Guns, Cars, and Tech

Category: OFFICER SAFETY!

  • They got themselves an RV!

    He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

    TN Police Departments Get Tank-Like Military Vehicles:

    GALLATIN, Tenn. – It could have been a part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, but now a 21-ton Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, or MRAP, is on the streets of Gallatin.

    “It’s like waking up on Christmas morning and having the best present you ever had,” said Asst. Chief William Sorrells.

    …

    When you compare it to the customized 1980s military ambulance they have now with ballistic blankets only one side the MRAP is 360-degrees of reinforced protection.

    …

    “It’s so much better just knowing that there’s all this protection in between us and somebody trying to hurt us,” McFadden said while taking us on a ride along Friday.

    …

    So far only Gallatin, Hendersonville, Murfreesboro and Lewisburg* have the vehicle.

    A couple of things…

    It’s not a $#%(ing Christmas present. It’s a piece of military equipment that you have absolutely no need for. We in the gunnie community often say “what’s need got to do with it” in regards to firearms, but the huge difference here is that we won’t be using our evil assault-style clips to knock down people’s houses for fun and profit.

    Gallatin has about 30,000 residents. They have 15 SWAT raids a year. How many times last year did one of those raids involve “somebody trying to hurt [Gallatin SWAT]”? Of those, how many involved the suspect actually shooting at officers? Of those, how many involved the suspect shooting at the bullet-resistant vehicle they already have? And finally, out of those incidents where suspects who were intent on hurting Gallatin SWAT and actually opened fire and actually hit the armored vehicle they already have do so with a weapon capable of penetrating that vehicle?

    None?

    Okay, how about we expand that to the last ten years? Twenty?

    Has there ever been an incident where this $700,000 vehicle would have made any difference whatsoever?

    How many times are the Gallatin PD running into IEDs? Do I need to stop going up there to visit? Is it so dangerous up there that businesses should relocate to a safer area?

    This is the same police department that acted so egregiously I found myself on the side of Leonard Embody in a dispute.

    I feel safer. Don’t you?

    *Gallatin: Pop 30,000, who’s PD mascot is, hilariously, Taser the Cat.
    Hendersonville: Pop 52,000
    Murfreesboro: Pop 112,000
    Lewisburg: Pop 11,000 <--srsly wtf?

  • Local police implement Boston strategy more quickly than expected

    This last Sunday, a local man murdered his wife and then ran away. Emulating Boston, they locked down the neighborhood to find one man:

    [Victim] was found dead in the couple’s home in the Governors Club neighborhood just before 6:00 p.m. on Sunday. [Suspect] was not at the scene when police arrived. An extensive overnight search for him came to and end shortly after 6:00 a.m. on Monday when [Suspect] was taken into custody without incident.

    During the search, police went door-to-door in the neighborhood and would not allow anyone in or out.

    For 12 hours, no one was allowed to enter or leave while police went door to door searching for a man who was not in the area being searched. (He returned home thinking police had left)

    No word on whether the locals used FLIR, MRAPs, or the National Guard.

  • Great Moments in Journalism

    No bomb found at Smyrna home

    SMYRNA, TN (WSMV) –
    Emergency crews in Smyrna say there was no bomb found after investigating a home on Cheatham Drive near Old Nashville Highway.

    Officials had setup a staging area at a nearby Veterans of Foreign Wars building.

    All roads are now open in the area.

    Also not found at the home: Face Eating Monkeys, Unicorns, and the body of Jimmy Hoffa. Why the absence of those were not newsworthy is unclear.

  • War on Constables

    MTSU trying to decide if it should punish a Constable for….having his gun on him as required by state law. The investigation began because MTSU campus cops saw “police equipment” in his car. That probably means lights, but who knows.

    Bowling Green, KY, off duty deputy shoots former constable. That deputy has hired a lawyer after claiming he shot a man who used to be a Constable and is currently a well-regarded youth theater director in self defense. The shootee also used to be in the bassist in a Christian band that’s popular enough to have it’s own Wikipedia page. If you look at the slideshow in this report you can see that one of the people involved was sitting in the driver’s seat of the white F-150, and one of them was outside the passenger side of the vehicle. We know this because the passenger side glass is busted, but nothing else.

    This report indicates that the shooter didn’t identify himself as a law enforcement officer until after he’d shot the shootee. It also says that the shooter had exited his vehicle and shot the driver of the white F-150.

    I’ve got some definite opinions about what happened, but whatever it was it doesn’t look good for the deputy. The former constable is currently in critical condition and might not make it.

  • FOR SALE: Ford F150, Safe In LA Edition

    2005 Ford F150 with only 44,000 miles!

    Black, 4×4, power everything!

    Only $54,000*!

    The perfect thing for elderly ladies delivering newspapers.

    *Only stops handgun rounds, though. If you want to stop assault patrol rifles, you’ll need to spend a little more.

  • Deterrence is not prevention

    Yesterday, the President said this:

    We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law—no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society.

    But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely, we can do better than this. If there is even one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town, from the grief that has visited Tucson, and Aurora, and Oak Creek, and Newtown, and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that—then surely we have an obligation to try.

    There is one step we can take. We know it works every time.

    We know the formula these shootings follow. They stop immediately when met with armed resistance. It happens every time.

    We know it works. It’s an easy step. It’s laid out right in front of you.

    In the coming weeks, I will use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens—from law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators—in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this. Because what choice do we have? We can’t accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?

    Making sure it’s harder for me to protect myself, my family, and random strangers who might be in the area from lunatics and psychopaths who are not deterred by “gun free zones” is the only thing that makes me “powerless in the face of such carnage.”

    I am disempowered by fiat. Remove the limits on me protecting myself and these things will cease happening.

    What people like Dianne Fienstein et al are proposing are “deterrents” to ownership by people who wouldn’t do this sort of thing in the first place. They do nothing to prevent these shootings. They didn’t work in Germany, or Britain, or Norway, or Mumbai.

    You can’t stop crazy.

    You can, however, change how you react. If more of these guys were put down by good guys before the body count hit double digits, two things would happen:

    1: The “glory” of high body counts would cease to be a motivating factor.

    2: Fewer people would die

    Isn’t that the goal? Don’t we want the same thing?

  • Attempted Puppycide Goes Wrong

    A puppy-killing SWAT Team in Memphis was out doing what it does, and the officer assigned to shoot the dog shot another officer instead.

    Three times.

  • QotD: It didn’t occur to me, either, edition

    Kevin at Lowering The Bar, commenting on the USAir Bomb Hoax:

    Note that no one involved seems to have taken the position that, hey, nothing to worry about, because even if this is true he’ll never get past the TSA with liquid explosives; that’s a crack team on which we can safely rely. No one was detained by that thought for even a moment.

    Ain’t that the truth.

  • Update on Daniel “Officer Roid Rage” Harless

    I can’t tell if this was a cunning plan that might actually work, or if he’s just an idiot who thinks people will believe this.

    Recall that Daniel Harless is the Canton, OH [now former] police officer who lost his job after video evidence of him being, well, a loose cannon. After not allowing a motorist to speak, he goes berserk when the motorist finally interrupts him to inform the officer that he has a carry permit and is armed. Officer Roid Rage then lets off a litany of expletives and threats, including:

    “as soon as I felt your gun, I should have took two steps back, pulled my Glock 40 and just put 10 bullets in your ass and let you drop. And I wouldn’t have lost any sleep. Do you understand me?”

    It was determined that he “violated rules” and got a paid vacation until his hearing. Just before his hearing, he claimed he had PTSD so it was postponed. His brother officers were so shocked by his behavior that they gave up their own sick time so he could be paid while waiting to be fired.

    When he finally was fired, he complained that he shouldn’t be fired just because he threatened to kill a guy for kicks.

    The latest on this guy is that he’s filed a series of complaints about his unfair treatment, including a worker’s comp claim and that the city owes him money for accrued vacation and sick pay. I wonder how the officers that donated their sick time to him feel about that?

    Here was what really stuck out in this article. You should really read the whole thing, but check this out:

    [The Arbitrator] said he believes that “in comparison with other officers, the treatment of officer Harless was discriminatory.”

    You mean that there are other officers on the Canton Police force who 1)have acted this way, 2)have been reported/investigated, and 3)are still on the force? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

    Some other officers have been found guilty of more serious conduct in the past and they retained their jobs, said [the arbitrator], who is on the staff of the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio.

    “I do believe that there is a clear hierarchy to the discipline issued in Canton (by the Police Department) and that the Harless discipline was far outside the scale,” he wrote in an email.

    Apparently, no. They are not kidding.

  • QotD: Obviousness edition

    Commenter “Brad” over at Bob Owens’ place gives an absolutely beautiful response to those people who think that the ill-conceived federal assault weapons ban would have done anything to stop what happened in Aurora:

    Let it also be said that even if the killer had used a weapon which complied with the Feinstein AW ban, the outcome would not have changed. The proof of this is the 1999 Columbine massacre, where the primary murder weapon was a Hi-Point 9mm carbine using a supply of loaded 10 round magazines.

    http://acolumbinesite.com/weapon.html

    Armed people vs unarmed people are what enables massacres. Not flash-suppressors or 20-round magazines. The Hi-Point 9mm carbine was designed to comply with the Federal AW ban. I don’t think a magazine greater than 10 rounds capacity even exists for the weapon. Yet it is perfectly suitable for slaughtering unarmed victims.

    That had never occurred to me.