Poll: NWFA and the Finicum shooting: where does the membership stand?

[baker3gun]

FPNI.

I'll add - if it hasn't already been noted in these 9 pages - that the narrative being promoted is the truck tried to 'run the road block'. It is very clear to me that road block was set up in a corner. That corner combined with high snow drifts and timber on each side was a blind corner. As the truck negotiated that corner it is clear to see in the video they began breaking the moment the road block was in view. They obviously swerved to miss it all awhile braking. They did not try to run it.

Now given what I have just detailed, I find it disturbing that the narrative being promoted is not what I see on the video. Now everything else I hear is suspect to me.

Yes, he seems to reach into his pocket a few times. But then raises his hands after each time. It appears to me he is confused. I can imagine conflicting instructions being given to him. "hands up!" "throw down your weapons!" He even could have been reaching in pain after being shot. Who knows without audio. But again, the narrative being promoted is not what happened.

I did not vote in the poll.

Google Earth coordinates: 43° 49.601'N, 118° 58.284'W

In the video I referenced, the brake lights come on at 5:45, just as Finicum's truck passes the Joaquin Miller Horsecamp entrance. You can see the entrance sign.

The road is nearly straight at this point, in a line of sight drawn between the horsecamp entrance sign and the location of the roadblock. It his highly probable that Finicum saw the roadblock 1 second earlier, and had a normal reaction time in applying brakes.

The roadblock and point of impact were located at the 2nd hashmark of broken painted median line, just after the double-solid line has stopped.

The distance from where Finicum 1st applied his brakes (the horsecamp entrance sign) to the 2nd hashmark is 380 feet.

The 60-to-zero stopping distance of a 3/4 ton crew-cab truck is 150 feet.

If a driver "feathers" or lightly applies brakes, the brake lights are on. Finicum had his foot on the brake pedal for 380 feet. He wasn't trying to stop, or else he would have stopped. Before the roadblock.

Finicum was able to swerve radically without fishtailing or otherwise losing control. The pavement looks very clear in the video and the truck is able to swerve suddenly, while braking, without skidding or sliding. Good road conditions.

If you DOUBLE the emergency stopping distance of the truck, a competent driver who wanted to stop before breaching the roadblock would have stopped 80' before the roadblock.

It seems highly probable that Finicum intentionally operated his vehicle in a manner intended to breach an obvious "You must Stop" line established by law enforcement officials.

So Martini, I broke your roadblock argument by refuting it with publicly available information. It won't be enough to say "nuh-uh". You have to do better. If you want to retain this position, you must either present better evidence to support your position, or embrace the fact that you prefer irrational opinions. Not just Martini, but anyone who holds the same position.

Martini's "hands behavior" argument does not address the culmination of available information on Finicum. Finicum unlawfully occupied a public wildlife preserve, brandished firearms, & made veiled threats about not being taken alive. His actions resulted in law enforcement research. The research revealed a novel by Finicum where the protagonist's lifelong battle against government agents ended with the protagonist gunning down 3 government agents in quick-draw fashion using a single-action revolver. Within days of the initial occupation, LE probably incorporated this information in their risk profile of Finicum. He was an anti-gov extremist who relished the apocalypse and a chance to shoot some bad government agents. Maybe you don't like that, but it doesn't matter. What, would you prefer less-competent law enforcement instead? Later, Finicum refused lawful orders to exit his vehicle during a lawful attempt to effect his arrest on a federal arrest warrant. Finicum unlawfully fled the arrest attempt. Finicum unlawfully breached a lawful roadblock, exited his vehicle, and 8 seconds later began repeatedly reaching into his jacket and waistband area for 6 seconds until he went down.

If you are Finicum, and you don't want to die, in a span of minutes you decided against 3 consecutive opportunities to behave in a manner that would ensure your survival.

Payne took the 1st opportunity, and guess what? He survived.

Bundy? Other Bundy? Cox? McConnell? Sharp? These people are all not dead. None of them disobeyed lawful orders to exit a vehicle. None of them rammed a roadblock. None of them danced around outside a vehicle playing "maybe I'm a quick-draw cowboy". Instead, they acted intelligently. They did everything they could think of to not look like maybe they were going for a gun. It worked! Every time!

If you are Finicum and you want to die, it is difficult to think of a better way to accomplish that than what you did do.

Why not get out at the 1st stop?
Why run?
Why ram a roadblock?
Why not face-plant immediately when you get out of the truck?
Why not face-plant after running around for 8 seconds and still not getting shot?

The narrative YOU are promoting is not what happened. Your narrative is not based on competent analysis. It is based on conjecture and hearsay. You side against law enforcement despite your lack of any real reason for doing so. Sorry, but your position doesn't look intelligent.

Emotional response SEEMS to overwhelm logical analysis in this thread, but logic is actually prevailing in the poll (although the numbers are too small to be meaningful).

I still suspect that if the poll response reached 8000 instead of 170, you'd see the true grass-roots opinion of rational board members in a 90/10 type scenario. Unsurprisingly, I think most people just have better things to do than quibble with a vocal minority on an internet forum.

Which is something I need to stop doing myself.

Have a great day!

 

[Martini_Up]

yeah, feather the brake while running a roadblock. I bet he liked 'power braking it' as a kid. I bet that led to wearing out tires prematurely, wouldn't you say?

yeah, stopping distance formula given without slope, condition of tires (size, air pressure, tread depth after aforementioned 'power braking, LOL!), condition of brakes, conditions of road (icy? sanded?). Don't try to get mathematical if you're not going to go all the way with it.

I don't have a narrative, I am only commenting on the one which is being promoted and contrasting that with what I see in a single video provided by those that killed the guy who was not holding a firearm.

And if you haven't learned already, we are all pro LEO here. Without them, we would not be protected!!

Enjoy!

 

[nvs]

Is there a wider shoulder or flatter terrain on the right side of the road block? It looks like a steeper bank to the left of the roadblock. I have passed over the road before but the snow and high quality video distorts it. Wouldn't the right side have been a better choice to go? Edit: Looks like the right side might break of fairly steep. Just can't tell from the video.

 

[nvs]

Baker why is the road marked with a double yellow line if there is a clean line of sight? If it was clear wouldn't the passing lane start sooner?

 

[nvs]

Why did they feel the need to set up a road block prior to a traffic stop when they knew who everybody was? Why no roadblock signs or flares? Who sets up snipers ahead of time for a routine traffic stop? LaVoy did not have a felony warrant at the time. Why put the roadblock at the beginning of the strait stretch instead of the middle or end? The double yellow tells me limited visibility.

Also how do you know what speed he was traveling to infer he wanted run the roadblock? Can you give us some detail of the road conditions? What is the stopping distance of a Ram 2500/3500 on slick roads? What was the weight of the passengers and contents? Did he have studs or snow tires? What if he glanced back in his mirror to see who was behind him or was checking his panicked passengers? Could that have added 1-3 seconds to his stopping time? Could a diesel motor add extra stopping distance because of the added weight? Lots of unknowns.

Google Earth coordinates: 43° 49.601'N, 118° 58.284'W

In the video I referenced, the brake lights come on at 5:45, just as Finicum's truck passes the Joaquin Miller Horsecamp entrance. You can see the entrance sign.

The road is nearly straight at this point, in a line of sight drawn between the horsecamp entrance sign and the location of the roadblock. It his highly probable that Finicum saw the roadblock 1 second earlier, and had a normal reaction time in applying brakes.

The roadblock and point of impact were located at the 2nd hashmark of broken painted median line, just after the double-solid line has stopped.

The distance from where Finicum 1st applied his brakes (the horsecamp entrance sign) to the 2nd hashmark is 380 feet.

The 60-to-zero stopping distance of a 3/4 ton crew-cab truck is 150 feet.

If a driver "feathers" or lightly applies brakes, the brake lights are on. Finicum had his foot on the brake pedal for 380 feet. He wasn't trying to stop, or else he would have stopped. Before the roadblock.

Finicum was able to swerve radically without fishtailing or otherwise losing control. The pavement looks very clear in the video and the truck is able to swerve suddenly, while braking, without skidding or sliding. Good road conditions.

If you DOUBLE the emergency stopping distance of the truck, a competent driver who wanted to stop before breaching the roadblock would have stopped 80' before the roadblock.

It seems highly probable that Finicum intentionally operated his vehicle in a manner intended to breach an obvious "You must Stop" line established by law enforcement officials.

So Martini, I broke your roadblock argument by refuting it with publicly available information. It won't be enough to say "nuh-uh". You have to do better. If you want to retain this position, you must either present better evidence to support your position, or embrace the fact that you prefer irrational opinions. Not just Martini, but anyone who holds the same position.

Martini's "hands behavior" argument does not address the culmination of available information on Finicum. Finicum unlawfully occupied a public wildlife preserve, brandished firearms, & made veiled threats about not being taken alive. His actions resulted in law enforcement research. The research revealed a novel by Finicum where the protagonist's lifelong battle against government agents ended with the protagonist gunning down 3 government agents in quick-draw fashion using a single-action revolver. Within days of the initial occupation, LE probably incorporated this information in their risk profile of Finicum. He was an anti-gov extremist who relished the apocalypse and a chance to shoot some bad government agents. Maybe you don't like that, but it doesn't matter. What, would you prefer less-competent law enforcement instead? Later, Finicum refused lawful orders to exit his vehicle during a lawful attempt to effect his arrest on a federal arrest warrant. Finicum unlawfully fled the arrest attempt. Finicum unlawfully breached a lawful roadblock, exited his vehicle, and 8 seconds later began repeatedly reaching into his jacket and waistband area for 6 seconds until he went down.

If you are Finicum, and you don't want to die, in a span of minutes you decided against 3 consecutive opportunities to behave in a manner that would ensure your survival.

Payne took the 1st opportunity, and guess what? He survived.

Bundy? Other Bundy? Cox? McConnell? Sharp? These people are all not dead. None of them disobeyed lawful orders to exit a vehicle. None of them rammed a roadblock. None of them danced around outside a vehicle playing "maybe I'm a quick-draw cowboy". Instead, they acted intelligently. They did everything they could think of to not look like maybe they were going for a gun. It worked! Every time!

If you are Finicum and you want to die, it is difficult to think of a better way to accomplish that than what you did do.

Why not get out at the 1st stop?
Why run?
Why ram a roadblock?
Why not face-plant immediately when you get out of the truck?
Why not face-plant after running around for 8 seconds and still not getting shot?

The narrative YOU are promoting is not what happened. Your narrative is not based on competent analysis. It is based on conjecture and hearsay. You side against law enforcement despite your lack of any real reason for doing so. Sorry, but your position doesn't look intelligent.

Emotional response SEEMS to overwhelm logical analysis in this thread, but logic is actually prevailing in the poll (although the numbers are too small to be meaningful).

I still suspect that if the poll response reached 8000 instead of 170, you'd see the true grass-roots opinion of rational board members in a 90/10 type scenario. Unsurprisingly, I think most people just have better things to do than quibble with a vocal minority on an internet forum.

Which is something I need to stop doing myself.

Have a great day!

 

[baker3gun]

Baker why is the road marked with a double yellow line if there is a clean line of sight? If it was clear wouldn't the passing lane start sooner?

No.

Go to the coordinates, zoom out to 6000' altitude.

There is a clear line of sight from the location of the right-side roadblock vehicle to the center of the highway 425 feet back from the roadblock. Finicum put his foot on the brake pedal at 380 feet. Coincidence?

The downgrade was 9 feet drop in 425' of distance; which improved visibility, if anything. It's a 2% grade.

If you add in Martini's sand, grade, and bald tires, does the stopping distance more than double to 380 feet? Maybe for martini, but most drivers I've met in my 50 years would be able to stop easily in those conditions before impacting that roadblock line. I didn't understand his feather and power-braking comments. Not important. I think most readers can grasp the difference between light braking and heavy braking.

Double yellow lines end at the point where DOT and road engineers deems it safe for a vehicle to pass a slower vehicle without exceeding the speed limit or running out of visible road. I don't know the spec, but we'll have to agree that it is more than the 425 feet that we are concerned with in this sub-argument.

So for the purposes of the argument, the location of the end of the double yellow is irrelevant. Go look at the images. What is relevant to an argument of whether the roadblock was intentionally placed to prevent a driver from having adequate reaction time, is the 425' clear line of sight back from the location of the roadblock, not the location of the end of the double yellow painted line.

General request: Don't spout back unless you go do the analysis yourself. It only takes 3 minutes. Go look at it. It's very simple, and fairly obvious.

If one seeks the macro perspective, it becomes easier to sort the wheat from the chaff in pursuit of the most probable truth.

There's no end to the crap a person could make up trying to explain why Finicum didn't have time to stop and therefore it wasn't his fault, but the most probable truth is that he just fled a multi-vehicle law enforcement traffic stop, just drove around a spike strip, he probably was not texting or dozing at the wheel, he probably saw the roadblock, and he probably had plenty of time to stop if he wanted to.

Maybe he wanted to try to go around the roadblock. Maybe he couldn't decide, so he swerved at the very last second to avoid hitting the left-side blocking vehicle. Neither is something you'll want to try after having a January like Finicum just had. There's no sense in it. It is not an intelligent survival tactic.

The truck does not appear to be attempting an emergency stop in the video.

It doesn't look like that at all.

Not even a little bit.

It's obvious he didn't attempt an emergency stop.

Who does that? Who rounds a bend in a hwy, sees a law enforcement roadblock 425' ahead, and DOESN'T commence emergency stop procedures? You?

The macro-perspective will lead you along a course of probabilities that ends with "good shoot". If you can't see that course, then you can either spout conspiracy murder theories until (and then after) the official report comes out, or you can remain silent.

The macro-perspective will help you to see why things like the location of the end of the double yellow painted line is irrelevant to the issue at hand, in this particular instance. The problem with irrelevant distractions is that so many readers are unable to see why they are irrelevant. This leads to a large number of uninformed but vocal responses along the lines of "Finicum didn't ram the roadblock, the double yellow proves it!"

It just makes everything more tedious, and then only the rabid continue to post.

I gotta go in for my rabies shot now. It's my last one, so I'll be cured, so this will be my last post on this thread.

Remember, try to seek the macro-perspective.

Somebody said it best earlier: when doubt arises, it is almost never a terrible idea to give American law enforcement the benefit of the doubt. 99.99% of American law enforcement actions are just and fair. If they collectively take tens of thousands of actions every day, you'd need to show at least 100 unjust actions every day to support a contention that 1% of law enforcement actions are unjust. You know you can't do that, so maybe you gotta sit back and think about two things:
1 - why so quick to say LE was wrong?
2 - What good quality, uncontestable, reliable evidence or assessment do you have, or what sound argument can you present to support a contention that Finicum was unjustly murdered by the Oregon State Police? I haven't seen any yet.

 

[Boboclown]

it is almost never a terrible idea to give American law enforcement the benefit of the doubt.

Oh sure, assume that a LEO=automatically good person. Seen enough corrupt LEOs to hold them to the same standards as others. And I never give anyone the benefit of the doubt.

Also, I noticed a lack of an undecided option. Got something against neutrality or something?

 

[2A2Dend]

HA!! Cops are as corrupt...or moreso..as anyone in society. Never doubt that.

 

[Mark Torrence]

"He fell asleep in the chair by the wood stove. After the family went up to the house, my daughter and the little kids, somehow that thing exploded. Now he's killed. They call me back, got to get back here and need to put ankle bracelet on." -- Cox

Coincidence? Don't believe that for one second! This just gets worse and worse!
Man this thing has me spooked! This has been but is REALLY getting out of hand now!

 

[jluck]

Self edit. No hope for America.

FYI. Refuge being raided right now.

 

[Martini_Up]

Baker, you should have just slapped the cuffs on Finicum when you were driving in the cab with him. By all you claim to know, it sure seems you were there.

 

[jluck]

Lots of words equal fact...No?

 

[DuneHopper]

My unbiased view as best I can.

1. I could not find any such case in the past were such conspiracy charges justified roads blocks and swat teams. In fact many conspiracy arrests are done very peacefully with one or two cops. Not full combat ready resources.

2. The Helicopter is the one detail that adds premeditation undeniably. There was no reason for conspiracy charges to justify a state helicopter and a road blocks.

3. I am not convinced the persons involved in the town meeting didnt know ahead of time, it was said that there was no one really there a the time waiting for them, it was like the public there knew the group was not going to make it there. And police knew exactly when they would be where to have a road block already set.

4. Finicum, no one can guess what was in his head and we sure can't ask the bundies those last minutes. What we can tell is for what ever reason he acted irrationally by running from the cops and from getting so quickly out of his car. It has been said it was by threat of death he did what he did. It makes me wonder if he built that all up to a bigger issue. But then why all the police if this was a small issue?

5. I do not think this will have the rolling rock many think it will, there is so much opposition to the Bundies by conservatives I do not see this sparking any kinda revolution or more protests. If anything I think it scared off those keyboard cowboys like the last guy they arrested had no idea what a cause was and should never have been there.

Closing, sad day when we have a death and damage to a small town, living in Roseburg and having own issue with the UCC shooting I can tell you it takes the wind out of any towns sails, it just does and we are still recovering as people know-longer trust around here like they once did. And that is what will always affect unity is trust.

 

[Martini_Up]

let's look at 'the macro' perspective again:

http://video.beforeitsnews.com/feds...ing-homes-imprisoning-ranchers_9698be7a0.html

 

[MikeE]

From the page 98 video analysis:
"Finicum brandished firearms and made threats for weeks.
Finicum ignored lawful orders to exit a vehicle.
Finicum evaded a vehicular stop.
Finicum RAMMED A ROADBLOCK.
Finicum ran around and refused orders to get down.
Finicum looked like he was going for a gun. Three different times. Hands up, hands down, hands up, hands down, hands up, hands down, bang."

I'm gonna add one to that list: Finicum wrote a bad western novel about a government-hating rancher. The novel ended with the quick-draw rancher gunning down 3 evil government employees with his pistol. Okay.

If you don't get why the LE parties involved might have been concerned about Finicum's writings, TV interviews, firearm brandishing, and veiled threats, then you are not a perceptive person. Finicum is not a man whom LE was going idly watch dance around forever while it looked like he was going for a gun. If you don't like that, it doesn't matter. You don't ram a LE roadbloack, ever. Ever. After you do, you don't f*ck around outside the vehicle playing "maybe I'm a quick-draw cowboy" forever. If you want to live, you either freeze in the vehicle or open the door and face-plant. Everyone knows this already, and yet we still have this giant noise about poor Lavoy. Are you serious?

If your driving skills are so poor that you cannot bring a modern automobile to a halt from hwy speed in a 200+ foot stretch of clean pavement, then stay in Arizona! The dude rammed the roadblock on purpose, with women in the car. Finicum is not a martyr to American patriotism. He's a dumb redneck.

Anyway, if you need a 3rd poll option (undecided), this means that you entertain two notions:
1 - Finicum's known cumulative actions were NOT adequate cause for the response he rec'd from LE.
2 - OSP and FBI may be inherently bad. They may fire on citizens without justification and then release videos of same, they may intentionally obscure or withhold evidence to protect their future ability to murder citizens, they may conspire against the citizenry for the purpose of violating the civil rights of the citizenry, and they may be doing a big coverup right now to cover their bubblegum after murdering poor Finicum, and we need more info so we can find out whether they are bad.

If you really entertain these notions, you belong in group two. Click the button already.

BUT, you don't have to worry. This poll is flexible. It allows the participant to change his mind at some future date. And, it doesn't have an expiration date. So you can wait as long as you want to make up your mind. If you're undecided, I personally refer you to my 5th & 6th paragraph above.

Why does my content seem mildly insulting or condescending to some? Well, why not? We've got people on here claiming that FBI snipers in the woods shot Finicum with a pellet gun or a .17 to get him to grab his belt so that they could murder him. When a person makes up conjecture that stupid, another person may come along and call a spade a spade. It's actually okay to say, "Hey, that's stupid!". If you think FBI and OSP conspired to murder Finicum and then engineer a video of the event to release to the public, you may probably be stupid. If they really wanted to murder him, wouldn't it be easier to just kill everyone there and not release a video?

Other things:

Finicum had a lot of foster kids. AZ pays $828 per month per kid to foster parents (probably less for each additional kid). Catholic Charities paid Finicum $115,000 for foster parenting in 2009. Finicum sez foster parenting was his main source of income. Link. You know what, if you wanna be a real anti-govt guy, maybe you should pull your own weight instead of sucking the govt teet. Maybe if he had a real full-time job, he wouldn't have had time to drive to Oregon to participate in the siege of an un-staffed winterized duck refuge for the purpose of making veiled threats on TV and generally being a nuisance in a county where none of the residents wanted him there anyway.

The goal here isn't character assassination, but at the same time, come on. What's up with sucking the teet while kicking the cow? Foster parenting is an honorable endeavor, but do we want the Lavoy Finicum's of the world for that job? Didn't he drive across two states and provoke LE into shooting him dead while accomplishing nothing? Is that a good qualification for foster parenting?

Sorry, but Finicum is not immune to scrutiny. He publicly and unlawfully conquered an unoccupied federal duck marsh in Oregon, so he lost that immunity. I'm scrutinizing. IMO, he wasn't very bright, and no, we don't need people like him serving as a foster dad to troubled youth.

Let's touch on ad hominem attack. It is a popular and ancient form of fallacy, first documented over 2000 years ago.
Valid logical argument is the basis for the advancement of human civilization. It dates back over 2000 years in written human history. Fallacy is a recognized invalid form of argument. It also dates back to the same era. Here's why: human scholars and leaders long ago recognized that logical argument was the path to peace and advancement, and they also recognized that the process was susceptible to disruption by unsound or invalid or illogical arguments or responses. So they made a written list of these various invalid tactics (now known as fallacies), and they banned their use. Here's why: they got tired of repeatedly demonstrating why an invalid form of argument was invalid. So they made a list, and any time someone presented a fallacy as argument, they simply vetoed it. It was a time-saving step. You don't have to win an argument against fallacy, you just point at the fallacy and laugh, and you automatically win. It's great! This is all true. Look it up. It is your history (if you're human).

Here's an example: a guy named Dave gets online and presents reasonably sound arguments for why the Finicum outcome was a good shoot.

1 - A guy named Bill replies, "No, Dave is a dumb*ss, it was a bad shoot."
Bill's counter-argument was an ad hominem attack. It ignored the actual argument and instead attempted to refute the argument by undermining the person who presented the argument. (You will recognize this as a favored tool of the political left. They hate logical argument. Their favored approach is an ad hominem attack on anyone who disagrees with their leftist views. They don't argue logic, they just call us names.)

2 - A guy named Taco sez, "I will ignore his argument."
Taco's fallacy is head-in-the-sand. He didn't shut up, he just ignored a logical counter argument and kept right on spewing nonsense.

Fallacy is the tool of the fool. If you want to argue a point, you must address the merits of the point; evaluate the premises that support the argument.

If you cannot render an argument invalid by deconstruction or refute it with weightier evidence, then guess what? Yep. It's most likely true.

This is the way philosophical, ethical and moral arguments have been resolved for over 2000 years. This is the basis for common law. This is how rational analysis replaced combat as the favored method for resolving conflict.

Back to Finicum: It is not enough to say: "a passenger said her truck was fired on right away when the driver rammed a roadblock, therefore Finicum was murdered." Of course the truck was fired on. It rammed a roadblock. You can't ram a roadblock and not get fired on. "Woman say truck fired on" does not equal "Finicum murdered". Sorry, but you have to do better than that.

There are many reports of Payne or Finicum getting shot at during the 1st stop. Okay. They stopped somewhere near the jeep, and one or both of them stuck their heads out to verbally communicate with LE, and while they did, LE tried to assassinate them by shooting them in the head. Yeah, right. That happens all the time.
It explains why Ammon is dead. Oh but wait, Ammon isn't dead. So it must have been selective murder?
Further deconstruction:
If you take a pot-shot at Finicum's head, his predictable next course of action will be to roll up his window and turn on his radio and sit in the road for 3 more minutes?
Payne's predictable action after someone shoots at his head will be to get out and walk back to the LE position?
A SWAT team's predictable action will be to shoot at someone's head from a close-range sniper position and miss?
LE wanted to murder the truck occupants by shooting at them at the 1st stop, but they had to wait until the occupants stuck their heads out of the truck because Finicum's truck had bullet-proof glass?
See? If you say something stupid, someone will come along and make you look stupid. If you don't like that, then don't present stupid arguments.

If you wanna say that LE fired at the perps during the 1st traffic stop, you need evidence that outweighs the fact that American law enforcement does not randomly shoot at and miss people during traffic stops, nor wait until the people roll down their window and stick their head out before shooting at and missing them because bullets don't go through auto glass. Your evidence needs to have a quality level higher than "I read it on a foil-hat site." It really does.
If you can't present weightier evidence, then you have sh*t. If you choose to spout the sh*t anyway, you look like a moron.

No, it was not a routine traffic stop. See my comments on page 98. Here is one final example of an argument that does not hold water: 'It was not a routine traffic stop, therefore Finicum was murdered." You can't make that work with logic or valid argument. It just doesn't work. Therefore, it is just a stupid assertion. If you hold fast to a stupid assertion, no one should be disturbed if an observer calls you stupid. That's just how it goes man.

APATHY SUCKS. As I said already, there are over 200 million voting age citizens in our country. Less than half vote. That is why we are falling apart. We abandoned our collective responsibility for effective governance. So if you're a member here, and you choose silence on this poll, you may think you're on a high road, but in fact you are just apathetically yielding to the goats. This is bad because the MSM and a large chunk of the American population think that people who use firearms to hunt or compete or recreate or defend, are goats. We're not goats! It's just that a small vocal minority here act like goats while the rest remain silent, so everyone thinks we're goats. Well NWFA? Shouldn't you attempt to reverse that trend? It will only cost you 10 seconds. Click a button already.

No I'm not losing sleep. That was just a figure of speech. Don't glom on to that as a way to try refute everything I said, because then you just look limp and dim and mentally challenged. I mean, is that really all you got?

I put this poll up to find out for myself whether a northwest firearms board was predominantly occupied by rational people or something else. It's worth finding out because this community is probably a representative slice of America. I suspect that my effort will fail. It requires statistical power, and it already seems like the poll won't receive nearly enough attention. In a purported population of 36,000, you'd need at least a 10% response rate to draw even a weak conclusion, and you'd need > 50% to make any impact.

If a worthwhile question arises, maybe I'll post again. Not likely. I've said more than enough. This is just a simple poll. Vote and see what happens. If you don't like my writings, you gotta know I don't care. If my logical arguments are unsound or invalid, show me. I will immediately retract everything and apologize to everyone.

Nice post, Man, but this song explains EVERYTHING:

 

[Mark Torrence]

I am tired! Tired of arguing the "facts"! Tired of arguing in general! We ALL agree that this is supposedly a free country! That we all think we should be free to do and live as we like! That for the most part the federal government hass too much say and control over what we as free Americans do and say! I am so bubbleguming tired of arguing amongest ourselves that I could PUKE! THEY ARE WINNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STOP arguing minutia and START WINNING! bubblegum I feel like the dude in "One flew over the cuckoos nest".

 

[Mark Torrence]

"bubblegumming"??????????? What the bubblegum?

 

[Mark Torrence]

I must confess that made me laugh which is much needed!

 

[buckster]

What would Your reaaction be to being shot in the side.You would reach for the burning ! Was well orchestrated without sound and poor resolution!

I have a hard time deciphering when the guns go off from the video. I don't know if he's reaching for his coat because he was shot in the side, or if he made a reach and then got shot. I keep watching for the moment the pistols go off but I haven't seen light or smoke to indicate a discharge. I can sort of tell the cop that came up behind him fired at him, but with the one on the lower right that came over past the one that almost got ran over it is hard to tell.

Also I see that the cop on the upper left executed a poor discharge of his firearm. He's running and holding his weapon with one hand... in the snow. The chances of him having a steady aim there are low, and there was a risk that he would hit his compatriot on the lower right. I wouldn't call this a clean-cut case of use of appropriate force... but I don't know that Finicum was chased down and ambushed... he ran from the cops and then nearly plowed through a roadblock. I think he earned his own fate here to a certain degree.

EDIT: After watching a few more times the cops here made a few stupid moves. The cop coming out of the trees had his weapon trained in the direction of the other officers there, the one that popped out from behind the truck just as Finicum's truck rolled by almost got himself killed, and the one that came up from the lower right didn't seem to seek cover at all on approach. These guys were not operating with cool heads here...