Martial Law

[Dave_L]

I'll also concede that people in urban, liberal-controlled areas are typically less prepared and less self-reliant than people in rural or isolated areas. I'll concede most people need someone, whether it's the police, the government or their employer, telling them what to do and how to do it every waking moment of their day.

That's their choice in personal lifestyle. If one chooses to be dependent on the gov't, what're you gonna do about it?

My wife and I were ordered by the sheriff's dept to evacuate due to a wildfire several years ago. I told the deputy "thanks for the information and your concern" but we'll leave when we decide it's appropriate. He said, "Fine. I hope you get out in time because no one will be here to help you." We knew that and understood that and we were prepared to accept the consequences of not abandoning our home.

Not everyone will accept the premise they are responsible for their lives. Unfortunately.

A country boy can survive. It's not just a song.

[davsel]

I'd call it a "virtual martial law," or perhaps a "voluntary martial law" at best.

I am not aware of anyone being arrested for "violating" the "shelter in place" request.
Some of the video of LE Officers clearing houses appears a bit authoritative, given the "request," but I haven't seen enough to form a solid opinion yet.

Actually, I am impressed with the number of people who stayed the hell out of the LE Officers' way throughout the event.

However, there are always the few who are clueless:

http://www.armenianweekly.com/2013/0...rnaevs-arrest/

Emmanuel Der Torossian and his daughter Julie, 13, whose back porch overlooks Franklin St., ventured into the streets for a stroll soon after the police lifted the curfew in the neighborhood at 6 p.m.

If 1000 LE officers just had a shootout and 20-something hour search in my neighborhood, I would not "venture into the streets for a stroll" with my 13 year old daughter minutes after being told, "We did not catch him yet."

Get what they deserve - morons.

[losttrail]

And do you really think that was anything more than isolated examples of hyped up and stressed out cops overreacting? I'm not saying there weren't some abuses. But to portray that as an "out of control" gov't seems like a stretch to me.

Nowhere did I say that the government was "out of control". I simply question some of the actions and motives based upon a history of events and reactions. I look at what politicians are motivated by, the legislation they pass and attempt to pass and do not believe that they have the best interests of "the people" in mind.

Our rights are being erroded every day. Thus I question the motives and look at the actions of those that are our "elected representatives". When I see things that don't make sense to me, I attempt to understand what other possibilities there could be.

And cops, despite their training and equipment, are civilians. They may dress like the military and have some of the same gear and tactics, but they're still subject to civil control.

And above the Chief of Police, what is the chain of command? All the way to the top please.

[Bailey Guns]

Call it whatever you want...<snip>

No, don't call it whatever you want. That's kind of the whole point of this discussion.

If we adopt that attitude how do we justify bitching about liberals calling an AR-15 an "assault rifle"? Words have meanings. The point I guess I was trying to make in this discussion is try to cut down on the rhetoric. I'm guessing almost everyone on the forum despises statements like "those guns belong on the battlefield and are only designed for killing people".

In terms of discussion of the issue (whatever it is), we're no better than "they" are if we lie or mislead through emotionally-charged rhetoric.

[Bailey Guns]

And above the Chief of Police, what is the chain of command? All the way to the top please.

The Chief usually answers to a City Manager or equivalent (depending on the city or size of the city), who answers to the Mayor. I don't think the Mayor answers to anyone. The state might take jurisdiction in an issue but a mayor isn't subordinate to a state official.

What's your point?

[muddywings]

Awareness is good. Paranoia is not.

not even just a weee bit??

[spqrzilla]

I'm just curious, if you were in charge of the situation and you had an armed and dangerous terrorist on the loose in a very loosely defined area (let's say 20 square blocks or so), what would you do to try and find him and mitigate the risk to the public?

I cordon off the area that was so defined. I don't order an entire metro area of millions of people to hide under their desks for a day, shut down all businesses (except Dunkin' Donuts - because its too dangerous for everyone but $7 an hour donut fryers ) and shut down all transit for the entire area.

[muddywings]

I got some down time here at the sweat shop so I'll jump back in here.
I totally get where Bailey is coming from and I'm sure he is probably thinking of this thread here: http://www.ar-15.co/threads/100019-H...o-house-Search
While from what little I know about BG from here I totally respect his/your point of view and opinion as they are always well thought out and articulate. I'm not sure if this post is referencing my thoughts in the linked thread but I did state in there that I'm ignorant of M.Law, and was asking for input.

That being said, simply because someone didn't proclaim ML from the Capital Building, doesn't mean they invoked some aspects of in this situation. Even as a former LEO myself (albeit a short time) I generally don't consider myself an expert. However, my father-in-law is a retired S. Deputy who did everything under the sun so I defer a lot to his expertise. While he never said "Martial Law" he did say a lot of what they did (from we can see) does stink...a lot and we both agree.

The one video I posted in the linked thread, IMHO, 'looks bad.' While, without proper context, a priest giving a young boy a lollipop can look bad too. But if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...you know the rest.

In the linked thread, I also looped back to Katrina as I was looking for more information on how these situations affect our rights. I'm still unsure.

Again, I will just say that, it looks bad! And even though I'm ex-.mil, ex-LEO, now .gov, I'm not a big fan of government. I've seen too much of the inside to know they are generally not looking out for the individual but only looking out for the .gov machine.

[losttrail]

IIRC, the shelter in place was requested around 4am... I don't know that many people that head to work that early, and I certainly don't know anyone who goes to school that early, not even teachers. I understand the point you're trying to make, but at least try to be factual when citing examples.

I leave my house at 2:30-3am to go to work and arrive at work roughly 1 hour later. I'm sure I'm not the only one in the nation. But I will give you that one if it was 4am. I'm reasonably sure that there are/were commuters heading from Boston to NYC on the trains at that time and I saw a few people interviewed from the area that were asking the same questions. My experiences in large cities is that at 4am, there are a fair amount of folks up and about.

The last 5 days I've been seeing quite a bit of tin foil being donned... I'm not too sure if people are getting more foolish or what, but you know what they say about a drowning man grasping for straws? He still drowns. I concur that a little paranoia and healthy distrust of the government is needed, but you have to draw the line somewhere, otherwise you end up looking like Ted Kazynski or Alex Jones, aka a crazy person. While entertaining, a lot of the folks on Doomsday Preppers are a little bit over that line and venturing into loony territory. I hope they don't do an episode with anyone from on here.

DDP is fun to watch and get some ideas from, and who knows, maybe a lot of them are right. I sure don't see our economy or society getting better any time soon.

ETA:

THIS! If you were to look at cops (yes, even a SWAT team) and compare them to infantry soldiers, there are so many more differences that it's not even worth counting the similarities.

I will ask this: Above Chief of Police, chain of command all the way to the top please. And in an EoW/SHTF scenario, who would the police be under command of?

I'm just curious, if you were in charge of the situation and you had an armed and dangerous terrorist on the loose in a very loosely defined area (let's say 20 square blocks or so), what would you do to try and find him and mitigate the risk to the public?

I can't answer that because I am not privy to all the information that was available to them. But just because I am not privy to all that information, does that mean I am not allowed to ask questions or point out items that I find odd?

[losttrail]

The Chief usually answers to a City Manager or equivalent (depending on the city or size of the city), who answers to the Mayor. I don't think the Mayor answers to anyone. The state might take jurisdiction in an issue but a mayor isn't subordinate to a state official.

What's your point?

I'm sure that in a EoW/SHTF scenario, the mayor would answer to the governor who would then answer to the POTUS.

In certain circumstances I would imagine that local DA's might be involved along with state then federal AG's and thus POTUS again, with POTUS being CiC.

Just pointing out that police departments could theoretically become military units, MP's in certain situations.

Long stretch but not out of the realm of possibilities.

All things are possible, some are not probable.