Political Crossfire Forums

as medius pointed out already, encouraging pointing your service weapon and firing at someone isn't a great idea for cops to be doing. tasers have a similar problem in that cops seem to be more easily resort to violence to diffuse a situation because they are non-lethal (although can cause death, rarely).

dazzlers (which are lasers at lower wavelengths of light than typical) i think are better since it won't cause death (and of course one is called a PHASR, which is huge though and looks like a battle rifle from halo). once made smaller they could be placed onto a service weapon and engaged to temporarily blind the target, effectively neutralizing him. if he has a gun and starts firing wildly then yes, take him out, but otherwise, go make the arrest

but i think more than any of that there should be regulations that say that non lethal force was used first, or else your badge is in real jeopardy. in new york city they have a lot of crimes committed with guns but the cops actually don't fire their weapons often. now they might choke hold someone but that's a separate conversation. the place where lethal weapons are used by cops are in smaller police departments. instead of buying swat gear to prepare for the canadian invasion, they should purchase cameras that record police officer actions. the onerous should be on the police officer to show why he needed to resort to lethal action, and cameras on him can show his prospective. hell there should be multiple cameras on his body to show what he'd see in the peripheral and whatnot

this article http://www.cnet.com/news/cop-uses-own-g ... suspended/

cop pulls over a guy for speeding, guy gets out of the car, cops throws him down. there's a fight, more cops come. unknown to all the cops the officer who pulled him over had his own goPro recording all of it -- miami police don't have dash cams. the man who was pulled over for speeding was a cop himself, in internal affairs, and higher rank. the cop who was just doing his job and had the go pro gets suspended, other cop reassigned. lol... the video then says there's question of "why he had the goPro". shit, why DON'T THEY HAVE DASH CAMS is the better question. f**k a, every person in RUSSIA has a goddamn dash cam you think cops in a major american city would have them (in another article it notes that the dept could get in legal trouble if they do not provide everyone with recordings to prove innocence and those are his personal recordings, sure, but everyone should have them)

It doesn't encourage or discourage them from using their service weapon.

If they legitimately feel they need a gun, they are going to pull it, period.

If they don't need the gun, but are just exhibiting typical beta cop behaviour, here's hoping that they'll get their panties unknotted between the first shot and the fourteen that follow it.