To Arm or to Disarm.

[MightyMouse 12]

You're still busy 'twisting' ... Every post I have made in this thread is about dealing with NON "innocence"...

 

 

You are completely mistaken. Every post you have made is dealing with innocence. Specifically, the additional innocent lives that are lost directly by an overabundance of guns in either the hands of good guys or bad guys.

 

Which is why your answer to each question is Yes!

[SIUYA 11]

Change gods if you need… that’s btwn you and god…

 

To Arm is additive … Psalm 23:4, etc. PLUS+ matching lethality PLUS individual responsibility…

 

to Disarm is ‘subtractive’ … Psalm 23:4 minus- …. minus- … minus-

 

Zdo dont take this the wrong way.....

I looked this up.....

Psalm 23:4 (King James Version)

Psalm 23:4

King James Version (KJV)

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

 

If thats the right one.....

A person could real that as you equating your guns as a god....? Is 'thou' God or guns....

 

Otherwise, what did you mean by this post?

(I dont think God and guns have anything to do with each other so i guess i am wondering why they get introduced......apart from the idea that a god given right exists (or a natural sense of justice and fairness exists) to defend yourself --- in that every human being should be able to do this....regardless of god/type of god/ or no god) (History usually had kings etc; being given dividne rights so that others - their servants and subjects - had no rights)

 

just wondering....and not to get too side tracked.

thanks.

Edited February 28, 2013 by SIUYA

[SunTrader 10]

Newtown Dad's Tearful Senate Plea for Assault Weapons Ban - ABC News

 

"Jesse was the love of my life," said Neil Heslin, sobbing as he described his 6-year-old son before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "He was the only family I had left. It's hard for me to be here today to talk about my deceased son. I have to. I'm his voice."

 

Everybody now, more more guns is what we need.

 

Shoulder fired rockets too.

[zdo 20]

Shoulder fired rockets are now legacy weapons. It's drones and robots now ...

 

... more more guns is what we need...

 

less less guns is an allopathic solution... I believe allopathy is in the process of running its course

 

re "tearful plea" trot out

In an open letter to Obama in response to the latter’s exploitation of Newtown to advance an attack on our right to bear arms, Columbine survivor Evan Todd asks a very good question: “Whose side are you on?”

 

 

Mr. President,

 

As a student who was shot and wounded during the Columbine massacre, I have a few thoughts on the current gun debate. In regards to your gun control initiatives:

 

Universal Background Checks

First, a universal background check will have many devastating effects. It will arguably have the opposite impact of what you propose. If adopted, criminals will know that they can not pass a background check legally, so they will resort to other avenues. With the conditions being set by this initiative, it will create a large black market for weapons and will support more criminal activity and funnel additional money into the hands of thugs, criminals, and people who will do harm to American citizens.

 

Second, universal background checks will create a huge bureaucracy that will cost an enormous amount of tax payers dollars and will straddle us with more debt. We cannot afford it now, let alone create another function of government that will have a huge monthly bill attached to it.

 

Third, is a universal background check system possible without universal gun registration? If so, please define it for us. Universal registration can easily be used for universal confiscation. I am not at all implying that you, sir, would try such a measure, but we do need to think about our actions through the lens of time.

 

It is not impossible to think that a tyrant, to the likes of Mao, Castro, Che, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and others, could possibly rise to power in America. It could be five, ten, twenty, or one hundred years from now — but future generations have the natural right to protect themselves from tyrannical government just as much as we currently do. It is safe to assume that this liberty that our forefathers secured has been a thorn in the side of would-be tyrants ever since the Second Amendment was adopted.

 

Ban on Military-Style Assault Weapons

The evidence is very clear pertaining to the inadequacies of the assault weapons ban. It had little to no effect when it was in place from 1994 until 2004. It was during this time that I personally witnessed two fellow students murder twelve of my classmates and one teacher. The assault weapons ban did not deter these two murderers, nor did the other thirty-something laws that they broke.

 

Gun ownership is at an all time high. And although tragedies like Columbine and Newtown are exploited by ideologues and special-interest lobbying groups, crime is at an all time low. The people have spoken. Gun store shelves have been emptied. Gun shows are breaking attendance records. Gun manufacturers are sold out and back ordered. Shortages on ammo and firearms are countrywide. The American people have spoken and are telling you that our Second Amendment shall not be infringed.

 

10-Round Limit for Magazines

Virginia Tech was the site of the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. Seung-Hui Cho used two of the smallest caliber hand guns manufactured and a handful of ten round magazines. There are no substantial facts that prove that limited magazines would make any difference at all.

 

Second, this is just another law that endangers law-abiding citizens. I’ve heard you ask, “why does someone need 30 bullets to kill a deer?”

Let me ask you this: Why would you prefer criminals to have the ability to out-gun law-abiding citizens? Under this policy, criminals will still have their 30-round magazines, but the average American will not. Whose side are you on?

 

Lastly, when did they government get into the business of regulating “needs?” This is yet another example of government overreaching and straying from its intended purpose.

 

Selling to Criminals

Mr. President, these are your words: “And finally, Congress needs to help, rather than hinder, law enforcement as it does its job. We should get tougher on people who buy guns with the express purpose of turning around and selling them to criminals. And we should severely punish anybody who helps them do this.”

Why don’t we start with Eric Holder and thoroughly investigate the Fast and Furious program?

 

Furthermore, the vast majority of these mass murderers bought their weapons legally and jumped through all the hoops — because they were determined to murder. Adding more hoops and red tape will not stop these types of people. It doesn’t now — so what makes you think it will in the future? Criminals who cannot buy guns legally just resort to the black market.

Criminals and murderers will always find a way.

 

Critical Examination

Mr. President, in theory, your initiatives and proposals sound warm and fuzzy — but in reality they are far from what we need. Your initiatives seem to punish law-abiding American citizens and enable the murderers, thugs, and other lowlifes who wish to do harm to others.

 

Let me be clear: These ideas are the worst possible initiatives if you seriously care about saving lives and also upholding your oath of office. There is no dictate, law, or regulation that will stop bad things from happening — and you know that. Yet you continue to push the rhetoric. Why?

 

You said, “If we can save just one person it is worth it.” Well here are a few ideas that will save more that one individual:

First, forget all of your current initiatives and 23 purposed executive orders. They will do nothing more than impede law-abiding citizens and breach the intent of the Constitution. Each initiative steals freedom, grants more power to an already-overreaching government, and empowers and enables criminals to run amok.

Second, press Congress to repeal the “Gun Free Zone Act.” Don’t allow America’s teachers and students to be endangered one-day more. These parents and teachers have the natural right to defend themselves and not be looked at as criminals. There is no reason teachers must disarm themselves to perform their jobs. There is also no reason a parent or volunteer should be disarmed when they cross the school line.

 

This is your chance to correct history and restore liberty. This simple act of restoring freedom will deter would-be murderers and for those who try, they will be met with resistance.

 

Mr. President, do the right thing, restore freedom, and save lives. Show the American people that you stand with them and not with thugs and criminals.

 

Respectfully,

Severely Concerned Citizen,

 

Evan M. Todd

[zdo 20]

…

Psalms 23:4…

 

Otherwise, what did you mean by this post?

 

just wondering....and not to get too side tracked.

thanks.

 

SIUYA,

 

It’s not side tracking at all. If you check back through MM's posts you will find a lot of references to him and his family being sufficiently "protected" without the risk of guns. Some of them allude to protection via 'god'. “My family is protected when I am there or not” is just the latest example.

That verse states an equivalent sentiment. My use of the verse was respecting and honoring all our faith in protection... protection that I pray 'god' does extend to his family… to all our families.

 

I was also saying that in "addition" to that sentiment, these 'suddenly' events also require personal responsibility which includes matching firepower +training+ preparation… all these are acts of love. In earlier times, application of all them was painfully obvious… now the forces of modern urbanization, etc. have obfuscated and clouded all of them… people walking right on by stabbing victims on the street without even calling 911, etc.

 

Through a series of posts, MM, representing the To Disarms, represented to just be relying on the first act of love ---minus obtaining matching firepower minus training and preparation. (I’ll add another + to the ‘equation’ now…) + in many cases to Disarms carry a delusional ‘hope’ they will be able to ‘reason’ with criminal insanity.

 

Get it yet?

 

At one time that particular verse had sort of passed outside the exclusive auspices of bible thumping christians into ‘general’ collective knowledge. Looks like that time has passed now …information explosion… internet…yada yada… it was probably supplanted by a collective fascination with Kim Kard.’s big fat ass…or "I'll be back"…

 

It was also interesting how the use of a verse from the bible triggered a small, strange round of “God and guns”, etc. stereotyping. SunTwist associated that reference to pro-lifers and pro death penalty positions … stereotyping often says more about the 'typer' than it does the 'typee'…

Seeing how far off wrong some of the projections have been on me in this thread is, if nothing else, teaching me that my ‘stereotyping’ thoughts also probably have low accuracy and should be dropped …

 

fwiw, I’m pro death. I think both the mother and the father should have the authority to abort a child up until it is 25 years old. … However, I do have some issues with being forced to pay … a ‘clinic’ to kill some one else’s child …

 

and re the death penalty – I’m strictly, old school sharia law and nothing else baby. Well maybe throw in a bit of Japanee and routinely offer the convicted one the opportunity to execute himself with a curved blade…

Seriously now - in only very rare cases could I see myself voting as a jurist to execute… current structures are just too kind to over or under or mis use of the death penalty process. At the same time, I do understand why societies, especially smaller ones, retain the death penalty option… (oh sht, more fkn ‘cabin theory’ :rofl: )

 

…some rather confusing, unresolved paradoxes arising from our ‘modern’ pushes to kill the ‘relatively innocent’ … and save the ‘relatively guilty’…

 

...SIUYA, I can’t remember the particulars but one of your other posts from some time back calls for a reply. Been busy...Will see if I can dig it up…

 

zdo

[SunTrader 10]

 

re "tearful plea" trot out

 

Nice, put quotes and trot out around a father expressing his thoughts on losing his only child.

 

May we never have to experience something like he has and will the rest of his life.

 

As far as the Columbine survivor it takes all kinds.

[zdo 20]

I do believe I would use a gun. I am not too sure that many people would answer no to your question. Especially on a website.

...

 

 

MightyMouse,

Thanks for answering the question - but sincerely I'm really only concerned with how we each answer such questions internally and privately

 

... Are you properly trained to use a gun in the circumstances you describe?

Yes I am. We had/have some kidnapping risks. My kids are trained too – daughters even more than sons. In certain developmental periods, the boys independently initiated/sneaked preparation more than the girls did… etc so the girls got more formal training. They are all grown now. None of them are gun nutz. One daughter has a conceal carry permit. The other one chooses not to carry

 

...If the assailant is holding a knife or piece of cut glass to your child's throat and demands that you drop the gun, do you shoot or drop it?

 

It is impossible to really answer such questions beforehand- in a ‘policy’ type of way or in any other way. They can only be ‘answered’ in the moment.

I hope I have not led anyone to think ‘shootin’, period, is the thing to do. In each moment of each ‘suddenly’ life threatening situation is an ‘opportunity’ for correct action. Some ‘opportunities’ involve attacking. Some ‘opportunities’ involve flight. Some involve embracing. Some even involve apathetic relinguishing…

… and anything we could say about what would unintentionally increase or reduce the risks to any or all the ‘innocents’ present in an unfolding “suddenly” life threatening situation would be just talk.

So when you ask

“Should an innocent life be taken to spare many?” and “Should the lives of many innocent people be taken to spare a few?”

My answer to both is – it is “suddenly” situations specific. Such questions cannot possibly be answered beforehand… and any answers re ‘weapon statistics’ in reality say nothing to, for, or about distinct moment in such events…

 

It is possible to prepare, to some degree, for possible emergence of these situations. As I have repeatedly asserted throughout, To Arm is simply about accumulating more options in such situations. I choose to avail myself of more options if possible. In my own personal life, I’ve learned the hard way that I can better accept whatever results, mistakes, and consequences that transpire if I have done my best to put my options and preparations in order.

It saddens me to know you are not prepared to protect yourself and your family… and while I grudgingly respect that choice, I do not respect “infringement” on other people’s choices via laws and prohibitive taxes and regulations in the name of (what is a false, not even a truly ‘statistical’) security for the ‘innocents’…

 

One major feature of human vs human “suddenly” life threatening situations is that when they perceive indications of near parity in ‘firepower’ and power, perps ( except those who are deep into suicidal / ie with extremely low levels of self- regard ) are very likely to vacate their intended ‘forced violation’. They came looking for victims, not opponents. Leveraging this tendency does protect innocents (and others present who might be banking on karma via hoping for the presence of someone else with the capacity to defend them… etc.)

 

... and I sincerely hope none of us like the “way these feel, sound, or look”. None of these thankfully low frequency situations are pleasant at all.

 

zdo

[sdoma 10]

I think you are hard pressed to suggest that the UK has a gun homicide issue with tough gun laws. If you want to split hairs over numbers which might be a time period reporting issue, so be it. It is lower, it is lower, it is lower no matter which way you look at it.

 

The UK has a much lower overall murder rate than the US. It is, however, irrelevant to the gun debate. The US has always had a much higher murder rate than the UK, even going back to colonial times. Also, for a large stretch of that time, neither place had any gun control measures.

 

A more interesting exercise is to look at all types of murder in the UK in the years leading up to the passing of stringent gun control measures, and then at the years from then until now. Murders actually spiked after the implementation of the ban and remained elevated for a few years, and are now tracking about the same as before the ban. You can say whatever you want about Britain's gun control laws, but they don't appear to have helped curb what violence and murder Britain has.

 

Other countries also bear out a lack of connection between gun ownership rates, gun control laws, and murder rates. Countries like Russia, Honduras, and Jamaica have very strict gun laws and astronomical murder rates. China and Japan have similarly strict laws and low rates. Switzerland has very high rates of ownership due to compulsory military service and also has an extremely low crime rate. Study after study have simply failed to find a correlation between legal firearms ownership and murder.

[SIUYA 11]

My use of the verse was respecting and honoring all our faith in protection... protection that I pray 'god' does extend to his family… to all our families.

 

 

It was also interesting how the use of a verse from the bible triggered a small, strange round of “God and guns”, etc. stereotyping. SunTwist associated that reference to pro-lifers and pro death penalty positions … stereotyping often says more about the 'typer' than it does the 'typee'…

Seeing how far off wrong some of the projections have been on me in this thread is, if nothing else, teaching me that my ‘stereotyping’ thoughts also probably have low accuracy and should be dropped …

 

 

...SIUYA, I can’t remember the particulars but one of your other posts from some time back calls for a reply. Been busy...Will see if I can dig it up…

 

zdo

 

Thanks -

Unfortunately quoting the Bible, or just as importantly in some places, not quoting the Bible will always raise eyebrows.

There is certainly a lot of typing in anything, but hey we are tribal often we type ourselves into a particular group and go along with everything that group is meant to represent, even if we dont agree with it.....and thats probably worse that sitting outside the group and typing IMHO.

How often does a gun loving, NRA hating, radical liberal social, but economic conservative anarcocapitalist get to really speak out against the people who are supposed to represent him/her/it?

(not saying that is anyone and just to even it up.)

How often does a gun hating, SUV driving, deeply religious socially liberal, economic maxist, amoral Sharia law abiding person get to really speak out about the people who are supposed to represent them?

 

As for preparation - well its system and strategy specific I guess, and accepting the obvious trade offs, pitfalls, drawdowns and returns associated with that.

................

i did like the 'until they are 25 years old' bit.

 

As for asking a question that not answered - I ask plenty - dont worry too much if it was important i would likely repeat.

[Ingot54 13]

I have this thread on ignore now, and will keep it that way.

 

But I have come to believe that all this thread has done is show us a mirror, and

in there, we can see our fears.

 

Few of us have been able to recognise that a fear-response is NOT the solution.

 

Nor is passively lying down while "they" come for you - even if "they are NOT

"coming for you" ... the fear exists that "they" might!

 

There are solutions to these kinds of problems facing mankind - here in the USA ...

here in Australia ... here in the Middle East ... here in Mexico ... here in * (insert your plot of ground) ...

 

My wife dragged me to view this with her this afternoon ... on her desktop.

Of much I was already aware ... in fact most ... 98% perhaps.

 

But the best part was the HOPE it left me with, as a reward for watching it through

to the end.

 

It is no use being defensive - that only gives "them" more power. We must learn to

become proactive. And harmless in our proaction, so that we intelligently reduce

the threats that present themselves to us though the violence born of other people's

fears.

 

We can take action to neutralise the violence and grow a healthy, thriving planet -

something that we can be truly proud of. I intend to, and I will quietly encourage my

friends and workmates who are also filled with fears for their futures, to do the same.

 

Open up your heart, let your spirit respond, let out the potential within, and let the

oppression lift. Take hope and hold on to it.

 

[Look for the segment where two, murderous rival gangs made peace with each other]

 

Warning - not for everyone.

 

The Movie - An unconventional documentary that lifts the veil on what's REALLY going on in our world by following the money upstream -- uncovering the global consolidation of power in nearly every aspect of our lives. | Thrive

 

There is a trailer to watch first if you like ... or jump straight in to 2 hrs of a new

approach.

 

I think we have the answer now ... whether "To arm or to Disarm"

[sdoma 10]

Few of us have been able to recognise that a fear-response is NOT the solution.

 

Nor is passively lying down while "they" come for you - even if "they are NOT

"coming for you" ... the fear exists that "they" might!

 

Si vis pacem, para bellum. Translated: "If you seek peace, prepare for war."

 

This simply means that strength is the best (though not perfect) deterrent to violence. There are good people in this world, and there are evil people. There are also people whose actions are determined more by circumstance and benefit than their morality.

 

You can throw as much kumbaya at me as you want, but not 75 years ago, in the United States, a liberal socialist democrat (a saint of the Democrat party) jailed an entire ethnic group without due process of law, and in the process robbed them of all the earthly possessions they couldn't carry. I know you aren't American, but just look up the internment of ethnic Japanese American citizens. That was in modern times, brother, and it's one of many examples, most of which are much worse.

 

Oh, and those violent gangs who made a truce? That happens all the time in organized crime, because eventually they figure out that if they divide up the territories, everybody makes more money. Ask yourself, has that stopped them from terrorizing the innocent people that live in those neighborhoods? Has that stopped their violent recruitment efforts that can take otherwise decent kids and turn them criminal? If you had ever experienced a neighborhood in the grip of a gang, you would never use them as an example, EVER.

 

I applaud the fact that you're positive. I am a realist. There exists positive and negative in the world, and ignoring either end is a mistake.

[SunTrader 10]

Talking rather than fighting unfortunately will probably always be what follows rather than leads.

 

And humans are supposed to be a rational animal.

[zdo 20]

 

I think we have the answer now ... whether "To arm or to Disarm"

 

Anyone want to read some preemo prejudging ?? Well, here you go!

 

No, Ingot, ‘we’ don’t have the answer yet. Only you do. Since I don’t know if your pre-existing biases have dissolved or whether, from this new information, you’ve concluded we should remain Armed or we should now all unilaterally Disarm I will just venture one opinion…

 

Some rather ruthless, cunning, and very trained and experienced at ‘running’ the supply of ‘money’, owning governments and government employees, ‘managing’ (the stream of )perceptions and dominant concerns, exacerbating and capitalizing on crises, leveraging conflicts and divisions then selling arms, etc. and loaning money to both sides… etc etc

In my opinion, if you’re just now discovering that *, then Ingot, you’re really in no position to tell us what is NOT the ‘solution’ (or what is the ‘solution’ either) - no matter which ‘side’ your coming down on.

…if you think their ‘end’ will be peaceful , that we should all willing turn in all our arms to hasten their end, then you’ve become a tool of the tools who made the vid....Afterwards maybe… but now is no time to Disarm… that is big time sucker thinking…they can't wait,,, will use force if necessary... would be laughing their sociopathic asses off if we did it voluntarily...

… if on the other hand, from this new information, you’ve concluded we should stay Armed, then let me clue you in on something. The real 'subjects' of that link are a reason to stay Armed… but they are very very far down the list in realistic, practical reasons to stay Armed

 

Feeling prejudged yet?

Maybe you should have just stated your position… before leaving…

bye buddy... we'll miss you... you're always welcome back btw...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* all tentacles lead to a squid... jól duh

[zdo 20]

...But I have come to believe that all this thread has done is show us a mirror, and

in there, we can see our fears.

 

Few of us have been able to recognise that a fear-response is NOT the solution.

 

Nor is passively lying down while "they" come for you - even if "they are NOT

"coming for you" ... the fear exists that "they" might!

...

 

 

In the absence of clear and present danger, fear is misuse of imagination.

 

In actual clear and present danger, the almost completely (at least for normals) inevitable initial fear is an integral PART OF THE SOLUTION!

 

 

 

... [Look for the segment where two, murderous rival gangs made peace with each other]

 

 

Multiple times in here I’ve pointed to a much broader example of this in the cultural changes that occurred in NYC … with a concommitent reduction in murder stats etc. To the to Disarms this phenomenon was the effect of strict gun control laws, good police, and righteous politicians – acting out the wishes of the suddenly less oppressed people… this appeared to be true on the surface enough for them to manage perceptions that the story goes like this… but behind the scenes the political and law enforcement corruption was deeper than ever…

These “rival gangs” went ‘legit’… really they were taken over. Your newly re-discovered ‘players’ behind the curtain did a gradual, ‘friendly’ buyout ...

 

now, they're doing a different kind of takeover. They're taking over the part of your mind that loves peace... like they have done countless times before

Yes, each of us must lift our own 'oppression' ... but being 'tooled' like this doesn't lift your oppression or anyone elses. It deepens it.. .

 

All the best,

 

zdo

[SunTrader 10]

I

.......

Multiple times in here I’ve pointed to

.......

Nothing.

 

Plain and simple.

 

Don't like it.

 

Sorry. Well not really sorry, but we New Yorkers call a spade a spade.

 

NY got tough on crime and/or unlicensed gun possesion and as a result both gun crime AND gun possesion illegal or otherwise dropped.

 

They did what gun nutz advocate. Pass tough gun crime laws and enforce them.

 

Then as a result the nutz say less guns had nothing to do with less crime.

 

:rofl:

 

This culture thingy, did it involve Boy George?

[zdo 20]

...

NY got tough on crime and/or unlicensed gun possesion and as a result both gun crime AND gun possesion illegal or otherwise dropped.

...

 

That is the Legend. You need to tell it 14000 more times before it’s ‘true’

 

...

 

They did what gun nutz advocate. Pass tough gun crime laws and enforce them.

 

Then as a result the nutz say less guns had nothing to do with less crime.

 

...

 

 

your feel good story … you are trying to twist that New Yorkers, including the criminals, are now significantly less armed... not true

 

As I posted to Ingot above, these “rival gangs” went ‘legit’… really they were taken over. The ‘players’ behind the curtain did a gradual, ‘friendly’ buyout ...

Most of the ‘Protection’ money is now collected as taxes – larger base, less ‘resistance’ plus it’s fairer [haha] for everyone… fairness is New Yorkers with any income at all are paying more than 50% of their income in net taxes… smart ones getting out…

and again, regarding the Arm argument, don’t try to delude anyone here. Those ‘rival gangs’, etc. may not need to shoot at each other anymore – but if you think they aren’t still armed to the teeth with high quality weapons… think again.

”less guns had” little to do with less ‘crime’ - because there really aren’t ‘less’ guns.

 

bigger picture… ‘democracy’ comes near the end of a life cycle of a ‘culture’. … then, subsequently, democracy must not be allowed to stand in the way of ‘fascism’.

 

We love your old NYC bedtime story though... will you tell it to us again, grandpa sunturk ?...

[zdo 20]

Coming to a borrough near you

Oakland Neighbors Policing Their Own Streets As They Lose Faith In Cops « CBS San Francisco

…sooner than we’d like

Moonbattery » Running a Coffee Shop Under Anarcho-Tyranny

… however, (ny) city shopowners and homeowners will NOT need to be armed… with the impeccable support they get from the new police in the new york, they can learn to talk lawbreakers into ceasing their criminal activities…

[SunTrader 10]

That is the Legend......

 

....... that you made up.

 

 

zdno't know.

[SunTrader 10]

For those of among us who read things not written in crayon :

 

To Stem Juvenile Robberies, Police Trail Youths Before the Crime

 

By WENDY RUDERMAN, NYTimes - March 3rd, 2013

 

Three police officers knocked on the apartment door of a 15-year-old boy. He had already been on both sides of a police blotter: shot and stabbed, but also arrested on robbery charges. He ran in an East Harlem gang and lived with his grandmother on the seventh floor of a public housing building, where the stairwells reeked of marijuana.

 

He was the type of teenager destined for trouble. And that was precisely why the officers were at his door on a recent winter night.

 

The New York City Police Department has embarked on a novel approach to deter juvenile robbers, essentially staging interventions and force-feeding outreach in an effort to stem a tide of robberies by dissuading those most likely to commit them.

 

Officers not only make repeated drop-ins at homes and schools, but they also drive up to the teenagers in the streets, shouting out friendly hellos, in front of their friends. The force’s Intelligence Division also deciphers each teenager’s street name and gang affiliation. Detectives compile a binder on each teenager that includes photos from Facebook and arrest photos of the teenager’s associates, not unlike the flow charts generated by law enforcement officials to track organized crime.

 

The idea, in part, is to isolate these teenagers from the peers with whom they commit crimes — to make them radioactive.

 

“We are coming to find you and monitor every step you take,” said Joanne Jaffe, the department’s Housing Bureau chief. “And we are going to learn about every bad friend you have. And you’re going to get alienated from those friends because we are going to be all over you.”

 

The police also keep tabs in more covert ways.

 

Detectives spend hours, day and night, monitoring the Facebook pages and Twitter accounts of teenagers in the program, known as the Juvenile Robbery Intervention Program, or J-RIP, and of their criminal associates. To do so, detectives create a dummy Facebook page — perhaps employing a fake profile of an attractive teenage girl — and send out “friend requests” as bait to get beyond the social network’s privacy settings.

 

At the same time, officers seek to forge relationships with the teenager’s family, drawing them in with perquisites like a hand-delivered turkey on Thanksgiving Eve and toys and brand-name sneakers for younger siblings. Officers also provide tailored help, shuttling family members to doctors’ appointments, connecting them with alcohol and drug-abuse counseling and filling out applications for low-income housing, food stamps, child support and child care.

 

The approach in New York comes at a time when gang violence has been blamed for higher murder and crime rates in cities like Chicago and Detroit, prompting federal and local law enforcement authorities to contemplate new initiatives to try to quell the cycle of gang activity and violence.

 

New York’s program is no panacea to violent crime; only a few hundred teenage robbers will be in the program at any one time, all from East Harlem or the Brownsville section of Brooklyn.

 

Nonetheless, the city’s efforts have drawn notice; the Police Department has given presentations on its program at conferences from Monterey, Calif., to Washington, D.C.

 

“I’m not aware of any police department nationally coming up with the same strategy or replicating what the N.Y.P.D. has done here,” said David M. Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.

 

The program builds, in part, on Mr. Kennedy’s successful homicide-reduction strategy, called Operation Ceasefire, that began in Boston in the 1990s and was later implemented in scores of cities. But New York’s program has a different and more narrow focus: Juvenile offenders who live within specific neighborhood borders yet commit robberies beyond those boundaries.

 

Getting to Know Gangs

 

It is the Police Department’s own brand of tough love.

 

“We tell these teens, ‘You have a choice,’ ” Chief Jaffe said. “You will not victimize anyone else. If you commit a new robbery or any other crime that is going to hurt people, we are going to do anything we can when you get arrested to put you in jail. Your friends will get out. You are not getting out.”

 

Youths in the program are flagged in police and court databases, so if one is rearrested, the police and prosecutors will coordinate their response.

 

Officers who run the program said they recognized what they were up against. Of the 165 East Harlem juveniles currently in the program, 55 are members of a crew, a ganglike fraternity whose members are aligned with one housing project or another. In Brownsville, more than a dozen J-RIP youths have been shot, one fatally and another who survived his fourth shooting this past summer. Last month, a program teenager was jumped by rival gang members and stabbed three or four times. He remains paralyzed.

 

Many teenage girls in the program have babies.

 

“You’ll see 14-year-old mothers, 28-year-old grandmothers, 40-year-old great-grandmothers,” said Lt. David Glassberg, who runs the program in Brooklyn. “It’s crazy.”

 

Chief Jaffe created the program in January 2007 after she noticed a spike in robberies in Brownsville, a neighborhood with 21 public housing developments within 2.2 square miles. She tried traditional policing strategies, like increased foot patrols, but the robberies persisted, she said.

 

She decided to identify every juvenile under 18 who lived in Brownsville public housing and had been arrested for robbery, anywhere in the city. The result was a list of 106 teenagers linked to 132 robbery arrests in 2006. Only 24 percent of the robberies occurred on housing property — a distinction that was important to Chief Jaffe, because stopping these teenagers in Brownsville would have a beneficial impact throughout New York City.

 

Part of that effort can be seen in the online work performed by Detective Patrick Kennedy and his partner, Officer Victor Ramos. They monitor the Facebook pages and Twitter accounts of dozens of J-RIP teenagers from computers inside a precinct station house in East Harlem. The sand-colored brick walls are papered with color photographs, printed from Facebook, of program teenagers posing, or “mobbing,” with peers in crews with names like “Broad Day Shooters” and “True Money Gang.”

 

Looking at one photo, Detective Kennedy pointed out a J-RIP teenager who was flashing a crew hand signal; he was among the smallest of the group, all wearing designer Marmot and North Face jackets in lime green, purple, orange and electric blue.

 

“When they are all colored up like this in jackets and they go walking around other developments, that’s a problem,” Detective Kennedy said. “They call that mobbing.”

 

“To be familiar with the J-RIP kid, you have to be familiar with the crews he or she runs with as well,” Detective Kennedy continued. “We know all of the kids. And as much as we know them, they know us.”

 

For Facebook, Detective Kennedy creates an avatar, typically the persona of a female teenager, and sends out “friend requests.” Sometimes, accepted requests are followed by a come-on from the targeted teenager, like an inquiry about where the “girl” lives or whether she wants to meet up.

 

Department rules bar the detective from engaging, but he and Officer Ramos spend at least two hours daily monitoring the teenagers’ chatter — alert for talk of fights, party plans and criminal activities. If a program teenager is looking for trouble, Detective Kennedy said he could often see it coming and hopefully intervene.

 

These concentrated efforts have helped produce results: Of the 106 Brownsville teenagers, only 14 were arrested for a new robbery in 2007. The success led the department to expand the program to East Harlem in 2009.

 

Resistance to Change

 

Leonardo Agosto, 19, entered the program that year, overseen by two police officers whose guidance continues to this day. He grew up in East Harlem, raised by a single mother who struggled with mental illness. He then described a childhood of mental abuse and poverty.

 

He was 15 when he and his twin brother robbed two other teenagers near Central Park on 86th Street on an October 2008 night. Leonardo delivered the first blow, knocking one of the victims to the ground. “I hooked him — pow. His head went flying,” he recalled.

 

The police later showed Leonardo a photograph of the victim’s swollen and bloodied face, the result of a fractured nose and broken jaw. The image, said Leonardo, has stuck with him.

 

Leonardo spent seven months in a juvenile detention center. When he got out, the two officers, Gilberto Ortiz and Rafaela Rosario, began their intervention. They secretly paid for a cap and gown so Leonardo could participate in high school graduation ceremonies. They later put him on a bus to the State University of New York in Delhi. The town’s rural landscape, more than 150 miles from East Harlem, might as well have been the moon. He arrived for freshman-orientation weekend, greeted by a creek and an unsettling quiet. He recalled shutting his hotel room door; fear and pride welling up as he began to cry.

 

He has stayed out of trouble, but challenges remain. He dropped out of college, and returned to East Harlem with nowhere to go. He now lives in a Bronx homeless shelter, sharing a room with seven older men. But he has a paid internship with a Harlem-based community organization.

 

John Rivera, 19, who lives with his parents at the Van Dyke Houses in Brownsville, recalled how he was “chilling with the wrong crowd” at the time of his robbery arrest. His involvement in the program has made him unpopular with his former friends.

 

“Some of them were like, ‘Oh, you working for the cops,’ ” he said. “But they just friends. Friends come and go.”

 

Now he talks of the officers’ impact on his life. He was given a new pair of basketball sneakers — “My first LeBrons,” he announced proudly — and has been taking steps toward a G.E.D., although his police mentors were upset that he failed to show up at the J-RIP trailer near Sutter Avenue to prepare for the test.

 

“Stop messing around,” Sergeant James Lawrence told him. “You keep telling me, ‘Yeah, yeah,’ every time I see you, and then I don’t see you,” the sergeant said.

 

Not every effort pays off.

 

Last winter, while driving through Brooklyn, scanning the streets for teenagers in the program, Lieutenant Glassberg said he spotted a flash of orange — deer-hunter bright. It was not the $500 orange Marmot jacket that caught his eye; it was the reedy teenager wearing it. He said he immediately suspected that the teenager, a 17-year-old gang leader named Laquan, had stolen the jacket.

 

Lieutenant Glassberg dispatched a detective to investigate. For more than a year, the lieutenant had invested heavily in the teenager. He checked up on him at home, where he lived with a single working mother. He took him on trips to the Statue of Liberty and a Staten Island Yankees baseball game, got him a summer job and personally drove him to sessions with a therapist.

 

Laquan entered the program in 2010 after he struck a 14-year-old boy in the head and stole his cellphone. When Laquan was indeed arrested for stealing the jacket on that January 2012 day, Lieutenant Glassberg said the teenager’s reservoir of second chances had bottomed out.

 

“Everybody had a stake in this kid, and when he got in trouble again, I thought, ‘Well, that’s it,’ ” the lieutenant said. “He used up all his chits.”

 

The judge agreed to hold Laquan at Rikers Island, where he remains.

 

Breaking a Cycle

 

When Chief Jaffe asked him to help start the program, Lieutenant Glassberg, 44, said he saw an opportunity to break the trajectory of those born into poverty and neglect, and winding up behind bars before their 18th birthday.

 

On a recent rainy evening, the lieutenant and his team of officers piled into an unmarked police van. At about 6 p.m., they parked in front of the Howard Houses, a boxy brick high-rise building on Mother Gaston Boulevard in Brownsville, to visit a 17-year-old girl who has been in the program since last spring.

 

Police arrested her on a gun-possession charge when she was 15. Last March, she was arrested for stealing an iPhone and beating up the victim. She gave birth to a baby born about six months ago and stopped attending school.

 

The girl sat on a couch in the living room; her younger sister was slumped next to her, wearing an expression that conveyed petulance and boredom. Their younger brother, 10, sat at a computer, its glowing screen the only source of light. When the officers arrived, four other teenage friends scattered, disappearing down the hall to a back bedroom.

 

“Where’s your mother?” Lieutenant Glassberg asked. The girl said she was visiting a sick aunt. The lieutenant told her about a new day care that has agreed to take the baby while she is in school. “We are going to bring you over there this week or next week; it’s brand new, beautiful,” he said. She stared at him blankly.

 

On his way out, Lieutenant Glassberg instructed the girl’s younger siblings to clean up their bedroom and reminded the boy, who sat nervously sucking on his T-shirt, to keep the peanut butter jar in the kitchen. “You know we have problems with some critters in this place,” the lieutenant gently chided. Moments later, the boy appeared in the first-floor apartment window and waved goodbye.

 

Overcoming Skepticism

 

This approach to law enforcement is rarely seen by residents in some of the city’s most crime-stricken neighborhoods, where tensions between police officers and residents, particularly over stop-and-frisk policing tactics, have put up walls not easily breached.

 

“In low-income areas, nobody really believes in the police,” a Brownsville resident, Renee Smith, said. When officers first visited her apartment after her 16-year-old nephew was arrested for robbery, Ms. Smith was suspicious and bemused. She looked at the two baby-faced officers, standing earnestly at her apartment doorway, prattling on about the program.

 

“I’m thinking it was some sort of trick to get into your business and get you in trouble,” Ms. Smith recalled in a recent interview.

 

Initially, doors slammed shut, often with an obscene gesture and a few choice words.

 

The two officers, Josh Carvajal and Richard Elliott, eventually won over Ms. Smith and her nephew, Ramell, whom she adopted at age 2 because her sister had a drug problem. “They are like a father figure, like big brothers. They make Ramell laugh. They make Ramell believe in himself,” she said. Last month, Ramell earned his G.E.D.

 

Ms. Smith, like others who have come into contact with the program, drew a distinction between these officers and the ones who patrol their neighborhoods.

 

When Sergeant Lawrence showed up at a teenager’s apartment to drop off information about a free trip to Alaska, the teenager’s father brought up a recent stop-and-frisk police encounter.

 

“You know they ran up on me last night,” said Anthony McCrae, 44. “I come out of the store and walked around the corner and I heard, ‘Hey you? You!’ And their lights were flashing and everything.”

 

“Well, there’s been a problem over there with robberies,” Sergeant Lawrence offered, delicately.

 

“I’m not out here robbing nobody. Come on,” Mr. McCrae said.

 

Officer Carvajal changed the subject. “I forgot to tell you, starting next week, we are going to start to tutor your son. He needs some help in writing,” the officer said.

 

Mr. McCrae, who got out of prison in 1995 after he served more than seven years for attempted murder, said he did not want his 15-year-old son to “go down that path.”

 

“These brothers here — they real good,” Mr. McCrae said to a reporter. “They try to help out. Get my son on the right track.”

[zdo 20]

The approach in New York comes at a time when gang violence has been blamed for higher murder and crime rates in cities...

...

New York’s program is no panacea to violent crime; only a few hundred teenage robbers will be in the program at any one time

Well duh, captain obvious ... excellent work.

do you cut and paste with the mouse or ctrl-c ctrl-v?

 

Besides emphasizing the heretofore completely unrecognized pattern that most violence and crimes are commited by repeat offenders ( btw - obviating the need to consfiscate the Arms from regular people ... anyways )

how exactly did this have anything to do with To Arm or to Disarm the public?

Not a dam thing...

 

... besides maybe making for a great pool / poll on how much longer this 'social worker in uniform' program stays funded...

 

Depending on a one off police program that has little chance of being 'transmitted' / replicated elsewere won't work...

partial list of reasons it won't work -

it is talent specific and its key 'spiritual' leaders are ready to move on...

plus it will not make through unfolding funding rubicons... I been saying since the beginning of this thread - those ppl are not really that important to the state

heck a clever gang leader could designate which punks go into the program... to keep the 'workers' off the back of their really effective 'players'...

actually, it will most likely get cut soon when a heartbroken mother publicizes that her son was beat and stabbed to death because his 'officers' did the 'cruise by and yell hi to him' when he was hanging with his broz etc . ...uh oh ... ironically, the officers' correct assessment that "we're not responsible. the punks are" won't fly with rev sharpt and the new normal...

 

or

Better alternative - ( one even you could do, sunt - unless you are a complete collectivist tool)

how long would it take for a 'quorum' of private citizens everywhere to really learn the

'Know the kids in the 40 closest dwellings to you' rule

Do you know your neighbors and their kids?

No matter WHERE you live, have you gotten to know all the families in that 40 dwelling radius from your home?…. Especially the teens?… to the point where you know which ones are just bopping on through their lives and the one’s who are suffering and acting out or are likely to act out… and on to the ones that have and may again need serious intervention ?

...That an adult has simply acknowledged them can be a significant deterent to perping anyone in the neighborhood - not just you or your place...

Have you gotten to know their parents well enough so that when you show up, you don’t have to bring up the kid as a subject, they will ?

Are you involved in shaping your “neighborhood watch”? - whether it is an ‘organized’ one or not.

Edited March 4, 2013 by zdo

[SunTrader 10]

Well duh, captain obvious ....

Yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah.

 

Once again in case you forgot - NYC had a 50 YEAR RECORD LOW NUMBER OF MURDERS last year by enforcing all the laws including gun possession, cracking down on both law-abiding citizens (except for having illegal guns) and criminals.

 

As a result there are less, not more guns in NY (city that is) Upstate NY hunters are loaded by bear or commies or whatever they fear.

[zdo 20]

NYC had a 50 YEAR RECORD LOW NUMBER OF MURDERS last year because NYC had a 50 YEAR RECORD LOW NUMBER OF MURDERS last year... police, guns, etc. had little to do with it.

[SunTrader 10]

NYC had a 50 YEAR RECORD LOW NUMBER OF MURDERS last year because NYC had a 50 YEAR RECORD LOW NUMBER OF MURDERS last year... police, guns, etc. had little to do with it.

Hope ya didn't strain your brain too much coming up with that one.

 

Save some of that for your glory years.

[zdo 20]

...and I hope you don't strain your brain too much parroting the useful legends about the big apple. Have you requested them to send you scripts more often... so you don't have to try to keep in line on your own?

[MightyMouse 12]

5-Year-Old Boy Killed Sister With Gun Made For Kids | ThinkProgress

 

I cannot blame the parents for this mishap. I am sure that they instructed the 5 year old to not shoot his 2 year old sister and he did it anyway. I do believe that the little girl was killed because she was unarmed. If she was also carrying a weapon, she could have protected herself from her brother.