Shots were fired from a US owned Blackhawk chopper in Miami last month into crowds of innocent people. Perhaps it'd have been nice to know these bullets were actually blanks and were part of an elaborate "training exorcise". Is this a heavy handed (and non chalant) nudge for the public to "get used to" heavy military presence? Are we training our military to invade/capture first world cities? What are we prepared for? What do they want us to be prepared for?

 

And more importantly, how many bricks would you shit if you saw military choppers flying at low altitudes, laying down heavy machine gun fire in your home town?

 

Woah, what? This is crazy.

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And times like this I love living in England.

And times like this I love living in England.

 

You guys don't even have a way to shoot back though.

I've lived next to an Air Force base for the last 5 years and there are always planes flying overhead. I don't think I'd notice if they started firing...

And times like this I love living in England.

 

You guys don't even have a way to shoot back though.

 

Why would we need to if people can't shoot us in the first place.

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I seem to remember something about police being largely unarmed, but I didn't realize this extended to your military was completely unarmed.

Prayers defend them. "God save the Queen" and whatnot. :razz:

 

This is crazy, not in a bad way just uniquely interesting type way. Warfare is moving more towards urban combat nowadays and you don't need to be invading a first world country to be fighting in such cities. Every major city in the world has a complex series of roads, highways, bridges, and the building layout that comes with them.

I see it as training. Much like what the SEALs would do on July 4th in Coronado up until around 2001. Not everything has hidden meanings or deeper messages. What you see is what you have. Training.

They do drills like this pretty often.

 

Now if this had anything to do with psychics maybe we'd have something interesting to chat about.

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I don't doubt this is a training routine, but it seems a bit inappropriate to do it without notice.

 

Seeing something like this in person, it would be quite forgivable to mistake it for the real deal.

 

Agreed. A few years ago they did a big urban military training operation here, but the area was blocked off and everyone was informed of it beforehand.

I'm all for training, and really the best place to train for mobilizing within an urban area is, well, an urban area. But why would they need to be firing blanks over the heads of unsuspecting civilians? It seems to me that all that would do is cause panic.

I'm all for training, and really the best place to train for mobilizing within an urban area is, well, an urban area. But why would they need to be firing blanks over the heads of unsuspecting civilians? It seems to me that all that would do is cause panic.

Training for the civilians. People wouldn't take anything else seriously.

Now if this had anything to do with psychics maybe we'd have something interesting to chat about.

...Wait, we don't have a psychic warfare unit?

 

That said, it probably would have been helpful to know about that sort of thing in advance. That sort of training seems like it would be very useful, but I'd hate to be the guy who has no idea what's going on when this happens.

Now if this had anything to do with psychics maybe we'd have something interesting to chat about.

...Wait, we don't have a psychic warfare unit?

We have something similar.

The fact that they didn't inform the public before shooting blanks is what bothers me. I'm cool with military types training in whatever area, but the civilians deserve a heads up. This can easily be interpreted as a way of getting civilians used to military activity (as if anticipating severe military state like qualities from X government). The fact that this wasn't well covered in the news, and little panic seems to be spreading also worries me. Is America really this ready to roll over and just take what the military feeds us? What would have been done if one of those apocalypse nuts came out with an LMG and returned fire? They sure couldn't have gotten away with this in Oakland, or Detroit, or Camden. They'd have started an actual internal war. So why not let everyone know what's going on before sending in the Blackhawks?

Honestly I'd like to see them try to court martial someone for shooting them when they did that.

 

I mean if I pull out a gun full of blanks and start shooting at cops they'd be justified in shooting me back. So vice versa should obviously apply.

I'd sure as hell hope so

Wait isn't firing blanks in a public area illegal anyways? Because of potential issues of mass panic (like yelling fire)?

 

Or is the government legally allowed to have less sense than a drunken frat boy?

Or is the government legally allowed to have less sense than a drunken frat boy?

Christopher Dorner kills 3 and becomes the most wanted. LAPD shoots at 2, officers get paid leave.

 

I'm not sure about that one.

Or is the government legally allowed to have less sense than a drunken frat boy?

Christopher Dorner kills 3 and becomes the most wanted. LAPD shoots at 20, officers get paid leave.

 

I'm not sure about that one.

 

Could you explain the bolded part?

Christoper Dorner is an ex-LAPD officer (who looks like a fat LL Cool J) who's suspected of killing 3 people (including a retired police captain's daughter) and is the subject of a huge manhunt in California, and the LAPD have accidentally shot several people who were driving a vehicle similar to his (I think Giordano meant 2, not 20). It's gotten so bad that they've advised people who own these vehicles to not drive them until he's caught.

 

The standard procedure (in North America anyway) for police related shootings is to put the officer on paid leave until culpability can be determined. As I understand it the reasons for this are two-fold: One, it lets the public know that the officer is off the street; and two, the officer isn't punished until it can be proven that he broke the law.

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