I Like Shooting Them
Cathy Noriego, also 16, said she was attracted by the guns. The group uses compressed-air guns — known as airsoft guns, which fire tiny plastic pellets — in the training exercises, and sometimes they shoot real guns on a closed range.
“I like shooting them,” Cathy said. “I like the sound they make. It gets me excited.”
If a student utter those words in school they’d likely be hauled to the principal’s office, the police called and probably even arrested, and who knows strip searched. But when it is an Explorer Program in conjunction with Federal Government police agencies, why no worries.
In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout.
“Put him on his face and put a knee in his back,” a Border Patrol agent explained. “I guarantee that he’ll shut up.”
Yeah that’s nice. Nothing like showing young kids how to apply violence to others.
In a competition in Arizona that he did not oversee, Deputy Lowenthal said, one role-player wore traditional Arab dress. “If we’re looking at 9/11 and what a Middle Eastern terrorist would be like,” he said, “then maybe your role-player would look like that. I don’t know, would you call that politically incorrect?”
I’d call it stupid. Did the 9/11 hijackers wear traditional Arab dress or did they dress like your average American citizen?
Oh well who needs things like cross country skiing, winter weather survivial and moutain climbing. Now we can have paramilitary training.
I think you fundementally misread the purpose of the Explorer program, and suggest you do a bit more reading on that specific before continuing.
Was it WWII when we had to send thousands of Daisy BB guns to India because they didn’t know how to shoot?
As an ex-NRA hunting safety instructor, I encourage teaching everyone (within reason) how to shoot. The day will come (not may) when we again need to defend ourselves as a people. Only God knows against who.
Thanks for the laughs! Your article brings back images from the Stallone movie, “Demolition Man”[lol]
No Bit, I understand exactly what the program is for. I object to the idea of training young people in paramilitary tactics as a feeder program for SWAT units and other such things. I think that if a person is gung-ho about that sort of thing, they are probably the person you least want doing it.
I recall one former law enforcement officers recomendation, I’m going by memory here, “When forming a SWAT team ask for volunteers to sign up. Take that list and make sure anyone picked for the new unit is not on the list.”
One can probably defend some of the self-defense aspects, like what to do in the case of a campus shooter, specifically if you yourself don’t have a gun.
Anyway, I like how they’ve had a string of sexual abuse problems in the program, and the solution is for the instructors to complete an online training program on sexual misconduct. Because if there’s one thing that will stop a pedophile, it’s filling out some stupid online forms. Or does that really work? I don’t know.
1. “Nothing like showing young kids how to apply violence to others.”
I’m pretty moderate, but I consider that statement laughably liberal/effeminate/wuss-ish. (pick the adjective) What, you are afraid gangs of Explorer-trained terror teens will use their room “pieing” skills (look it up) to go out and clear rooms of armed individuals … for eeeeevil?
2. This statement:
“I think that if a person is gung-ho about that sort of thing, they are probably the person you least want doing it.”
That and the accompanying “former law enforcement officer’s recommendation” also crack me up.
My brother was on a SWAT team and I’ve spent considerable time around infantry, SOG and security contractors. If you eliminated the folks who go into it because they are gung-ho to learn those skills, you’d have the slots filled about, oh, 5%. Your statement is silly.
3. And theoretically, this is not necessarily different than JROTC teaching leadership and battelfield tactics, though execution of the program is admittedly critical.
4. Yes, the arab headdress costuming is dumb.
5. Grow a pair, Verdon.
FranklinTest –
Lesson 1 in how to read news: this:
… has no statistic or number associated with it other than “numerous cases.” Which means you must immediately assume that any contextual evaluation of the incidence of abuse in this program would find it no different than the incidence rate of abuse among teachers, cub scout masters, athletics, or any other program that puts adults into contact with children.
It’s a lazy journalist throwing in negatives to present a flawed case.
I’ll second Bill on this point, and I speak as one who went through a (Rather well run) police Explorer program years ago. In that program I learned quote a bit about self-defense, (As well as other skills) most of which I’ve only used in real world situations twice… I was under attack each time by someone armed with a knife. (On the second occasion my biggest deal was shock that I’d remembered how.)
Trust me, training when NOT to use such tactics is a huge part of the process. I’d certainly rather be dealing with someone who went through that training process, than someone who hadn’t, regardless of how ‘gung ho’ they were.
Hey FranklinTest, did Bill Clinton inspect any of those forms before he decided to diddle the intern pool?
I’m with Bill and Bit on this one. Steve is being an over reactionary liberal on this.
“If a student utter those words in school they’d likely be hauled to the principal’s officeâ€
In California maybe. In the Midwest students often talk about hunting and shooting with only an occasional left wing liberal teachers saying anything which the teachers get laugh at in the end.
I doubt that you could find one decent SWAT team that didn’t have gung-ho members in it. It takes dedicated individuals who like what they are doing to be very good at it. Do some tire of the training? Yes but if they weren’t gung-ho about it they would have quite early on. It would be like finding a professional NBA player saying “I never like basketball and feel no need to work at itâ€.
Steve –
I usually find my self closely in league with you, but I’m scratching my head a bit. Maybe I’m not familiar with this particular program.
Do we not find that young sports nuts go on to be the major leaguers? That the high school lab rats go on to science careers? And so forth.
Is there an insinuation that those interested in SWAT activities have a loose screw??
(I’m reminded of the brilliant script sequence in “The Departed” when “Queenan” and “Dignam” are savaging new graduate “Bill” about why an “astronaut” wants to be a State cop……….”some people just want the uniform and badge……yeah, and some people just want to smash a nxxxrs head through a plate glass window…”)
But that was just a movie. Pretty big indictment, Steve. No?
Oooh…quoting another dumb b**ch with the temerity to give her honest opinion when asked a question. Will Steve have her topless pics soon?
When I got to the point of the article that mentioned sexual abuse allegations, I realized it was a hit piece. Not that I doubt it, all institutions which place adults in positions of trust over youth are subject to abusing that relationship. Like teachers, preachers and parents . . .
The second odd thing about the article was the prominence given to a 13 year-old explorer scout. That’s a violation of the explorer scout rules, so we are already dealing with an outlier organization.
Bill-
Lesson 1 in how to read my post:
I am making fun of the solution, not the problem.
-FranklinTest
Drew-
What does this have to do with ANYthing? Is this one of those famed ‘B-B-But Clinton’ posts by virulent partisan retards?
Again, I wasn’t attacking the program or intentionally trying to draw attention to the so-called sexual abuse problem in it. Try to untwist your panties for a second and get a grip.
-FT
Point taken. To that, I’ll say this: really, really overt sexual harrassment in the workplace has been curtailed in the past two generations by acknowledgement of the problem, and those annoying, seemingly pointless sexual harrassment courses organizations make everyone take.
No, online training programs aren’t going to solve the problem, but I tend to think institutions that make it a point to stress that diddling teenage charges is going to get you nabbed – at least putting out notice that someone is paying atatention – is not a bad step for programs like this.
Unless you’d suggest 16 hours of live anti-perv immersion training.
Moderately what?
I agree, Steve. My experience with law enforcement reflects the same position. Someone who is first interested in putting a knee in a back (for thrills, approval from peers, and the assertation of power) and only secondly interested in the why is the last person you want doing SWAT, ERT, or any other civil service.
They only end up costing money in litigation, abusing civil rights, and/or helping sway public opinion against police in general and thus negatively impacting voluntary compliance with law in general.
When I was a kid in the 1940s and 50s, the Boy Scouts was considered pre-boot camp army training. I discovered that people drilled in proper firearm usage, maintenance and discipline growing up were much safer to be around as adults than those whose protective parents kept them isolated from guns. When the untrained adults got their hands on guns, they were dangerous. They wouldn’t pay attention to which way they were pointing the guns when they carried them around. They wouldn’t pay attention to what was beyond the thing they were aiming at. Etc., etc., etc. And of course the Boy Scouts had their sexual abuse cases too, but life’s always got its problems.
“Moderately what?”
Experienced with the topic at hand, for one thing. Politically, and thus not especially prone to call folks p*ssies for an opinion on a current events topic, for another.
“I agree, Steve. My experience with law enforcement reflects the same position.”
We’ll follow an SAT logic construction: your experience with gung-ho law enforcement does not equal Verdon’s use of the phrase, which followed this sentence:
By that construction, anyone interested in learning about these tactics enough to sign up for an explorer course that covers SWAT would be gung-ho, and thus tempermentally ineligible material.
Presumably, SWAT members must be selected from passive populations with no interest whatsover in becoming SWAT members. otherwise …
GUNG-HO MANIACS INDEED!
Meanwhile, over in the real world, the vast majority of SEAL, Green Beret and SWAT team members grew up with an interest in weapons, military history, martial arts, or some combination of related subjects. And would have been the exact type to sign up for a course like this.
It’s a ridiculous association/proposition, made even more ridiculous by your subsequent contortion associating it with your “experience with law enforcement,” which I presume involved Boss Hog slapping his baton into his palm and calling you “boy.”
Talk about a bunch of folks jawing in an emasculated 21st-Century bubble … you might want to test your water for xenoestrogens.
William d’Inger, that was much my experience with boy scouts in the 80s. The safety rules were strictly taught and enforced; if you failed to follow them you would be ineligible to participate in rifle or shotgun shooting for a year. The threat worked because, like the lady said, shooting is fun.
We also had a rifle marksmanship club at our high school when I attended and still do today.
Police should be people with a desire to serve the community, not people who get off on ordering other people around but who are too afraid to join the military because they can only get their mall-ninja mojo working against people who fight back.
who don’t fight back, even.
Yes Drew, that is specifically what I’m saying. If you like that sort of thing you are not normal in that most people don’t like that sort of confrontation. That someone would like storming a bus with an MP-5 and shooting the hijackers is problematic. You can like the end result, you can feel good that you do it and save people, but I would hope the overall feeling is, “I hope I never have to do it.” Getting excited about it…not a good thing.
And the comparison of police SWAT to military Special Operators is just moronic Bill. These are police, not commandos miles behind enemy lines with little recourse if captured surrounded by enemies who want nothing more than to kill them.
And for the record I’m talking about SWAT, just SWAT. Not Special Operators in the military or the military in general. Their job is to kill people. That is not the job of the police.
then…
How do you reconcile these statements? Don’t forget the one (two, really)that started it all…
Now then,
This is presumptive indeed. You have no idea what my “experience with law enforcement” means.
In this context, I’m using the phrase as a parethetical to indicate that the subsequent language of my text is merely within the realm of my personal perspective. It is clearly not intended to be a blanket statement of fact.
The point is, as a matter of ethical civic service, Steve and I seem to prefer Cincinnatus, and not Caesar.
Steve –
I’ve got to give this some more thought. But a couple quick hits.
I don’t think anyone wants to cut open someone’s chest and give the patient’s heart direct massage…..but thats exactly what ER doctors sometimes must do for someone in full cardiac arrest. (Its a long story, maybe over a beer some day, but its the reason I didn’t follow my father into the field of medicine. I wasn’t “up for that.”)
I doubt they relish it or look forward to it relative to all their other activities, but its part of the gig. Gotta have people up for the task.
Second, I confess I’m not familiar with this program or the profile of the majority of its participants, but it seems an awfully broad brush being painted here. And lot’s of imputed motive.
The use of SWAT units is increasing. They are used for serving warrants on non-violent offenders. Towns with no murders for years are putting such units in place. The Posse Commitatus Act is being more and more irrelevant.
I can only assume that there is some reason for such things and that is that it is exciting and a way to get a bigger budget. It certainly isn’t because of need.
Thank you Brian, precisely.
Interesting to see the hair trigger (no pun intended) our gun nuts are on. Apparently suggesting that training children in tactics to kill people is kind of creepy is enough to completely set them off.
I can only guess they have excess adrenaline from the “Obama will seize your guns” hysteria that never actually panned out.
Well, the first statement establishes that I’m not prone to bust out such ad hominem libel of my fellow man’s manliness.
The second establishes that your pussitude on this topic is so extraordinary that my discourse has slipped the civil bonds of my usually benevolent nature.
This is true, because you chose to avoid establishing anything specific which would lend weight or context to your statement. This grants me the freedom to presume whatever I want.
And I’m going with your decades-long antithapy for Lt. Thaddeus Harris in Police Academy series.
Not all of them. I, for once, am a gun nut who agrees this is incredibly creepy. And I think most of my gun nut friends would agree.
Look, you seem like a nice guy, but you are kind of maligning a whole class of people, if unintentionally. My brother was on a SWAT team and is now a federal agent. My dad was a cop. I have many friends who are Army, Marines, SOG and/or cops (federal and local). One of my old childhood friends was a KIA Green Beret who liked to blow stuff up and shoot guns as a kid.
All of these people are different, but most all of them share an interest in controlled violence, and every last one of them would have signed up for a class like this as a kid, if available.
Do they all have a “screw loose?”
Your insulation that folks with interests of this nature as kids have a screw loose is amusingly disconnected from reality, and somewhat insulting.
You’ve bought into a stereotype of the thinking warrior, hesitant to use violence and vaguely interested in it. Individuals like that exist, and more of them exist after they taste real violence, but are dwarfed by the number who grow up as hell-raisers prior to channeling their impulses into disciplined police work or the military.
“insulation” = insinuation
Bill
I agree that all those professions take a special personality and person and as you said they all are not identical but do share some commonality. SWAT job isn’t the same as patrolman although some SWAT members do both and do them well. Kicking in a door of a drug house with arm criminals isn’t for the meek.
Unfortunately too many liberals think anyone in the military or aggressive professions are baby killers and power hungry. They see someone who likes shooting a gun as deviant power hungry individual. They see most police officers as power driven bullies. They want only completely passive people to be in these positions. In reality that doesn’t work. Most combat arms personnel don’t want to go to war but once there they do it in aggressive matter because that is to do the job right that is what needs to be done. Contrary to what many liberals think, having an aggressive personality doesn’t make one evil. Using that aggression for evil purposes does. Using aggression for good is a good thing.
Well said, Bill.
No, most cops aren’t. But enough are.
And the rest of law enforcement is far too tolerant of people who are only in the profession because they enjoy having power over or abusing ordinary people.
Do we gotta have 16 year olds up for the task?
Really dude, pull your head out of your ass and get a grip.
Reading that line, and some of the comments here, I have that same feeling I had when I went off to the University and found out that there were adults 21 years old who had never bothered to get a driver’s license. (New Yorkers)
There are people reading and writing the New York Times who never fired a weapon as a teenager, if ever. Cultural divide.
OK, let us acknowledge one thing from the gitgo: People who get involved in this sort of thing WANT to be a “hero”…
Only problem is, nobody wants a “hero” to come for them. In fact, the first thing one learns in training for this stuff, is “don’t be a hero” (because hero’s die and then we have 2 bodies to drag out). It is a slight contradiction (and all who do not acknowledge it, should shut up)
I for one, do not want a 22 yr old with a heros complex and a concealed carry permit “rescuing” me.
My first experience with firearms was when I was 12 at a YMCA summer camp. My issue isn’t introducing kids to firearms. But there is a big difference between teaching children target shooting and teaching them to bust into a room and violently subdue people.
Even if there is a need for adults too do such things, add this to the long list of adult things that children generally shouldn’t be exposed to.
This is the best case against it. That said, I’m not horrified by the program’s existence, and if executed well bothers me no more than JROTC, where youth begin the first steps in a career path in which they kill people.
anjin-san
Really? Read some of the post that drawing asinine conclusions because someone likes shooting guns or wants to join a group that shoots guns.
“I object to the idea of training young people in paramilitary tactics as a feeder program for SWAT units and other such things. I think that if a person is gung-ho about that sort of thing, they are probably the person you least want doing itâ€
“When forming a SWAT team ask for volunteers to sign up. Take that list and make sure anyone picked for the new unit is not on the list.”
“Someone who is first interested in putting a knee in a back (for thrills, approval from peers, and the assertation of power)â€
“Police should be people with a desire to serve the community, not people who get off on ordering other people around but who are too afraid to join the military because they can only get their mall-ninja mojo working against people who fight back.â€
“The use of SWAT units is increasing. They are used for serving warrants on non-violent offenders. Towns with no murders for years are putting such units in place. The Posse Commitatus Act is being more and more irrelevant.â€
The statements are inferring a person should be a passive type otherwise they will abuse their power. They say that if they are gung-ho or have an aggressive personality then they are unfit for to be in SWAT. Basically anyone who is interested in physical aggressive activities are power trip nuts. The ones that use these types of arguments are the ones that use to bash the military before bashing the military became not cool. They’re the ones that will take any mistake made by members of the military to bash the military even today. I bet most of the poster above use to Abu Ghraib scandal to bash the military.
Yup. Just as asinine as your generalization about “liberals”. Guess what, you belong to the same club as the people you are complaining about, just a different chapter.
You mean they use bad things done by the military to criticize the military? How horribly unfair. Imagine being called to task for your actions like that?
Do you guys ever stop and actually listen to yourselves?
Stormy
I understand some of your concerns. I have some of same concern when it comes to teaching children martial arts. However if done right it can teach the kids some valuable ethics and discipline. If done wrong it can teach the kid bad habits and encourage bad behavior. Not all programs are created equal. Surprising thing is that some of the programs I have seen which I would say used a soft\passive philosophy turn out more bratty kids.
Anjin
You need to read my post a bit closer. I said “too many liberals†which is a far cry than saying every liberal. Not that I don’t at times generalize but unlike you I acknowledge that I do.
I have a very specific problem on the “children” issue. Explorer scouts are a vocational program for kids in high school up until 21 years old. The explorer post that is the subject of the article apparently breaks the rules. I simply think its inappropriate to push vocational education on pre-high school kids. Let ’em be kids.
That said, I fail to see what the problem is with someone interested in a career on the border patrol being told what that career entails. I don’t believe high school/ and post-high school students need to be treated so paternalistically.
Tlaloc
Using a very small percentage of a large group to reflect on the whole group instead of what the vast majority of that group does is unfair. The â€military†teaches better ethics but there will always have a few strays.
It would be like calling all Democrats liars because Pelosi is. I was about to say that liars in Democratic party may be the norm not the exception but that is a cheap shot and I don’t believe it.
The explorers around here are a joke. They tend to be underage drinkers and pot smokers. Hell while back a group of them got “busted” for having an underage party. And by “busted” I mean the cops showed up and told them to cut it out. Meanwhile the next weekend a group of non explorers got taken to jail for a party..
Why not? Almost all of them are under 18. You know, children.
The movement in our law enforcement agencies towards a more military posture is very troubling. If you don’t think so, go talk to someone who has been the victim of a mistake on a “no knock” drug warrant. Do you want to explain to your kids why a bunch of big guys with guns kicked in the door, shot their dog and made mom and dad lie down on the floor with guns to their heads? I don’t think so…
Great. Ok here we go.
Too many conservative are pseudo-fascist drones who think the sun shines out of Cheney & Rush’s ass. They actually believe the utter crap that Iraq was involved in 9/11 and Saddam had WMD. They also seem to think that the proper use role of the constitution is lining a birdcage. They call for war at great volume and run like the wind when it looks like they might actually have to do some of the fighting.
Gee, are we accomplishing anything?
When you get to the point when you’re giving a 13 year old hands-on instruction in the finer points of kicking someone in the spine, it’s not being executed well.
lol
Why, yes, we have accomplished something.
I don’t think you’ll want to know what that accomplishment is, however.
Hey, it’s the only guy we know with a dedicated music server!
Surprised you have time for us bit. Now that we know you are some kind of hardcore badass who spends his spare time punk-slapping armed men. You are just an all around amazing dude. Thanks for sharing!
Anjin is still trying to pass the lie that Bush said Iraq was involved in 9/11. Only one I ever heard make that claim are liberals. Yes Bit I know trying to reason with anjin is a waste of time but it is fun to play in the deeply disturb end at times.
Wayne please show me where in my post Bush is mentioned.
The Explorer Program is for young adults thinking of making a careeer in law enforcement. These are not 12 year old kids. If I was 18 and wanted to go into law enforcement I would probably be excited about attending such a course. Perhaps it will deter some from choosing this career. It really is no different from a high school student wanting to work in a news organization to gain experience as an Obama supporter. Are you saying high school students should only begin pursuing a career in their junior and senior years if it’s something other than law enforcement?
Can you show me anywhere where anyone claimed Iraq was involved in 9/11 besides from left wingers claiming conservatives most often Bush said it?
Or, many fire depts hsve Explporer posts, many nursing staffs have them, Many Ambulance squads have them. Indeed, just about any profession you might come up with, has them, and all of them for the purpose of allowing young people to explore in a guided setting, making a careeer in whatever the Explorer post is set up for.
(Shrug) There is that. I suppose I can understand how he’d adopt the flawed reasoning he does, but it’s the pride in it, even after it’s been exposed as such for all to see, that escapes me.
Wayne you just said I was lying about something Bush said. Please show me where I mentioned Bush. If you are going to call me a liar, please be prepared to back it up.
Well bit, I know I am not an elite explorer trained fighting man and music server administrator like you, but yes, I do take some pride in basing my political thinking on reason and actual facts.
Since you are joining forces with Wayne, ask him to tell you about how he once schooled me on web design 🙂
Oh, and please do get back to me when you are ready to man up and have that little discussion on military strategy and tactics.
No, I think I’ll leave your bald-faced defensive attempt to change the subject, to hang on it’s own merits, as I said.
Dude, you were the one who commented “And isn’t it interesting how a bunch of anti-war leftists are now suddenly experts in military tactics?”
After YOU opened that door, I invited you to have a discussion so that we could determine who knows what on the subject. You then
made a tactical retreatrun like the wind. When challenge, You obviously are not up to the task.Dude, you were the one who commented “And isn’t it interesting how a bunch of anti-war leftists are now suddenly experts in military tactics?”
After YOU opened that door, I invited you to have a discussion so that we could determine who knows what on the subject. You then
made a tactical retreatrun like the wind. When challenge, You obviously are not up to the task.A) in the abstract, it depends on how statistically significant the “very small group” is
B) in the concrete, it isn’t a “very small group” (is that officially the new euphemism replacing “a few bad apples”?) in this case, it is an organizational culture that has deep and serious problems.
Well Cheney kept insisting that Mohammad Atta (the head 9/11 hijacker) met with Iraqi intelligence agents in Prague, right up until it was conclusively proven to be BS.
That work for you?
re: Tlaloc at May 15, 2009 17:04
It goes even beyond that, as it appears that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was asked about the Iraq-9/11 connection, probably during one of his torture sessions…
Good point AIP. It is looking more and more like torture was used in an attempt to support the Bush administration’s political agenda. Just when you thought the disgrace to our country could not get a lot worse…