme circumstances becomes deadly to the innocent and helpfull to the malicious.

  

[Universe Prince]

It was clearly not a conversation that you know anything about.  You don't know how long it was, you don't know what was discussed, you don't know how many cops were listening in to the original or a playback, you don't know what discussions later followed between the officers regarding the conversation and what could be gleaned from it.  So please don't hand me this bullshit about what kind of conversation it clearly was not.  You don't know the first thing about it.

Heh. I know what the man said about it.

"They woke me up with a phone call at about 5:50 in the morning," Pyles told me in a phone interview Friday. "I looked out the window and saw the SWAT team pointing their guns at my house. The officer on the phone told me to turn myself in. I told them I would, on three conditions: I would not be handcuffed. I would not be taken off my property. And I would not be forced to get a mental health evaluation. He agreed. The second I stepped outside, they jumped me. Then they handcuffed me, took me off my property, and took me to get a mental health evaluation."

Doesn't sound like a lengthy conversation, or one about his mental state.

Look, Mr. Moving-the-Goalposts, the first person to mention having a conversation was YOU.  You first tried to convince me, despite what you yourself had posted, that they had never even TALKED to the guy.  It was only when that nonsense was exploded, that you began whining that they never had a conversation with the guy, when actually you don't know anything about what they talked about on the phone.

Actually, Mr. I-get-to-nitpick-and-you-don't, my argument was the police did not go have a talk to him about his mental state. So far, you have not said anything to prove they did.

Well, congratulations, Prince, I think you've discovered the rationale behind the modern police force , and probably while still in the prime of your life.  Why that's amazing.  Yes, Prince, the police, among their other functions, are the enforcement arm of the state, any state.  Very good.  They are there to keep the peace, and they try to do it with calming words, suggestions diplomatically phrased ("Sir, I need for you to keep your hands where I can see them . . .") but backed nevertheless by the threat of violence.  That is just what policing is - - it is not a symposium for the discussion of the conduct of the ideal citizen in an ideal society.  The degree of the police threat is more or less at the discretion of the officer, depending on the perceived degree of the citizen threat.  While they always keep their weapons holstered when dealing with a friendly, polite guy such as myself, I'm usually sufficiently aware of their potential for violence that, for example, I don't drive off at high speed when one of them says he wants to talk to me about something after a roadside stop.  When they're dealing with a "very disgruntled" individual just put on admin leave, who owns a sizeable and very recently augmented little arsenal of revolvers, semi-automatic pistols, shotgun and semi-auto-rifle, I think it's only prudent for them to have a little more firepower out, in view of some of the mishaps that have occurred when very similar aberrant behaviour was reported but treated somewhat more casually by the authorities.

Good gravy, you are certainly full of yourself, aren't you? And with a serious penchant for misdirection and fabrication. Hey genius, no one said the police did not or should not have firearms or use the threat of force in the course of their duties. Your condescending little speech is cute but mostly irrelevant. And apparently you have an exaggerated notion of the meaning of the word 'sizeable'.

They probably felt that they had done all the background investigation they needed to do or had the time to do when they showed up at his house.

Oh, I am sure they did.

At that point the investigation proceeded in a way that THEY felt would best assure the safety of all concerned, not the way that Prince felt would best assure the safety of all concerned.  But as you can see, the investigation DID continue.  They talked to the guy, they had him examined by a shrink and when the threat was fully and finally assessed, they sent the guy on his way.  No harm, no foul.

The did not, as your version of events implies, show up and talk to the man about his state of mind and then politely escort him to a mental evaluation. They talked him into exiting his house by lying to him, then they handcuffed him and forcibly removed him from his property, entered his house without a warrant and confiscated his firearms, and compelled him to submit to a mental evaluation. This is in no way a situation of no harm, no foul. Your whitewash of the event is laughable.

I didn't forget anything, but there's a hierarchy here - - life and limb of the citizens over Second Amendment rights of gun nuts.

Ah. So now the guy is a nut. Anyway, you have once again made an incorrect assumption. I did not mention the Second Amendment. But that you think this is somehow all about gun ownership is telling.

Use a LITTLE common sense, or try to.

Physician, heal thyself.

In the case of a crime about to go down

In this case, there was no crime about to go down.

The notion of innocent until proven guilty is NOT the reason for investigations or warrants, obviously, since warrants and investigations are used on the guilty and the innocent alike.

I kinda wonder sometimes if you pay attention to the things you say. This is one of those times.

Strawman my ass.  You seized on my rhetorical remarks about your beliefs supposedly equating SWAT teams with napalm  and tried to portray me as seriously misrepresentating your views, lying about them in fact.  Now the best evidence against your absurd accusation suddenly is a strawman.  Right.

Yes. You did lie, and your "evidence" is a strawman.

My statement that you equated SWAT teams with a napalm strike was an obvious rhetorical exaggeration or reductio ad absurdum.  If you're too fucking stupid or obstinate to understand that, it is not my problem,

Your refusal to acknowledge that your rhetorical absurdity was a fabrication intended to deride and mislead without addressing what I actually said, that is your problem. You have no one to blame but yourself. That I can see what you're doing and will call you on it is not something for which I will apologize.

You are wrong and that is the end of it.

Heh. You're silly.