Nice safe world we live in...

[Hardball]

Highlight, delete and save. or just hit delete.

[Uke]

Damn. Another excellent post!

Exactly. I've had quite a few arguments with friends over this . Societies, as Socrates pointed out and as far as i know no one has bothered to argue since, are based around delegating tasks so that each man and woman can specialize. if you have to farm your own food, build and upkeep your own house, make your own tools, weave your own clothes and on and on, then you aren't going to have much time for anything else. so we have farmers, blacksmiths, blah blah blah, and we all share and trade. The problem is, this principle has been over-extended from labour into basic human qualities. By delegating the virtues of bravery and strength to one group, i.e. cops, it is implied on a subconscious level that "that's not my job anymore." This is the state of affairs that leads to stories like we've all heard of a woman being raped an murdered in an alley in broad daylight with people walking right by.

Basically what you were saying was the world we live in today has less communities and more people occupying the same land but leading completely separate lives. Men and women can live next door to people for 10 years and not know their own neighbors which just 100 years ago was unheard of. People today value their privacy much more than the ties that bind a people together making them tribes, villages or clans. And because people's focus have shifted from survival to money, the burden of dealing with the factors that threaten society are cast aside, assumed by most that the "authorities" will deal with any dangers. This has lead to an unbelievable drop in preparedness, and a decline in the will to act when life demands it. It used to be that a community was strong because they had to work to survive, not just to get up to go to work to pay bills.

but you're right, this is an interesting situation. i think it's fairly clear that the cop would be in the wrong here by not identifying himself. so that answer is rather easy, but your scenario raises more important questions. the fact that this scenario actually happens is proof of what you alluded to earlier when you said if we behaved as cops wanted us to we would let carjackers walk right up to our cars and shoot us. they want us to be meek and pliable whenever force is threatened. apparently, by their logic they shouldn't have to state that they're a cop, it's enough that they have a gun!!

In a way, we are meek and pliable. We are forced to second guess our instincts which automatically diminishes the natural animal in us. We consider and contemplate at times when action is the most natural and logical response. As soon as we are old enough to comprehend, we are made to believe that cops are our friends. We are made to believe that we MUST obey and trust a cops judgement. We are programmed not to respect but to FEAR the uniform and what it represents. What memories do you have of cops? Who do you remember them protecting or serving? Have you seen it or have you just heard about it in the media? Cops don't even pretend to be helpful anymore. Their main goal is to keep themselves safe, intimidate and control, even if it means stepping outside the parameters of their authority. They've become arrogant in their roles and it shows. Why else would they feel so comfortable not identifying themselves, knowing very well that without doing so they will be taken as common muggers? They have extensive training in the academy and beyond, yet they still in this day and age continue to pull their firearms without properly identifying themselves.

An argument could be made that cops who do that have an agenda. A solid argument could be made that the guy that those cops mistook gregimotis for was someone that they knew who had crossed them and they wanted him to react in defense to justify shooting him. If you think about it, doesn't it make more sense to believe that cops who fail to identify themselves have personal agendas than to believe that they go through all that training only to forget the most important step? They sure remember to pull their firearms. And if they aren't there to deal with someone reported to be armed and dangerous, why is it that they always remember to aim a lethal weapon, but fail to identify themselves which in more instances than not would deescalate the situation?

But we can't accurately assess the statistics because in EVERY instance of a shooting like the Bell murder where 43 shots were discharged, the cops always lie and state that they identified themselves. And like I mentioned earlier, unless someone caught the incident on tape with sound, there's just no way to prove that they didn't. We have to take their word for it.

But for those who believe that police don't lie and don't behave like the criminals that they're supposed to be protecting us from, just take a long hard look at the Abner Louima case. They beat the man, kicked him in the groin and arrested Louima. The officers then handcuffed Louima and brought him in to the precinct. They then took him to the bathroom, held him tight so that he could not resist, and knocked his teeth out with a wooden plunger handle. The beating continued. They then took the same plunger and rammed it up his rectum repeatedly, damaging internal organs. I have heard so many people express their belief that he MUST have done something to deserve that, but its only because of their lack of empathy that would allow them to imagine themselves in his place. Their lack of empathy stems from lack of community and a false belief in the altruism of law enforcement.

In the one intense, terrifying moment that most of us will hopefully never experience, when we need a cop for the only time in our lives, the vast likelihood is that there won't be one to be found for a mile, and you may find yourself quickly transitioning from hoping for a cop to hoping the ambulance will get there in time.

A very true statement.

But what if every man and woman who was so inclined could carry the weapon of their choice? how many robberies would go down if the robber didn't have to look over his shoulder only to assure himself that there was no cop in sight, but had to wonder to himself if the grandma in the corner had a glock in her purse, and how fast the man a few yards away (the man with a strangely unsettling confidence to the way he carried himself) could close the distance if he happened to carry a tonfa and the will to swing it?
i can't answer that question. the world would be different, that's for sure, but more violent? less violent? filled with more or less fear than it is now? again, i can't tell you, but i can tell you for damn sure that airplanes would not be hijacked with box-cutters...

Well, it would be a different world. Could you imagine robbing someone at gunpoint on a train and then every other passenger pulled out a gun on you! Imagine someone trying to mug a old woman and then everyone on the street took notice and gave chase! That would be a great site.

Again, great dialogue.

[BoarSpear]

Well, it would be a different world. Could you imagine robbing someone at gunpoint on a train and then every other passenger pulled out a gun on you! Imagine someone trying to mug a old woman and then everyone on the street took notice and gave chase! That would be a great site.

That reminds me of one of my favorite quotes... "If every Jewish and anti-nazi family in Germany had owned a Mauser rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition AND THE WILL TO USE IT , Adolf Hitler would be a little-known footnote to the history of the Wiemar Republic." ~Aaron Zelman~ (founder of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership)

[SamuraiGuy]

Exactly. I've had quite a few arguments with friends over this . Societies, as Socrates pointed out and as far as i know no one has bothered to argue since, are based around delegating tasks so that each man and woman can specialize. if you have to farm your own food, build and upkeep your own house, make your own tools, weave your own clothes and on and on, then you aren't going to have much time for anything else. so we have farmers, blacksmiths, blah blah blah, and we all share and trade. The problem is, this principle has been over-extended from labour into basic human qualities. By delegating the virtues of bravery and strength to one group, i.e. cops, it is implied on a subconscious level that "that's not my job anymore." This is the state of affairs that leads to stories like we've all heard of a woman being raped an murdered in an alley in broad daylight with people walking right by.

What your talking about here is simply Organic and Mechanical solidarity, and MANY social theorists have argued and debated, and researched these phenomenons since socrates.

Mechanical Solidarity is when you have a low division of labour, which would be the, I build my own house, raise my own cows, make my own clothes, type of society.

Organic Solidarity, which is closer to the society we live in today, has a high degree of specialization in labour. Notice how we dont have "handymen" anymore, but rather a specific plumber, a specific carpenter, a specific cabinet maker... etc.... Or just look at the medical field, countless specializations there.

The point is societies are never mechanical or organic, rather they constantly shift towards one end of the spectrum, generally as societies become more advanced, it shifts towards the organic side of things.


Where this comes into play is in what happens when a society becomes too organic, to borrow a word from the work of Durkheim (one of those guys after socrates), and a principle later adapted by Merton, when this happens the state goes into a state of "anomie" or it becomes Anomic and cant function.

Our society is loosely based on contracts, just look at currency, are several pieces of paper really worth a car? They are because we agree they are, but when something happens, natural disaster, war, famine, etc... or when a society leans too much towards the organic side, society becomes Anomic, no one feels they have to honor these contracts, and society is thrown into chaos.

So basically, I dont agree with your view that society is giving cops a specialization of human quality over "bravery and strength" there is no way a society can ever completely give something like this up, because then they become organic, and you cant ever be completely organic without everything going to shit.



(as an aside I didnt plan on writing a fricking thesis paper, thats kinda just how it came out)

[Uke]

So basically, I dont agree with your view that society is giving cops a specialization of human quality over "bravery and strength" there is no way a society can ever completely give something like this up, because then they become organic, and you cant ever be completely organic without everything going to shit.

I don't think that Judo Jibboo was speaking in absolutes, but he made a strong point. Society, to a large degree, has delegated matters of virtue and bravery to the police. The laws in their own way foster that behavior. What do they call a citizen who saves an old lady from getting hit by a bus? They call him a hero. What do they call a man who sees a rape taking place, pulls out his gun and shoots the rapist(s)? They call him a vigilante, and the term in itself has become synonymous with unlawful violence. Vigilantes are almost never thought of as heroes, and are usually persecuted by the law. Often times vigilantes tend to be former victims who exercise lethal force in situations where juries tend to feel that there were other options than violence.

Today's society has tried to encourage the idea that we are somehow socially evolved to a point where violence is never a necessity, and when violence manifests itself we are to believe that there are agencies that are "qualified" to handle it. It is specialized, almost like a dog catcher. How many times have you walked down the street and felt fear because you spotted a stray rottweiler or mean looking pitbull? We all know that stray dogs can be dangerous, especially to little children, but how many of us patrol the community to round all of them up? Most people call animal control. The same thing goes for crime.

The problem with Police is that they don't always follow the guidelines and the procedures that are set for them to follow. Many times, they tend to fall into the mob mentality where they attempt to dish out their own justice instead of letting the courts do their job. They are the real vigilantes.

Society has given police specialization over the initiative to take action and use force. I wouldn't necessarily use the terms "bravery" or "strength". This is undeniably true because it has become illegal in most cases for anyone but the police to use force. If you shoot a man who has entered your home, you may do time. If you chase a guy who has snatched a purse and hurt him, you may do time or be sued, or both. When police use unlawful force and measures, the majority of the time they go unpunished or at least not punished to the same degree that a citizen would be. And if you try to challenge or deny police the power to exercise a level of force that is at their discretion, you may be beaten unmercifully or killed.

Its conditioning. The people are made to fear the force from police AND the ramifications of the law if they act. And somewhere down the line, they've gotten people to believe that this is what we've wanted all along. If people(police) followed procedure as it is written, it would all work out well. But that's a perfect world. A world can't be perfect with people in it.

[Hardball]

That reminds me of one of my favorite quotes... "If every Jewish and anti-nazi family in Germany had owned a Mauser rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition AND THE WILL TO USE IT , Adolf Hitler would be a little-known footnote to the history of the Wiemar Republic." ~Aaron Zelman~ (founder of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership)

Just curious, why only 20 rounds of ammo?

[Hardball]

Mauser rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition

Being the gunaholic that I am, I did a google on this rifle. I've always heard the name but decided to research it for myself. I had guessed a semi auto with detachable clip but as you know it's a bolt action. Reminds me a lot of the Lee Enfield .303 British. The Military ammo for the Mauser even resembles the .303 British.

[BoarSpear]

Just curious, why only 20 rounds of ammo?

Because 20 rounds are more than enough...its all about tactics. Ever hear of the liberator handgun?

[Hardball]

I HAVE NOW



The FP-45 Liberator was a pistol manufactured for the United States military during World War II.

The pistol was designed for the United States Army in 1942 by the Inland Guide Lamp Manufacturing Division of the General Motors Corporation in Dayton, Ohio. Interestingly, the army designated the weapon the Flare Projector Caliber .45 hence the designation FP-45. This was done to disguise the fact that a pistol was being mass produced. The original engineering drawings label the barrel as "tube", the trigger as "yoke", the firing pin as "control rod", and the trigger guard as "spanner". The Guide Lamp Division plant in Anderson, Indiana assembled a million of these weapons. The Liberator project took about 6 months from concept to end of production with about 11 weeks of actual manufacturing time, done by 300 workers.

The weapon was a crude, single shot pistol designed to be cheaply and quickly mass produced. The Liberator had just 23 parts. The weapon largely used stamped and turned steel parts that were cheap and easy to manufacture. The weapon fired a .45 caliber pistol cartridge from an unrifled barrel. Due to the unrifled barrel, maximum effective range was only about 25 feet (less than 8 meters). In reality, the actual effective range was closer to about 10 feet (3 meters). After that, the oblong .45 ACP bullet (designed for a rifled barrel) would begin to tumble out of control ("keyholing").

The Liberator was shipped in a cardboard box with 10 rounds of .45 ACP ammunition, a wooden dowel to remove the empty shell casing, and an instruction sheet showing how to load and fire the weapon. Excess rounds of ammunition could be stored in the pistol grip.

After production, the Army turned the Liberators over to the OSS. A crude and clumsy weapon, the Liberator was never intended for front line service. It was originally intended as an insurgency weapon to be mass dropped behind enemy lines to resistance fighters in occupied territory. The resistance fighters were to recover the weapons, sneak up on an Axis occupier, either kill him or knock him out and retrieve his weapon(s). Many resistance fighters called the FP-45 "a great weapon to get another one with".

The weapon was valued as much for its psychological warfare effect as its actual field performance. It was believed that if vast quantities of these weapons could be delivered into Axis occupied territory, it would have a devastating effect on the morale of occupying troops. The plan was to drop the weapon in such great quantities that occupying forces could never capture or recover all the weapons. It was hoped that the thought of thousands of these unrecovered weapons potentially in the hands of the citizens of occupied countries would have a deleterious effect on enemy morale.

In reality, the OSS never saw the practicality in mass dropping the Liberator over occupied Europe, and only a handful were ever distributed. Only the Chinese and resistance forces in the Philippines received the Liberator in any significant quantity. The Liberator was never issued to American or Allied troops and there is no known instance of the weapon ever actually being used in combat.

The original delivered cost for the FP-45 was $2.10/unit ($26 in 2005). A Liberator in good condition today can fetch approximately $2500, with the original box bringing an additional $1500, with an original extremely rare paper instruction sheet the value could exceed $4500 to a collector of World War II rare militaria.

An interesting fact about the Liberator is that the factories could produce one faster than the weapon could be loaded and fired. Building the pistol took about six or seven seconds whilst loading took about 10 seconds.


[edit] In Popular Culture
The FP-45 Liberator's design was featured in the 2004 PlayStation 2 game Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater as a single-shot tranquilizer gun with a built-in suppressor and laser sight, dubbed the "EZ Gun". It was designed by the character Sigint and imitates the design of the Liberator because it "looks cool". However, the function of the pistol actually resembles that of the Russian [1] or [2] silent pistols, which used a special silent cartridge and had an integrated laser sight.

[BoarSpear]

Nice pick up Hardball.

I'll add this piece from another source...







" A friend of mine owns an instructive piece of history. It is a small, crude pistol, made out of sheet-metal stampings by the U.S. during World War II. While it fits in the palm of your hand and is a slowly-operated, single-shot arm, it's powerful .45 caliber projectile will kill a man with brutal efficiency. With a short, smooth-bore barrel it can reliably kill only at point blank ranges, so its use requires the will (brave or foolhardy) to get in close before firing. It is less a soldier's weapon than an assassin's tool. The U.S. manufactured them by the millions during the war, not for our own forces but rather to be air-dropped behind German lines to resistance units in occupied Europe. Crude and slow (the fired case had to be knocked out of the breech by means of a little wooden dowel, a fresh round procured from the storage area in the grip and then manually reloaded and cocked) and so wildly inaccurate it couldn't hit the broad side of a French barn at 50 meters, to the Resistance man or woman who had no firearm it still looked pretty darn good.

The theory and practice of it was this: First, you approach a German sentry with your little pistol hidden in your coat pocket and, with Academy-award sincerity, ask him for a light for your cigarette (or the time the train leaves for Paris, or if he wants to buy some non-army-issue food or a half- hour with your "sister"). When he smiles and casts a nervous glance down the street to see where his Sergeant is, you blow his brains out with your first and only shot, then take his rifle and ammunition. Your next few minutes are occupied with "getting out of Dodge," for such critters generally go around in packs. After that (assuming you evade your late benefactor's friends) you keep the rifle and hand your little pistol to a fellow Resistance fighter so he can go get his own rifle.

Or maybe you then use your rifle to get a submachine gun from the Sergeant when he comes running. Perhaps you get very lucky and pickup a light machine gun, two boxes of ammunition and a haversack of hand grenades. With two of the grenades and the expenditure of a half-a-box of ammunition at a hasty roadblock the next night, you and your friends get a truck full of arms and ammunition. (Some of the cargo is sticky with "Boche" blood, but you don't mind terribly.)

Pretty soon you've got the best armed little maquis unit in your part of France, all from that cheap little pistol and the guts to use it. (One wonders if the current political elite's opposition to so-called "Saturday Night Specials" doesn't come from some adopted racial memory of previous failed tyrants. Even cheap little pistols are a threat to oppressive regimes.)

They called the pistol the "Liberator." Not a bad name, all in all."

[Hardball]

Thanks, now what's the skinny on the mauser?

[Hardball]

Nice pick up Hardball.

I'll add this piece from another source...







" A friend of mine owns an instructive piece of history. It is a small, crude pistol, made out of sheet-metal stampings by the U.S. during World War II. While it fits in the palm of your hand and is a slowly-operated, single-shot arm, it's powerful .45 caliber projectile will kill a man with brutal efficiency. With a short, smooth-bore barrel it can reliably kill only at point blank ranges, so its use requires the will (brave or foolhardy) to get in close before firing. It is less a soldier's weapon than an assassin's tool. The U.S. manufactured them by the millions during the war, not for our own forces but rather to be air-dropped behind German lines to resistance units in occupied Europe. Crude and slow (the fired case had to be knocked out of the breech by means of a little wooden dowel, a fresh round procured from the storage area in the grip and then manually reloaded and cocked) and so wildly inaccurate it couldn't hit the broad side of a French barn at 50 meters, to the Resistance man or woman who had no firearm it still looked pretty darn good.

The theory and practice of it was this: First, you approach a German sentry with your little pistol hidden in your coat pocket and, with Academy-award sincerity, ask him for a light for your cigarette (or the time the train leaves for Paris, or if he wants to buy some non-army-issue food or a half- hour with your "sister"). When he smiles and casts a nervous glance down the street to see where his Sergeant is, you blow his brains out with your first and only shot, then take his rifle and ammunition. Your next few minutes are occupied with "getting out of Dodge," for such critters generally go around in packs. After that (assuming you evade your late benefactor's friends) you keep the rifle and hand your little pistol to a fellow Resistance fighter so he can go get his own rifle.

Or maybe you then use your rifle to get a submachine gun from the Sergeant when he comes running. Perhaps you get very lucky and pickup a light machine gun, two boxes of ammunition and a haversack of hand grenades. With two of the grenades and the expenditure of a half-a-box of ammunition at a hasty roadblock the next night, you and your friends get a truck full of arms and ammunition. (Some of the cargo is sticky with "Boche" blood, but you don't mind terribly.)

Pretty soon you've got the best armed little maquis unit in your part of France, all from that cheap little pistol and the guts to use it. (One wonders if the current political elite's opposition to so-called "Saturday Night Specials" doesn't come from some adopted racial memory of previous failed tyrants. Even cheap little pistols are a threat to oppressive regimes.)

They called the pistol the "Liberator." Not a bad name, all in all."

Nice story and even nicer message embedded!!!

[BoarSpear]

Thanks, now what's the skinny on the mauser?

I think the mauser was simply the common rifle he used to make the point...

[The_Judo_Jibboo]

What your talking about here is simply Organic and Mechanical solidarity, and MANY social theorists have argued and debated, and researched these phenomenons since socrates.

Mechanical Solidarity is when you have a low division of labour, which would be the, I build my own house, raise my own cows, make my own clothes, type of society.

Organic Solidarity, which is closer to the society we live in today, has a high degree of specialization in labour. Notice how we dont have "handymen" anymore, but rather a specific plumber, a specific carpenter, a specific cabinet maker... etc.... Or just look at the medical field, countless specializations there.

The point is societies are never mechanical or organic, rather they constantly shift towards one end of the spectrum, generally as societies become more advanced, it shifts towards the organic side of things.


Where this comes into play is in what happens when a society becomes too organic, to borrow a word from the work of Durkheim (one of those guys after socrates), and a principle later adapted by Merton, when this happens the state goes into a state of "anomie" or it becomes Anomic and cant function.

Our society is loosely based on contracts, just look at currency, are several pieces of paper really worth a car? They are because we agree they are, but when something happens, natural disaster, war, famine, etc... or when a society leans too much towards the organic side, society becomes Anomic, no one feels they have to honor these contracts, and society is thrown into chaos.

So basically, I dont agree with your view that society is giving cops a specialization of human quality over "bravery and strength" there is no way a society can ever completely give something like this up, because then they become organic, and you cant ever be completely organic without everything going to shit.



(as an aside I didnt plan on writing a fricking thesis paper, thats kinda just how it came out)

thanks for pointing out these terms to me. i hadn't heard of them before but from a very perfunctory bit of research it looks like interesting reading. but it seems to me that even these theorists do not deny that society is based on this process of delegation. as you said yourself, no society is completely mechanical.

i would agree that we can't totally assign over these qualities to one group, but we can try. we suppress certain aspects of ourselves and as Uke said, pretend that this is the way we always wanted it. can't you hear a kind of mostly hidden shame in the voices of the spectators in the clip i posted when they say things like "this is bullsh*t" as they watch what the police are doing?
again, i thank Uke for filling in a gap in my argument when he said that it is the initiative and use of force that have been delegated to police rather than the actual virtues i first mentionned. we still have those virtues but many have lost the tools to implement and express them, so those virtues fester as a kind of subconscious guilty knowledge that we are not as strong as we ought to be.

and by the way, don't let any cultural anthropologists catch you calling a society "more advanced" than any other or you'll get an earful!

[SamuraiGuy]

thanks for pointing out these terms to me. i hadn't heard of them before but from a very perfunctory bit of research it looks like interesting reading. but it seems to me that even these theorists do not deny that society is based on this process of delegation. as you said yourself, no society is completely mechanical.

i would agree that we can't totally assign over these qualities to one group, but we can try. we suppress certain aspects of ourselves and as Uke said, pretend that this is the way we always wanted it. can't you hear a kind of mostly hidden shame in the voices of the spectators in the clip i posted when they say things like "this is bullsh*t" as they watch what the police are doing?
again, i thank Uke for filling in a gap in my argument when he said that it is the initiative and use of force that have been delegated to police rather than the actual virtues i first mentionned. we still have those virtues but many have lost the tools to implement and express them, so those virtues fester as a kind of subconscious guilty knowledge that we are not as strong as we ought to be.

and by the way, don't let any cultural anthropologists catch you calling a society "more advanced" than any other or you'll get an earful!

Good chance I'll be a cop within the next 5 years, I'll just police brutality them until they shutup lmao.