Thursday, December 04, 2008

Can you imagine the kind of disregard for life and responsibility

that led to all those police with absolutely no practice with their arms?

Think about that. Not just the general stupidity, but the overall. India is a big country, lots of people of many beliefs, which has had problems with terrorism for many years. They’ve had bombings and mass murders, the whole works. And yet their police had no practice with their arms.

What kind of uncaring stupidity can look at their situation, write laws that the police SHALL have dedicated ranges and SHALL meet training specs, and then provide neither ranges nor ammo, or the money to obtain them?

And you know, without question, that some of the same people responsible for this garbage will be among those blaming the police for not performing to the specs they’re supposed to. Wonderful, isn’t it, being a slimeball politician? Refuse to give people the places and supplies needed to train, and then blame them for not being trained when things blow up. I have no idea what the rules are on things like airsoft guns, but there’s a fair chance that if someone had suggested buying some of those so they could at least practice in an office with them, that would’ve been turned down: “What do you mean, wanting to spend money on toys? Do you not have have it in the law requiring you to have a firing range and practice with your real guns? Don’t give me squealing about no money for ranges or ammunition, it is required! That is your problem!” Etc.

Uncle, I think, linked to a story of some officer complaining that the subguns some of the terrorists had ‘are far more deadly than the AK47s we were issued’. Which is either CYA whining, or another result of bad or no training. If you’re not familiar with them, the MP5 submachinegun uses the standard 9mm(9x19mm if you want to be picky) handgun cartridge; the AK47 and clones use the 7.62x39 rifle cartridge. While the MP5 has better sights, the AK is more powerful and, for the ranges involved, quite accurate enough. IF you’re trained. IF you know how to shoot. IF you have some actual idea of what you’re doing, and what TO do. Which seems to have been the most basic problem.

Which brings up the question, what else haven’t they trained on? What other gaping holes in their capabilities are waiting to show up? Because you know damn well that if they haven’t had any training with their arms, they’ve also had little or no real training in other areas; training in crowd control or responding to a disaster or attack or riot should include use of arms- if nothing else when to and not to use- and if you don’t train in that…

Without question the special response units, the Black Cats and so forth, had ammo and places to train, but that just takes you back to the question ‘Who is there first when something like this happens?’* Unless there’s an alert and the special units are out, the first official people on the scene are the local cops. Who were not trained with/had not practiced with their arms. At all, from the sound of it.

Which brings us back to the feckless morons responsible for requiring training and places and supplies to train with, while not bothering to provide money and/or authorization to get the stuff. I wonder if they feel any guilt at all for their part in this?


* We can forget the fact that some armed citizens just might make a difference; India is one of those places where the peasants are greatly frowned on for even wanting to own a firearm(from what I’ve heard you have to get a government permit for a pellet gun, for that matter), let alone carry one; a lady noted in one article was saying that it’d taken damn near forever to get a permit for her firearm, and now the government wouldn’t allow her a permit for ammunition.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Please refer to my comment on "Lack of Preparation" about 4 posts back. It applies here as well.

Gerry N.