Law Enforcement

Pirates and Insurance Blackmail

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I have previously discussed how effective measures to combat modern day piracy on the high seas won’t come about until the insurance costs get too high. Piracy will continue until the the increase in insurance premiums for getting attacked by pirates exceeds the amount the underwriters will charge if armed guards are placed on board.

This recent post at StrategyPage.com pretty much says the same thing. NATO warships might be tasked with anti-pirate patrol, but they won’t actually shoot anyone for fear of bad press. The pirates know they have a good thing going, and there will be more attacks in the future. The shipping companies aren’t about to place armed guards on board their vessels since the higher premiums they have to pay for pirate insurance is less than what the underwriters will charge for having private troops on the vessels.

I figure one of two things will happen.

The gangs will continue to raid enough ships for them to have a big (in Somalian terms) payday through ransom money, but not enough for it to make sense to actually attack the outlaws. It will be the same-old, same-old for years to come.

More pirate gangs will form to grab a slice of the pie. Either the number of attacked ships passes an economic tipping point, or some undisciplined criminals start slaughtering innocent crew members that they have taken hostage. Eventually NATO starts to clean house, and the number of pirate attacks are reduced for decades afterwards.

It looks to me like more of the same-old, same-old is more likely in the foreseeable future.

About Freakin’ Time!

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Most people who are not firearm enthusiasts are surprised when I mention that the city of New Orleans enacted a campaign of illegally seizing privately owned firearms in the aftermath of Katrina.

Think about that for a moment. With the looting, the breakdown of order, and the sheer overwhelming job that the police and authorities faced when it came to providing aid to those who needed it, disarming law abiding citizens who needed their guns to protect their homes and loved ones was still deemed top priority.

It was conducted like a military campaign. National Guard troops were under orders to break into homes to find guns, and they were ready to shoot any who resisted.

Sounds like some paranoid right wing conspiracy novel, doesn’t it? But all you have to do is watch this video to hear them freely admit it. Note the images of innocent home owners, flex cuffed and lined up by the side of the road like they were terrorists.

One of the most egregious example of police overstepping their authority was caught on video.

Do you think that cop needed to tackle an old woman, in her own kitchen? God only knows what they would have done to her if the cameras weren’t rolling, considering how she is such a terror and all.

This was all three years ago. Why am I bringing up this ancient history?

Because New Orleans has finally agreed to return the guns they seized illegally. It seems that the city has been extremely reluctant to return the private property of the residents, even requiring a sales receipt. Considering that it takes more than a century for regularly maintained firearms to wear out, and many firearms are family heirlooms passed from one generation to the next, this is a ridiculous burden that was enacted by the city to avoid obeying the law.

It has been a long time coming. Let us hope it doesn’t happen again.

That Isn’t a Crime

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My charity self defense course is a few months shy of being 18 years old. It has certainly taught me a great deal about the dark side of human nature.

When I say “the dark side of human nature”, I don’t mean that seeing the scars and hearing the stories of what my students endured opened my eyes to the cruelty and violence of which criminals are capable. My brief career in law enforcement was certainly adequate to do that! Instead it showed me just how people are willing to take advantage of my good nature in order to screw over an innocent human being.

I noticed after the first year or so that a few of the people who sought me out for help, some of whom claimed extreme abuse, weren’t acting the way the rest of my students would when discussing their experiences. They would exhibit some of the classic signs of telling a lie, they wouldn’t show any lingering physical signs even though they would claim serious injury, and their emotional reactions while relating their stories would be inappropriate.

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Going to the Dogs

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I form very strong emotional attachments to my own dogs. They are all rescues that I collect starving and injured off the street. (Three at a time is my limit, so don’t get the impression that I’m like one of those crazy cat ladies.)

But speaking as someone who has actually worked in law enforcement, I can say that dogs are merely chattel. Property. My own dogs might be very dear to me in a personal sense but they are all mixed breed strays, which means that they are particularly worthless property at that.

This post alerted me to a news story where a police officer in Texas pulled a car over. It seems that the driver was rushing his choking dog to the pet clinic, and he managed to reach a speed that was close to 100 MPH (160 KPH).

The officer was uncaring and flippant, and he kept the motorist by the side of the road for 15 minutes. Both the journalists who report the story, as well as the comments at the blog post that discuss it, seem to think that an egregious breach was committed by the cop. The facts of the matter are that the officer might well have shown more tact, but he was essentially correct in his actions because he was doing his job and safeguarding lives. Human lives.

This is an example of something I’ve been noticing a lot more recently. People seem to be quicker to complain about whether or not they feel insulted when they interact with the police.

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