Shooting incident, part 321. Empire State Building.

[Flagg]

But I guess we have to listen to Flagg be a poo-flinging potty mouth first.

Isn't there a rule against dismissing arguments based on profanity?

[White Haven]

God, this topic again.

Look, people post things when at least all of the following are true.

1) They hear about a story.
2) It interests them on some level.

A shitload of being being gunned down in Chicago or knifed in China might interest the same people who, say, post stories like this. But if they don't hear about them, they don't post them. And as most people don't go trawling local news sites for cities, states, countries, and continents in which they do not live, they're unlikely to hear about things unless they make the national news media on some level. Accordingly, if you (collective you, not aimed at any one person as I've seen this issue sprout up from multiple people) want to have a random vitriol-fueled shit-fit over the issue (again), I suggest you aim it at the news media who aren't relaying the stories you care about onto the national stage, and not unpaid, unprofessional volunteer posters on a science fiction debate forum for not doing exhaustive research on alternative things to post.

Or, you know, go deep-throat a hand grenade. Your call.

[Broomstick]

But I guess we have to listen to Flagg be a poo-flinging potty mouth first.

Isn't there a rule against dismissing arguments based on profanity?

Only if there actually is an argument in amongst the profanity. Some solid shit in amongst the frothy diarrhea. See, I can play potty-mouth, too, but I don't feel compelled to do it every single post.

[General Zod]

But more seriously – Hellion does have a point in that this happening in front of a famous building in a wealthy part of New York City has a LOT to do with this getting national and global time in the media. Andras said as much as well in this thread, yet no one jumped on his ass. As OneEyedTeddyMcGrew pointed out, the 19 people shot overnight in Chicago didn't make the national/global news even if they were every bit as much human beings and suffered just as much pain. Hell, that didn't make the local news over here in a neighboring county!

All of the incidents occurred separately and probably independently. That means it was an unusually high rate of shooting going on in Chicago that night, but otherwise it's not exactly national-news worthy. I certainly can't see any sort of connections between the shootings, at any rate. Besides, only 7 people died so it's about as national-news worthy as your average night in Detroit.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... 9779.story

Now why is that? That's one of the questions that should be raised when discussing crime, violence, guns, and so forth. But I guess we have to listen to Flagg be a poo-flinging potty mouth first.

Or people could, you know, not hijack the fucking thread to whine about how people aren't posting other stuff?

[Sidious]

The entire incident was caught on surveillance.

Huff Post

[Flagg]

But I guess we have to listen to Flagg be a poo-flinging potty mouth first.

Isn't there a rule against dismissing arguments based on profanity?

Only if there actually is an argument in amongst the profanity. Some solid shit in amongst the frothy diarrhea. See, I can play potty-mouth, too, but I don't feel compelled to do it every single post.

So you're lying too?

[Dark Hellion]

God, this topic again.

Look, people post things when at least all of the following are true.

1) They hear about a story.
2) It interests them on some level.

A shitload of being being gunned down in Chicago or knifed in China might interest the same people who, say, post stories like this. But if they don't hear about them, they don't post them. And as most people don't go trawling local news sites for cities, states, countries, and continents in which they do not live, they're unlikely to hear about things unless they make the national news media on some level. Accordingly, if you (collective you, not aimed at any one person as I've seen this issue sprout up from multiple people) want to have a random vitriol-fueled shit-fit over the issue (again), I suggest you aim it at the news media who aren't relaying the stories you care about onto the national stage, and not unpaid, unprofessional volunteer posters on a science fiction debate forum for not doing exhaustive research on alternative things to post.

Or, you know, go deep-throat a hand grenade. Your call.

The main problem I have with these kind of stories being posted is that most of the time they aren't being posted to generate actual discussion. If I just want to read a CNN story and a bunch of braindead me-too commentary I can get CNN on my phone and it takes me less clicks than getting to SDN. I like reading Skimmers analysis of military news, Broomsticks experience and anecdotes about "the good old days" or Thanas intricate knowledge of history. But stories like this more often than not tend to be designed to generate the same rehashed comments.

To add discussion fodder, I am curious about the how so many people managed to get caught in the crossfire. Generally with a targeted assassin style killing the subject either has an escape plan or plans to commit suicide either self-inflicted or suicide by cop. Did the subject think he had an escape but it failed? Did the cops get trigger happy?

Perhaps it wasn't a planned assassination style killing but a rage induced killing with little thought put in. It would make more sense for a crossfire to erupt from that. But the target location and the presence of extra ammo makes me slightly doubt that.

And from the video it is very hard to tell what is actually happening. I see the subject moving with police in pursuit, he turns and draws on them and then gets gunned down. Without sound I cannot tell how many shots were fired which makes this all the more confusing.

[White Haven]

Hellion, this story is a perfect example of why things should be posted. On the surface, it looked relatively cut-and-dried. Guy opens fire in New York, hits a few people, then gets gunned down by police. But now we've got discussion about the possibility that many/most of the injuries were caused by police fire, which is something that was unknown when the initial story was posted.

In summary, if it's not the kind of story you're interested in, shut the fuck up unless it becomes the kind of story you're interested in by evolution and addition of new data. Don't stand around bitching because people posted news you don't think is worthy of discussion. Vote with your attention, and let the forum churn claim the hindmost.

A news story doesn't have to spark insightful discussion to be an interesting read that someone might have missed (not applicable in this case, I admit), or a place to collate additional information on the topic (very applicable in this case, given the emergence of the whole police-shooting aspect of it). Now can we all please cut this recent trend of WHAAAAAAAAAH, you posted a topic I don't think should be posted because (insert specious reason here) shitposting?

[General Zod]

[
The main problem I have with these kind of stories being posted is that most of the time they aren't being posted to generate actual discussion.

Based on what? Your formidable powers of deduction? Psychic insight? Magic? Nobody's forcing people to go off on retarded thread-jacking tangents, but you did anyway instead of discussing the story.

[Broomstick]

Isn't there a rule against dismissing arguments based on profanity?

Only if there actually is an argument in amongst the profanity. Some solid shit in amongst the frothy diarrhea. See, I can play potty-mouth, too, but I don't feel compelled to do it every single post.

So you're lying too?

Do not accuse me of lying unless you can provide proof. Of the thousands of posts I've made on SD.net over the years quite a number feature no profanity whatsoever (such as this very reply). Retract your accusation.

[Broomstick]

To add discussion fodder, I am curious about the how so many people managed to get caught in the crossfire.

It was around 9 am, that is, rush hour, in a city where many people walk rather than drive to work. A building like the Empire State is enormous, and all the people who work into it have to funnel into the entrances at the ground floor. It is surrounded by equally large buildings with equally large numbers of occupants all entering that time of day. The sidewalks must have been packed with people. So many people were caught in the crossfire because it was a very dense crowd on the ground at that time of day.

Maybe the bad guy was expecting the police to their fire rather than risk injuring anyone in the crowd? Or maybe he wasn't. Even so, I'm don't think the benefit of apprehending/killing a shooter outweighs the cost of the authorities shooting 16 law-abiding citizens in the process.

(The number 16 is what is being reported this morning. It's possible that some of the injured were hit by debris generated by bullets hitting objects in the area, and some might have been ricochets.)

[His Divine Shadow]

My theory is quite simply that the NYPD are shitty shots who lack the proper training. Most police do yearly qualifications with their handguns and that's pretty much it (based on hearsay from an ex-nypd cop this was exactly how it was 10 years ago, and it didn't matter if you passed or not), the rest of the time its just a brick that sits on their hips, only the police officers who have a private interest in shooting probably maintains an adequate level of competency.

[Sarevok]

We should start posting more stories about stabbing people. Stabbings can not be ignored. Ban knives.

[General Zod]

My theory is quite simply that the NYPD are shitty shots who lack the proper training. Most police do yearly qualifications with their handguns and that's pretty much it (based on hearsay from an ex-nypd cop this was exactly how it was 10 years ago, and it didn't matter if you passed or not), the rest of the time its just a brick that sits on their hips, only the police officers who have a private interest in shooting probably maintains an adequate level of competency.

Even trained soldiers have difficulty shooting down live targets with any sort of consistency, so why should it be any different from cops who almost never actually have to draw their weapon? I think this just shoots down the retarded idea that cops are supermen who won't miss when it counts.

[Flagg]

Do not accuse me of lying unless you can provide proof. Of the thousands of posts I've made on SD.net over the years quite a number feature no profanity whatsoever (such as this very reply). Retract your accusation.

You lied, saying I made no arguments. Liar.

[Beowulf]

Any bets on whether all the bystander injuries came from the cop who was shooting one handed, and moving off to the right?

[General Zod]

Any bets on whether all the bystander injuries came from the cop who was shooting one handed, and moving off to the right?

Newspapers were already reporting that the injuries came from the cops.

[Captain Seafort]

Newspapers were already reporting that the injuries came from the cops.

I think Beowolf was talking more about the likelihood of them all coming from that one plod.

[General Zod]

Newspapers were already reporting that the injuries came from the cops.

I think Beowolf was talking more about the likelihood of them all coming from that one plod.

Right, misread that. Doesn't seem like it'd be hard to confirm one way or the other though.

[His Divine Shadow]

My theory is quite simply that the NYPD are shitty shots who lack the proper training. Most police do yearly qualifications with their handguns and that's pretty much it (based on hearsay from an ex-nypd cop this was exactly how it was 10 years ago, and it didn't matter if you passed or not), the rest of the time its just a brick that sits on their hips, only the police officers who have a private interest in shooting probably maintains an adequate level of competency.

Even trained soldiers have difficulty shooting down live targets with any sort of consistency, so why should it be any different from cops who almost never actually have to draw their weapon? I think this just shoots down the retarded idea that cops are supermen who won't miss when it counts.

A trained soldier is quite a flexible concept depending on country, for a conscript like myself my training period was 6 months and involved rifle shooting only, as a trained soldier I can look back and see that the shooting skills I developed in the army where eclipsed by what I learned from... well roughly a single weekend of an IPSC shooting course. So perhaps cops should go to IPSC courses, maybe monthly.

[Kamakazie Sith]

A trained soldier is quite a flexible concept depending on country, for a conscript like myself my training period was 6 months and involved rifle shooting only, as a trained soldier I can look back and see that the shooting skills I developed in the army where eclipsed by what I learned from... well roughly a single weekend of an IPSC shooting course. So perhaps cops should go to IPSC courses, maybe monthly.

A shooting course doesn't put the fear of death in your mind which is what those two NYPD officers were experiencing. I agree that more frequent training and evaluation is certainly needed though. What's the cost for attending a IPSC course?

[His Divine Shadow]

Well there is no training anywhere that can do that. IPSC can be pretty good in simulating shooting under stress, on the move and from non conventional positions though, which can't hurt. As to what it costs I don't have a clue since I am not even in that part of the world, hardly seems like it should be anything individual officers should have to pay for though.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Well there is no training anywhere that can do that. IPSC can be pretty good in simulating shooting under stress, on the move and from non conventional positions though, which can't hurt. As to what it costs I don't have a clue since I am not even in that part of the world, hardly seems like it should be anything individual officers should have to pay for though.

I should elaborate that while we qualify once a year we also have quarterly training so we can maintain our certifications. It is the departments choice whether or not to include shooting but every training I've ever been to has included shooting and at least one shooting under stress concept.

However, most officers do pay out of pocket for their own ammunition, targets, and attendance of shooting courses because the city governments don't like spending money on police.

[Skgoa]

Now why is that? That's one of the questions that should be raised when discussing crime, violence, guns, and so forth. But I guess we have to listen to Flagg be a poo-flinging potty mouth first.

Or people could, you know, not hijack the fucking thread to whine about how people aren't posting other stuff?

Or Flagg and you could take a step back from the computer and relax. Because at the moment only the two of you are whining about what people want to discuss.

[Flagg]

Or you know, you could post your objections in this thread, which was split from another shooting thread from last week.