CVPIfan

Firstly- no, I didn't advocate for criminals to get their hands on guns legally; I just said that adding more ineffective, near unenforceable laws only hurts the people who have to follow them with consequence (the people who follow the laws normally). That being said I'm moving on to the discussion, debate, or whatever you want to call it.
Okay, and you advocate that by mandating background checks on all purchases regardless on weather or not they are privately conducted, an avenue will be closed to criminals on how to obtain firearms. Sounds good in theory right? How do you force people who make private sales unbeknownst to the government to follow this law? Surely black markets who sell firearms for much cheaper and illegally won't follow this. Lets not forget there is around a $50 fee to this check in the states it is required if you go the legal route, and many times the transaction is between family members or friends. 
I ask you before I make my next point, how do you force people who make private sales unbeknownst to the government to follow this law?

You're willing to make the assumption that a decrease in the number of guns and restricting access would stop shootings (Which has been disapproved as noted by examples of Switzerland and Chicago, which you claim aren't valid but are completely valid), but you aren't willing to assume that increasing the number of armed guards or armed staff members would have decreased the number of casualties? If there were no armed guard in the club, more people would have died. If there were more armed guards, less people would have died. Why: because they would have been able to take down the terrorist fast enough. This case, as someone else previously stated, also isn't a very good one to use as an example for restricting guns. This wasn't just your normal shooting, this was a terrorist attack. Business owners have every right to hire armed security guards and train their staff in firearms. If I were a business owner I most certainly would hire armed guards or train my staff to use firearms that we possess on the property. If a business owner chooses not to protect their business then it's their own decision. It's like wearing a seat-belt. You can't force every single driver in the entire nation to wear a seat-belt. You can pass laws and increase punishments, but if people don't want to wear it they won't wear it. They'll just have to suffer the consequences if they get into a crash.
Implementing a system of background checks is something that I can easily agree with. My problem isn't with increased common sense measures in an attempt to decrease gun violence. My problem is with people that believe banning guns and even restricting them will decrease the crime. A background check isn't necessarily a restriction, it's more of a common sense measure. If you have a criminal record, you shouldn't have a gun.
Right, but that is more of an assumption. You are assuming that criminals aren't going to be satisfied with purchasing weapons from foreign smugglers because of the cost, and the challenges of smuggling items into the country. That's to be determined on a gang by gang, person by person basis. We have no real and logical way of determining if criminals are going to be willing to do that. I'm not a gang member so I can't tell you how they'd smuggle weapons in. I assume probably the same way drugs are smuggled into the country, and that's been working out just splendid for years. There's also a freedom with purchasing an illegal firearm versus a legal firearm. They don't have to pay for a license, they don't have to renew and maintain that license, they don't have to keep a good criminal record, and the government isn't watching them. They can purchase the gun, be done with it, and no one would ever know.
Then where does restricting the right to own a gun come into play when it's the gun manufacturers, as you say, selling the guns illegally to criminals? Restricting the right to own a gun won't stop manufactures from selling guns to the wrong people. Just because someone is a law abiding citizen doesn't mean that their status cannot change. If someone purchases a gun legally and then sells it out of the back of their van to a gang, they should be punished for that. They should lose their license, they are no longer a law abiding citizen. They've broken the law and that's just something you'll have to deal with. With every system there will always be those that break the law, guns are no different. Those that break the law should be prosecuted, and the rest shouldn't be punished as a result. It's literally impossible to 100% permanently stop shootings in the United States. It's just not possible.
My point with mentioning wasn't so that we could copy them. My point was that they have guns practically everywhere and they have one of, if not the, lowest crime rate in the world. Switzerland has a unique system of national defense, similar to that of the United States. Just as the Swiss see owning a gun as a call to defend their country, Americans see it as a call to defend their civil liberties and protect their loved ones.
Then you would simply train the population, and only allow firearms into the homes of those that meet a certain criteria regarding their criminal record, their physical location, etc. There's no possible way for anyone to tell whether more guns would increase or decrease the crime because there are so many different examples. Places in the United States that have more legal guns generally have less crime, while areas that have more illegal guns have more crime. I don't only think it's a simple matter of whether a gun is in the picture or not. I also think that the legality of the gun plays a role.
Because the liberal solution is to take away the guns. The conservative solution is the target the person holding the gun. It's simply a matter of opinion, and the 2nd amendment doesn't make it any easier for the left.

When I read the various news articles earlier, they all stated that the gunman was killed when police stormed the building with a vehicle and got into an engagement with him. The officer inside did not kill the shooter, according to the news articles. Even if the officer on the inside did kill the shooter and the news articles are incorrect, that only further justifies what I'm saying. One armed guard was able to stop the shooter at 50 deaths (Going by what you said), so how many deaths could have been prevented if there was more than one guard? What if there were armed law abiding citizens alongside the guard, or armed staff? The number of deaths would drastically decrease while the number of armed citizens increase. It's a very simple concept to grasp.
Chicago has a lot of shootings and homicides because of the gang violence. The gangs are the ones with the guns, and they fight each other while terrorizing the citizens of the City. These gangs slaughter each other like sheep, and innocent people are caught in the crossfire. Also, you can't just pass a generic gun law and expect it to work 100% flawlessly throughout the entire nation. "Oh, well we've passed this gun law in the city of Chicago so let's pass it over in rural Alabama". It's really not that simple and people keep trying to take the easy route in an attempt to stop shootings, banning guns and restricting access, which is illegal in itself.
Banning guns, granted, could decrease the crime. It's not a 100% guarantee that it would decrease the crime but even if it did, it wouldn't decrease it at a significant enough level to make any notable difference in the amount of shootings that happen. Guns can be smuggled in to the country, and that's what people will do, just as they smuggle Marijuana and other substances in since they're banned. Then we're really done for as a country, because NOBODY will have guns but those that smuggle them, and law abiding citizens aren't going to smuggle them in.
You are going by a "if this happens, then this could happen" base when you give these examples of the shooter failing in his plot due to the restriction of a gun. If he's not able to obtain a gun legally, then he will get one illegally. It's as simple as that. If you really want a gun in America, you'll be able to get one. Whether it's legal or not.
Right, but what the right-wing is trying to say is that writing something down on a sheet of paper doesn't mean that things will change. Just because you tell people that they can't have a gun or a certain type of gun doesn't mean that the shootings will stop. Why do you continue to target the gun and not the person holding the gun?
People like to compare the United States to countries that have strict gun laws and ignorantly bicker, "Oh hey, look. We have strict laws so if you do the same thing as we did you'll have a low crime rate like us". Well, I just point to Switzerland, a nation with loose gun laws, and say "Then explain them"?
I'd partially disagree with that statement. There are parts of the United States where police can take up to an hour to respond when called, and only one unit will show up when they finally arrive. If the people in those areas don't have guns to defend themselves, then they're practically screwed. The police aren't always a reliable protection.
I'm heading to bed, I'll respond to any arguments tomorrow afternoon. Have a great night folks!

I use those words because law abiding citizens aren't going to break the law. What you aren't understanding is that new gun laws only affect those that obey the law, and those that probably wouldn't have broken previous laws to begin with. It doesn't matter what you decide to write down on paper, criminals aren't going to abide. They're going to get their guns, either legally or illegally depending on the strictness of the laws, and they're going to do what they do best; break the law and commit their crime. When you pass a gun law, you're telling the law abiding population that they can no longer do something. As I've been saying this entire time, criminals are going to continue to do it, regardless of how strict the laws are. Why do you think that making something law will fix all of our problems? That's a very naive way to think. "Let's pass another law and everything will be good to go".
The bar staff could have guns. Club security could have the guns. Not every single person that goes to a club or a bar is there to get smashed or break dance on the middle of the dance floor. I don't know what the specific circumstances surrounding the permitting of guns into a club or bar would be. It depends on the bar, the clientele, and the area, the policy of that particular property, existing laws in the area, you can't just set a generic procedure.
Yes they do commit their crimes in Chicago because no one has guns there. When a criminal wants something, he intends on getting it. He doesn't want to shoot people to get that cash register from the 7/11. He doesn't want to shoot the person who's car he's trying to jack. He doesn't want to shoot the owners of the home he just broke in to. He wants to get in, grab the valuables, get out, and get away. Since people can't legally possess firearms in Chicago, this puts the criminal at an advantage. He doesn't need to worry about getting shot in the back when he turns and runs with a stolen wallet. He doesn't need to worry about the homeowner coming downstairs with an assault rifle and spraying him against the wall. He doesn't need to worry about the person who's car he's trying to steal pulling a gun on them. He can commit his crime, grab what he wants, and roll out. Not a fear in the world, not a worry at all.
There's always motive to crime. Whether the motive is to gain valuables, to spread fear, or because you're bored. The idea that someone would commit crime in Chicago simply because they live in Chicago doesn't make any sense, and I've never heard anyone say that. Of course they're going to commit crime where they live. A mugger isn't going to fly from Los Angeles to London to mug someone in a back alley. He's going to walk up the street and see what he can do right in the area. That doesn't necessarily mean that that's his motive to committing the crime. It can easily just be the simple fact that it's convenient and common sense to commit crime in his local area.

New pictures, removed the lightbar because I'm not sure what lightbar I'm using

Dear All,
I'd like to showcase my work which will feature a range of skin packs. At current I am working on a Nevada Highway Patrol pack which will feature several vehicles. I would be thankful for any criticism or advice you may have, and give all credit to the respective authors for their fantastic models.
Nevada Highway Patrol FPIU (Credits to Thehurk for the showcased model)

That's not what illegal means, so I'd refrain from using that word.
 
You can speculate on whether the events happened as they did according to Garner or the police officers all you want. The fact is the events Garner was accused of happened off camera. But I'm more inclined to believe the police officers based on Garners prior convictions. As far as trusting the police; Let me put it this way: Would you trust a cop to give you a ride home as an example, vs. someone who offers you a ride after informing you they're a convicted felon who's been arrested more than 30 times but that they haven't done anything wrong lately? Of course I've considered the fact that they aren't being truthful, but I'd tend to believe them first for good reason. Furthermore, this assumption of harassment is (and always has been during our discussion) a moot point considering that regardless of whether the charge was legitimate or not, all he had to do was go take a ride to the precinct, and then sign himself out of jail or wait out the night to see a judge. He didn't need to fight.
 
Good.
 
You can go dig up the coroners report if you want that notes he had a crushed trachea. The problem with the word crushed is explained by officer Dominic Izzo in a video he did about the choke hold that I also linked: Think of the word 'crush' in the form of a soda can. Crushed can mean dented, and crushed can also mean completely destroyed. Therefore the words 'crushed trachea' is why people leap to conclusions that the choke hold was the cause for his death. It wasn't. The cause of death would be listed as asphyxiation if it was, not a myocardial infarction (heart attack) that he had in the back of the ambulance far after he was handcuffed, still complaining. He maintained an airway all the way to his death.
 
I'm not wasting my time anymore, since it's obvious I'm not going to convince you of anything. The facts are on my side because the video tells you everything you need to know about the altercation, which is the debate topic, provided you know anything about the human anatomy and police work. I explained the physiology of the two kinds of choke holds to you, I've explained what medical conditions Garner had, and I've explained to you the key events of the arrest and why it went down the way it did. I can't assist you any further with understanding those things unless you'd like to take a college level anatomy course, practice martial arts for a year or two and successfully go through a 10 week police academy course. I don't have time to teach you all of those things. You can go off on a tangent about what kind of a person he was, or how some cops in America have become corrupt or how white or rich people get treated better all you want. You're just wasting everyone's time since none of that actually has anything to do with the take down of Eric Garner in the video.

It wasn't illegal. There is no statute in New York law that explicitly forbids what was done. Department policy is another story.
 
The police and Garner debate the arrest for minutes prior to physical contact, and it was explained the man who bought off of him walked away. Garner just denied it. This kind of comment from you is what has me convinced you either didn't watch the video, or you're only looking at what you want to see. I'm leaning towards the latter, now.
 
Google is your friend, as they say. I'm not turning in a term paper to someone. I don't need to give you a works cited list. This stuff is very easy to find.

Jay-walking is barely even a crime, so is speeding, so is theft of penny candy, so is dodging child support, so it software piracy. Where do we draw the line? Don't feed me that bullsh*t. That's the mentality of someone who commits crimes of opportunity, weighing the risk/reward scale to be in their favor even if they get caught. The fact that you sympathize with and condone criminal activity compromises your judgement of this scenario. He was informed what his crime was and he was being taken into custody. That's not a new concept for somebody who's been arrested 30 times, it's not a misunderstanding, it's a refusal to go to jail.
 
You're first problem is insinuating that it's not only a few bad apples for the same reason that I suggest that it is. The difference is I've met and know a lot of police officers, sheriffs deputies, state troopers and even U.S. Marshalls and a D.E.A. agents from multiple states. I've seen them do their job, I've been with them when they do their job, I've even been stopped on the side of the road by a few of them. Most of them are stand up people. I've only had one unjustified negative experience with a police officer. The second problem is that you're for some reason mixing up my disgust with people being too collective when discussing bad police work with me trying to close of a conversation about it. If I was trying to close off any kind of conversation or debate with you about the police, I would have stopped replying long ago.

 
It's not character assassination. I'm not demonizing, I'm just reporting. The records show he was not a law abiding citizen. That's a fact, not an opinion. I'm showing you that there's a pattern to his behavior. Several of his past charges are selling un-taxed items on the street corner. Guess what the police stopped him for that day? You need to read.

 
I have the right to judge Garner's behavior because I'm a fellow citizen. I thought it didn't matter if I'm black or not, right? You're bringing up race victimization again despite the fact that you're insisting that you aren't. What the police did wasn't irresponsible, because they have a duty to take a criminal into custody. I already discussed with you that they can't simply walk away when faced with the issue of physical force being necessary to facilitate an arrest. You can walk away from a fight at a bar with another guy, but you can't abandon your duties as a police officer.

 
I discussed all of those things with you already. You're forcing this conversation to go around in circles. There's no proof of any harassment, profiling or trumped up chargers. You're simply speculating to give Garner a way out of this. And you're asking if I watched the video? After I explained all of the physical techniques used and the events leading up to the arrest itself? Did I watch the video? Gee, where have I heard that line before? Garner did give up immediately, just as the choke hold was released immediately, which is why the whole choke hold business is a non-issue other than looking like something violent for the cameras and an opportunity for people who dislike the police to brow beat or otherwise convince neutral parties to sympathize with the person being arrested in cases like these.
 
The coroner ruled that the death was a homicide as a result of the police officers actions because without the altercation that day, his heart attack may not have been triggered. But due to the fact that it was brought on by physical exertion, that means he could have had it running away from a rabid dog, or breaking up another fight, or having his next meal. That's all speculation. The fact that he had heart disease, asthma and was morbidly obese is not speculation. It's fact. If you're not here to be educated by me then you're essentially not here to listen to me which makes this entire thread a colossal waste of time. Having access to the same information only helps if you bother to make an attempt to read it and understand it.

 
You keep bringing this conversation away from Garner and trying to put focus on people of another social status and economic class. You want childish? Not staying on topic and not arguing the points is childish. It's a cop-out to complain that there are bigger and similar crimes being committed elsewhere. If you still wish to complain about Wall Street, I'll reiterate: it's not a high property or physical crime area, and street cops don't get to enforce banking and stock trading regulations. As I mentioned earlier, this conversation is going around in circles, veering off course at some point during each of your replies until I force you to get back to Garner. At least I can close out my reply to you with him being the focal point. There are reasons behind the laws to enforce sales tax on items in the state of New York. If you'd like to know them in depth, you can read some speeches Rudy Giuliani gave. The problem with cracking down on low crime in this instance is that it got elevated to a point of high crime unnecessarily. Instead of taking a trip to county, bonding or signing himself out of jail or waiting overnight to dispute the charge in court; he escalated the interaction with police to the point where it got violent. Garner made the decision he wasn't going to jail.

And don't try and feed me op-ed bullshit on Garner telling me he was a great guy just because his neighbors and family say so. You know who else was supposed to be a great person according to family and friends? Any number of murderers or other criminals who have to stand trial in this country every day. Take Philip Chism as an example. He was a great kid who enjoyed playing sports, was enthusiastic in class and lived in a loving family with a father who served in the military. Besides being all of those things, you know what else he was? He was a murderer and somebody who raped the corpse of a 24 year old teacher he killed with a box cutter, before dumping the body in a waste bin with a tree branch shoved up her vagina. Nearly every case where the family or friends of the accused are asked to comment on them, they generally say the same thing: "My baby was a great person, he'd never do anything to harm anybody, I didn't see this coming."

Nobody saw Garner's decision to fight coming other than the cops who were called for backup. They were ready as they could be for a fight against a fat guy determined not to go to jail. Garner was not ready for a fight with anyone, taking into consideration his state of health. The person responsible for the decision to fight that day was Garner, the person responsible for getting taken down the way he did was Garner and the person who worked himself into physical distress despite having a bunch of pre-existing medical conditions was Garner.

You're already ignoring everything I just said. Arrests by physical force don't just fall out of the sky, Riley. If you're going to play the "he didn't do anything" game, then this conversation isn't going to go anywhere.
 
It's not irrelevant. The whole point was that it was not a secure choke, meaning that neither his airway nor his blood supply to the brain were compromised. The choke is a faux concern for people who don't know any better.
 
Then he probably shouldn't physically resist having handcuffs put on him. Resisting arrest is cause for doing what the police officer has to do to place someone in custody. What kind of an example would you set as a police officer?

"Put your hands behind your back, you're under arrest."
"No."
"Oh, shucks. Alright then, I'll be leaving now."

Get real, Riley. That's not the world we live in.
 
Your mindset is no different than Garner's or any other YouTube troll. The problem with you and most other people who like to be a keyboard linebacker about this incident is that you refuse to take the blinders off and look at it from a perspective other than the suspects. He's losing the fight, so surely he must be the underdog and deserve all of the sympathy. I'll repeat what I said earlier; arrests with physical force don't fall out of the sky on random people. You're in no position to say he was harassed since you weren't there. You can only make assumptions.
 
A death at the hands of another person is by definition a homicide. But the physical exertion Garner used that day triggered a heart condition and possibly his asthma. The police didn't give him those medical conditions. One he was born with, the other he obtained by living an unhealthy life style. The medical fact is that a fit person most likely would have been fine during such a scuffle. He died doing something he shouldn't have been doing knowing what poor health he had.
 
Obeying the law has nothing to do with class. It's your responsibility as a citizen of the United States to obey the law of the land. If you don't like it, leave the country or be prepared to deal with the consequences. If you wan't to paint me as a person with no sympathy for a dead person to make your argument look better, you go right ahead. It still won't validate your argument. A death of nearly any kind is regrettable, but this was not a senseless death. It was a death of cause and effect.
 
Yes, yes I would. Looks like you're actually playing the race card, not the fat card. You're insinuating I'd give more of a sh*t if Garner was white. I wouldn't. Stupidity transcends skin colors.
 
Police don't get the chance to patrol the hallways of office buildings in down town New York. If you want to pass the buck and say we need change in Wall Street; I agree. The challenge I present to you is to go do something about it. How many times have you e-mailed your senator about it? How many petitions have you signed? Did you attend any of the occupy protests? Did you vote Democrat in the last two elections? All you're doing is sidestepping the issue. Police don't get to monitor businesses. We have agencies that do that, and they do a very poor job. The only way to change that is to be active in politics that go beyond casual YouTube browsing. If you want change that badly, I suggest you stop debating this topic and go do something.
 
I see your point, but your point is wrong. Your argument boils down to "He was picked on because he's black, the police are a bunch of thugs, we're all going to live in a police state like Nazi Germany soon, thanks Obama". It's the same sh*t I see on my Facebook feed every week that makes me question why I was friends with any of these people back when I was in high school. Basic sociology involves impartial thought and multiple viewpoints. That's multiculturalism. You're viewing it through the minority victim's point of view only. That's called monoculturalism.

"What was his crime?" If I didn't know any better, I'd say you've never actually read anything about this case or watched the entire video, because a lot of the questions you pose or the assumptions you're making would be answered and validated/invalidated respectively if you did. Nobody here is saying the police can do no wrong and that there aren't bad guys on the force interspersed throughout the country. The problem is that people such as yourself are somehow able to get away with grouping all officers together as "the police" in such a way that when one man violates his oath or the law; all of them do it. That's a huge problem in this country and it's one that's increasingly putting the police and this countries citizens at odds. People who firmly believe that the police as a collective term are bad are either close minded nitwits who don't have a real grip on the world or people who've had a bad experience with the police themselves and want to pass blame onto the cops instead of themselves. I think first I'm going to have to clarify what is and isn't "okay" with you when we're talking about the Eric Garner take down, which might be difficult, since you seem to think that the police had no reason to contact him at all in the first place. If we are to break down this event's history in chronological order by reading the background story of both Eric Garner and this particular interaction with the police, we can start with the fact that Eric was a career criminal. He had been arrested 30 times from charges ranging from reselling items without tax (which is a crime in New York City whether you like it or not) all the way to, assault, resisting arrest and grand larceny. At the time of his last interaction with police, he was out on bail for possession of marijuana, selling un-taxed cigarettes (seems to be a pattern here), driving without a license and providing a false name to police. So lets start off with that. Eric was not a good guy, and this wasn't exactly his first rodeo. Fast forwarding to the interaction with police that led to his death, he was accused of once again selling un-taxed items to people on the street, which a plain clothed officer caught him doing. When a police officer approaches you, announces himself as one and states his intent to place you under arrest; that should be 'all she wrote'. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: You are not going to fight your court case out on the street. Arguing and resisting arrest is only going to pile on more charges. The smart thing to do would be to go along with the program, bail out, and sue the police later if they wrongfully arrested you. Judging by the pattern of Garner's criminal career, chances are that the accusations of the plain clothed officer were not unfounded. The officer did inform Eric what he was going to be placed under arrest for, but Eric simply protested by giving the typical "I didn't do nuthin', ya'll harrassin' me" line. After Eric continued to refuse to put his hands behind his back and submit to arrest, it became clear to the plain clothed officer that he's not going to be able to win a fight against somebody that much bigger than him. At that point, backup officers finally arrived on scene, at which time a forceful arrest had to be made. Eric had stated his intent to resist leading up to the attempt at a blood choke takedown that was caught on film, and indeed he did resist as the video shows. As was discussed days ago, a blood choke would be the perfect takedown in an ideal world where it's perfectly executed and the suspect doesn't expect it, because it eliminates physical resistance in a matter of seconds without having to beat somebody into submission or pierce their skin with a bullet or taser probes. Unfortunately; this not being an ideal world we live in, the chokehold was not secure and instead the takedown did not go smoothly due to Eric's size and determination to resist arrest no matter what. Despite this, the overwhelming presence of backup officers were able to get his hands behind his back, the chokehold was released after a total of about 5 seconds, and the scuffle was over. Eric was placed on his side in the recovery position after the officers handcuffed him. At this point he was still breathing and complaining as more units and EMS were called to the scene.

What I described above covers who, what, when where, why and how. I can articulate all of those things because I watched the video, and I read about Eric and the street cops who approached him. Most people who comment on this topic have not done most or sometimes even any of those things, and I have a suspicion you're among them. Despite that, you can now consider yourself educated as to why Eric did what he did and why the police did what they did. These scenarios of resisting arrest occur every day all across America, but this happened to be a situation where the guy resisting arrest had heart disease, asthma and was morbidly obese. He knew all of those things prior to resisting arrest, and the police did not. That being said, even if the police knew his medical history; it would be debatable as to whether an arrest using a taser would have been any better. Studies have shown that there is no direct link between electric shocks from a taser and heart attacks, but it is inconclusive as to whether it can irritate pre-existing heart conditions or anatomical oddities at birth that compromise the functionality of the heart. Among ignoring the evidence, my chief problem with you in this thread is that you're making excuses but you're not owning up to them. It's very obvious that you're trying to emphasize that the police were harassing him with no direct evidence of that, and that they picked on him because he wasn't wearing a suit like the stereotypical whiter capitalists you seem to hate. Do you know why they don't pick on guys on Wall Street in suits? Because they don't sell un-taxed items outside of a convenience store on the street corner. You know why they aren't arrested or ticketing for jay walking? Because they have a Mercedes they climb into at the end of their work day. Inequality in today's society and the disappearing middle class is a problem in America, but its a problem for another thread. It has no place here other than to serve as a last resort talking point for you when the fact is that there is no legal or moral justification for resisting arrest, making what Eric did that day wrong. The same goes for your crackpot theory about this being a police state. If you want to experience what a real police state is like, get on a plane, take a flight over to South Korea, and then cross the border to the north. You'll be begging to go back to the supposed hell you live in here.