@Fred_Snerd my point being, don't blame Grossman.

Since the crime rate has fallen for the last forty years now!!

Using a so called combat veteran to train police to kill if they feel uneasy to shoot first and ask questions later is not a policeman right to defend for no obvious reason out side of personal survival!!!

Personal survival has been used to defend police who kill and murder for personal safety reasons that you or I it would not be a survival issue in over 85% of these shoot and kill situation!,,

When you train police to kill instead of reason, then this is war against the population they the police are sword to protect!!!

Only an insane mentally deranged individual would train police to shoot to kill instead of doing actual police work not all out combat against the public at large!!!

We do not live In “A Free Fire Zone” which this deranged combat trained killer is teaching public servants to do!!!

This country is not a combat or war zone!!!

@of-the-mountain "This country is not a combat or war zone!!!" You could have fooled me. I understand your point. My point is that Grossman is just a combat trainer and it's the people who employ him to teach these tactics or the circumstances which make it necessary which are the real problem

What a load of crap. Teaching policemen to go out and kill people is wrong. The idea that things have gotten so bad that it is necessary is a self serving assumption not demonstrated in the least. And the fact that they tend to use these "techniques" on some racial demographics more than others demonstrates that there is ill intent at least in some of those who are taking this training.

Something tells me that if 1 in every 100 white men were being killed by the police and there was video of them shooting unarmed white men, women and children, you'd have a different POV.

@redbai something tells me that you have no idea what my point of view would be in any given situation. Keep your arguments about the circumstances. I agree that teaching police to kill people is wrong. You obviously have not read all of my posts.

Soldiers are trained to recognize threats and distinguish between the combatant and the noncombatant. We have laws and conventions that restrain conduct in war. Good soldiers do not behave like Lt. Calley at My Lai.

But the police are not dealing with foreign combatants. They have an even higher standard, as they are interacting with their own citizens and neighbors. The rules of engagement are, or should be, much more stringent than soldiers in a war zone. Cops who draw their weapons or raise their batons on the unarmed are violating even a soldier's code. They are cowards who have discarded honorable action in favor of a darker, more sinister ethos. In some respects, law enforcment seems to have devolved into a previous, more violent time, where it was 'safer' to 'shoot first, and ask questions later.' This must end!

@p-nullifidian Agreed. Without reservation.

@Cyklone Really? So if 1 in every 100 white man was being killed by the police you'd feel about them the same way you do now? Apparently you cannot articulate what's in your "other posts" that put your claims in a perspective that isn't justifying this man's training to kill on reflex, American citizens.

@redbai My point is, that if I employ a man to train me on how to use a pistol and then I take that pistol and use it to shoot someone, who is at fault? If a police department employs a trainer to teach them to shoot straight and they shoot someone, who is at fault? If they employ a soldier to train them on how to kill, and they kill someone, who is at fault? I think that if you purchase a skill, then the way you use that skill is your responsibility, not that of the person from whom you purchased the skill. Where and why do you disagree?

@Cyklone Personally aggressive? I question your comment that if 1 in every 100 white men were being shot, whether or not you would change your attitude about police brutality (you know THE SUBJECT) and then because your answer apparently cannot be articulated, you pretend that it's MY fault you have to leave? Spare me. Leave if you want, but don't pretend it's because I did something to hurt your feelings while you're trying to explain why a man who trains cops how to kill without remorse is necessary training for police and he's not responsible for it. You can either explain it or you can't, either way it has nothing to do with me.

Also, I couldn't care less if it bothers your "personal space". You rationalizing training that gets black men, women and children killed is about more than just your personal space. If you can't defend it, do what usually happens at this point in America. Pretend the problem is who or how the message is presented so you can ignore the damage being done at large for personal reasons. It doesn't affect your life except as an academic exercise anyway.

Not everyone has that privilege.

@Cyklone I think that depends on the purpose of the training. Training you personally to protect yourself is not the same as training police forces to protect a community. The comparison is incredibly flawed IMO.

Also, if the training consists of the trainer telling the student not to worry about the repercussions of their actions (as this trainer does in the video), just shoot and deal with the consequences later, I think that that kind of training for a police force is dangerous, stupid, facilitates the ability of LEOs to abuse their power and will obviously lead to needless death as it is doing now.

@redbai sorry, I was re-editing when you replied. Maybe you can address the core issue of the police deciding they wanted this skill, or of your government selling them surplus combat weapons. I get why you're angry, I just think you're angry at the wrong person.

@redbai I agree, they should not be purchasing this type of training for the police force. A report in Aussie on terrorist response recommended that the army should be used in these responses rather than police for just these reasons. The police are trained to protect life, or should be, the army are trained to kill.

@Cyklone "Maybe you can address the core issue of the police deciding they wanted this skill"

Corruption, greed, graft and a love of guns and firepower among the ranks. They need to be able to overpower everywhere they go because, in reality, they have not earned the respect they demand.

@TheMiddleWay That's an interesting perspective. To me it means that they shouldn't have weapons that enable them to kill people on reflex instead of considering the ramifications of their actions. But then maybe I'm more concerned with them finding me a threat and just shooting than you are.

@TheMiddleWay And we have seen how the "professional" response has been working (not). Basically, give a person (usually a man) a gun, give him some power and some legal protection and then wonder why there is so many cops that don't seem to think.

@TheMiddleWay That's a comment that assumes ALL training is good. Unless you can explain why them being ready to kill on reflex is a positive thing, the comment is ridiculous. Here's a clue, maybe they shouldn't be able to kill anyone and then no one would be afraid of them killing? The idea that you are just as concerned about them killing you as I am about them killing me is belied by the fact that my fear doesn't want them to have the ability at all and you see some rational reason for it.

@TheMiddleWay The only reason they have the power to kill is because people see it as a "reasonable" part of their training without it being demonstrated in the least. Kind of like believing in a god. It's a reality that can be changed very easily if people were to fight against it instead of accepting it as a necessary evil.

@TheMiddleWay What a bullshit answer. If it's so difficult for someone to analyze and determine a threat, then why should someone be able to determine whether someone lives or dies based on that? That's got to be some of the most ridiculously dangerous logic I've ever heard. We can't tell if it's a threat, so assume it's a threat, shot to kill it and hope you're right. No wonder police get away with murder.

Now I understand why some white women call the police on black people for doing totally normal things. It "could" be a threat so get the police involved in case someone needs to be shot. I'm having a hard time seeing this anything except a pathetic fear and the need to have people die because you might be scared.

@redbai No 'normal' person should be less concerned about shoot first and ask question later. We should not have to feel our system has become militarized because cops don;t seem to care about human life other than their own. More and more it seem the only difference between a mass shooter and a cop is one is licensed and the other not.

@TheMiddleWay I did not mean or say less training but the training needs to be a lot more inclusive on analysis and less on simple reaction.

@TheMiddleWay I think that what you're doing is creating no win scenarios in an effort to get me to put an answer out that is in contradiction with what I've already said. I find it amazing that you appear to always have a gun handy to solve your problems. Says something really sad that the only options you appear to have is kill or submit.

@JackPedigo "No 'normal' person should be less concerned about shoot first and ask question later."

Who gets to decide who's normal?

@TheMiddleWay Yeah, let's pretend that I was talking about real life instead of your examples. That way you get to pretend I'm making a ridiculous claim about you and being unreasonable. However, in context of the comment of which I was responding, a response with a gun was the only solution you presented.

@redbai Good question and it seems that is a moving target these days. Too me it's someone with a sense of empathy, decency, honesty and a willingness to practice true critical thinking..

@TheMiddleWay Having trouble? Pointing out the disingenuous nature of your questions is not having trouble.

In REALITY, I had my daughter take self defense classes so that she could take care of herself. So when the mugger attempted to assault her in the park when she was 15, she was able to beat his ass and force him to run away and came home and told her mother and I about it. We were both proud that she was able to defend herself and that we had the foresight to have her trained to do so. How do the police and your gun protect her if they or you are not there?

A guy running at me with a knife and I have a gun? I would hope that I'm responsible enough to be trained with it and shoot some warning shots before deciding to WOUND him. But first, I'd simply dodge away from the knife. The idea that the first response should be to shoot and kill him is ridiculous and cowardly. You give no context as to why he's coming, I'm just supposed to decide whether or not he lives or dies. Maybe you could kill someone with such superficial context, but I couldn't and wouldn't. It sounds like the actions of a coward afraid to confront reality and one of those BS reasons cops make up after killing someone, then we see a video and there was no threat, they just shot a person dead.

@JackPedigo How do you find a person who has, even under stressful situations, "a sense of empathy, decency, honesty and a willingness to practice true critical thinking"? I have no problem with that standard if you can demonstrate that those people exist.

@redbai First not every one is stressed. Also, many have demonstrated their humanist abilities have excelled under times of stress. We are not all automatons who react the same under similar situations. Look at history and one would have no problem finding such people, MLK, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and on and on.

@TheMiddleWay Are you fucking serious?

Here's a clue. In the first scenario, nobody died so I have no idea how that makes your point. In the second, the cop could have simply gotten into his car, rolled up the window and waited. The idea that man had to be shot is BS. The man actually told people to call for the cops, he was not threatening anyone but the cop WHO COULD HAVE GOTTEN BACK IN HIS CAR!

Instead, the cop shows and points a gun at him, escalating the violence. At no point did he try and figure out what the hell was going on. We now have a dead man and absolutely no understanding of why except a cop, instead of just getting in his car and closing the windows, decided killing him was the only option.

IMO, that's disgusting and a manifestation of a policy of killing out of fear instead of doing anything to analyze the scenario and try and de-escalate. But apparently you don't think so. Being scared trumps everything, even people's lives.

@JackPedigo Then you're saying that cops aren't stressed when the shoot down unarmed people? It's certainly the BS they've been peddling as long as I've been alive, the "stress" of being a cop. Because that's the context, a person who is being a cop with the power to kill people.

MLK, Ghandi and both disagreed with the concept that someone should have the right to kill someone, so I am hard pressed to see how those characteristics make a good cop who will use those skills in deciding if they should kill someone. I'm pretty sure that the same can be said about Nelson Mandela and I'm pretty sure he was against the kind of policing being used here in America because he protested against the same kinds of tactics being used in South Africa.

@TheMiddleWay But this isn't a conversation about what is a "deciding factor" we're talking about training police to kill on reflex. Using that logic, the guy with the gun should have killed him for attempting to rape the woman, on reflex. He didn't so it actually has nothing to do with the subject.

Whether or not a 79 year old person needs a gun to protect themselves is also besides the point. We're talking about trained Law Enforcement Officers (LEO), not some random person on the street. You brought in irrelevant random scenarios using guns to kill as a solution. I tried to ignore it and you prodded me to respond. I respond and now we aren't even talking about police anymore, you're bringing 79 year old women. Is she a LEO?

How about going back to the actual subject and explaining why a LEO cannot be trained in that manner? They should at least be in the physical condition of a 15 year old girl.

@TheMiddleWay So he hadn't harmed anyone prior to the cop showing up, but now that the cop is there, he's going to start looking for people to stab. Your pathetic reasoning is nothing but fear. If the cop had gotten back in the car, why would the guy had gone somewhere else? But hey, if you can make up some violent alternate universe, I'll create out of thin air a non-violent one. Maybe if the cop had showed up and not immediately pulled a gun, ESCALATING THE VIOLENCE, he may have been able to talk the guy down.

We don't know because the man is dead. But, in your world, you reach for a reason to justify a dead body. In my world, even after seeing what happened, I wonder why he had to die given the OBVIOUS alternative to someone who bothered to even consider it.

@TheMiddleWay "You do realize that part of that training is the reflex to not kill?"

Did you watch the original video? The training referred to in the original video specifically explains to them that they should not be concerned about being sued if they kill someone. They should fire and then worry about it after the fact. Why, because they could die, so basically, give in to your fears.

And quite frankly I couldn't care less if they are trained to not kill. They are killing unarmed men, women and children regardless of that training, so who gives a fuck! I'm quite sure George Floyd's killers had that training. How much did that help him? That man stared in a camera taping him murdering someone without a bit of concern. And then the DA told the world that he didn't even know if they could prosecute them because he didn't know if there was even a crime committed. So not only didn't the training do a damn thing, going against that "do not kill" training doesn't matter because the DA's office will do whatever they can not to bother prosecuting the murder without video AND riots. After all, the killing was "within policy". Being accused of using a counterfeit 20 dollar bill got a man killed because that cop believed his "training" and position gave him immunity.

So they have a choice, use the training that doesn't immediately give you power over everyone in your immediate area or deal with them like human beings. To many innocent people die regardless of that pathetic training to give anyone the discretion to kill just because they're scared. If they're scared, then they should find a line of work where they don't have that kind of stress to deal with. Nobody should lose their life because some LEO has a bad day.

@TheMiddleWay Oh, so this is a "compare the apple with an orange and pretend that they're the same thing" argument. Sorry, not buying it. Doctors are not the police. Also, doctors go through YEARS of training before they get to make such decisions.

[policeofficer.education]

"According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, police training in various academies can range from four weeks to 6 months."

So a cop should be able to make the same life and death decisions that a doctor does after, at best, 6 months training and some as little a month. But a doctor has to go through college, medical school and an internship, usually lasting about 12 years to make life and death decisions. Which one would be better trained to make such decisions?

Your comparison is ridiculous.

@TheMiddleWay Doctors and cops are not the same so advice given to one is not automatically a good thing for the other. That logic is sophistry.

@redbai Everyone trying to interpret what others say only leads to more polarization. Don't we have enough already. I feel after going around with you and mr middleway frustration and hat all this has gotten us nowhere. I am done with all the finger pointing, accusations and suppositions!

@TheMiddleWay "It's that that advice is given in other fields and thus that advice is not egregious, nothing more."

Why does that make it not egregious? That claim makes the ridiculous assumption that the advice is benign in both scenarios. There is nothing to support that except your need to have an argument to support your claims. It doesn't do that. Police are not doctors and advice to a doctor is not even remotely related to advice to a police officer.

How is a doctor helping anything but their personal financial interests by not helping a patient because they might get sued? And if that's more important that people's lives then they shouldn't be a doctor. Just like if a cop needs to shoot and kill someone without bothering to find out any nuance that may save lives, they should find another profession too. Neither of them or their financial interests are more important than the lives that they ignore for their perspective of a "greater good".

I find it disgusting that a concern about being sued is more relevant than a person's life and that professionals are being "taught" that. Shows a lack of morals and character that is truly distasteful. But then we are in America with the POTUS is trying to get people back to work in a pandemic to "save the economy" and not giving a damn about how that could add 10s of thousands to the death toll, so I guess it's just a reflection of the disgusting morals of a nation where not all people are considered worth saving because some are scared.

@JackPedigo As I said before, we don't all have that privileged. Some of us have to deal with people rationalizing killing us.

@TheMiddleWay I note how you shortened the "advice" and took a small portion of it out of context. The "advice" is not "don't think about getting sued", the training is specifically, "shoot first and don't think about getting sued". So you're either being purposefully disingenuous or aren't bright enough to know how much of a difference the words you left out matter.

Giving a single person radiation to save their life (something that they would have to agree with in writing) is not remotely like killing a human being. NOT IN THE LEAST! The idea that making a decision about saving someones life WITH THEIR WRITTEN APPROVAL is the same as making a decision to take someone's life for an arbitrary assumption that it's saving a neighborhood is at best, disingenuous. The two are not relatable and you haven't demonstrated that they are.

The argument that killing one person is going to "save a neighborhood" is nothing but hyperbolic BS. So are you claiming that there are scenarios where if cops don't kill a person that person will go on a killing spree and kill everyone in an entire neighborhood? Do you have an article to give that BS credibility?

It's amazingly disgusting the lengths you're going through to justify killing people.

@TheMiddleWay "However cops and doctors aren't the same things, I think we would both agree to that, and hence the analogy I present has the danger of being taken too far as you have done."

Oh I see. Your analogy falls apart when taken past what you want it to. Demonstrating the incredible fallacy of using it. It doesn't work, as I've said from the beginning, and yet you keep trying to make it work even after admitting that it "has the danger of being taken too far". So it only works if a person ignores the illogical conclusions that can be made using the argument. That's sophistry.

Mass shootings are not prevented by cops being able to kill people as demonstrated by the articles you presented were despite being given this power, people were shot and killed. So that's just another ridiculous argument that doesn't hold up. If the mass shooting has already occurred, the "neighborhood" is not saved from anything.

@TheMiddleWay Yes, using analogies as arguments is fallacious, which is why I've been telling your your analogy is BS. But it's apparently all you have to justify allowing the killing of people at the discretion of questionable powers.

In the reality of mass shootings, collect weapons that facilitate them. There is no REASONABLE argument for anyone to own them except, again fear. The idea that instead of getting rid of the weapons that facilitate the mass shootings makes more sense that shooting another person, it more BS logic.

So it's possible to stop mass shootings without a gun. Imagine that. You don't actually have to kill someone, even in mass killings. That kind of makes a mockery of your whole argument. Apparently you don't need to kill people to stop them from killing others.

@TheMiddleWay So you can demonstrate that 87% mass shootings were stopped with people who had guns? The video doesn't say that, it doesn't mention anything about guns stopping mass shootings but makes the point that at least 1 in 10 were stopped without guns. That means it has a better record that with guns, unless you have something to back up that 87%. I'll wait for that evidence unless you just admit you pulled it out of your ass by subtracting the 13% from 100% and hoped I wouldn't notice that nothing supports that analysis.

Since the point was never whether or not you should act as if no one has guns or whether anyone ever asked you to engage someone with one, I'll note those as straw men ignore them. The point was your disgusting notion regarding the benefits of training police to kill on reflex, not what your imagination can conjure up to distract from the point because you can't justify it using the principles involved.

@TheMiddleWay So you did just pull it out of your ass. Thanks for the verification. Now where's the EVIDENCE?

@TheMiddleWay 13% is not less than one out of 10. I don't know what a "kung fu grip" is, but apparently you believe it's some kind of super power that is useless against a gun. Couldn't care less as it's your fantasy not mine.

Here's a short list that makes that 87% what you pulled out your ass.

[abcnews.go.com]

"Adam Lanza killed himself. So did Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech. And so did Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in Columbine. And Christopher Harper-Mercer in Roseburg. And Elliot Rodger in Isla Vista.

If you go down the list of mass shootings at U.S. schools, most of the killers turned the guns on themselves after killing classmates and teachers. Several others were killed by police, and a few were taken into custody alive.

But only two are now out of prison, one of whom was arrested with a gun after his release, while the other has since applied for a concealed carry permit."

All those mass shooters who were not killed because cops have guns, which actually cuts into the number you pulled out your ass. You want to try again?

"The only difference is that in training the police, I see the world as it is insofar as there are mass shootings, whereupon you see the world as you want it to be."

... and there's that condescending BS you usually try to toss in because your arguments don't work.

@Jetty A good point, the British police are far from perfect as far as institutional racialism is concerned but you are more likely to be killed by lightening than a policeman, I'm happy to say!