Law Enforcement

At Least They Caught Them

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Strategypage reports that someone was caught trying to sell nuclear material….

“Ukrainian police arrested three men trying to sell eight pounds of plutonium, for $10 million. It turned out that they did not have plutonium, but the less radioactive (and not suitable for nuclear weapons) Americium (which could be used for a dirty bomb). The three arrested (a politician and two businessmen from Western Ukraine) had obtained the radioactive material (which was originally produced inside Russia) from someone outside Ukraine.”

Seems this happens on a fairly regular basis.

The essay goes on to discuss how much nuclear material is floating around out there. It is unlikely that terrorists could cobble together a nuclear bomb, but a dirty bomb is certainly something within their capabilities.

Just thought I’d brighten up your Monday.

Police Slogan Fail

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fail owned pwned pictures
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Wonder if this slogan is related to this statistic?

Helpless Felon

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Federal law expressly bans people convicted of felonies, or who have been the subject of a Dishonorable Discharge from the military, from owning, possessing, or seeking to gain possession of firearms. If they are found guilty of any of the listed offenses, then it is another felony.

It can get even worse, though. I have heard of cases where a convicted felon has been charged with possession even though they are simply living with someone who legally owns a firearm. I’ve never bothered to look up any specific cases, so take this assertion with a grain of salt, but it does point up the very real concern that exists when felons have access to guns.

This desire to keep weapons out of the hands of felons in many states extends to less lethal defense tools as well. Felons are often banned from possessing stun guns and defensive sprays. Eugene Volokh thinks this is something that needs to be changed.

“Yet felons need self-defense tools, too. They may need self-defense tools more than the average nonfelon does: Being a felon dramatically hurts your career prospects, which means you’ll likely have to live in a poorer and therefore on average more crime-ridden part of town. And the legal bar on felons’ possessing firearms makes stun guns even more valuable to them.”

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Rush to Judgement

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Some of the best read bloggers have been outraged by this news item. The headline reads…

“Fire kills child, 3, and parents as police prevent neighbours from trying to rescue them”

If anything is going to produce outrage, it would be an account of how young and innocent lives were lost when they could have been saved. And all through a pig-headed application of the rules, to boot.

But my buddy knirirr has pointed out one or two things that have been missed.

Firstly, the report says that the neighbours were “beaten back by flames” which suggests to me that the fire was so intense that they would not have been able to get in and save anyone anyway. If this was a fire at night and there were no alarms installed then it could well have been burning for some time before anyone noticed.

Secondly, if the police really did quote H&S then they might not necessarily have meant it in the bureaucratic jobsworth sense that the Samizdata article seems to imply. I wonder if they meant “it’s too late, you can’t save them, you’ll only get killed if you try” but stated that the rules said so out of some misplaced belief that people will be impressed by being told that It’s The Law and are more likely to obey. We cannot know, but if so it clearly failed to make an impression in this case.

I find it very difficult to believe that five British police officers would stand by and let young children burn if they thought there was a chance for unequipped and untrained hands to help. Oh, there might be one or two here or there who would not care to make an attempt if it might mean their job. But five??? It seems likely that at least one, and probably more, of the officers were a parent themselves. For some reason, I don’t think sociopaths alone choose the police as a career.

It seems to me that there are a fair number of areas where Great Britain might improve. It also seems fair to me when someone points them out. But I don’t think this news article is fair.

(Hat tip to Glenn.)

Trouble in Lahore

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So called “gunmen” have attacked a police academy in Pakistan. Eleven innocent people, eight police and three civilians, have been killed.

Think this is India getting some revenge for the Mumbai attacks last year? That is too thriller-of-the-week for me to take seriously unless there is some evidence. Besides, there are enough Islamic terrorist groups wandering around inside Pakistan that you don’t need to go looking outside the country for someone pissed off enough to pull a stunt like this.

Strategypage has posted a pretty good essay concerning how the ISI, which is Pakistan’s intelligence services, has a very close working relationship with several terrorist groups. Seems the ISI political section was disbanded last year. It could be that this is some scheme put together by the spooks to prove to the new civilian government that they really need to give ISI a longer leash. But that is pretty thriller-of-the-week as well.

Some of the “gunmen” have been captured. I doubt they will keep any secrets for long.

(Cross posted at Hell in a Handbasket.)