This guy shot a dozen cops and killed 5. They negotiated with him for hours, then he started a firefight. I am perfectly sanguine with killing him in order to save more lives. I would have been accepting of an even more aggressive response.
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Thereās a difference between ācrowd controlā and neutralizing a person committed to violence who had made threats about having explosives or access to them.
we lost a cold blooded cop killer. Nothing more, nothing less.
After all these bastards did, you complain about it not being a fair fight?
Heās dead. Good. He deserved it.
While Iām willing to give the police the benefit of the doubt here and that includes their judgement about what the proper and effective means of ending this situation was, you can not simply say that the only thing lost by this end versus a surrender was that this guy lost his life. We also lost a key piece of evidence as to his motives and thought process, a piece of evidence which might have proven central to our understanding of how to avert future violence like this.
All in all, again, Iām willing to grant the Dallas PD that their judgement here was sound. But letās not pretend that blowing this guy up did no real harm to our sociological understanding of his crimes and society as a whole.
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Once the government and police begin to use robot-controlled bombs to kill people, the Second Amendment purists will want the freedom to buy, sell and use robot-controlled devices as well. It is the logical progression of things and the legislatures and courts will generally be sympathetic to the publicās need to own these devices within the Second Amendment framework we have.
It is just a matter of time ā guns are going to be replaced by lethal bots, tasers, drones, nanotechnologies, lasers and other non-explosive and non-ballistic lethal devices. That is why the NRA is fighting the computerization of automatic weapons. The gun manufacturers will lose business to military technology companies.
Regardless, I find this development and action by the Texas state government to use robot bombs for policing its citizens very scary and ominous. It suggests that state of Texas was preparing for and ready to do the unthinkable.
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I didnāt hear he started a firefight w/them after negotiations broke down. Not that that fact makes me more comfortable w/blowing him up.
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Well, it obviously wasnāt programmed with Asimovās 3 Laws of Robotics!
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[quote=āorigamitrain, post:6, topic:40256, full:trueā]
I would assume (not very reliable, obviously) that the ābombā was fashioned from some of the shaped charges and other components the bomb squad has for controlled detonation [/quote]
Apparently, Johnson asked for a cell phone and they shaped a charge onto the cell phone and used the RC bot to deliver it. Iām not even kidding, this was according to Dwaine Caraway, the former intern mayor of Dallas.
Hah, He was a lone gunman. Fits the usual mass murderer profile. We are allowing unstable, unhappy and unrepentant people easy access to military-grade weapons and wonder why these massacres keep happening?
We have already learned all we need to learn. Republicans refuse to act upon it in a civilized, rational way. The deaths of innocent blacks, police and even classrooms full of First Graders doesnāt seem to matter to them at all.
The Far Right continues to hide behind the 2nd Amendment to increase the chaos and gun manufacturers profits.
Perhaps when marauding gangs of former soldiers with PTSD begin to regularly do drive by shootings in the Top 1%'s gated communities like Margo Largo will Republicans care enough to take the steps necessary to fix a few of the causes of this senseless gun violence that is making our lives hell?
We are reaching the breaking point here. The police are going to draw back and itās going to be ThunderDome on our streetsā¦everywhere.
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It could just as easily been dropped off by a drone. We do it all the time in the Middle East. Now coming to a community near you? If there is human collateral damage, well thatās just law and order if itās in a black neighborhood?
No wonder people are at a breaking point. You can only take enough threats, insults and stress before the weaker among us crack.
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Was he alone? Now, we can never ask him.
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āBombā is such a negative word.
Letās just call it a āground-based droneā.
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SWAT teams are equipped with explosives for making forced entries. The Orlando PD did as much. Explosives are tools: if you have plastic explosives, detonation cord and detonators you have everything you need (except the robot). Police bomb squads have the robots.
Iām pretty sure the Dallas PD have everything they needed on hand (with the possible exception of the robot). They adapted tools intended for another purpose (forced entry and potential bombs) to address a perceived need.
I doubt that the State of Texas was preparing for a robotic assault on its citizens. Whether they are ready to do so is a question that was answered last night.
I hope the robot is OK. Fuck the piece of shit he killed and thank God no more Cops had to die to kill is sorry ass.
Quite useful. However in order to try him you have to catch him and incarnate him. But this guy was sniping away from his position, by his casualty count was very good at that, so youād have to catch that. Probably at the expense of more lives and itās doubtful that when a Cop got close enough to say ādrop your weaponā heād do it. He was never coming out alive. He knew that.
It wasnāt a war and it was a clear night. If you want information you can ask the folks still alive because this piece of shit was blown up before he could shoot them.
More immediately germane, what was lost was an opportunity to discover if there were indeed any bombs or other hidden traps, and who else conspired with him so that we wouldnāt have to be concerned with whether some partner is getting ready for a repeat sometime soon.
I donāt suppose anyone cares a ratās ass about his personal fate, but that information put forever out of reach might have mattered, possibly a lot (and, sad to say, may yet).
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And you know that how?
All the police reports of multiple shooters? The other people still in captivity? The degree of planning and coordination? What do they sem to signify?