More Musings About Law Enforcement-Related Things

I have a gazillion more questions for the people I know in law enforcement. And of course I thought of all of them while in the shower. I do an amazing amount of thinking in the shower as it is wasted mental time as a function (who doesn't shower on auto-pilot? Do you really need to think about something that you do daily and the same way for the most part? Really now...) I need to write things down while in the shower as once out, I usually forget half of what I thought of whilst there!

So back to the actual topic... I need to put down a synopsis of the different topics relating to this post as we are shortly going out... I thought a lot about the gun toting thing - remember how one person told me he had to carry a gun everywhere as he is considered to always be on duty? [See posting Guns - Why Do We Have Them dated 20 January 2006] Well, he is out of the country now... so what does that mean? And the Constitutional right to bear arms. And the criminals in the US having that right (not really, but they seem to have no issues getting them) and the criminals elsewhere and the strange code of conduct amongst the normal criminal... and also terrorists - no code of conduct whatsoever... and some other things that will undoubtedly come up during the course of this musing...

OK, I will return to this later.

I'm back. OK, first topic... if you are a policeman (police person? Is that the PC term?) do you have to take your gun all over the world as you are on duty 24/7? Or is this just within the 48 contiguous states, the other two states that are not contiguous and any satellite nations such as Puerto Rico? Do you have to regard the laws of others countries such as Canada, where they are most unforgiving of any of their regular citizenry carrying weapons, let alone visitors to their northern climes? Or can you show up with your badge and gun-carrying card and say, "I'm sorry about this but I'm a cop everywhere I go. Too bad about your laws..."

This particular person is in a third world country on boat. Does this make one exempt? Or is it an issue in a country that very likely uses its militia as its police force as well?

I just don't know.

What else? Oh, yes. The Constitutional right to bear arms. Let me see. A little research is in order here. Hold on... I found this:

Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Goodness, is that it? Can't be... I guess it is - but I had thought that there was a little more to it than that. Well. What a vague and insufficient description of what exactly that means. I had thought that really only the militia could bear and keep arms but apparently any idiot can. That is egregious. It's just wrong. People are not really trustworthy enough as a whole to allow them to run around with any kind of dangerous weapon. The police are one thing but Joe Citizen who gets one and isn't trained to use it or is looking to lead a life of crime certainly should not be allowed to carry a gun!

I mostly like the United States and its Constitution and Bill of Rights but this is one of the things I disagree with wholeheartedly. Other countries have their issues with people carrying weaponry of this nature, but not on the scale that we have.

When I went to the British Isles and when my parents went to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, we were repeatedly warned to be cautious of pick pockets. That was really it. It came up often enough that I was quite careful with my pockets and anything I carried; my father was not so cautious and sure enough, someone stole his wallet. What part of "don't keep your wallet in your back pockets" don't you understand? At any rate, that was all that came up. Nothing about staying out of alleyways, nothing about muggers, nothing about this or that part of the city is really bad, like Alphabet City bad. Travelers come here and are likely to be unnerved by all the things that one must watch out for.

So in England, the police aren't typically armed with any kind of firearm. They are armed with something like a billy club but they can use it like a Ninja, practically. Our cops are trained to use a lot of things, but I don't know that they even carry close-range weapons like that. Tasers are better - not too deadly, unless you get someone with a pacemaker or some electrical issue with his or her heart. Guns are just bad. And the bullets are worse. You can get a Glock that fires a specific size bullet - but the options of bullets are unreal. Hollow-point bullets are meant to be lethal no matter what. Here:

"A hollow point bullet is a bullet that is designed to expand upon entering a target. The tip of the bullet has a pit, or hollowed out shape. When the bullet strikes a soft target the pressure created in the pit forces the lead around it to expand greatly into a mushroom-shape. This causes considerably more soft-tissue damage and energy transfer than if the nose had not been hollow. Most hollow points are partially "jacketed", that is, a portion of the lead bullet wrapped in a copper casing."

What about the more eggregious bullets? The possibly mythical "cop-killer" bullets and such like that? I disagree that these are myths - there are plenty of bullets capable of tearing through all different kinds of materials. Why not? As I understand it there bullets were developed by the armed forces for the armed forces and surprise - the public eventually was able to get its hand on this rather dangerous technology.

And then there are criminals and they have their own special weirdness. Most child molesters, for example, have a considerably reduced chance of surviving prison, if the other inmates catch wind of this. While serial killers do not operate under those more developed moral codes of what is acceptable and what isn't, almost all regular criminals consider it a huge crime to touch or hurt or abuse children.

Which brings us to terrorists, who have no moral code whatsoever, and instead focus all of their energy on the ideology that they or their group espouses. It is a frightening breed of people that become terrorists. For them there are no rules, no sacred cows, nothing but bringing their (often misguided) ideology to the light of day. Those are people that frighten me like no other. There is a piece of humanity missing from them.

Well. I believe I have mostly fulfilled my musings here... I have to ask the one person if he has ever been shot... [3/18/06 - he has. So have other friends of mine, and it is not nice. The wound (although long healed) is distinctive and quite ugly. Guns are ugly things and leave ugly reminders. Perhaps that is fitting...]