Nixon invades Cambodia, campuses across the country erupt in protest, armed troops deployed to deal with the unrest on an Ohio campus, guns pointed at students to intimidate them into dispersing...hmmm, can't remember what happened next...everything calmed down, I think, right?
God blessed the students with omniscient insight, so they reverted their concerns and joined the army to establish democracy all over the world. An eagle, sounding like a red-tailed hawk, was heard screeching in the distance.
Eagles these days just don’t sound like they used too, back in my day they had this powerful screech that would pierce through even a swelling orchestral track to a movie.
Then the woke mob came for Eagles and now they sound lame.
I want to go back to those good times, that I imagine in my head, those times are great because I can remember whatever bullshit fantasy I want as “history” and just throw a tantrum and scream at anyone who challenges me on it.
Red tailed hawks? What are those? Are they like an Owl or something? Since when did people give a fuck about birds? They are so boring.
National Guard units shot and killed four student protesters in Ohio at Kent State University in 1970, wounding nine others. I've read the police used excuses like they had intel there were communist agitators involved, funnily similar to what they say today.
If your basis for ethical governance is splitting hairs about relative body count, stop, go back, you fucked up. But also: give them a minute. It's the cops we're talking about here. They might be a little slow, but they'll get the job done eventually.
Let’s try this again without the Tiananmen Square Massacre copy pasta, at the explicit request of “seahorse” the Midwest social owner:
The difference between the two is that there was no weapon here. You can’t even make out what’s in front of the dude in black but most everyone here took a Twitter post as fact.
The Tiananmen Square massacre, on the other hand, did happen and did kill people. That’s the difference here.
I responded to the comment with the copypasta. Anyway, the point isn't China good, the point is making fun of all the people in the US that screech about Chinese authoritarianism like we haven't been captured by our own stupid fucking brand of authoritarianism.
But don't worry guys! The first amendment guarantees a right to assemble. The police wouldn't ever do anything to infringe on our rights! If they were to do it, I'm sure there'd be a really sick folk song written about it or something
On the evening of May 13, 1985, longstanding tensions between MOVE, a black liberation group, and the Philadelphia Police Department erupted horrifically. That night, the city of Philadelphia dropped a satchel bomb, a demolition device typically used in combat, laced with Tovex and C-4 explosives on the MOVE organization, who were living in a West Philadelphia rowhome known to be occupied by men, women, and children. It went up in unextinguished flames. Eleven people were killed, including five children and the founder of the organization. Sixty-one homes were destroyed, and more than 250 citizens were left homeless.
Folks familiar with this incident had a remarkably different take on the Waco siege and subsequent fire that resulted when the FBI surrounded David Koresh's church compound. Same with the Ruby Ridge US Marshal slaying of a white nationalist's wife and son, during an investigation into gun sales.
Then there's the assassination of Fred Hampton and Malcolm X, the police storming of the Occupy Wall Street camps in New York, the COINTELPRO operations that targeted anti-war movements during the Bush Administration, the incredibly violence by police in Ferguson and Baltimore during the BLM marches, police kidnappings in Portland, Seattle, Chicago, and LA during the George Floyd protests.
I got to personally witness the mass arrest of protesters in Houston, after they were surrounded and kettled in Discovery Green Park.
America is a cursed land. Something something maybe don't build your country on an ancient indian burial ground something something.
People love to hate it but the second amendment is also a thing. Now don't get me wong I don't want this to happen ever to anyone...but there was a time when strikers would shoot and be shot at on the reg.
Should be treated like they are? Okay, so full outrage, comparisons to the Kent State massacre, and the administration facing reprisals and consequences for deploying snipers to intimidate, threaten, and potentially murder students.
We're treating them like they're snipers, Admin, you're welcome.
If they should be treated like snipers, that means protesters should respond in kind:
Make smoke screens. Tires work best. Bicycle tire with gas will make thick black smoke making it hard for the spotter and sniper to see.
Force projection works both ways: make their advantages into disadvantages. Snipers are long range units, meaning they have to be away from what they are targeting. If you can create enough distractions they won't be able to see the forest from the trees.
I dunno about the smoke. On top of probably seeming to be an escalation because you'd be burning stuff (I'd probably go with fog oil and a generator instead, only object is price, but, hey, tires can also get pretty expensive depending on where they're sourced. Theater department might also have some stuff on em), but also a large amount of smoke might serve to obfuscate documentation and recording, which I would say is a pretty big priority. Keep a camera fixed on these snipers at all times, and you can tell when they're firing and probably who's been killed at what moment, and that's maybe an important and large deterrent, compared to a smokescreen. I'd imagine if you were going with that and if it came to that, you'd just want to render the snipers ineffectual by other methods, which, you know, maybe your mind can wander about how you might accomplish that one, without me having to suggest a specific course of action there.
Yeah, you’re putting snipers on a university aimed at the students. That’s not the behavior of a government that values personal freedoms like speech and assembly.
Free speech on college campuses means they have to pay bigots to speak and allow disruption from religious protests by non students, but students get riot cops and snipers for protesting genocide
Wtf... Cops in riot gear arresting students before 10pm, and fucking SNIPERS intimidating in a peaceful one night protest on a college campus. And a university spokesperson saying "demonstrators exercised their first amendment right for several hours and then were instructed to disperse" like yeah, that's enough first amendment right for you guys, go be quiet now.
Nope. Just nope. You are not free. Burn it all to the ground before it's too late or we're actually fucked.
So not justifying this response, but they have snipers out for EVERY football game. I think it is standard practice for large gatherings. You can make your own opinions on this, but this isn't a unique thing.
Europe has snipers at football stadiums too. One of the first, mainstream, acknowledgements of them was when a protestor parachuted onto the field during the Germany-France Euro match in 2020. When people got mad they said it was common practice to have snipers at most events of this size.
Yeah, cuz thrice-weekly mass shootings are a US thing. I'm not getting into a chicken-and-egg circkejerk with anyone about which came first, but as long as "we the people" are gonna keep shooting large gatherings of our fellow citizens...especially if we think they disagree with us, then any controversial or highly public event is gonna be crawling with armed police...including snipers.
As someone who's worked large events and closely with police or other big wig officials, I am consistently surprised at how people are surprised about how high profile event security works.
The amount of work that goes into keeping people safe regularly is monumental. You'd also be surprised at just how much hard targets don't get attacked when a limelight is cast on them compared to soft targets. It's violence prevention 101 and easily the most important.
Agreed, most of the responses here are ridiculous.
They bring snipers out anytime there's a big event or a major public figure. Michelle Obama visited the University of Akron when I was going there, they had snipers all over the place.
They're not bringing out snipers for some kind of perverted crowd control. It's almost definitely so if someone shows up with a gun and starts firing into the crowd all the protestors don't get shot.
Yep b3causr there's absolutely no difference in armed defense when the president or first lady is visiting and when students are protesting, none at all.
He'll might as well tell the students of tiananmen square that tanks are just a normal part of defence.
I'm really not sure a sniper would be super useful in that situation. Obviously, different environment than the 2017 las vegas shooting, but I don't really think that those snipers on rooftops would really be effective at all in taking out a committed shooter, which could just shack up in one of the many buildings with windows facing the crowd and fire down or into the crowd. Maybe in that case, a sniper might be able to peep out where the shooter is, or might be able to get a shooter on the way in or out, but with the level of people there and the level of surrounding buildings, I'm really not sure they'd be able to do very much. Obviously if someone just walks in off the street and opens up on everyone, then a sniper might be more effective, but I dunno.
It seems insane to me because I've only met armed police once in my life, and that was at download festival in the UK after a spree of terrorist attacks across the UK and the rest of Europe.
That was quite entertaining however as the armed police kept having to run away from drunk people who wanted pictures taken with the guns.
Look up at the sky, at the dark shapes of Coalition airships hanging there. Ask yourself: is there something sinister in moralism? And then answer: no. God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth.
Okay so they have spotting scopes and tripods for sure. Now they could have just brought those for the sake of gathering accurate info on protests I assume are 100-300 meters away to pick out details better (ie Is that person pointing a gun or a dslr camera with a long lens?)
A modern AR-15 (most patrol car rifles) with a proper zero, consistent ammuntion and in the hands of a capable person (it's not hard it just takes regular practice) could easily be used effectively to engage man size targets with a guy on the spotting scope doing the target id I mentioned earlier to get the right guy.
With a basic bolt action precision rifle, even if it's chambered in the same round, could be used even more effectively with target id capabilities of the spotting scope using the magnification of better rifle optics. I bet they have one on that second tripod.
And honestly I'd prefer that over 50ish dudes with rifles with their own set of mob mentality like they had at Kent back in the day.
No, these are police snipers their job is to shoot anyone who actually succeeds at hurting cops. They aren’t the same tactical role as military snipers
dude has his bipod deployed on top of his tripod, in possibly the least comfortable and most obvious position of all time, hoo lee, get this guy a medal or something we're sending our best to protect against the dangerous student body
In any case, the people saying this is pretty standard security for a large gathering of people are correct in it's regularity, but I'm not particularly convinced that they're correct in its efficacy as a practice. They're all visible enough that they can be seen by the student body, which is either bad planning or blatant intimidation, and obviously gives up their position immediately, which is bad since they're potentially a would-be ne'er-do-well's greatest threat. If anyone becomes embedded in the protesting crowd, they become much less effective, if anyone takes up a tactical position, they become much less effective. If anyone starts to try to instigate violence between the protestors and police, which would probably be what any bad actor would do since it has a pretty high chance of success, they're much reduced in their efficacy, or potentially even negative in their efficacy as it leads to an escalation of violence. If anyone has a bomb or does chemical attack, the sniper is probably too late.
Plus, from what I've seen of the other protests, the police already have a perimeter set up on the ground keeping track of who enters and exits, which makes sense. Snipers would probably be better served as a part of that perimeter rather than surveying the inside of the protest, since they can cover a pretty large distance, you could turn them around pretty quickly, if they did need to fire on where the protestors are actually gathered, they can screen who's entering and exiting, and it's overall better optics. They could probably keep their position better concealed since there's not a huge crowd of people looking at that side of the building (if they even made any attempt to be concealed, which should be really the bare minimum).
This doesn't make any sense to me, even just as a kind of surface-level tactical decision. Maybe I'm missing something here, but this just seems like it's maybe stupidity, or intimidation or something else I can't think of.
TIL spotters like to use one normal sized spotting scope alongside another one that's the size of a rifle with a cover on it. Doesn't make sense to me but I'm no spotter.
Just because you can’t read Chinese doesn’t mean it was spam.
Industry standard tiananamen square copy pasta that gets Chinese propaganda pushers in trouble with Winnie The Pooh. You realize how this looks for you and this instance right?