Crime POTWR 2019 Vol 1: Shots Fired! Examining Police Shootings In America

Out of curiosity, do you think the laws mostly reasonable?



Cubo and I discussed this in the past, which is why I've tagged him on the question. FWIW, I grew up in Hawaii.
Hawaii is an interesting case that perhaps can't be extrapolated to other states. Compared the the rest of the country, they have restrictive laws, but also high ownership rates. The isolation effect on illegal guns cannot be understated. I hope we get to have civil conversations about gun laws more in future POTWR threads.

When people say "culture", what do they mean as it pertains to Hawaii? Income inequality, for instance, could be a part of culture, but so could racial demographics.
I guess I think of culture in a more narrow sense than demographics. I mean the societal norms, traditions, values. I think in Hawaii we have more of a focus on family and interpersonal relationships, less of a focus on greed and material ownership. Not as much of a gang culture, certainly less of a street gang culture. Of course there is organized crime, but it's more organized and centralized and less fragmented gangs warring with each other.
 
Out of curiosity, do you think the laws mostly reasonable?

No. I believe they create far more burden and inconvenience than they prevent violent crime.

What does limiting handgun mags to 10 rounds really do? Not a damn thing other than maybe slow a mass shooter down by a second. Or not, depending on if there's anyone to actually shoot when the mag gets swapped out. From all the shootings in the news it's pretty clear that extensive damage can be done regardless. But it certainly costs the gun buyer money. I miss out on some great sales because most semi-auto pistols have a standard capacity greater than 10 rounds. I could tell the seller not to ship the mags, but there goes the money you save with the sale. Some guns just don't come with a 10 round option from the factory.

The permitting process is an extended background check. In about every other state they use the National Instant Check System, which takes minutes on the phone. For folks like me who already have guns, that two week wait isn't going to prevent anything. In fairness, I think they do an extra check on mental health records that might not be covered by the standard NICS call. The pain in the ass to it is to get a handgun I first have to buy it. Then go to one of a handful of police stations to apply for the permit. That's an hour drive round-trip. Wait two weeks then another trip back in to pick up my permit (which expires after five days). Then pick it up at the FFL. Then take the gun and the permit back into the police station to register it. And of course they're not open on weekends so this always means taking time off work.

The registry sounds good, but it's pretty dumb. Maybe @A.C. can say how many crimes it solved? All I know is the number of people telling me they have unregistered guns is much greater than those who say they've registered all of theirs. On top of that, people die and guns disappear from the estate. I'd love to see stats on guns previously owned by folks currently deceased that are re-registered by the new owner.

Then there's an "assault pistol" law. This means I can't have things like AR's and AK's in pistol form. It's ridiculously silly to think that carving out this style of weapon prevents violent crime. Is somebody not going to shoot somebody because their pistol doesn't have a magazine inserted somewhere other than the grip or because their pistol doesn't have a shroud protecting you from the hot barrel? If anything, those types of pistols make them harder to conceal, which is the reason you'd have a pistol instead of a rifle on you to begin with.


I hope we get to have civil conversations about gun laws more in future POTWR threads.

We will. Just need to figure out the specifics.
 
I brought dozens of firearms when moving here. Both via USPS and on the flight. Nobody at TSA is checking anything in regards to legality. Then there's the growing popularity of 80% lowers. I'm thinking of building a Glock soon. All the parts will be delivered to my PO Box.
Which is why I continued my sentence where you edited it :rolleyes:
 
Which is why I continued my sentence where you edited it :rolleyes:

I wasn't correcting you. I was sharing my experiences. Since I don't know anything about importing drugs and it didn't seem relevant I trimmed that part off.

I'll post this question again since you may have missed it, with your eyes rolled back in your head and all. :D

The registry sounds good, but it's pretty dumb. Maybe @A.C. can say how many crimes it solved?
 
I wasn't correcting you. I was sharing my experiences. Since I don't know anything about importing drugs and it didn't seem relevant I trimmed that part off.

I'll post this question again since you may have missed it, with your eyes rolled back in your head and all. :D
That isn’t really my wheelhouse since I’ve never done those kinds of investigations, but I don’t think the purpose of a registry is to solve violent gun crimes. You’ll still want ballistics, fingerprinting, and other physical evidence to do that. It could however help trace how guns have been acquired illegally. We know the vast majority of gun crimes are committed by people who illegally acquire their firearms, but also that at some point most of those firearms are purchased legally. So it could possibly help catch straw purchasers or thieves or others who bring guns into the black market.
 
These people are doing a great service

Thoughts on this tyrant instigating and escalating a situation and attempting to detain someone for a crime he made up on the spot?

 
I can't find much to disagree with here but as far the the bold part specifically, I would nonetheless like to reiterate that from my POV the onus is on the cops to change the dynamic as the public servants, not the citizenry.

I have tried most of my career to do just that.

The problem as I can see it, it that we see a lot of drug violence. Usually, the drug violence occurs in a few concentrated areas. Drugs are absolutely everywhere, but the violence is not. This will likely be a future topic as well. Anyway, officers try to get the violence under control, which means more aggressive policing. This leads to resentment, but there are few answers on how to quell the violence.
 
I'm not gonna argue with the study. It's funny you picked this article because back in High School some LEO's came in and did a "shoot, don't shoot" with us. I was one of 4-5 kids to take a turn. My scenario was a man in a park with a 12 gauge under his chin. I was the approaching officer trying to talk him down. Gun was in my hand, but I can't recall to what degree it was pointed. The previous demonstrations included a "don't shoot" scenario so I didn't want to be the guy shooting when I shouldn't. As that's going through my head, dude goes to point the shotgun at me and I took him out first.

Stress seems to be the wildcard in all this.



Makes sense with the heightened scrutiny that surely all LEO's are aware of.



Agreed that under these circumstances there's much greater margin for error.



Great stuff. The following kinda sums it up.




Seems like the key take-away is that once the shootin' starts it's difficult/unfair to hold people rationally accountable.

It is such a complex issue, with so much going on. I have become very critical of many police shootings. But the public needs to be educated on how much goes into these incidents. Then, you have to examine or respect that this officer has a whole career of responding to violence and tense situations
 
Thinking maybe the media needs to tell more stories like this. Cops aren't the most sympathetic figures.

Hard not to have some empathy reading a story like this.

Well, there was absolutely no coverage or anything on my incident, not sure about Clertus.
 
As for the ethnicity thing, I’m mixed race but what I’d call “white passing.” I’m pretty well known in my local community, especially the islands of Maui and Molokai, so I don’t run into those problems too often. The only people who give me shit are the rare black guys with the typical KKK bullshit. I tell them I’m Hawaiian/Jewish and they don’t care lol. But no real issues with local people regarding race. Although I did recently have a Hawaiian sovereign tell me I suffered from Stockholm Syndrome lmao.

We have all races in my section though, and the only complaints I’ve gotten regarding race is from some Hawaiian sovereigns who felt a certain officer (who is Latino) was targeting them racially. Sovereign citizens of all kinds are a huge issue out here unfortunately, and this guy does like to target them, but there’s nothing racial about it. They make illegal “Kingdom of Hawaii” license plates they put on their cars they drive around without a registration or license so it’s not like he doesn’t have justification to pull them over.

Seems like sovereigns from all races are assholes and really fucked up. I have had a few run ins with them, but few problems.

The only shooting by my department was a former officer that went sovereign. He was the brother of my former lieutenant. He decided to shoot up a federal court house and had traps set up at his house when police went in after the incident. A good friend of my lieutenant is the one who shot him, once from 50 yards, under the arm, missing the vest. It was a mind blowing shot.
 
I’d be more inclined to find the shooting reasonable if cell phones weren’t so pervasive. Just about everyone has a cell phone, and they can be found holding it at any given moment of the day.

Guns are pretty damn prevent as well, especially when involving felons.
 
These people are doing a great service

Thoughts on this tyrant instigating and escalating a situation and attempting to detain someone for a crime he made up on the spot?



A great service? Guy was a total punk, and I would have seriously considered yanking him for disorderly conduct. However, I am a very big proponent of taking into consideration the seriousness of the crime and weighing it against using force to detain the person. I 100% respect and observe the right to film in public, but this guy was being an asshole, and being disorderly. These idiots purposely act suspicious and are trolls, they like to make people nervous, because what normal person films places like this? and personally, I would have loved to see a private citizen kick his ass and take his camera so he could go crying to police.

I am a pretty chilled and calm guy, and none of the officers were aggressive. He was the one yelling “don’t ducking touch me” when he was not touched.

And just a question, do you look at his behavior and think “that is a great guy?” Someone to aspire to be like?

Nothing to do with police shootings, though.
 
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I guess I think of culture in a more narrow sense than demographics. I mean the societal norms, traditions, values. I think in Hawaii we have more of a focus on family and interpersonal relationships, less of a focus on greed and material ownership. Not as much of a gang culture, certainly less of a street gang culture. Of course there is organized crime, but it's more organized and centralized and less fragmented gangs warring with each other.

Maybe this is just exaggerated reports, but I was always under the assumption that there was a huge drug issue, particularly ice, which of course means gangs and violence. Also, the yakuza having a presence there. Again, I might be completely off base, because I have never been there.
 
Maybe this is just exaggerated reports, but I was always under the assumption that there was a huge drug issue, particularly ice, which of course means gangs and violence. Also, the yakuza having a presence there. Again, I might be completely off base, because I have never been there.
Oh yeah the ice problem is huge. I’ve seen countless violent and property crimes related to meth addiction, no doubt. We have violent crime all the time it’s just way less per capita.

The cultural difference extends to the gangs too though. You don’t hear about kids getting shot in drive-bys done by the Yakuza, triads or Hawaiian Syndicate. Even younger gangs like USO Fam aren’t as randomly violent as Latin American and American gangs. Just less collateral damage.
Seems like sovereigns from all races are assholes and really fucked up. I have had a few run ins with them, but few problems.

The only shooting by my department was a former officer that went sovereign. He was the brother of my former lieutenant. He decided to shoot up a federal court house and had traps set up at his house when police went in after the incident. A good friend of my lieutenant is the one who shot him, once from 50 yards, under the arm, missing the vest. It was a mind blowing shot.
damn that’s crazy.
 
Well, there was absolutely no coverage or anything on my incident, not sure about Clertus.

@VivaRevolution

Nope. No fanfare or newspaper story, and I don't remember even receiving a "good job" by the admin, though I think it was just pure luck with the outcome. However, I don't care. I don't wear my ribbons, my medal, hash marks, SWAT pin, or any flair. My written commendations and certificates sit in a folder somewhere collecting dust. Even told my wife that if she tries to bury me in my uniform, I'll haunt the shit out of her. There is one caveat however, which is only if I take out a half dozen terrorists and no innocent people get killed, then she can consider having me buried in a uniform.
 
Seems like sovereigns from all races are assholes and really fucked up. I have had a few run ins with them, but few problems.

The only shooting by my department was a former officer that went sovereign. He was the brother of my former lieutenant. He decided to shoot up a federal court house and had traps set up at his house when police went in after the incident. A good friend of my lieutenant is the one who shot him, once from 50 yards, under the arm, missing the vest. It was a mind blowing shot.
Yeah, I worked for a judge who repeatedly presided over terrorism cases and various organized crime cases. But sovereign citizens were who the judge was consistently concerned about trying something at the courthouse.

That said, some are more dumb than asshole. There was one fellow who came before the judge a couple times with dumb sovcit theories that the judge shot down. ("I suspect you have fallen into bad company who have misled you"), and he agreed with the judge the next time we heard from him.
 
Yeah, I worked for a judge who repeatedly presided over terrorism cases and various organized crime cases. But sovereign citizens were who the judge was consistently concerned about trying something at the courthouse.

That said, some are more dumb than asshole. There was one fellow who came before the judge a couple times with dumb sovcit theories that the judge shot down. ("I suspect you have fallen into bad company who have misled you"), and he agreed with the judge the next time we heard from him.

Some of their arguments are really stupid. Being in the driver seat and saying they are not driving, but are “traveling” is ridiculous. Most of their bullshit is trying to confuse or intimidate, or say such off the wall shit that the officer does not know how to respond.
 
@VivaRevolution

Nope. No fanfare or newspaper story, and I don't remember even receiving a "good job" by the admin, though I think it was just pure luck with the outcome. However, I don't care. I don't wear my ribbons, my medal, hash marks, SWAT pin, or any flair. My written commendations and certificates sit in a folder somewhere collecting dust. Even told my wife that if she tries to bury me in my uniform, I'll haunt the shit out of her. There is one caveat however, which is only if I take out a half dozen terrorists and no innocent people get killed, then she can consider having me buried in a uniform.

Yeah, my wife knows better as well, though my fancy commander get up is pretty fancy.

There were quite a few incidents where I was upset that I did not get a letter or anything, only because you are judged on your abilities based on the number of commendations you get. I have done a lot of cool shit I’m my days, and to not get recognized is kind of sucky. I don’t wear my ribbons either. One incident in particular is the time I took a knife off a suicidal subject and got cut.
 
Oh yeah the ice problem is huge. I’ve seen countless violent and property crimes related to meth addiction, no doubt. We have violent crime all the time it’s just way less per capita.

The cultural difference extends to the gangs too though. You don’t hear about kids getting shot in drive-bys done by the Yakuza, triads or Hawaiian Syndicate. Even younger gangs like USO Fam aren’t as randomly violent as Latin American and American gangs. Just less collateral damage.

damn that’s crazy.

I bet the yakuza are more in favor of knives.

And the property crimes and violence tend to go hand in hand. We are in the midst of a very bad heroin epidemic. I have been to more overdoses than I can possibly count.

I still remember my first couple of od’s. The very first od was actually a crack overdose. Guy was bugging out quite a bit. But this was in 2003.

My first od involving opioids, a kid was injecting fentanyl from a pain patch. I had to kick in the door and hold him down while paramedics administered narcan. This was when it had to be injected. Really had to hold the guy down. Then when he came out of it, we had to fight him again because he was pissed we ruined his high. This was probably 2008 or so.

My first od death was in 2012 or so. A neighbor was cutting the grass and could see the kid through the window. We had to break in and he had the needle still in his arm. I had to tell the mom when she got there. Was not fun, that one.
 
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