I don't make this stuff up, you know; I just save it to my hard drive and fisk it at leisure.

He should turn on spell check at least!

Andy sees 2A and Police Bullying as two unrelated and controversial subjects. So, apparently, do lots of other folks.

To me , it is so related that I find it hard to separate the concepts. Sadistic people never bully anyone who has the ability to hurt them, these people are the original cowards. Sort of like the sheepdog and the wolf, they both have teeth, and so they almost never bite each other.

The whole idea of an armed populace is so society will be sort of balanced, at least that's how I see it.

I do understand the idea that an effective 2A advocate should not unnecessarily anger people by bringing in other unrelated and divisive issues. I see that happening when advocates trumpet the 2A along with other divisive "right wing" subjects, and follow the tactics of deriding anyone who disagrees with them on any subject. It is simple, then, for opponents to cast all gunnies as right wing nuts, to be dismissed by, for example, all the Democrats in the world.

But everyone should be concerned about Police Misconduct that is done in our name, and the offenders are the very people who would disarm everyone.

Andy's opinion on a certain brand of body armor, and why he has such an axe to grind against anyone who has the audacity to speak negatively about it means precisely nothing to me, as body armor is another one of those "Only for the 'speical people'" attitudes he's got.

I'll go with something represented by someone less prone to flights of fantasy and elitism.

If everyone at his (apparently former) company is as big of a prick as he was when a mere "civilian" has questions about body armor, well... maybe their apparent business woes ("verge of oblivion"?) are deserved.

No great loss.

I'm not sure about that last. I think there's at least some reason to believe that scaled armor might be, at some point, an important innovation, and that an attempt to push it onto the military before it's ready for prime time might delay that innovation actually being, well, completed and implemented.

That said, the Army's PowerPoint was pretty devastating; the sight of all of those Pinnacle scales having come unglued (a term that, somehow, doesn't feel entirely inappropriate when discussing Pinnacle) was pretty shocking.

Yup. It's one of the reasons that I try to separate my advocacy some other human rights issues that I very much believe in from advocacy around self-defense -- whether it's self-defense from thugs wearing ski masks, or tactical balaclavas.

(I think that the MCPPA has given us the tools do do better with the former; I don't think it's done much of anything to help protect us against the latter, as I very much don't think that things will get better if more doorkickers get themselves shot while "serving high risk" warrants, as I think they're more than trigger-happy enough as it is, and that'll make them even more so. The obvious way to reduce the problem of the promiscuous use of "no knock" warrants and of the "soft knock" is, well, not obvious to me. )

I think we have to change the basic education of "cops" as (Officers) of the law. They need a reasonable Code of Professional Responsibility, like other professionals.

It should be regarded as privleged and an honorable duty to excercise power (ie. search warrant) on behalf of a democratic government in a free country. A "cop" (Officer?) should probably aspire to the highest standard of professionalism and degree of restraint on behalf of society, and try to gain the respect of the ALL people he serves.

A professional would not tolerate working with of for people who treat a search warrant as a "free for all" suspension of the rules, where they can run amuck and "nobody can do anything about it". There needs to be a duty to prevent and report unprofessional conduct on the part of other officers to a state board, as well as to the local coffee buddy superior.

From what I've seen, the problem starts right at "cop school"; instructors teach attitudes of resentment toward the authority of the Courts, and the legislatures, and rehabilitaion professionals and other "do-gooders".

They teach "investigators" to find facts which implicate every civilian to some extent, and ignore any facts that would tend to call into question the activiies of any law enforcement official.

The new "cops" (Officers?) I've met believe that they are ENTITLED to lots of respect, because some town or county hired them, and they are quick to brag about how their training has shown them how to avoid responsibility for their mistakes, and screw other people who qustion them. They learn these attitudes in school, and they are reinforced by too many veteren but cynical "cops" (Officers).

The reaction of the majority of "cops" (Officers) to what I've just written, would be to would be to snicker and dismiss it, I think. Too bad.

Yup. Spend a little time around some of the baby cops going through their shooting training at BPR, and you find that far too many of them already have the attitude, and are getting it reinforced day by day.

Back when a guy I know was head of security at the Rad South, spending a few years as a hotel security guard there was considered to be a solid track to a job with a few of the smarter suburban PDs. Working that kind of gig taught a lot of guys how to start soft, and -- if at all possible -- stay soft while getting the job done.

Over the years, I saw one -- once -- go a little off the deep end (not too far, but clearly out of line; he tried to close down a noisy party when the convention group had a specific agreement with the hotel that noisy parties were okay) and he was smart enough to beat me and a friend to the boss' office the next morning and start off his discussion with his boss by saying, "I think I really screwed up last night." Good move, and -- the error aside -- the right attitude.