Guns used in the Dallas were a 70 year-old SKS and a handgun.

[ctwiggs1]

Really the best part of the whole thing was that they used a bomb to take him out. What a great idea.

We don't have to see this low life is the news for years to come going through the legal system.

I think they should handle all these guys with a bomb robot. 

I'm glad they took him out without further harm to the police. I'm on the fence about whether using bombs to neutralize bad guys is another step toward militarization. Are grenades OK now? What about rockets? It may be a slippery slope. 

If a cop is legally authorized to use lethal force it really shouldn't matter WTF he/she uses, be it their car, a rifle, a hi-lift jack handle, or C4.  Their objective is to neutralize the threat without harming any innocent citizens.

Even in Iraq, we weren't given that much leeway.  If you legally take down a threat but it results in several families being homeless, how much have you really helped society? 

I won't decide one way or another on this case until we get all the details.  That being said, I doubt anybody is surprised that a cop killer wasn't arrested. 

[JLS]

Really the best part of the whole thing was that they used a bomb to take him out. What a great idea.

We don't have to see this low life is the news for years to come going through the legal system.

I think they should handle all these guys with a bomb robot. 

I'm glad they took him out without further harm to the police. I'm on the fence about whether using bombs to neutralize bad guys is another step toward militarization. Are grenades OK now? What about rockets? It may be a slippery slope. 

If a cop is legally authorized to use lethal force it really shouldn't matter WTF he/she uses, be it their car, a rifle, a hi-lift jack handle, or C4.  Their objective is to neutralize the threat without harming any innocent citizens.

Even in Iraq, we weren't given that much leeway.  If you legally take down a threat but it results in several families being homeless, how much have you really helped society? 

I won't decide one way or another on this case until we get all the details.  That being said, I doubt anybody is surprised that a cop killer wasn't arrested.

Who said anything about leaving people homeless?

[ctwiggs1]

Really the best part of the whole thing was that they used a bomb to take him out. What a great idea.

We don't have to see this low life is the news for years to come going through the legal system.

I think they should handle all these guys with a bomb robot. 

I'm glad they took him out without further harm to the police. I'm on the fence about whether using bombs to neutralize bad guys is another step toward militarization. Are grenades OK now? What about rockets? It may be a slippery slope. 

If a cop is legally authorized to use lethal force it really shouldn't matter WTF he/she uses, be it their car, a rifle, a hi-lift jack handle, or C4.  Their objective is to neutralize the threat without harming any innocent citizens.

Even in Iraq, we weren't given that much leeway.  If you legally take down a threat but it results in several families being homeless, how much have you really helped society? 

I won't decide one way or another on this case until we get all the details.  That being said, I doubt anybody is surprised that a cop killer wasn't arrested.

Who said anything about leaving people homeless?

Check out the MOVE bombing people are referencing.  Explosives are not as exact as people think they are.  Unintended consequences can have long lasting effects and I don't think we should take that lightly.

I can tell you that as a route clearance unit whose entire job was finding bombs and destroying them, we never once set a bomb off in an urban area when we were in downtown Baghdad.  That's over 200 missions on the road, and I never once was a part of a unit that did a controlled detonation inside an urban area.  Never once.  In Baghdad.  If we can go 200 missions without bombing Baghdad, surely we can find better ways to do things inside our big cities in the US.

You're not sending a message of "We are here to help you" when you create 15 problems by solving 1.

Curtis

[JLS]

Really the best part of the whole thing was that they used a bomb to take him out. What a great idea.

We don't have to see this low life is the news for years to come going through the legal system.

I think they should handle all these guys with a bomb robot. 

I'm glad they took him out without further harm to the police. I'm on the fence about whether using bombs to neutralize bad guys is another step toward militarization. Are grenades OK now? What about rockets? It may be a slippery slope. 

If a cop is legally authorized to use lethal force it really shouldn't matter WTF he/she uses, be it their car, a rifle, a hi-lift jack handle, or C4.  Their objective is to neutralize the threat without harming any innocent citizens.

Even in Iraq, we weren't given that much leeway.  If you legally take down a threat but it results in several families being homeless, how much have you really helped society? 

I won't decide one way or another on this case until we get all the details.  That being said, I doubt anybody is surprised that a cop killer wasn't arrested.

Who said anything about leaving people homeless?

Check out the MOVE bombing people are referencing.  Explosives are not as exact as people think they are.  Unintended consequences can have long lasting effects and I don't think we should take that lightly.

I can tell you that as a route clearance unit whose entire job was finding bombs and destroying them, we never once set a bomb off in an urban area when we were in downtown Baghdad.  That's over 200 missions on the road, and I never once was a part of a unit that did a controlled detonation inside an urban area.  Never once.  In Baghdad.  If we can go 200 missions without bombing Baghdad, surely we can find better ways to do things inside our big cities in the US.

You're not sending a message of "We are here to help you" when you create 15 problems by solving 1.

Curtis

I get your point, and I think you are completely missing mine.  My last sentence was " Their objective is to neutralize the threat without harming innocent citizens".  I fail to see how this is advocating what your are describing.

[ctwiggs1]

I think the key phrase you're missing is this:

Explosives are not as exact as people think they are.  Unintended consequences can have long lasting effects and I don't think we should take that lightly.

We're lucky that the bomb didn't hurt anybody else.  This time. 

[JLS]

I think the key phrase you're missing is this:

Explosives are not as exact as people think they are.  Unintended consequences can have long lasting effects and I don't think we should take that lightly.

We're lucky that the bomb didn't hurt anybody else.  This time.

No, I didn't miss that.  Whatever method is chosen to exact lethal force must be done so with collateral damage in mind, regardless of whether it's C4 or an M4 carbine.

I have worked with bomb technicians here in Washington who were very good at their craft and routinely did explosive breaching on residences.  I have no doubt the bomb techs in Dallas were very good, if not better.  I highly doubt they chose that route lightly.

[ctwiggs1]

We will probably just have to agree to disagree on the subject.   

[pianoman9701]

Explosive breaching is completely different from using explosives to kill US citizens. Make a collateral mistake with a rifle and one person dies. Do it with a bomb and many can die, or a structure can come down or become unstable. But it's not just that. Where do we draw the line on how we kill citizens who've not been given due process? Where do we draw the line on the militarization of our police departments? I don't want our police to die at the hand of a criminal. But I also would like to see some of these people caught so we can find out more about them and their associates. We've had three very high profile mass shooting cases - San Bernardino, Orlando, and Dallas - in which the shooter(s) was killed and little other useful information was gained after the incident. Some conspiracy theorists are struck by the coincidence that all of these happened within a couple of days of the release of political scandal stories. Although I'm not in that camp, I'd like to hear from the shooters who hired or inspired them. If they had accomplices, etc.

[ctwiggs1]

Explosive breaching is completely different from using explosives to kill US citizens. Make a collateral mistake with a rifle and one person dies. Do it with a bomb and many can die, or a structure can come down or become unstable. But it's not just that. Where do we draw the line on how we kill citizens who've not been given due process? Where do we draw the line on the militarization of our police departments? I don't want our police to die at the hand of a criminal. But I also would like to see some of these people caught so we can find out more about them and their associates. We've had three very high profile mass shooting cases - San Bernardino, Orlando, and Dallas - in which the shooter(s) was killed and little other useful information was gained after the incident. Some conspiracy theorists are struck by the coincidence that all of these happened within a couple of days of the release of political scandal stories. Although I'm not in that camp, I'd like to hear from the shooters who hired or inspired them. If they had accomplices, etc.

 

[JLS]

Explosive breaching is completely different from using explosives to kill US citizens. Make a collateral mistake with a rifle and one person dies. Do it with a bomb and many can die, or a structure can come down or become unstable. But it's not just that. Where do we draw the line on how we kill citizens who've not been given due process?

My comparison with breaching was only that explosives can be used in a more directed manner than a lot of folks realize.  Can things go wrong?  Certainly.  I'm not in any way advocating irresponsible use of tools to exact lethal force. 

When a person creates a situation that authorizes an LEO to use lethal force, they are no longer entitled to due process at that point.  They have put in place all of the statutory/legal thresholds for a seizure of life.  How that life is seized is irrelevant (standard disclaimer:  SO LONG as it is done in a way that eliminates and/or minimizes risk to innocent civilians).  Courts have also ruled that the totality of the circumstances may negate liability should an LEO kill an innocent civilian provided that they were not acting recklessly or negligently, and the overall risk to human life was sufficient to justify the actions that led to the accidental killing.

[pianoman9701]

So, just kill 'em and forget any important intel we might gleen. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. When you blow people up, you're certainly not going to get their side of the story. Only the government's side.

What if the same robot could shoot a disabling electrical charge or tranquilizer? What if we concentrated on disabling these types of people so we could interview them later? I get why cops don't shoot for the legs like in the movies. But developing ways to capture these people could be a huge help to police and the public at large.

[ctwiggs1]

So, just kill 'em and forget any important intel we might gleen. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. When you blow people up, you're certainly not going to get their side of the story. Only the government's side.

What if the same robot could shoot a disabling electrical charge or tranquilizer? What if we concentrated on disabling these types of people so we could interview them later? I get why cops don't shoot for the legs like in the movies. But developing ways to capture these people could be a huge help to police and the public at large.

We actually were able to get a pistol to fire remotely with our robot overseas. 

We floated the idea upstream but it never caught on.

[JLS]

So, just kill 'em and forget any important intel we might gleen. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. When you blow people up, you're certainly not going to get their side of the story. Only the government's side.

What if the same robot could shoot a disabling electrical charge or tranquilizer? What if we concentrated on disabling these types of people so we could interview them later? I get why cops don't shoot for the legs like in the movies. But developing ways to capture these people could be a huge help to police and the public at large.

The ideas you are floating would create more risk for on-scene officers and civilians alike.  Bad guys know how to defeat Tasers.  Tranquilizers are not immediately effective.  In a perfect world, these might be great solutions. 

I am guessing the on-scene Dallas PD officers had one goal in mind, stop the threat ASAP.  If two more people die in an attempt to get information, was it worth it?  I'm willing to bet that if you asked most cops how many innocent civilians or fellow officers they would be willing to sacrifice in order to try to get information the answer would be "none". 

[pianoman9701]

I get what you're saying, JLS, I just disagree. We should be trying harder to find ways to capture criminals alive. As terrorism becomes more of a threat, more benefit comes from capturing terrorists to find out what their buddies are planning. We know from the Middle East and from terrorists caught domestically that they turn over without too much convincing. In addition, it is imperative that policing in this country change to the extent that it's possible. If we don't change the conversation of "well, the gloves are off. Kill him.", to "how do we neutralize the threat without deadly force?", we're going to then have to deal with increasing rioting and civil disobedience. You know as well as I that you can have a department with 300 justified kills in a row and just one creates the BS protests. This isn't just about the militarization of the police and due process, although I am concerned about those. It's about also coming up with solutions which show the public that the police are doing everything in their power not to kill. There are dozens of non-lethal responses that may be able to be deployed instead of using explosives to kill someone.

[ctwiggs1]

I get what you're saying, JLS, I just disagree. We should be trying harder to find ways to capture criminals alive. As terrorism becomes more of a threat, more benefit comes from capturing terrorists to find out what their buddies are planning. We know from the Middle East and from terrorists caught domestically that they turn over without too much convincing. In addition, it is imperative that policing in this country change to the extent that it's possible. If we don't change the conversation of "well, the gloves are off. Kill him.", to "how do we neutralize the threat without deadly force?", we're going to then have to deal with increasing rioting and civil disobedience. You know as well as I that you can have a department with 300 justified kills in a row and just one creates the BS protests. This isn't just about the militarization of the police and due process, although I am concerned about those. It's about also coming up with solutions which show the public that the police are doing everything in their power not to kill. There are dozens of non-lethal responses that may be able to be deployed instead of using explosives to kill someone.

PMan - what I find the most ironic about this is that you and I both come from a background of primarily using lethal force.