4 ms·

> Do you feel the same way about paramedics and firefighters? No, because I don't think they do the same thing. A police officers job often isn't to save the s

> Do you feel the same way about paramedics and firefighters? No, because I don't think they do the same thing. A police officers job often isn't to save the subject, it's to save third parties and apprehend the subject. It's also to have power over us, a measure of control which firefighter/paramedics don't. We surrender power to them so to speak. On the other hand, firefighters and paramedics are more often concerned with directly helping the subject and don't have this power over us. There are complex situations with various crossovers (particularly in firefighting where extinguishing a fire might save third parties for instance) but in general the above holds. I think this is an important distinction because we expect the preservation of life. A firefighter can let a building burn (die) and save some third parties and they aren't (necessarily) penalised for it. A firefighter/paramedic is also only concerned with the preservation of life, that's their sole motive. Police officers motive are necessarily more complex, so if a firefighter can't get through a fire to save a subject we forgive them because their intentions could only have been noble - all they would be trying to do is save life. A police officer on the other hand must be seen to save the subject and third parties lives. We seem to demand of police officers that if the subject is trying to kill third parties for example, the officer should step in and take the 'hit' and get killed. He/She must be restrained enough to not kill the subject and brave enough to sacrafice themselves for the good of the third parties. I don't think this is demanded of firefighters and paramedics. I think this extra demand is placed on police officers because of their position of superior power. If they are to be afforded superiority over us citizens, over our liberty and with the power to ruin our lives - we demand of them that they have a noble streak and are prepared to sacrafice themselves for us if the shit hits the fan.

JshWright 11y ago
I think you've done a great job outlining the differences between the two missions (and many of the things you mention are why I agree with the OP). However, I think there is value in understanding _why_ LEOs seek to minimize risk, rather than assuming they all just want to be Rambo (though there are certainly those too...).
- clock_tower 11y ago
  The article itself discusses this: what we're seeing is spillover from a militarized environment, with criminals and police (and criminals versus other criminals) in an arms race. This started with criminals adopting new 9mm semi-automatic handguns in the 1980s, then police switching to the same weapons after the Miami shootout, and a series of other problems as documented in the article. These days, drug dealers routinely keep huge packs of pit bulls, and release them when the police show up; without ten policemen and an IFV, the law could easily lose a fight like that. The problem is that the same people responsible for pitched battles with heavily-armed drug dealers are also expected to do ordinary police work. It would be better to make this sort of thing the responsibility of the FBI, or even the military, ensuring that there would continue to be a lightly-armed, non-military police force to handle more ordinary situations.
  - zardo 11y ago
    >It would be better to make this sort of thing the responsibility of the FBI, or even the military, ensuring that there would continue to be a lightly-armed, non-military police force to handle more ordinary situations. There is an endless supply of people with nothing willing to replace a busted dealer. Rather than call for a special anti-drug military, how about we just let people use drugs.
    - clock_tower 11y ago
      Why not let people use drugs? For the same reason we don't let them drive drunk or refuse to wear seatbelts. The Japanese legalized heroin in occupied China in the 1930s, as a way of encouraging the Chinese race to die out -- and heroin dependency isn't a pretty way to go. Marijuana is less potent (although modern marijuana has been bred for potency), but what's true of heroin is true of other hard drugs (and persistent hallucinogens) as well.
  - hga 11y ago
    I think a bigger factor in police switching to semi-automatics was the introduction to the Glock, which as I recall was the first "respectable", widely adapted service handgun without an external safety. That, just point it and pull the trigger, like the revolvers the police were used to, something previous manufacturers apparently weren't willing to do. Now, I wasn't paying close attention to this at the time, since I was in localities where owning a handgun was impossible to impracticable and I'd already settled on another model for when I could buy them (M1911), but this would suggest it was a combination of ergonomics and a perception that a semi-auto without an external safety was safe enough for police (and also note things like the extra heavy "New York trigger), plus of course the superiority of semi-autos in combat, in functioning in dirty conditions, etc. (They are more likely to jam, but you can clear that in the field, a revolver jam is generally a job for a gunsmith.) I'm pretty sure this wasn't all that related to the 1986 FBI Miami shootout, the biggest conclusion from that was the correct observation that penetration is critical, in this case, through someone's arm and then into their vitals. Ballistics Nerd details: 9mm is much better than stock .38 Special, but inferior to the .357 Magnum, which had been a big thing since the 1930s, and could easily shoot lighter loads equivalent to 9mm or wherever you want to trade off recoil for power, an inherent advantage of revolvers. 4 of the officers were carrying .357s, one a .38, all loaded with a .38 Special +P over-pressure rounds, presumably the "FBI load", that falls quite a bit shy of 9mm. But 3 were carrying 9mms, and the FBI's answer was a very powerful 10mm round, which they then backed off to what became the .40 S&W, and now they say bullets have evolved enough that 9mm is OK (and cheaper, and many say easier to fire). All that said, the conclusions about the Miami shootout certainly didn't hurt police adaptation of semi-autos.

JshWright 11y ago

I think you've done a great job outlining the differences between the two missions (and many of the things you mention are why I agree with the OP). However, I think there is value in understanding _why_ LEOs seek to minimize risk, rather than assuming they all just want to be Rambo (though there are certainly those too...).

clock_tower 11y ago
The article itself discusses this: what we're seeing is spillover from a militarized environment, with criminals and police (and criminals versus other criminals) in an arms race. This started with criminals adopting new 9mm semi-automatic handguns in the 1980s, then police switching to the same weapons after the Miami shootout, and a series of other problems as documented in the article. These days, drug dealers routinely keep huge packs of pit bulls, and release them when the police show up; without ten policemen and an IFV, the law could easily lose a fight like that. The problem is that the same people responsible for pitched battles with heavily-armed drug dealers are also expected to do ordinary police work. It would be better to make this sort of thing the responsibility of the FBI, or even the military, ensuring that there would continue to be a lightly-armed, non-military police force to handle more ordinary situations.
- zardo 11y ago
  >It would be better to make this sort of thing the responsibility of the FBI, or even the military, ensuring that there would continue to be a lightly-armed, non-military police force to handle more ordinary situations. There is an endless supply of people with nothing willing to replace a busted dealer. Rather than call for a special anti-drug military, how about we just let people use drugs.
  - clock_tower 11y ago
    Why not let people use drugs? For the same reason we don't let them drive drunk or refuse to wear seatbelts. The Japanese legalized heroin in occupied China in the 1930s, as a way of encouraging the Chinese race to die out -- and heroin dependency isn't a pretty way to go. Marijuana is less potent (although modern marijuana has been bred for potency), but what's true of heroin is true of other hard drugs (and persistent hallucinogens) as well.
- hga 11y ago
  I think a bigger factor in police switching to semi-automatics was the introduction to the Glock, which as I recall was the first "respectable", widely adapted service handgun without an external safety. That, just point it and pull the trigger, like the revolvers the police were used to, something previous manufacturers apparently weren't willing to do. Now, I wasn't paying close attention to this at the time, since I was in localities where owning a handgun was impossible to impracticable and I'd already settled on another model for when I could buy them (M1911), but this would suggest it was a combination of ergonomics and a perception that a semi-auto without an external safety was safe enough for police (and also note things like the extra heavy "New York trigger), plus of course the superiority of semi-autos in combat, in functioning in dirty conditions, etc. (They are more likely to jam, but you can clear that in the field, a revolver jam is generally a job for a gunsmith.) I'm pretty sure this wasn't all that related to the 1986 FBI Miami shootout, the biggest conclusion from that was the correct observation that penetration is critical, in this case, through someone's arm and then into their vitals. Ballistics Nerd details: 9mm is much better than stock .38 Special, but inferior to the .357 Magnum, which had been a big thing since the 1930s, and could easily shoot lighter loads equivalent to 9mm or wherever you want to trade off recoil for power, an inherent advantage of revolvers. 4 of the officers were carrying .357s, one a .38, all loaded with a .38 Special +P over-pressure rounds, presumably the "FBI load", that falls quite a bit shy of 9mm. But 3 were carrying 9mms, and the FBI's answer was a very powerful 10mm round, which they then backed off to what became the .40 S&W, and now they say bullets have evolved enough that 9mm is OK (and cheaper, and many say easier to fire). All that said, the conclusions about the Miami shootout certainly didn't hurt police adaptation of semi-autos.