Why do the police have tanks?

[Powderman]

To the poster who posted the "average" figure of LEO's killed in the line of duty per year: As of yesterday, 100 police officers have died in the line of duty THIS YEAR. Last year, the total was over 300.

To those who would legalize drug use...I'm sorry, but I cannot support that. Would there be plenty of people who would simply smoke their weed, and let others be? Sure there are. But I have seen too many teenagers who started with marijuana, and progressed to the harder stuff. Some say that drug use is "harmless"...

Tell that to the parents of the 16 year old I met while their son was being taken away in an ambulance, going through seizures after firing up some "wet". (Cigarette soaked in formaldehyde; also known as "sherms")

Tell that to the parents of the young girl who we found in a bedroom where the initial complaint was a "loud party". She had been gang raped, and was catatonic when aid arrived. Drugs present? Marijuana and alcohol.

Tell that to the folks who walk around like zombies after partaking in some good old bathtub crank.

Tell that to the three guys that were found in a Casino parking lot, tied and shot in the head. The cause? They went running with someone's load of black tar heroin.

And--I'm not being confrontational--how many of YOU would stand by and watch your child use their drug of choice--even if it is marijuana?

Realize that the majority of police officers out here are just as adamant as you about ensuring that the rights of the people are held sacrosanct, and inviolable.

Finally, before someone starts up about Jose Guerena--the ex-Marine who was shot in his house, know the facts, easily viewed on one of the many videos that have been posted:

1. He had a criminal record.
2. He associated with known drug runners.
3. When his home was approached, a police vehicle sounded its siren, at full volume, for at least 30 seconds.
4. The officers present DID knock on his door first.
5. They held a dialogue with someone inside, who REFUSED TO OPEN THE DOOR.
6. After about a minute of trying to gain entry BY KNOCKING, they (equipped with a valid search warrant) forced entry.
7. Upon entry, they observed Guerena holding an AR15 type rifle, which he POINTED AT THEM.
8. Guerena was then briskly shot.

No, we are NOT your enemy. We ARE public servants, and we are sworn to maintain the peace and to deliver those who break the law to the Court, who is the trier of fact. We are not the judge, nor the jury. We enforce the law--which YOU and I, as citizens of the United States, have the power to change by the processes guaranteed by the US Constitution--the petition and the referendum. We can even remove politicians from office by using the recall.

Take care all, and stay safe.

Cordially,

Your friendly neighborhood Powderman

(also known by some as a tail light chaser, road nazi, etc, etc.)

 

[dmancornell]

And--I'm not being confrontational--how many of YOU would stand by and watch your child use their drug of choice--even if it is marijuana?

You are implying the government is responsible for a child's upbringing instead of the parents. Your scaremongering tales made me laugh. Drug prohibition failed miserably to prevent those things from happening, and yet you stick your head in the sand and insist on continuing a futile war against the citizens.

And to answer your question, yes. I'd use it myself if I didn't risk arrest by the drug nazis.

 

[elsullo]

I don't read that he implied that at all. Any government is responsible however, for protecting a child from the STUPIDITY of their parents. Laugh at real-life stories of drug horrors? Imagine how many MORE horrible crimes would have happened if drugs were NOT illegal. DRUGS MESS-UP MINDS, and drug users are the least competent people to see it. Maybe you should become a legal marijuana grower? Then you might get to have your own violent home-invasion robbery over "harmless" drugs by harmless drug users (about two such violent home-invasions per week in the Portland Metro area)...............................elsullo

You are implying the government is responsible for a child's upbringing instead of the parents. Your scaremongering tales made me laugh. Drug prohibition failed miserably to prevent those things from happening, and yet you stick your head in the sand and insist on continuing a futile war against the citizens.

And to answer your question, yes. I'd use it myself if I didn't risk arrest by the drug nazis.

 

[jvbutter]

WoW... from tanks to drugs usage...

 

[dmancornell]

Maybe you should become a legal marijuana grower? Then you might get to have your own violent home-invasion robbery over "harmless" drugs by harmless drug users

The drug war reduces supply, increases prices and criminalizes users. By classifying users as criminals they have less inhibition against committing crimes. Legalizing drugs and normalizing the market would reduce drug-related crimes. Two European countries (Holland and Portugal) decriminalized some and all drugs respectively with no ill social effects.

Your nonsense is just typical pro-drug war ignorance of cause and effect, just like every other government screwup (government cause problem, government pretends to be the cure, repeat feedback loop).

 

[elsullo]

First, they are not tanks since they have no cannons. Armored vehicles are needed to break into armored buildings to serve warrants, usually wholesale drug and gun-running houses, where the occupants are known to be armed and will shoot arresting officers unless they have armor protection. Over the last few decades THOUSANDS of police officers have been killed on the job, most of them shot while trying to arrest criminals, proving that they need armored vehicles for the highest risk entries, where people crazed by "harmless" drugs would otherwise shoot them...........................elsullo

WoW... from tanks to drugs usage...

 

[elsullo]

And YOUR nonsense is just typical pro-drug ignorance of what most drug users end up like, and how their brains become damaged so that they will do anything to keep their supply coming. Great Britain experimented with making "medical" heroin legal a few decades ago. They ended that after a couple of years when their streets were flooded with child-molesting heroin zombies. Amsterdam was the only marijuana-legal city in Holland, and they are now working hard to reverse that because the results have become very problematic. Unfortunately there is a lot of money in the dope-tourism industry, so it is hard to stop. Maybe you should use Afganistan for your example, where 3/5 of the population uses hashish and opium daily. Yeah, they have achieved a HIGH level of civilization............................elsullo

The drug war reduces supply, increases prices and criminalizes users. By classifying users as criminals they have less inhibition against committing crimes. Legalizing drugs and normalizing the market would reduce drug-related crimes. Two European countries (Holland and Portugal) decriminalized some and all drugs respectively with no ill social effects.

Your nonsense is just typical pro-drug war ignorance of cause and effect, just like every other government screwup (government cause problem, government pretends to be the cure, repeat feedback loop).

 

[dmancornell]

Great Britain experimented with making "medical" heroin legal a few decades ago. They ended that after a couple of years when their streets were flooded with child-molesting heroin zombies.

 

[jvbutter]

First, they are not tanks since they have no cannons.

read the OP topic....

Armored vehicles are needed to break into armored buildings to serve warrants, usually wholesale drug and gun-running houses,

Now I dont watch every news cast, and I dont live in Cali or NY, but when was the last time we drove into a drug house???I could be wrong but nothing sticks out in my mind.

Over the last few decades THOUSANDS of police officers have been killed on the job, most of them shot while trying to arrest criminals, proving that they need armored vehicles for the highest risk entries, where people crazed by "harmless" drugs would otherwise shoot them...........................elsullo

Yes people on drugs do whacked things, and act in such crazy ways, but big armored car to drive in wont help unless you stay inside. Why not better sniper them and gas them out.... now look, here I go feeding the thread.

dmancornell

Nice pic... very nice

 

[Redcap]

And YOUR nonsense is just typical pro-drug ignorance of what most drug users end up like, and how their brains become damaged so that they will do anything to keep their supply coming. Great Britain experimented with making "medical" heroin legal a few decades ago. They ended that after a couple of years when their streets were flooded with child-molesting heroin zombies. Amsterdam was the only marijuana-legal city in Holland, and they are now working hard to reverse that because the results have become very problematic. Unfortunately there is a lot of money in the dope-tourism industry, so it is hard to stop. Maybe you should use Afganistan for your example, where 3/5 of the population uses hashish and opium daily. Yeah, they have achieved a HIGH level of civilization............................elsullo

 

[svxr8dr]

Finally, before someone starts up about Jose Guerena--the ex-Marine who was shot in his house, know the facts, easily viewed on one of the many videos that have been posted:

1. He had a criminal record.
2. He associated with known drug runners.
3. When his home was approached, a police vehicle sounded its siren, at full volume, for at least 30 seconds.
4. The officers present DID knock on his door first.
5. They held a dialogue with someone inside, who REFUSED TO OPEN THE DOOR.
6. After about a minute of trying to gain entry BY KNOCKING, they (equipped with a valid search warrant) forced entry.
7. Upon entry, they observed Guerena holding an AR15 type rifle, which he POINTED AT THEM.
8. Guerena was then briskly shot.

B.S.

You sir are either a liar or just ignorant

1. Mr Guerena had been arrested in January 2009 after being involved in a traffic stop with two other individuals where a gun and a small amount or marijuana were found, however he was not charged.
SWAT team fired 71 shots in raid
<broken link removed>
2. Do you mean other family members...yes he knew them. He also came up drug free in the autopsy.
3. The video shows you are again lying:
Video Timeline
:06 siren on
:13 siren off
:20 officer gives signal he will knock
:27 officer moves to door and knocks
:33 door breached
:37 officers enter doorway
:41 shots fired
:48 shots end
<broken link removed>
4.Correct they knocked and "breeched" all in 6 seconds
5. Proof of said dialogue? Guerena was awakened about 9:30 AM by his wife who heard noises outside their house, later identified as flash/bang grenades deployed by police in the back yard as a diversion.
WebCite query result
6. The video just proves you are straight up lying - "The raid video released by the sheriff's department shows that only 23 seconds elapsed between the bang of the diversionary devices and the start of the gunfire. "
WebCite query result
7. He sure did, defending his own home and family from a dead sleep after working all night at a mine against forces unknown to a situation that seemed extremely similar to:
Guerena's widow states that she had no knowledge that the man she saw pointing a gun at her through the window was a police officer, and thought that he was part of a home invasion group. She has stated that two members of her sister-in-law's family were killed previously in a home invasion.
Tucson SWAT Team Defends Shooting Iraq Marine Veteran 60 Times - ABC News
8. And then had his name and charachter dragged thru the mud and villified. Accused of being a drudg dealer, accused of firing first, lie after lie after lie. Yet you think it was a good shoot?!?!? That's the attitide that makes me sick. I wont even get into the level of professionalism displayed during that so called breech. How exactly was the public served by executing this search warrant in this fashion rather than a simple traffic stop on the way home from work?

 

[dmancornell]

I wont even get into the level of professionalism displayed during that so called breech

Found their instructor:

 

[JungleBoy]

I don't read that he implied that at all. Any government is responsible however, for protecting a child from the STUPIDITY of their parents. Laugh at real-life stories of drug horrors? Imagine how many MORE horrible crimes would have happened if drugs were NOT illegal. DRUGS MESS-UP MINDS, and drug users are the least competent people to see it. Maybe you should become a legal marijuana grower? Then you might get to have your own violent home-invasion robbery over "harmless" drugs by harmless drug users (about two such violent home-invasions per week in the Portland Metro area)...............................elsullo

Elsullo you have a distorted view on how the drug laws affect people, you have very little idea on how the market place works, if you understood free market economics’ you would understand why the war on drugs is nothing more than a way to feed the state. We have been fighting this war on drugs for a long time with very little results beside a lot of people dying, and becoming hard nosed criminals.

Anyone worth his own salt knows just because the government makes something illegal does not make the demand for it go away. Taking away demand for something is impossible, so the marketplace for the item goes underground. Since honest businessmen are not selling the product, gangs, mobs, mafia types do. Hi violent people get involved with this underground industry because of the large profits the government created with unintended consequences.

People don’t get shot on the boarder because of drugs. People die because of United States drug laws and the scum the chose to enforce those rules, period.

I want all drug decriminalized for one simple reason, we would all be safer. People like you must have a very low opinion of your fellow citizens if you think they need the government to tell them not to do Heroin or any type of drug. I find it funny how many pro gun people support drug laws. Pro gun crowd does not like the government telling them what to do with their guns a potentionally lethal item to yourself and others, but allows them to tell them what they can and can not put in their own bodies that could be potentionally lethal to themselves and others, the principle is exactly the same.

If drugs were decriminalized gangs would be defunded, violence on the boarder would stop, and people would not be locked up for possession then come out of prison as real hardened criminals.

However the government depends on statists like you to support their unwinnable war. Not so they can stop addicts and clean the streets up, but so they can stay addicted to all of the tax money supporting their jobs. The police don’t care about people doing drugs they only care about all that tax money coming in, so they can keep getting a pay check for their illegitimate jobs. Why you so worried about drug addicts, and not worried about money addicts with monopolistic laws?

As an Anarcho-capitialist/ Libertarian I believe I have the right to my life, liberty, and property. How does anyone have a right to tell me what to do if I am not interfering with anyone’s life, liberty, or property?

Also I would argue that drug dealers are better than police officers because they are providing items people are willing to pay for, not have money stolen from the tax payer to pay for a service.

 

[Minisocks]

The police have tanks because the american people are evil and must be punished.

Police have tanks because some elected official needs to reward a lobbyist with juicy government contracts.

 

[One-Eyed Ross]

"Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property.

Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.

Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.

In vices, the very essence of crime --- that is, the design to injure the person or property of another --- is wanting."

Lysander Spooner, "Vices are not Crimes", (A Vindication of Moral Liberty) 1875

<broken link removed>

"It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without a criminal intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of another. But no one ever practises a vice with any such criminal intent. He practises his vice for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice toward others."

While I do not believe everything Lysander Spooner wrote this essay is VERY well written and topical...

 

[elsullo]

Well, this is the crux of it, isn't it? The whole reason that each legal drug became illegal is that the person with the vice just eventually cannot keep to his own property! A drug addict even with a legal supply eventually just SPILLS OVER into his neighbor's life because his brain damage makes him into a monster of some sort, either pathetic basket case that cannot care for himself or his family, or an aggressive savage and child molester. Among all of the thousand of drugs and herbs, only a few are destructive to the user and only that few have become illegal because the users eventually HARM OTHER PEOPLE. It is wonderful that most of you seem to have not had this personal experience and so doubt its reality. Lucky you, so content in your ignorant opinions. Alas, the way the country is going, you may learn otherwise by coming personal experience, and I hope that you remember I TOLD YOU SO! I said it all already in post #20 of this thread on 07/07.........................elsullo

"Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property.

Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.

Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.

In vices, the very essence of crime --- that is, the design to injure the person or property of another --- is wanting."

Lysander Spooner, "Vices are not Crimes", (A Vindication of Moral Liberty) 1875

<broken link removed>

"It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without a criminal intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of another. But no one ever practises a vice with any such criminal intent. He practises his vice for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice toward others."

While I do not believe everything Lysander Spooner wrote this essay is VERY well written and topical...

 

[dmancornell]

Well, this is the crux of it, isn't it? The whole reason that each legal drug became illegal is that the person with the vice just eventually cannot keep to his own property! A drug addict even with a legal supply eventually just SPILLS OVER into his neighbor's life because his brain damage makes him into a monster of some sort, either pathetic basket case that cannot care for himself or his family, or an aggressive savage and child molester. Among all of the thousand of drugs and herbs, only a few are destructive to the user and only that few have become illegal because the users eventually HARM OTHER PEOPLE. It is wonderful that most of you seem to have not had this personal experience and so doubt its reality. Lucky you, so content in your ignorant opinions. Alas, the way the country is going, you may learn otherwise by coming personal experience, and I hope that you remember I TOLD YOU SO! I said it all already in post #20 of this thread on 07/07.........................elsullo

Still haven't heard a word from you about Portugal, the one country with the sanity to decriminalize drugs. No child molesting zombies yet reported.

 

[svxr8dr]

drug use to child molesters in .006 seconds lol

...and breast milk is the gateway drug to Scotch.... as long as we are using the elsullo school of anecdotal evidence, I would like to make the case that drugs made 1970's Stephen Tyler (Aerosmith) a better entertainer than 21st century sober J-Lo clone Stephen Tyler.

 

[Redcap]

Well, this is the crux of it, isn't it? The whole reason that each legal drug became illegal is that the person with the vice just eventually cannot keep to his own property! A drug addict even with a legal supply eventually just SPILLS OVER into his neighbor's life because his brain damage makes him into a monster of some sort, either pathetic basket case that cannot care for himself or his family, or an aggressive savage and child molester. Among all of the thousand of drugs and herbs, only a few are destructive to the user and only that few have become illegal because the users eventually HARM OTHER PEOPLE. It is wonderful that most of you seem to have not had this personal experience and so doubt its reality. Lucky you, so content in your ignorant opinions. Alas, the way the country is going, you may learn otherwise by coming personal experience, and I hope that you remember I TOLD YOU SO! I said it all already in post #20 of this thread on 07/07.........................elsullo

 

[elsullo]

No, svxr8dr, Stephan Tyler would strongly disagree with you. So would Pig Pen, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and many, many others---all of the same age as Tyler, but dead from their harmless drugs. Tyler suffered a LOT from his "harmless vices" and somehow learned to quit and live to say so. Like me. I think he has a book out, probably very informative about harmless vice harm. And forty years later he is bound to have a different style of music.

Redcap, I agree with you about your stupidity. Perhaps a reasoned debate with serious comment would be more useful. If it don't hurt your head, dude?

Sorry dman, I don't know anything about Portugal except that the nation is about to default on its economic debts and collapse the entire world economy. Good times! Must be because they legalized drugs, no? Interesting how you use me not researching for evidence to prove you wrong as your evidence that you must be right. Sorry, you are not the boss of me; do your own research. Portugal has long been the drug cartels' transhipment favorite for supplying the European supply networks. I guess all of that cartel cash was not spread around Portugal after they paid for the legalization? Go on, tell us what a peaceful paradise Portugal is with legal drugs---and put up a pretty cartoon picture illustrating the depth of your understanding and deep contribution to the debate? Why don't you GO THERE and tell us how great legal drugs are (but hire a bodyguard for the visit)?.......................elsullo

drug use to child molesters in .006 seconds lol

...and breast milk is the gateway drug to Scotch.... as long as we are using the elsullo school of anecdotal evidence, I would like to make the case that drugs made 1970's Stephen Tyler (Aerosmith) a better entertainer than 21st century sober J-Lo clone Stephen Tyler.