kimilseung

I suppose conscription vs professional is a difference also.

scrubbedexpat099

Financial or Military?

robin1234

Your meaning isn't clear...

scrubbedexpat099

Aggresion

HarryTheSpider

Mornington Crescent!!

robin1234

Ah OK. I meant military. The Germans invaded Poland in 1939, just like the US and its allies invaded Iraq in 2003. Neither invasion had a defensible justification. Where did financial aggression come into the picture?

Scouse Express

I find it somewhat puzzling that scores of "Highly-Trained" Police Officers (including numerous S.W.A.T. Members) couldn't put one bullet into Christopher Dorner (the Rogue Cop). And these people train every day.

However, "Dirty Harry Wannabees" want to keep these High-Powered Weapons in their Homes and blab that they can hit anything.

Jim.

RoadWarriorFromLP

There's an element of the population that presumes that "being in control" is naturally beneficial, including in situations when it isn't.

Consider those who believe that driving to their destination is safer than traveling there on a commercial flight. Statistically, there is no reason to believe that flying is more dangerous or that driving is safer, yet some people will still believe this on a visceral level and act on those beliefs.

Although there are occasional incidents when a gun in civilian hands saves lies, those individual incidents are outweighed by many more incidents when the opposite is true. A gun is more likely to be abused than used properly, and when push comes to shove, it really isn't that easy to hit what you're trying to shoot at, particularly as the perpetrator inherently has the initiative (since he's the one who started it.)

scrubbedexpat099

WW2

Well from the US perspective.

SATX John

You would probably be surprised, but in most cities and counties "SWAT" is an additional duty. The are regular patrol officers that do additional training quarterly, to maintain status. They just keep their SWAT gear in the trunk.

Only the big cities can afford full time professional SWAT teams, LA Being the first one.

I go to the range more frequently than the police, just FYI. Many police forces also use NRA trainers for their firearms instructors since they do not have full time personnel for this task.

www.forcescience.org/morrison.pdf

gruffbrown

kimilseung

Anyone catch NPR, This American Life this weekend? About Chicago school and guns and student death and how kids have no choice but to be in gangs.
part one
part two next week

zargof

Yes, I listened to it. To hear how the kids there described growing up, it sounded akin to a warzone. It was pretty shocking.

Lion in Winter

Still, as long as we all get to keep our guns eh? At least to hear some argue it...

RoadWarriorFromLP

An armed society is a polite society.

The kids are just being polite. Very, very polite.