How Current Events Have Changed My Habits

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bgreenea3
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How Current Events Have Changed My Habits

Post by bgreenea3 » Wed Oct 22, 2014 6:38 pm

This is not a political rant just an observation.

I've been a police officer/ sheriff's deputy for going on 16 years. I have carried off duty more or less religiously for that time. For most of that time my off duty gun was my back up gun either a Walther PPK/s 380 or a Smith 442 .38 special, with a Sub compact XD 40 as an alternate. mostly its the 38. I've carried a back up pistol (the same as above) on duty most every shift. I'm a former boy scout so "be prepared" has been my motto since I was 8 or 9.

Recently the happenings around the country have had me change, a little, how I operate.

Before the Newtown shootings I never wore my police uniform to get the kids from school on my way to work. Most cops don't advertise like firemen that they are cops off duty. Now, I don't mind, I want the next fool to pick a different school to shoot up than where my kids are, I want him/her thinking there are cops around all the time.

in the last few months there has been a lot of hate towards policemen, since the "Furguson shooting" .
-PA state police barracks were ambushed, that guy is still in the woods on the loose.
-several other ambushes on cops , the lastest in Texas.
-people spouting off about "Police Militarization" who really don't know what they are talking about.
-the attacks in Ottowa, Canada
- Protesters showing up at a MO trooper's house while hes off duty.
-etc

I no longer carry a pocket gun, I've switched to my duty pistol, or other full capacity type.

My head is on a swivel at on duty and off.... more than before.

My "bailout bag" has increased in the # of mags/ spare rounds,and medical whatnot.

I still adhere to the 3 P's (be Polite, Professional, and have a Plan) but I'm more wary of people I come in contact with.

I'm sure there are more things I've changed, but I might not realize what it is...

It'll be interesting to see how folks react If/when Officer Wilson is cleared. and how long this angst lasts....
"Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway."

-John Wayne

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Post by greener » Wed Oct 22, 2014 8:03 pm

Good to stay paranoid.

Ottawa: Looks like the bad guy was a jihadi out for soldiers and politicians. He was stopped by a retired Mountie, the Sergeant of Arms. I guess in Canada, Sergeants at Arms are armed.

Ferguson: most evidence supports Wilson. Who knows what the rabble rousers are going to do.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... 5fef6.html

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Post by bgreenea3 » Wed Oct 22, 2014 11:18 pm

greener wrote:Good to stay paranoid.

Ottawa: Looks like the bad guy was a jihadi out for soldiers and politicians. He was stopped by a retired Mountie, the Sergeant of Arms. I guess in Canada, Sergeants at Arms are armed.

Ferguson: most evidence supports Wilson. Who knows what the rabble rousers are going to do.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... 5fef6.html
theres a thin line between paranoid and prepared.....

I can see something like the Ottowa incident happening in the US... whos going to stop that at an Open meeting? and if you tighten security you alienate your people and get accused of hiding something.
"Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway."

-John Wayne

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Post by greener » Thu Oct 23, 2014 9:50 am

I heard that MSNBC went off on gun control. In Canada? Seems to me that the Sergeant-at-Arms had pretty good gun control.

It depends on where the open meetings in the US are. You can carry in some states to city/county council meetings. Other places you get to be totally disarmed. I'm sure the crazies will pick the place where people might shoot back, right?

My feeling is that after a certain age, you become more of a target because supposedly you are not as much of a threat to resist.

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Post by greener » Thu Oct 23, 2014 10:36 am

Just turned on Fox. They were running a video on the Canadian Parliament giving the Sergeant-at-Arms a standing and prolonged ovation. They also had a video of him calmly walking back to his office yesterday carrying a 1911(?) after stopping the jihadi. There are a few heroes around.

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Post by ruger22 » Thu Oct 23, 2014 11:09 am

I support all LEO, and I agree with anything you need to do for your safety.

I think some of the bad attitude toward police is part of the "Me" generation we hear about, but it's more than just one generation. People are worse than ever for thinking anything they want to do is just fine, and anyone else's opinion be damned. They resent everything that interferes with their 24/7 self-indulgence.
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Post by Hakaman » Thu Oct 23, 2014 12:53 pm

If a po-liceman tells me to stop, ole Hakaman is gonna stop!

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Post by Bullseye » Thu Oct 23, 2014 6:15 pm

I don't call it paranoia, I call it due diligence. One has to be situation-ally aware if they're in the business of protecting the public. Unfortunately not all the public wants to be protected, and yet those who do the job 24/7 know this full well and protect them anyway. For me, I only have respect for those folks who wear the badge. Maybe I'm in the minority on this feeling, but then again maybe I'm not. At least I hope that I'm not one of the few that feels that way toward our peace officers. It is a tough job.

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Post by blue68f100 » Thu Oct 23, 2014 9:06 pm

That's not paranoia, just being prepared. With your line of work it's how your survive when things go bad. I like to think that most people are good but there is always those low percentage of nuts. Which you must be prepared for. I give the LEO full support they have a hard job and are in the public eye 24/7.

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Post by charlesb » Thu Oct 23, 2014 10:18 pm

In Missouri, it seems to me that activists are deliberately 'stirring the pot', which is becoming typical of activists of all stripes.

Activist organizations are highly attractive to progressive agitators who do not care about the activist's aims, but who like the opportunity these organizations offer for degrading the social order. - So the progressives tend to hijack activist organizations whenever and wherever they are encountered.

Community organizers do this for a living.

At first, the progressive hijackers appear to be beneficial, they are great at getting the message out. - But the veneer of helpfulness rapidly starts to erode when the actual goals of the activism start to be realized.

At this point, as we see with feminism, civil rights, gay rights and a number of other activist causes, a point is reached where the original cause is close to realization, but the progressive hijackers will do whatever is necessary to prevent this success.

So they stir the pot, to prevent any realization that the activist goal is realized, or is close to being realized. This is because the progressive goal is not to advance social cohesion, but rather to prevent such from ever occurring until it can be done by overwhelming force from an overarching progressive regime. - A socialist totalitarian state.

A happy society is not prone to revolutionary activity, so it must be kept unhappy to further the progressive agenda.

This is how feminists started off working to empower women and give them more independence, but now that is turned on its head so that feminists get "the vapors" if they experience 'trigger issues', and are now encouraged to develop a heavy dependence upon government (Remember Obama's "Julia" campaign?) to replace dependance upon a father or husband with a much stronger dependence upon the state.

Black activism was once for self-reliant independence, but that has now been turned on its head so that the goal is perpetual victim-hood and outrage, conjoined with deep-rooted subservience to the new master, the state.

This is how gay rights has morphed over into anti-religious activism. The gays started off wanting acceptance, a place in society, but now that some success is being seen, the progressives who hijacked gay activism have moved the goal posts so that no sense of accomplishment or social harmony can be realized. Instead gay outrage is now perpetuated until the christian religion is put down. - Thus attacking a major building block to a happy society.

So, activist causes are hijacked by progressives. The original activist goals are slowly killed like the frog being slowly heated up in water so that he doesn't jump out but gets boiled instead. Before those goals can be reached, they are undermined and subverted so that success can never, ever be achieved or perceived by the activists.

Whatever goals they might have started out with, the activists are slowly turned to work for the goals of the progressive hijackers instead.

And we see a lot of this going on right now, with just about any kind of activism one might care to name.

Police officers represent the forces that preserve social order. It is not surprising to see hijacked activist causes now turning against the police. Social order does not further the progressive agenda.

For their own part, police organizations are being hijacked too, and this is why militarization of these civilian peace-keepers is being pushed very hard by the progressive agenda. Many police officers and organizations are resisting this, but there are others that do not. An "us versus them" attitude about the public is being encouraged at every turn, in part by radicalization of activist groups who attack and denigrate police officers.

This is what our peace-keepers today are up against.

Militarize the police, estrange them from the public, and encourage radical behavior from activist groups. Sow divisiveness upon the underpinnings of society. - These combine to further the progressive agenda.

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Post by Medicine Hat » Mon Oct 27, 2014 2:06 pm

Way back in the 1950s (I actually remember some of that time) there were trials in the U.S. of so-called "communist conspirators" Lots of them had been 'Blacklisted' by the U.S. Govt. A group of lawyers (liberal ones) formed to defend these folks in the courts.
Short story is that the current American Civil Liberties Union (That left wing bunch of Lawyers that keep their name in the news so much) is the current iteration of all that. Madeline Murray, backed by the ACLU, began in the schools to remove local and parental control of what the schools taught. That led to the political mess in schools that we have today.
Many times, ACLU is a shadow in the background, providing legal and financial support for other groups (read 'liberal') trying to destroy our country and make it a so called utopian society where everyone gets what they want.
Just my 2 cents.

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Post by bgreenea3 » Tue Oct 28, 2014 12:05 am

funny you say militarize... Charleslb... there is a fine line with modernizing and militarizing. Having Patrol carbines/rifles, BDU style uniforms, body armor, armored cars etc. isn't Militarization, it Modernization. In reality, who would want to go after an armed suspect or towards an active Killer (I don't care for the term "active shooter") without a rifle, body armor, and an armored car if they could get one.

Militarization is more a mindset I believe than material. Where everything requires overwhelming force etc, Not doing actual police work, knowing your people in your community, and developing snitches and leads.

I hear of the "proliferation of no-knock raids" and SWAT raids for everything. I'm not sure where they are talking about but I have yet to see a no knock raid in going on 15 years. so they can't be that commonplace. That and our dive team gets called out waaay more than the SWAT team.
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Post by greener » Tue Oct 28, 2014 8:09 am

The "John Doe" investigations in Wisconsin by county prosecutors who don't like Walker, have included SWAT no knock raids late at night to seize computers and records. Wisconsin is purely political and is being done to intimidate Walker supporters. DOJ has done a few late-night, no knocks for records. I've read that California, New Jersey and New York(?) have used full SWAT to pick up registered firearms when one of the residents has been deemed unsuitable to possess (mental history of spouse of permit holder). There have been a couple of "wrong address" no knocks resulting in a bad end. There was one recently where the homeowner shot (and killed?) an officer on one of these.

Gibson Guitar was subject to a records search by armed, body armored FBI/DOJ types. Makes for great TV when you see the swarm of armed FBI tpes, but for records and wood samples from a guitar maker?

I see no reason for non-crisis no knock warrants and entries. There aren't many, but they seem to be increasing. Is it an intimidation attempt.


Maybe some of those folks think they need to intimidate. A few years ago we had two EPA inspectors show up at the door investigating an anonymous complaint that I was "adjusting fuel data to make me look good." They showed me their badges and very ostentatiously made sure I saw their Glocks. To investigate record keeping, they need to make sure I knew they were armed? I wasn't particularly intimidated.

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Post by greener » Tue Oct 28, 2014 8:19 am

Police with "military style" uniforms? They have almost always had "military style" or the military copied "police style." The dark pants, light shirt with some sort of hat look like military Class B uniforms. The "blue suit" with Sam Browne belts look like Class A's. (The Marines just said owning a Sam Browne belt wasn't mandatory for officers.) I think the battle dress (without camo pattern) would make more sense than the class B for normal patrol. They certainly would be easier to clean.

I saw an officer in one of the towns around Winchester, VA, who was wearing khaki pants and a knit shirt with a badge, and ******* PD stitched on the shirt. Seemed to be reasonable police dress for a hot day.

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Post by charlesb » Tue Oct 28, 2014 2:27 pm

Just a coincidence I am sure, but I read a news story this morning about a police outfit utilizing an armored vehicle and a bunch of guys in SWAT outfits - to confront a 77 year-old man who owed a fine.

Here in my town, I personally witnessed over a dozen DEA agents and county deputies, wearing flak jackets and toting full-auto M16's - to confront two unarmed women operating a "vape" shop.

One of those young women wound up with the imprint of an M16 butt on her neck.

Here in Texas, it used to be "One Ranger, One Riot" - but now it's down to - "Over a dozen agents and officers with flak jackets and fully automatic weapons - Two unarmed women."

Heh

Maybe it's different where you guys work - but that doesn't mean that things are on the up and up everywhere. And it doesn't mean that there is no problem with militarized police gangs - acting exactly like gangsters and thugs tend to act.

And who is militarizing, gangsterizing our civilian peace-keepers? - The Federal government, run by a clique of secular socialists.

Just like we don't hear any recognition or condemnation of terrorist activities by "peaceful" Muslims, we also don't hear any recognition or condemnation of militarized, gangsterized police outfits by "professional" police officers.

That's not looking out for you own. That's looking the other way.

Looking out for your own requires a little tough love every once in a while, sticking your neck out and calling it like it is for good of the profession.

- But that's just me... What do I know?

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