Krellin, have you ever played Cards Against Humanity or something like it. You don't really mean the stuff you play, it's just for some anti humor.

krellin raises an excellent point.

Police lives matter more than criminal lives.

"Police lives matter more than criminal lives."

They do? A life is a life.

False. All lives are not equal.

I agree, gf. A citizen's life is the most important of them all. Recognising the deep patriotism within these and following the 2nd commandment of the constitution the citizens of Ferguson did rise and form a militia to defend themselves against the enemy.

Yes, obviously shooting cops who were in no way threatening the community is the answer

It wasn't a 'well regulated' militia.

No, GF, all lives are equal. It's just that some lives are more equal than others.

Jeff: You went for that, and nothing about how he called it a commandment? Or am I the only one who noticed?

I elected not to dignify his blatant ignorance with a response

X3n0n's comment there read to me like a pretty obvious parody of the gunnuttery we sometimes see from Americans.

@KC Were these cops armed? they were. Did they try to enforce laws? They were. Were they democratically elected? They were not. Well, what I do see here is a bunch of people with arms, taking it upon themselves to enforce laws using violence without being elected. This is dictatorial!

@mendax thanx for getting it ;)

http://www.wsj.com/articles/police-make-arrest-in-shooting-of-two-officers-in-ferguson-mo-1426443344?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

A black man is arrested in the shooting and claims he was trying to hit some one else and missed. Which just goes to show how slack the educational system is in the US when a person can't hit his target. People need more practice before they are allowed to get a weapon. If people were required to get weapons training and show they were able to hit a target with reasonable accuracy, we wouldn't have all those injuries tying up hospital space.

But of course those right wing Republicans are letting any idiot buy and use a gun.

So in this case does he get attempted murder three times instead of two?

technically, it was only one attempted murder and two cases of involuntary manslaughter, similar to a car accident caused by glaze ice.

I'm pretty sure shooting into a crowd and hitting the wrong person would not be considered manslaughter

it's not right wing Republicans that let any 'idiot' use and buy a gun it's called the 2nd Amendment.

ND: a few points to look over, not even getting to the concepts of "should" as my views on the matter are broad and flexible:
a) What was the political affiliation of the Supreme Court justices who ruled that way? (Or, to get a better idea of what I mean, how likely do you think it is for a liberal Supreme Court justice to vote a case regarding that amendment to have that interpretation of the amendment itself?)
b) That implies that no restriction exists, which is false. That restrictions do exist means that limiting who can get them is possible. That the requirements to be able to carry a gun do not require safety training to use that gun is a bit of a problem, when such a requirement would be both simple and beneficial to society. Even Gunfighter, whose presence on this forum has mostly consisted of advocating the right of private ownership of guns and having an anti-Communist voice, has said that there should be safety training.
c) Even Scalia, a conservative and originalist Supreme Court Justice, has said that the right to do so is not unlimited.

The problem is the police have taken on a military mindset, to view everyone as the enemy unless demonstrated otherwise, and shoot first if there's any doubt. The police *should* have the exact opposite attitude-- assume people are innocent, acknowledge that their first priority isn't really their life but the lives of the community, to always try to find ways to de-escalate things rather than aggravate. Racism is just one side of this coin.

@ the.dibster

You are absolutely correct. American police have adopted a militaristic mindset in recent years, and the results are often tragic. I would argue that tensions between the community and police is largely a result of idiotic policies like broken window policing, mandatory sentencing, and three-strikes laws. I think that the community is more likely to resist violently against officers if they see themselves as having no other options. Furthermore, economic losses associated with urban decay (not necessarily talking about Ferguson now) are always going to lead to high crime, which in turn leads to militaristic policing.

I couldn't fairly blame a South Los Angeles or Detroit beat cop for carrying an automatic rifle and ballistic protection with him on his beat, because the gangs in those areas are equally militarized. That being said, the quality of a police force is going to be a direct reflection of the community. High crime will result in police brutality, which causes a lack of respect for law enforcement, which causes more police brutality/militarization.... It's a vicious cycle. Reed-and-Malloy style policing is dying out alongside our dying inner cities.
____

@ Randomizer

"But of course those right wing Republicans are letting any idiot buy and use a gun."

The suspect in the shooting is 20 years old. Being that he was on parole at the time of the shooting, he would not have been legally carrying the handgun used in the shooting. Look at that! Gun laws did not stop a shooting! How did that happen!? But, you know, it was the Republicans' fault for supporting the Second Amendment, even though no law can prevent a sufficiently determined criminal from obtaining a firearm. #liberallogic

Also, we're not talking about a particularly intelligent criminal. He was willing to attempt a drive-by murder despite the massive risk of collateral damage (shooting in the vicinity of a crowd) and despite the presence of literally dozens of armed and alert police officers less than 150 meters away.

Personally, I'm not buying his "accident" defense. You don't hit ANYTHING from 125 meters away (distance between spent cases and wounded officers) with a .40 S&W handgun (as a general rule, handguns are not accurate beyond 50 meters) unless you are trying very, very hard.

If the gun is so inaccurate from that distance, how can you just rule out that he simply shot anyway, missed, and hit someone he didn't intend to hit?

He apparently did try very hard and failed very badly? High crime doesn't necessarily lead to high police violence – internal security policing does. Look at England for a comparison. It is, imho, the laziness of thought leading to such fatalism combined with overly heroising of police forces that creates the climate where police violence flourishes (besides the pervasiveness of fire arms in public).

@ bo_sox48

Yeah, but hitting not one but *two* police officers from that range? That's a very, very, very unlikely "accident"

The pervasiveness of firearms in public does NOT lead to an increased crime rate. If that were the case, then California, Illinois, and New York would have the lowest crime rates in the nation. The opposite is true.

"High crime doesn't necessarily lead to high police violence – internal security policing does."

I would contend that high crime leads to occupation-mentality policing, which in turn leads to policy brutality. When the LAPD rolls into South LA, their mentality is that they're in Baghdad (where everything is trying to kill them), not an American city (where the overwhelming majority of citizens are law-abiding albeit not necessarily police-friendly). It's hard to resist the urge to beat a confession out of someone when you know that the dozens of guys you questioned before him were guilty. Of course, police corruption (regardless of whether it is actual corruption or merely perceived corruption) could be another major factor in explaining why the community is hostile towards a police force.

But at this point we're playing semantics. We all seem to agree that police brutality/militarization in the United States is a major problem. While I maintain that the Michael Brown case is NOT an example of police brutality/militarization because he played a stupid game (attempted to disarm a police officer) and consequently won a stupid prize (getting shot repeatedly and killed), it did serve to reveal the community's overwhelming dissatisfaction with the police force.

Save your outrage for an outrageous case: A homeless man in New Mexico shot and killed by heavily armed paramilitary police for absolutely no reason. That's the case that should provoke national outrage, not Michael Brown being a dumbass and getting killed for it.

The best place for gangland drive-by payback is at a political rally because you know all the bangers be all up in pig bidnizz.

Gunfighter, it seems to me that from that distance, one can argue very clearly in a court that it could have been an accident. That's all that matters and your points about the weapon used, which I didn't know, basically assure me that the trial will be dictated on the premise that he didn't hit the intended targets. Hitting two cops from that distance, if that gun is so inaccurate from that far away, in a moving car would be a miracle if they were actually his targets.

I'm sure the shooter didn't expect to hit *specifically those two* cops. Shooting into a crowd of cops lined up in formation greatly increases your chances.

Were there other people besides cops?