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 MrMoustaffa wrote:

" we'll find a toy gun that's been altered by a youngster in the house — and we know the tragedies that can occur there on occasion.”

I... What? Where is he trying to go with that? You can't alter a cap gun, a bb gun, or any other toy gun into a firearm to my knowledge.

I can kind of get this if they were stating that they wanted to raise awareness about how people store firearms and how to keep them away from people who shouldn't have access to them, but this and the Ebola comment make me wonder what exactly this guy is smoking

He might be referring to removing the orange tip from a toy gun (which as far as I know, isn't illegal).

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

" we'll find a toy gun that's been altered by a youngster in the house — and we know the tragedies that can occur there on occasion.”

I... What? Where is he trying to go with that? You can't alter a cap gun, a bb gun, or any other toy gun into a firearm to my knowledge.

You can alter a toy gun to appear to be a real gun. Children are stupid, and they do things like remove or paint over the orange tip that identifies the toy gun as a toy.

Sounds like somebody needs to go feth himself.

Why people look to LEOs as legal or moral authority figures is beyond me...these are people who earned Cs in high school. All of a sudden they're policy makers? No...they're people who barely understand the law and are tasked with enforcing it, often poorly. This idiot needs to lose his job.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
No...they're people who barely understand the law and are tasked with enforcing it, often poorly.

You read that on a blog somewhere? Or just a news story about a cop who didn't do something according to the law as you personally understand it, so all 800,000 police officers in the USA are obviously incompetent?

 DarkLink wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
No...they're people who barely understand the law and are tasked with enforcing it, often poorly.

You read that on a blog somewhere? Or just a news story about a cop who didn't do something according to the law as you personally understand it, so all 800,000 police officers in the USA are obviously incompetent?

Actually I'm familiar with LE requirements. Most I've seen require only a 2.0 GPA if you want to use an undergraduate education toward the prerequisite. I can't imagine any of these rocket surgeons averaging the minimum 2.0 GPA in college did much better in high school. Just some examples here:

http://www.phillypolice.com/careers/requirements/

http://www.police.iupui.edu/courses/cadet-officer-program.asp

As for how well they enforce the law...do I really need to post 100 articles about cops getting jocked up pretending to be military and kicking in the wrong door to terrorize some octogenarians into a heart attack? You either see it happening or you're blind to it...not my problem in either case. LE = adventure lite or donut sucking depending on how "high speed" (lol) you want to get in relative LE terms...sack up and join the military if you want to kick doors. Patrol cops are merely paid to harass citizens...not even close to impressed by people in this line of work at either end of the spectrum.

You assume that because the minimum requirement is a 2.0, that at best police officers had a 2.0?

I know a lot of police officers in real life. Every one of them is far more knowledgeable in regards to the law than the average internet armchair expert. Not one of them chose to be a cop because they couldn't be anything else. I'm sure there are plenty of dumb cops out there, just like there are plenty of dumb people in every industry. Assuming that all cops are incompetent because you don't understand what anecdotal evidence and bias is an awfully ignorant and judgmental stance to take.

Heck, the crossfit gym I go to is owned by a police officer, and a half-dozen or so members are also officers, or will be soon. Several of them are going through the police academy right now. The young to-be cops are all good guys who want to go out and make a difference, and the older cops spend a lot of time working with them to make sure they'll do a good job of that. On several occasions I've just hung out with them and listened as the older cops drilled the younger guys on intricate details of everything from vehicle codes to consensual stops to how to respond to a domestic violence situation. Your average layperson wouldn't have a clue as to a fraction of what the intricacies of what the law actually requires cops to do in any given situation or why cops do what they do in most situations. Plenty of criticisms of cops that sound like common sense completely break down when someone who actually knows what they're talking about breaks down police procedure and the laws behind it.

So, I'm not sure if a cop stole a doughnut from you as a child or something, but you're not really convincing me you actually did anything more than type "cops suck" into google and hit the 'I'm feeling lucky' button.




By the way, USMC Officer Candidate School technically doesn't exactly have particularly high minimum requirements either. The minimum PFT score, for example, is just a first class PFT. For males that's a 24 minute 3 mile, 12 pull ups, and 60 crunches in 2 minutes. Despite that, when I attended OCS the average score was a 290. Only a handful of the 130 candidates had less than 20 pullups, I'm pretty sure the only candidate that didn't max out the crunches was dropped for failing the PFT, and when I ran a 19 minute 3-mile I was one of the slowest guys in the company. Minimum requirements don't mean gak.

 DarkLink wrote:
I know a lot of police officers in real life. Every one of them is far more knowledgeable in regards to the law than the average internet armchair expert. Not one of them chose to be a cop because they couldn't be anything else. I'm sure there are plenty of dumb cops out there, just like there are plenty of dumb people in every industry. Assuming that all cops are incompetent because you don't understand what anecdotal evidence and bias is an awfully ignorant and judgmental stance to take.

You make a good case for losing faith in everyone, not just cops. Minimum requirements actually do mean a lot, because that means that you know what the worst case estimate is for the person you're looking at is. I just don't think it's a bad thing to look at someone, and be able to accurately judge how much potential a person has for disappointing you. You don't get your hopes up, and then they can only impress you from that point on. If they never do, well, that's something interesting also, but apparently nothing anyone can discuss, because "anecdotal evidence".

I don't understand the basic premise of the invitation to have cops search your house (for guns). Who exactly are they hoping to find that other residents of the household couldn't? What will they do if they do find 'hidden' guns but they turn out to be legal?

 Torga_DW wrote:
I don't understand the basic premise of the invitation to have cops search your house (for guns). Who exactly are they hoping to find that other residents of the household couldn't?

Cops probably have more experience with how stuff is hidden than your everyday person. They have seen all the different ways that people conceal and hide contraband so they could be more likely to find stuff that other occupants of a home have hidden.

 d-usa wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:
I don't understand the basic premise of the invitation to have cops search your house (for guns). Who exactly are they hoping to find that other residents of the household couldn't?

Cops probably have more experience with how stuff is hidden than your everyday person. They have seen all the different ways that people conceal and hide contraband so they could be more likely to find stuff that other occupants of a home have hidden.

I guess, but i'm not understanding who they are targeting. Is it people with housemates (ie strangers) that are concerned about potential firearms on the premises? If its a family member that is concerned about guns, why wouldn't they have called the police in the first place (if they were inclined to involve the police, that is)? Is this just a reminder that the police can conduct these searches if you ask them to?

I don't see the point simply because... Well, if someone hides an illegal gun, they wouldn't let the police search the house anyway?

It's one thing about the toy guns with removed orange tips, but this seems to be a bit excessive.

 Ashiraya wrote:
I don't see the point simply because... Well, if someone hides an illegal gun, they wouldn't let the police search the house anyway?

It's one thing about the toy guns with removed orange tips, but this seems to be a bit excessive.

I don't think that problem will ever be solved - every kid knows the toy gun needs to look as real as possible, even if it's a laser gun.

 Torga_DW wrote:
I don't think that problem will ever be solved - every kid knows the toy gun needs to look as real as possible, even if it's a laser gun.

Yeah. I always kept a deep seated hatred for the stupid orange cap on the end of my fake guns. I always popped them off. Of course, my parents taught me the lesson of not pointing anything at a cop ever. Again, you don't antagonize someone who has a legal right to murder you. That was as true 20 years ago as it is today.

 Torga_DW wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:
I don't understand the basic premise of the invitation to have cops search your house (for guns). Who exactly are they hoping to find that other residents of the household couldn't?

Cops probably have more experience with how stuff is hidden than your everyday person. They have seen all the different ways that people conceal and hide contraband so they could be more likely to find stuff that other occupants of a home have hidden.

I guess, but i'm not understanding who they are targeting. Is it people with housemates (ie strangers) that are concerned about potential firearms on the premises? If its a family member that is concerned about guns, why wouldn't they have called the police in the first place (if they were inclined to involve the police, that is)? Is this just a reminder that the police can conduct these searches if you ask them to?

Privately owned rental properties. That is where this idea truly falls on its face.

I both get and agree with the concern many here have about how some police officers "would" abuse this program. But, I think that the greater issue is how unscrupulous landlords/individuals "would" use this as a tool to bully / constructively evict tenants.

Later,
ff

Edit for dropped sentence

I really don't understand the mentality behind this. No who actually has anything to hide is going to volunteer.

I can understand a gun amnesty which give people the opportunity to hand anything illegal in, no questions asked. But this?

 DarkLink wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
No...they're people who barely understand the law and are tasked with enforcing it, often poorly.

You read that on a blog somewhere? Or just a news story about a cop who didn't do something according to the law as you personally understand it, so all 800,000 police officers in the USA are obviously incompetent?

Wait there are 800,000 cops? If I sold each of them a body cam I'd could retire...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:
I don't understand the basic premise of the invitation to have cops search your house (for guns). Who exactly are they hoping to find that other residents of the household couldn't?

Cops probably have more experience with how stuff is hidden than your everyday person. They have seen all the different ways that people conceal and hide contraband so they could be more likely to find stuff that other occupants of a home have hidden.

And thats why you should hire private dicks (often former police) to do it instead. That way there's no downside.

Forwarded to me by another poster. The police chief's offer was withdrawn
http://www.examiner.com/article/breaking-beloit-police-withdraws-chief-s-offer-of-home-searches-for-guns?CID=examiner_alerts_article

 Frazzled wrote:
Forwarded to me by another poster. The police chief's offer was withdrawn
http://www.examiner.com/article/breaking-beloit-police-withdraws-chief-s-offer-of-home-searches-for-guns?CID=examiner_alerts_article

It's probably for the best....


While I don't have statistics in front of me, I have to ask myself.... How many times does a cop pull over a car for a busted taillight, only to have the driver get all squirrely and he/she ends up making a "huge" drug bust?

Obviously, there wouldn't be many outright criminals calling in to say, "Hey Mr. Police Chief, I would like some officers to come check out my abode, and see how my rug ties the room together". But how many people would call in to see if their hiding spots are really that good (in my mind at least, the only people doing that are Preppers)? Of the remaining populace who MIGHT call in probably would fall into the "I'm pissed my spouse spends so much money on guns, so I want someone to tell my spouse that it's unsafe" category.

The police are free to search my home.
Nothing illegal in here.
But they may end up traumatized....but nothing illegal