Forget the alleged superhuman strength and obliviousness to pain shown by some abusers of recreational pharmaceuticals; in Canada, they're even more dangerous than that. Up there, not only is the bacon round, but they've got some kind of drug that turns Leroy the Neighborhood Crackhead into Neo from
The Matrix:
Drug addict dodged 19 police bullets.
More dangerous than bullet-dodging crackheads, though, are police officers who go running through subdivisions and play Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: "
I shot nineteen bullets into the air/in whose living room they fell to earth I do not care."
(H/T to
Unc.)
35 comments:
I think it reflects more on the guy's luck than dodging ability, not to mention the most likely low amounts of firearms training of the officer(dunno what it's like in canada, annual test on stationary targets at a shooting range perhaps?)
That's the standard in the US. I doubt Canada's any better.
Well, in Canada the bullets are much slower. I don't know if it's due to restrictive safety regulations, of the fact that cold air is so much denser.
Probably both.
Reminds me of a story from the NYT wherein the PD was chaseing a man with a smg after unleashing a hail of bullets they managed to stop him. The reporter piled praise on the officer for his display of "marksmanship" in shooting of the guy trigger finger.
I've seen the targets after RCMP training exercises at an indoor range to know that many of them shouldn't be carrying. They are a hazard to the community, their fellow officers and themselves.
Some can shoot. Apparently James Roszko was hit and taken out of the fight at 100 yards by a Mountie with his pistol. Roszko had already killed four Mounties with his .308.
And yet another person has learned life is not a Chuck Jones cartoon.
I forwarded it to son#1, who had a good laugh. During a drug lab shootout a while back, in the pre-MP days,he was still lugging his old 4506, with an extended magazine.
Mr. Badguy opened up on them with a 12 gauge and dropped two detectives, then cranked the rest off at Ed. He got a lot of ribbing from the guys in his department during the aftermath. "Geez Foster, you had ten shots and only connected eight times, at less than twenty feet".
His comment was "F--k you, I was ducking shotgun blasts while I was shooting".
To make it more interesting, the gentleman with the shotgun had spent the previous three days consuming his own PCP, and continued to fire from a sitting position until the shotgun ran dry. That's with his spine shot in half and the top of his heart blown away. Better living through chemistry.
Hartford CT is the armpit of southern New England, and HPD is WAY understaffed. After the insurance people leave in the afternoon, the place is Fort Apache.
For some reason, the HPD puts a lot of emphasis on both static and practical marksmanship.
A buddy of Ed's, still in a blue suit, had to respond to a beef at the Webster Theater in the south end, and ended up in a shootout with several individuals in a car. They exchanged shots, the car sped away, then continued to make highspeed firing runs on Edgar and his partner until a shotgun slug through the driver's door put the vehicle into a pole. Another happy Saturday in High Noon.
The difference between combat veterans from the inner city, always at Condition Red, and your typical suburban officer working traffic calls and the occasional B&E, is night and day.
Situational Awareness is, sadly, something learned better from surviving than from "By Wrote" lessons.
Since most of Canada qualifies as sub- or ex-urb, and the place is run by pansies who think criminals can be shamed into a weaponless state by leaving the citizenry in the same condition, I'm not suprised the markmanship levels approximate Eat Overshoe Ohio.
Hey ... be careful with those wounding remarks about the Great White North. We're sensitive, you know.
Still ... you have a point ... except for some parts of our West. There, domestic/B&E responses in very small towns, assaults on reserves and highway traffic stops claim many Mountie lives.
Static position, fully lighted ranges and circular paper targets. Not exactly real life simulation.
Regards.
I couldn't agree more that the cops can be more dangerous than the criminals when they're reckless and trigger-happy.
Hey, George. I suppose you know all about the RCMP green silhouette target. It isn't discriminatory as while there's white people, red people and black people, there's no green people.
George, I agree completely that anything west of Thunder Bay is really Montana. Given the similarity of chapeaus between Canadian cops and most American "County Mounties", you really should join up with the lower 48.
Or go it alone. The health care would be better, and you could turn on YouTube and play Stan Roger's song "The Idiot" whenever you wanted a national anthem. Just give title to Vancover to the Japanese. They already own all the real estate.
For reference, lots of relatives in Antigonish, Pictou, and Pictou Landing. Oro Do Cap Bretonnesh!
And I've seen some tough cops in Montreal, a tough place even by Yankee standards.
But I've also spend a pleasant afternoon visiting with the Surete in St. Prospere, Quebec, in the little bistro across the street from the station. They took turns going back to see if anyone had rung them up in their absence.
Further west, the O.P.P. seem to spend far more time harrassing every U.S. license plate they see than doing anything about the drugs sold more or less openly in pretty much any good sized mall parking lot.
"Oh the streets aren't clean, and there's nothing green, and the hills are dirty brown, but the government dole will rot your soul back in that eastern town". I'd wave a flag to that.
Jack ... that sound you hear is the first deep belly laugh in a while. Of course, one wouldn't want the RCMP to offend anyone, would one?
Ed ... funny you should mention the police in Montreal. Back in my growing up years, they were ... perhaps ... corrupt ... but you didn't fool around with them. I learned the "Yessir, yessir, three bags full, sir." long before I played silly bugger in the woods.
As for the OPP, I think that same careerist malaise has struck them, too. They've been shuffled out of most of the small towns because they were too expensive for what they delivered. They have become excessively PC ... and chasing after US license plated cars is much safer than doing a real job.
In a former life, I recruited several retired LEOs. The ones from the OPP were whiners (whingers?), lazy ... or excessively cautious, unable (or unwilling) to be proactive, to be comfortable thinking outside the box, etc. All of which may have been why they were retired relatively young?
Anyway, both forces ... RCMP and OPP ... have, I believe, squandered their laudable reputations.
Careerism will kill you. It's what did in the Forces ... think Somalia .. until we decided to go play for real in our sandbox.
Lastly ... does anyone find it ironic that it is no longer the Canadian Armed Forces? We've disarmed ourselves. My father and grandfather must be rolling in their graves, shaking their heads at what things have become.
Regards.
wv = semist. What the hell is a semist?
Yes, it is sad what's happened to Canada's military. I had relatives in the Pricess Pat's and Canadian Seaforth a few wars ago, and I'm sure they're rolling in unison with your folks.
Isn't it odd that the brand of Socialism effecting (infecting) the west is so hippie/pacifist? You'd think they would have learned something from their soul brothers east of the Pripet Marshes.
Ed - The land elements of the Canadian military have earned their stripes ... or as it's said in the other language, "Ils Gagnes ces epaulets."
But .. the left recognize the folly of their politics? Yeah ... as soon as the Unicorn and his flock remove their sheeps' clothing.
I didn't used to think there was anything sinister about The One. I just figured he was a typical float like a butterfly, sting like a butterfly yuppie asshat.
I'm not so sure anymore. So .. do you think they may have more in common with those denizens east of the Marshes. (I don't mean to imply that there's any connection between the Only One and the mass graves in the Ukraine and White Russia. The Communists still have some answering to do ... all on their own.)
Regards.
More likely one of Pan Lenin's "useful fools".
Occam's razor. America's Wobblies went one way (absorbed or suborned, along with the socialists and soft communists, into the Democratic Party),their mentors in the People's Republics went the other way, enticed by their wins in the Russian and Chinese revolutions.
The defining moment in the split was probably the "Polish Miracle" in 1920, when the Russians advanced too fast to cover their supply lines and Pilsudski punched through behind them and left their forward elements without support,swinging in the breeze.
After losing the overt chance to conquer Europe, the Moscow types resorted to working through western dupes and front organizations to spread the word. Many of said often used asshats were well to do dilletants who would faint at the sight of blood, so too strident a clarion call wasn't a workable solution.
Meanwhile, back in the USSR, native Russian paranoia, combined with a very practical fear of the west's resupply of Poland and the several armed interventions on behalf of Czarist refugees, resulted in the largest, mostly defensive, military buildup in human history.
The red flags waved by strikers at Ford weren't anywhere near as effective as the suborning of the Democratic Party and the U.S. government. For reference, Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt's commerce secretary and personal representative to England and Russia, was KGB agent "source 19".
Add in all the Hollywood and news media types suborned by the glamour and self-rightious tendention of the collectivist ideal, and the pacifist left of the west became a most useful collection of idiots indeed. Also easily found and disposed of "come the day".
Sadly, "the internationalist duty" remains among the Western, weak-kneed version of the beast, long after it has disappeared in former Marxland.
It usually manifests as ever more welfare for the world's indigent and sociopathic, and lots of Kumbaya singing, but at heart it's still a hope for the death of capitalism and individuality.
Query on one thing: straight up, such that the velocity imparted by the charge will expend itself against gravity and friction: safe or unsafe? (IE, the bullet is coming back at no faster than terminal velocity)
(Or, in other words, if I happen to drop a bullet from the empire state building and not get my ass hauled up on charges of littering etc; is the guy at the bottom going to go "ow" or "MEDIC!")
MythBusters, two years ago. It's ouch.
In jump school, they told us that, theoretically, if your chute didn't open you could hit the ground at about 200 m.p.h.(32 fps per second acceleration).
But then he said not to worry, you'll be kicking and screaming and wobbling around so much you probably won't get over 120 due to drag. Same thing with the bullet.
Long before it hits apogee it'll be tumbling, inducing drag. They couldn't get the bullets to break quarter inch plywood, although it dinged it a bit. The hardest part of the job for the T.V. guys was finding the beated zone and getting a hit on the plywood panels.
So I suspect it could leave a hell of a welt, but you'd probably survive it.
Canadian muzzle velocity is only 0.78 of the same loading in U.S. fps, or do I have the exchange rate wrong?
Just wunnerin'
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
Jim, maybe it loses in the translation from metric. Do the Canucks still use the Imperial Litre?
Possible dumb question alert...
Not that it would obviate the necessity of following Rule #4, but wouldn't it be a good idea to have use something like Glasers in a situation like this?*
*I don't know how well those things actually work, either in the 'hurt the target' or 'doesn't blow through the next two houses and a toddler' sense.
It's difficult to find opportunities to practice on moving targets. More people think that they can shoot well against moving targets than ever actually have tried.
Some friends and I took to practicing shooting at helium balloons tied on a long string to a remote-controlled car. With the wind bobbing them about, it's a challenge, even at 10 yards. Then make yourself move at a simple walk while doing it. It's completely different than shooting paper or steel.
Matt G: That sounds like fun. I remember as kids we used to clip targets inside car tires and let them roll and bounce down the hill while we snap shot with a motley array of Springfields, Mausers, and any lever, pump, or semiauto ever chambered in .35 Remington. It was sobering.
When I was a young un' I practiced for the swedish hunter's exam(though I never did do the course and get my degree, other factors of life took over my time), which included shooting moving moose-shaped paper targets(on rail), I did quite well at that, scoring something IIRC about 80/100. However that was benchrest with scoped long gun.
While my hit rate on movers (and while moving myself) is lower than on stationary targets, it's considerably higher than zero percent. It's depressing and sucky, but better than zero.
But it's not the lack of hits that bothers me in these scenarios, it's the number of misses, and I think we're all conversant with the difference: Rule #4.
As Louis was so fond of yelling during the final exam last weekend, "If you don't have a shot, don't shoot!"
Ed ... the Imperial litre? Oh you kidder.
Actually ... it's only used by Air Canada pilots who want to make unscheduled stops at Gimli, Manitoba and practice their dead stick landing techniques.
Works every time.
Regards.
Perhaps, If I'm amazingly lucky, someday I might see beautiful downtown Gimli. It sounds like some of the firebases I saw during a certain unpleasantness a few decades ago.
You know you're supposed to deplane in a hurry when you see the bulldozed remains of several C-123's at the end of the strip.
WV is kneasest. Isn't that an adjunct of the Israeli Parliment?
Ed Foster --
The Mythbusters (and the US Army beat them to the punch by about 80-90 years) data only applies to bullets fired STRAIGHT up.
If fired at anything approaching a near-terrestrial target (I think it averages around 60 - 70 degrees above horizontal for most bullets), they stay pointy end first, and strike the ground with surprising velocity.
Which is where stories like "2 year old killed in bedroom 1.5 miles from drive by" come from.
Ed ... I've been looking for the picture taken with the loiterers in the foreground and the Airbus coming in. You see, the airport had been closed, I think and the locals used the abandoned runways as a park.
Ah ... gotta love them translplanted Icelanders. Not much will frazzle them.
From my vantage point now, all my memory brings back is a real belly laugh.
Regards.
wv = bistri ... more than one bistro?
Ed ... erm ... it was a Boeing 767.
There is a reference in Wikipedia for the Gimli Glider:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
(I don't know how to make that an active link.)
The picture is here:
http://www.wadenelson.com/gimli.html
Great fun!
Regards.
Damn, that man was a really good stick. Serves them silly Canucks right for switching to metric in the first place. Pounds of fuel rather than kilos. Damn what a cluster.
Still, a glide ratio of 12 to 1 at 200 plus KIAS. Not at all shabby for a plane that size. Wouldn't happen today, with subcritical airfoils all set up for Mach point nine.
I just felt somebody walking on my grave. You know, the sudden chill on a hot night?
For some reason I remembered my father's story about how I was almost named Mark, after Admiral Mark Mitscher. My dad's SBD was coming back from an extreme range raid in the Pacific, after dark, and everybody was running low on gas. They'd leaned out the engines to the point of near melting them, but it wasn't enough.
At 120 knots and with the canopy slid back, it was easy to tell when somebody went dry. Everyone was very calm and professional. A short goodbye, and they dropped out of formation,into the ocean.
One after another, and still no idea of where the fleet was.
Then Mitscher said screw the submarines, light up every ship in the fleet. I want to see Christmas trees across the horizon.
And so my old man lived to go home after the kamikaze broke the Belleau Wood near in half, met my Mom on leave, and I'm here writing this. Gliders.
Hence my specification of "straight up." I was at one point living on the second-of-2-floors apartment. Down was clearly not safe; but the only thing up was the roof and the sky.
If you live in an aboveground apartment and you own firearms, do your neighbors a favor and get a bucket of sand to point them at while clearing them. It's an adequate backstop.
I have since moved and actually haven't had an opportunity or reason to handle my firearms since other than putting them away. I'll bear that in mind.
Ian --
Straight up (when there's no one living above you and you aren;t hemmed in by taller inhabited structures as you may be in a city) is probably fine, as the round passing through the ceiling and roof is unlikely to continue spinning with gyroscopic precision.
If it's already tumbling on the way up, it's sure to be tumbling on the way down. {grin}
If it's tumbling, it's falling at near to max drag, and thus minimum terminal velocity. Bonus points if it's all whacked up by passage through hard structure so it has little angel wings of half-ripped off jacket.
But the "big ass bucket of sand" (like a 5-gallon paint bucket), or a couple of milk jugs full of water, do a REALLY good job of slowing down pistol type rounds.
Which is why I've got a large bucket filled with a bag of sand in my basement. And with any luck get to use it as a notional backstop when I clean up after by range day today :)
WV: imbrook - what I am after a range day :)
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