Did you make sure to spit out the bullets?

Those are prizes!

Ooh, a blasting cap.

Um... I know that the media never gets thing wrong, but isn't the animal in the file photo a bison, and not a buffalo? (They probably caught a case of teh stupid from CU).

It's things like this that are why irregardless became a real word and inflammable and flammable mean the same thing.

Yes, it is a Buffalo. It is also a bison. Specifically, an American bison. We use bison and buffalo interchangably. Technically, what we call buffalo are not actually buffalo at all, and have never been. But, you know, that's not the media's fault, considering it's been happening for a long time.

Oh, I know. I just felt like pointing it out along with the collective intellectual laziness of people who don't bother to learn or use the term 'bison' anymore than they would do something like know the correct pronunciation of 'nuclear.'

That's a bit harsh. Buffalo is nowhere near as bad as nucular foliage libaries. Hell, I buy packs of buffalo burgers from Trader Joe's. Bison may be more correct, but it's hardly used.

Wait, irregardless isn't a word?

Oh right, it means the same thing as regardless...

No, it didn't used to be a word.

And it isn't one now. Ugh.

Nope, although I never thought I'd find humor in a dictionary. Or maybe it's because it's something I'd write or say if I was actually witty.

Geez, wouldn't the right equipment be a little less lethal?

I suppose they could have tranquilized them, but since they were headed for slaughter anyways, killing them was probably a lot less hassle. Load 'em up, drive 'em back to the plant. Done and done.

The 1(3) specialization is explicity allowed, page 84 of the BBB.

Shots to the head without flinching eh? i beleive that. with the right angle bouncing a .223 rem off a bison skull wouldn't be too hard. I've done the same to a beaver with a .22LR. plus the fact that an AR15 with stock sights that's been riding around in the car for a few months, you'd be lucky to hit much at all with it.

And the mailboys. The interns probably do, too.

With a very good VR training program, you might be able to maintain pistols 2 in most of the staff (those with datajacks, anyway). Though how you would justify the cost of such a training program, I have no idea.

But a pistols skill of 5 for 'average cops is way over the top). Cops don't 'make thier money' by using thier guns. Their 'professional skill' is police procedures...

Or we could admit that it is just a trite and unnecessary aspect of LS.

Yes, but I can actually hit things with my loaded statements, unlike police, who, like poor marksmen, keep missing the target...

Over here in Britain, we have a different viewpoint on police and firearms, mostly because the vast majority of ours don't carry them. Becoming an Authorised Firearms Officer alone only requires a Basic Firearms course; but for the Armed Response Units (the blokes who actually turn up to active crime scenes) you need that plus another four weeks of training and a further three days of training every six weeks. Incidentally, our ARV's use glock 17's and HKMP5's. From there you can go on to qualify as a Specialist Firearms Officer, which I think is like the American SWAT and includes shotgun training, abseiling, advanced firearms training, and training in pyrotechnics, entry to buildings, and movement in various forms of protective clothing.

There's a fairly useful article here

It's a pdf, just to forewarn you.

We're still stuck in the "truncheon" mentality, I think. Although I have seen police demonstrators showing off the full capability of the baton (which is, after all, basically a tonfa) so I imagine as time passes the training will increase. But yes, most beat cops here are still at the "smack him round the head with it" stage.

EDIT: American cops have used the tonfa/baton for some time now, haven't they? Any Americans care to comment on the beat cop's average skill with one?

Here's something to help simulate that amount of shooting: when in SR combat you don't know the condition of your target unless the following happens:

They take 10 boxes of overdamage (ie you can see sunlight through them)
or
You spend an action to observe the targets condition in detail.

Even if the guy your are shooting at is dead on his feet, it might take him a bit to fall down... And even when he does fall down, did you kill him, or was that just a serious wound?

It's even worse at long ranges, in cover, and with prone targets. Did you kill the guy you just shot? It's kinda hard to tell, best shoot him again to be sure... Also in the way most SR games are run, you know that you hit the target, and you have a pretty good idea of how much damage the target is going to take (based on the number of successes you got). So, how many times are you going to shoot to be sure?

This can be applied a limiter on those really fast guys (if you are still using SR2 initiative), in that the sam might actually kill the target with his first action, but spend the rest of his actions shooting a dead body that just hasn't had the time to fall down yet.

No, sir, no trolling here.

Very clever. Go watch a video of the Stanley Miller beating.

Er, yes. Still mostly asleep today

~J

Right, because we all know it was an isolated incident and that sort of abuse of power never happens anywhere else.

In much the same fashion, Pat Tillman isn't the only blue-on-blue casualty ever caused by the US military, more than one child has been molested by a teacher, and more than one fireman has died in the line of duty.

Does that make my comments any less inflammatory or trollish?

I'm pretty sure I'd be equally obnoxious and puerile if I took them as genuinely serious criticisms of those professions.

I never said it was a genuine criticism, did I? I said it was trolling.

You're acting like a prick right now, I don't see how you're suddenly stupid enough to not see that you are, and that's way out of character for you. If you continue to claim you can't see how your comment was nothing but trollish cop-bashing, fine. I don't see how you can claim that, but have fun. PM me if you feel an urge to continue the conversation.