Woman, 92, Dies in Shootout With Police

[Doom Marine]

Grandma went out with style.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/11/22/D8LIF0902.html

[Bucket]

Sure beats Alzheimer's.

[Technician]

Bucket said:

Sure beats Alzheimer's.

BWAHAHAHA!

[Coopersville]

YAY MIDDLE AMERICA!

[Jehar]

I just can't stop laughing.

[SYS]

That's hardcore, we need more gun toting grannies.

[Gokuma]

The article said:

The police chief said the officers had identified themselves and then forced open the door of Johnson's house of 17 years. Johnston was alone in her house, police said.

Of course the only living witnesses are the cops who were in plain clothes and the old lady isn't alive to say otherwise.

[harbringer]

The arrival of the Grandmafia is imminent, everyone, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES, IT'S GUN-WIELDING GRANDMA. HER COOKIES ARE LACED WITH CYNIDE, DAMN YOU DELICIOUS CHOCOLATE CHIPS!!!

[Bloodshedder]

This isn't the first time such a thing has happened (ignoring the age of the homeowner). Military-like raids and tactics are not appropriate for drug busts.

[Captain Red]

POTGIESSER said:
That's hardcore, we need more gun toting grannies.

I'm getting an awesome mental picture of her yelling “You think you can stop ME? You'll need a fucking ARMY to stop me!”

[exp(x)]

Reminded me of the Lard song "Drug Raid at 4am"

[Doom Marine]

POTGIESSER said:

That's hardcore, we need more gun toting grannies.

Palestinian grandmother blows self up in Gaza

Fucking awesome.

[leileilol]

64? That's not fucking GRAND enough

[Sharessa]

I heard the baby snatchers are more hardcore.

[Johnatone]

Fuckin' A, way to go old lady, too bad she didn't take any of the pigs out. This is just as funny as the wheelchair bound old lady that killed on a would-be purse snatcher with a .357.

[Kirby]

........
WHAT KIND OF TRAINING DOES THE DEA EVEN HAVE?!!!

[sargebaldy]

Why the hell do they send armed officers out of uniform to do a drug bust? I bet it was only weed, anyway. Another wasteful casualty of the War on Drugs.

[Dr. Zin]

Is it just me or does the U.S. seem to become more and more authoritarian?

Talk about military style shit though, I was driving to school one day and I saw the Dupage (next county over) Emergency Response (read SWAT) team in a bloody HUMVEE! They were also fully decked out in camo fatigues. At what point did police start becoming enforcers?

[Sharessa]

sargebaldy said:

Why the hell do they send armed officers out of uniform to do a drug bust? I bet it was only weed, anyway. Another wasteful casualty of the War on Drugs.

Now I'm having the slightly amusing mental image of them going in to raid her medical mj for her glaucoma.

Dr. Zin said:

At what point did police start becoming enforcers?

Well, they've always been enforcers really. I know what you mean though. Oddly enough the best quote I can think of right now is one said by Charles Manson: "The police used to watch over the people. Now they're watching the people."

[RazTK]

Doom Marine said:

Palestinian grandmother blows self up in Gaza

Fucking awesome.

Yeah, it's just awesome people die here and there. Isn't it?

[Doom Marine]

What's even more awesome is morality. You win a gold star!

[Dr. Zin]

Danarchy said:

Well, they've always been enforcers really. I know what you mean though. Oddly enough the best quote I can think of right now is one said by Charles Manson: "The police used to watch over the people. Now they're watching the people."

Yeah, perhaps it would be better to state it a different way:

Police used to serve and protect us.
Now they serve and protect themselves.

I'm a shooting enthusiast, and I read a bunch of gun forums, and several times I have read pieces from guys who got into the Police Academy and dropped out because they didn't feel comfortable with the attitudes there. There is a whole mindset now about how the LEO's are superior to the average citizen. Look at a place like California for example, where there are dozens of assinine gun restrictions. California LEO's can buy, for their PERSONAL use, the stuff that is banned from regular residents.

And it is only getting worse. Because of homeland security stuff that has passed through in the last couple of years the L.E. community has been getting a shitload of money, and they are doing stuff like replacing the shotguns in their squad cars with AR-15 (read M16) rifles, and buying more Class 3 stuff (Full-Auto, Suppressors, and the like) and heavy equipment like the HUMVEE I mentioned before.

The L.E. community is becoming a damn para-military force. Look at all of the stuff they are aquiring that is all but out of the reach of your average citizen. The gap is only going to get bigger if another Assault Weapons Ban is passed.

Even stuff with a valid application for an LEO, like the Taser, is getting abused. Tasers are meant be used only as a last resort, when there is a threat of bodily harm to the officer or bystanders. Yet I saw a video of a Taser being employed on a drunk driver who simply refused to be handcuffed.

I used to think that the so called "Assault Weapons" were terrible, and no person needed to have one. I have come to realize, however, that even though every once in a while some whacko flips out and kills a couple of people, and armed populance keeps the authorities in line. You cannot perform mass arrests if every fourth house someone shoots back.

Yeah, sometimes some fuck goes off and kills someone. But think about this. Everyday 75 million legal firearms owners in America DON'T do anything. They don't hold up banks, they don't go on killing sprees, and they don't try to overthrow the government.

But none of the politicians bring that up when they push for another ban.

Oh, sorry for going off on a tangent there. There is a definite trend towards the transformation of the police from peace officers to a paramilitary force.

[myk]

Dr. Zin said:
You cannot perform mass arrests if every fourth house someone shoots back.

It might be harder to arrest them, but then it's also an incentive to shoot them, or at least to carry a bigger gun just in case, to have the potential advantage in a pinch. "Hey, it's not our fault, we had to bomb the neighborhood because everyone there had a firearm".

[Sharessa]

Dr. Zin said:

I used to think that the so called "Assault Weapons" were terrible, and no person needed to have one. I have come to realize, however, that even though every once in a while some whacko flips out and kills a couple of people, and armed populance keeps the authorities in line. You cannot perform mass arrests if every fourth house someone shoots back.

My mindset has changed to such in just the last year or so. At this point, I'd actually love to own a gun. Sadly, however they're too fucking expensive and I don't know how to fire them anyway.

[Bloodshedder]

Dr. Zin said:

You cannot perform mass arrests if every fourth house someone shoots back.

Fear of being shot shouldn't be what discourages police forces from using paramilitary tactics to conduct drug "raids". They have to realize that this "war on drugs" makes about as much sense as and is about as effective as a war on sodomy might be.

[Dr. Zin]

Bloodshedder said:

Fear of being shot shouldn't be what discourages police forces from using paramilitary tactics to conduct drug "raids". They have to realize that this "war on drugs" makes about as much sense as and is about as effective as a war on sodomy might be.

I wholeheartedly agree.
However, the fact that is is illegal shouldn't be the reason why you don't steal, assault, or murder. There are alot of people who don't do these things simply because they will land them jail time, rather than morality.

There should be many checks and balances against abuse of power. An armed populace is just a final contingency.

Also, the subject may be drugs now, but there is always some tyrant who wants to control something. Here it is marijuana, but it could just as easily be "subversive materials".

myk said:

It might be harder to arrest them, but then it's also an incentive to shoot them, or at least to carry a bigger gun just in case, to have the potential advantage in a pinch. "Hey, it's not our fault, we had to bomb the neighborhood because everyone there had a firearm".

Yeah, they could do that, but it would be nigh suicide for them then. A perfect example of this is what is going on in Iraq now. If some authoritarian sect tried to take control they would have a big insurgency on their hands.

Danarchy said:

My mindset has changed to such in just the last year or so. At this point, I'd actually love to own a gun. Sadly, however they're too fucking expensive and I don't know how to fire them anyway.

Eh, you'd be suprised. Just put away change for a year and you could easily afford a decent starter gun, like a .22 rifle or pistol or a pump shotgun.

The big if though is what kind of shooting facilities are near you. If you are interested that is pretty easy information to find, and if you ask the management they usually will be quite happy to introduce you to the hobby and at least point you to someone who can give basic instruction.

[myk]

Dr. Zin said:
Yeah, they could do that, but it would be nigh suicide for them then. A perfect example of this is what is going on in Iraq now. If some authoritarian sect tried to take control they would have a big insurgency on their hands.

I doubt it would be a good idea to turn any country or the world into something like Iraq is now (i.e., violent anarchy, or anomie). My point is that it's not a question of arming the populance but more so of a balance of (fire)power, and if you do that in an environment with a heavy weapon count (including many weapons as well as powerful ones), you'll get more gun deaths due to the availability, but also a disparity based on wealth, because the poor can't maintain a good arsenal. The authorities will have the best and heaviest armament, and will augument their power to counterbalance the larger or growing social supply of weaponry, and the wealthy (or otherwise powerful) will have better arms than the poor. You would also likely have a volatile situation where civil war is more likely, unless by some means the armed pupulations and groups can check each other off. And that is easier if they all have weaker weapons, in general (both authorities and civilians), than if most people are "loaded".

If weapon power and availablity just keeps escalating, you'll need a shotgun instead of a pistol to "feel safe" against the assault weapons the authorities or whoever would be using instead of more conventional rifles, for example. I'd rather feel safe just needing Tae Kwon Do or something like that agains the cops' billy sticks, if it comes to any violence for whatever reason. If they come after me and I feel like ressisting at least we'll wreck less of my house and have less chances of ending up dead on both sides.

Anyway, the example of the old woman kind of illustrates what happens when there's distrust, social tension, and an apparent need for privately owned guns to feel safe.

I'm not even arguing against civilian gun possession; my point is that arms availablity in general produces gun inflicted death, and that becomes critical when populations are heavily armed, and when gun possession is unequal (most likely if there are wide disparities of wealth). I'd say you are right in thinking that too much firepower for the authorities is dangerous for civilians, but simply arming civilians more heavily won't solve anything, most likely on the contrary. It'll be kind of like and "inflation" of armament, where groups will tend to arm themselves more because others did so first. Plus the authorities will simply get paranoid over groups of civilians advocating armament against authority.

[Sharessa]

Dr. Zin said:

The big if though is what kind of shooting facilities are near you. If you are interested that is pretty easy information to find, and if you ask the management they usually will be quite happy to introduce you to the hobby and at least point you to someone who can give basic instruction.

Well, a couple of my friends are gun nuts, so they're probably the best place to ask. I know there are ranges around here. In fact, i remember one being across the street from the home of a friend I had in grade school.

[sargebaldy]

I don't like guns, but I'm fine with civilian gun ownership. I'm not at all comfortable with police and military having a monopoly of control over them. Though I'd rather we lived in a sensible society where they were unnecessary.

[Dr. Zin]

I don't think the availability thing is nessecarily valid. For example, Switzerland requires every male citizen to keep a full auto battle rifle in their place of residence, yet the Swiss have a fairly low crime rate. Crime has much more to do with the culture of the society than their armaments. Many countries have either extremely resticted or no legal private gun ownership and have horrendous violent crime rates. Hell, a great example of this in the U.S. is California. They are one of the most restrictive states, yet look at the crime in L.A.

I also think you might be reading a bit more into this than I really mean. I don't believe every person should have a gun, nor should there not be regulations like background checks and such. What I do think is that a reasonable person should have a reasonable method of aquiring a firearm, even if it is a so-called assault weapon.

Iraq is kind of a double edged example, as you have shown. The goal of having an armed population is not to have an Iraq style bloodbath, but rather it serves more as a deterrant.

I don't think the economic theory is truely valid either. The main Romanian arms factory makes partial semi-auto only AK-47, which they ship to the U.S. to have a minimum number of U.S. made parts installed to allow the gun to be catagorized as domestically produced (to avoid 922r, which is a permanent ban on importing assault weapons). They wholesale for $280, retail for about $350. That is not an unreasonable price for most people. Someone could buy one, a cleaning kit, some spare magazines and a pile of 7.62x39 ammo for less than a Playstation 3!

Also, I don't think a civil war is likely if the nation is free enough. Civil wars do not start unless a portion of the population is extremely oppressed. The point of arms is to prevent such oppresson. Even if there is a disparity between the people and there government, the people can refuse to fight on the government's terms.

A perfect example of this was South Vietnam. The Diem regime labeled anyone who stood against them or their beliefs as a communist sympathizer. People resisted. Eventually the U.S. started to intervene. Even though the Vietcong were vastly outgunned by the U.S. forces they were able to succeed by fighting only on their terms.

In fact, now that I think about it Vietnam is a far superior example to Iraq.

Anyway, and armed populance isn't there to always be trying to overthrow the government or whatever. Look at the U.S., where until the mid-20th century civilians were able to freely arm themselves with military hardware. How much governement versus population strife was there?

The Civil War was fought between the Federal Government and a breakaway group. There were a few examples of group of civilians resisting unfair local governments with armed force, which often brought the Feds in (I remember a couple in particular dealing with veterans of both World Wars wanting pay or fighting taxes).

Just because people are armed doesn't meaning there is going ot be violence erupting. Resistance is like medicine, you don't use it unless there is a serious problem that isn't going away.