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from the we-have-NJ-jokes-but-maybe-not-the-right-time dept.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/19/us/new-york-explosion-investigation/
The intense investigation into the weekend bomb blasts in New York and New Jersey is leading authorities to signs of a possible terror cell in those two states, law enforcement officials told CNN Monday. The ongoing investigation, which includes two bombs in New York City and devices in two cities in New Jersey, has given authorities leads on specific people who are urgently being sought.
Also on Monday morning, a federal law enforcement official said BBs and ball bearings were among the pieces of metal that appeared to be packed into both pressure cooker bombs in New York. One of those devices exploded on 23rd Street, but the fact that it was partly under a metal trash container may have diminished the force of the blast.
The latest developments came just hours after a backpack containing multiple bombs was found Sunday night near an Elizabeth, New Jersey, train station, according to the FBI and the city's mayor. [...] The [New York City] blast occurred on the same day an explosion went off near a Marine Corps charity run in New Jersey and a man stabbed nine people at a Minnesota mall. Authorities are investigating all three incidents as possible terror acts.
Update: NYT: Police Hunt for Ahmad Khan Rahami in Connection With Manhattan Bombing
Update 2: The suspect has been captured alive, despite getting into a shootout with police.
[Ed's Note: Whereas in some parts of the world, BB is an abbreviation for ball bearing, in the US in particular it refers simply to a round pellet fired from a compressed air weapon.]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @01:20PM
By that logic, why do people still arm themselves for safety? There are still plenty of robberies and homicides in spite of all of those efforts.
(Score: 5, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday September 19 2016, @01:35PM
Because banning pressure cookers to prevent terrorism is like trying to prevent a dam from bursting by stuffing toilet paper into the cracks. All you end up with is a broken dam and shit in your knickers.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Monday September 19 2016, @01:36PM
Because some people don't understand statistics.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday September 19 2016, @05:08PM
Because some people don't understand statistics.
Only some? Hell, hardly anyone understands statistics :-)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Francis on Monday September 19 2016, @06:27PM
Well, pretty much, but I was hoping to be a bit more positive.
People overestimate the likelihood of terrorism or other crime and greatly underestimate the risk of more common problems like suicide and accidental discharge. There'd be literally tens of thousands more people alive at the end of the year if they didn't have firearms on hand.
It makes thoughtful people question the point of having these things around them when they increase the likelihood of an outcome that people are claiming to want to avoid.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by jmorris on Monday September 19 2016, @07:34PM
Don't buy the media spin. The reason to have guns is easy to understand. Go look at the crime statistics and map them to when each State passed concealed carry. More guns, less crime. You don't have to shoot the criminal, just opening your coat and letting them see it stops most muggers. Thousands and thousands of gun owners stop crimes every year without firing a shot. But just the knowledge of an armed citizenry depresses a lot of crime because most criminals aren't retarded, even if they cluster on the left side of the Bell Curve. Having random armed people on the street raises the risk of death or serious injury and deters them from engaging in high risk crime like mugging, and looking into burglary instead of home invasion for example.
Simple incentives work. A criminal knows that if he kills a victim (i.e. not a gang banging, which rarely results in arrest) the odds are good he will be caught and imprisoned, assuming he survives the gunfight. That makes getting into a gunfight with a victim a no-win scenario to be avoided. The victim is under no such limitation, in most States they are free to blast away with little worry of legal repercussions. If very unlucky a victim could be subjected to a Zimmerman style media witch hunt, but prison isn't a realistic threat. Again, the criminal knows this imbalance exists and is encouraged to pursue non-violent crimes to feed their drug habit.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Monday September 19 2016, @08:16PM
I see somebody has drunk the flavor-aid. None of that bullshit is actually true.
Having a firearm doesn't mean squat if you don't have the opportunity to pull it. And just pulling it isn't enough, you need to be prepared to pull the trigger and most folks can't do it.
And BTW, more guns means more gun crimes. Where do you think the criminals get those guns from? Here's a hint, countries with strict gun controls have fewer gun related fatalities. Just look at China, gun crimes are non-existent and crime hasn't gotten out of hand the way that you imply.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by jmorris on Monday September 19 2016, @08:39PM
Math disagrees with you, as does logic and official FBI crime statistics.
As to comparing crime stats across countries, always dangerous. A lot more than gun laws vary across a comparison between the U.S. and China. Repeat offenders don't generally exist in China, just as an obvious example of an important difference. They also lack a large criminal underclass constantly agitated to violence by a professional agitator class and the mass media. There also some obvious benefits for the crime stats to absolute dictatorships with the will to ruthlessly murder any 'undesirable' who gets out of line; especially since those murders, obviously, don't get counted in the official crime stats. If we went through certain 'areas' and cleansed them of their 'vibrancy' I bet it would do similar miracles for our crime problem as well; I somehow doubt you support such a policy. Shall I continue throwing truth bombs until you get triggered?
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:39AM
Go ahead keep throwing the "truth" bombs, you're just reinforcing the view that you have no idea what you're talking about.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday September 19 2016, @10:49PM
[quote]Having a firearm doesn't mean squat if you don't have the opportunity to pull it.[/quote]
Actually it does. If a potential mugger knows there's a significant probability that you're carrying, he has to be willing to kill you outright in order to mug you. Most muggers don't want to do that; they want to scare you and take your money, then run away. They know that a killer is a lot more likely to be hunted down than a thief, and will be treated much more harshly when caught. In the case of women, it significantly reduces the chance of rape, unless of course the assailant wants to kill you first.
Here's a little chart for you:
http://crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Murder-rate-and-permits-graph-1024x874.jpeg [crimeresearch.org]
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:36AM
Or he just hits you on the head from behind and takes your stuff. Or waits until your distracted and stands to your side while doing the mugging.
The whole idea that a gun is going to protect you is so horribly flawed that I can't even believe that people still buy that idea. Unless you happen to be a vet, law enforcement or other person trained and experienced with using them and you're paranoid to never walk some place that you aren't set up for using it, you're not going to get much use of it. A knife at 20 feet is far more dangerous than a sidearm in a holster is. I mean, quite literally, by the time you get your firearm out of the holster and get ready to shoot, you're already stabbed if the guy is even quarter competent.
I refuse to associate with people that I know carry firearms because the risk of getting shot just rose substantially even though the risk of being mugged or messed with really hasn't changed.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:48AM
You seem to have a preconception of mugging/robbery as a violent crime, which it by and large is NOT. Thieves and muggers operate the same way predators do in the wild: choose the weakest and least able to fight back and target them. If they have any reason to suspect you are packing they will choose another target... Why risk your life when the next person poses no danger instead of /probably no danger because he's to scared to pull the trigger/ (and like most muggers are ballsy enough to kill anyway... NOPE they're just as if not more scared than the marks)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @10:24AM
So you're not actually preventing a crime. You're just shifting the target.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:13PM
Real world statistics disagree with you.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:57AM
Actually it does. If a potential mugger knows there's a significant probability that you're carrying,
you could fire off a warning shot into your own testicles! I has worked before! Once a mugger realizes that his is dealing with someone who will shoot off his own testicles over a matter of at most a couple a hundred bucks, the mugger tends to just give up on the whole endeavor. Of course, you are still missing your testicles, but since you were already a concealed carrier, there is no real loss, since the accompanying organs are probably to small to be of any use. Ammosexuals! Just admit it already! You are too f**ing afraid to walk about amoungst your fellow citizens in any legitimate manner! Why? You are cowards. Pansies. Lily-livered scum-suckers. Craven poultroons. Knaves of the worst sort. Fraidy cats. Cowards.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday September 19 2016, @08:19PM
By that logic, why do people still arm themselves for safety?
In addition to most people being bad at statistics as others said, the mere act of an individual arming themselves does not violate everyone's rights and threaten democracy [gnu.org] like mass surveillance does.