I’m an Indiana University alum and my dad was a professor there. During the protests there, they had a fucking sniper on the roof. The protests were in a park next to the student union which had been used for protests since the Vietnam War. I was there in middle school in a shanty that was protesting the 1990s Gulf War. Now the new semester has started and there’s a chain link fence around the whole thing.
The president just got a raise.
Makes me fucking sick.
Here’s the sniper:
I used to climb up to that roof where that sniper is with friends when I was in high school to smoke weed, so that was a trip to see.
I agree it’s insane what they do, but the sniper is needed with the direction we’ve gone. The sniper is there in case someone with a gun comes to kill protesters, not to kill protesters or they would have done it by now. They really are there for everyone’s safety. Now the guys on the ground who attack people or the guys firing pepper rounds/spray at protesters, they’re the ones we should be complaining about. The ones who are actually applying violence to protesters. The sniper may appear worse if you aren’t paying attention, but they’ve yet to actually shoot anyone, while protesters have been assaulted.
Nonsense. The sniper is part of the same police force as the one attacking protesters.
Which side did the cops take when protesters in New York were attacked?
They are a part of the same police force. I’m not saying they’re good people. I’m saying this role is not one doing harm, and is actually useful until we get our shooting issue under control. You’ll see the same snipers at sporting events and anywhere else with a large gathering. They’re obviously not there for the protesters, but in case someone decides to do something to start killing others.
Why has there never been a sniper there before then? There’s a huge festival every year in that park with a huge number of students and non-students, including a lot of teenagers, with live bands playing on more than one stage. Never a sniper.
No Idea. My university did a yearly celebration as well and we for sure had snipers and guys with rifles walking around. If you know where to look, they’re at most large events. I can’t tell you about this location specifically, but it’s common.
This is Bloomington, Indiana. Population 80,000. Police snipers aren’t generally a thing in towns that size.
Because gun violence is more of a risk than ever.
Honestly I would feel better with the sniper there, so they could stop random nut who shows up with an assault rifle. Which is really sad.
This isn’t inner city Detroit, this is a small Indiana city. Snipers are not the norm.
It’s not the norm in inner city Detroit either…
Cops ARE the gun violence. But they don’t have to be the only ones!
European here. “Pepper munitions” aren’t military weaponry as they’re banned for use in war by the Chemical Weapons Convention. This all reads like riot control stuff. The only weird thing is that american universities have their own police departments.
Neither are the bean back rounds and launchers
But yeah, this was a shock for me a few years after I graduated. My school made a big deal of “Campus Security” becoming spcertified as a police force “University Police”, but the only reason they ever gave was so they could carry guns.
I’m not denying there may be a gun threat occasionally, but this was in a small university town, not near any cities. This was as safe a place as you could expect, and I’m sure almost all their calls were kids binging on new intoxicants, and kids fumbling through dating and relationships
LRAD is some fucked up shit, btw. (Part of the large family of sonic weapons)
An LRAD can thus emit a targeted “beam” of sound at very high volume, up to 160 dB at one meter from the device. This is louder than standing behind a jet engine taking off, or a nearby gunshot.[2]
Americans live in one of the police states of all time. Capitalism can only produce this result, there is no alternative, because the ruling class knows just as well as the socialists do that the contradictions will only keep getting worse and the protests will only keep getting bigger but of course instead of wanting to change the equation to produce a different result like the socialists do the capitalists want to cling to power by any means necessary.
If you replace capitalism in that sentence with another ism you still have the same results.
Not really.
The fundamental critique of capitalism is that not even the capitalists are really in charge. Marx lays out quite thoroughly in Capital that the profit motive is what’s actually in charge, and the capitalists are just along for the ride, and that any attempt by the capitalists to flex their power in a way that the market cannot abide will result in them losing their privileged status and being replaced by a different capitalist who will better serve the needs of the profit motive.
By contrast, socialist systems are run by people. That makes them flexible and able to serve the needs of society in a way that capitalist societies simply aren’t. And yes, people are capable of mistakes, failure, and betrayal; but so too are they capable of insight, success, and solidarity. The best of existing socialist societies past and present is when they buck the demands of the market and provide for their people in ways that capitalist societies don’t, and the worst of socialist societies is invariably the things that they are required to do in order to maintain their existence on a predominantly capitalist world.
Anarchism.
How is a private entity allowed to buy military grade weaponry to use against their students?
Oh right… 'Merica. You guys have a problem with weapons, a problem no civilized country has. But then again, we’re not talking about a civilized country but a capitalism ruled country.
There are plenty of capitalist countries where this sort of shit doesn’t happen.
Because none of them are ruled by capitalism. Capitalism is their economic system, not their government system.
Don’t say, “against their students”, say, “against their customers”. Which makes it sound even more ridiculous.
Capitalism isn’t the problem.
Edit: I would argue wealth inequality is the problem. You can have (a form of) capitalism and still fix wealth inequality.
Capitalism may not be the problem, but “country being ruled by capitalism” definitely is.
Capitalism is a tool, used by 2000 people to rule the rest. Hierarchy is the problem. The idea that one person is better than the other.
This idea needs to die already.
But yes, money is a good tool to brainwash people into misunderstanding the worth of their work and their property. This „inflation“ treadmill is insane and makes you run faster in the hamster wheel while the rich dont work at all!
And may the odds be ever in your favor.
Agreed
It’s THE problem
Capitalism will seek profits over all else. If that requires implementing corporatism as a form of government it will endeavour to do so. That is the point of the whole god damn thing.
Capitalism is an extremely potent and powerful tool to create profits. Whatever else it does is incidental. If the food system can get away with creating a profit by making you eat sawdust then it will. All costs are externalised as much as possible and all profit is privatised as much as possible. This is not a bug but a feature.
“to escalate its warfare on its students”
Yep, my mind doesn’t understand this phrase at all.
Not American so not up to speed on what’s going on…
Are these students that are protesting doing it with tanks, machine guns, grenades, planes? Are they being at all non-peaceful? Has anyone been killed?
Aren’t they protesting about the arms supplied to Israel and being used against Gazans?
The worst things that happen are when students lock the door to a building, or when fascist counter protestors (often in police uniforms) show up and escalate shit.
All protests should be armed protests.
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By the way for those that think they’re gonna use actual grenades on children, they’re just foam “fordy mike mikes” (40mm) that are designed to fit in a grenade launcher. Pepper balls are similar to pepper spray (but iirc it’s a bit stronger)
doesn’t make it better lol
If you’ve ever been hit by either (I’ve been hit by a few pepper balls) - it fucking sucks. It is painful, it can, absolutely, be lethal if it hits a neck/face/chest.
UC Merced annual training required only 7 rounds, while UC San Francisco used 7000 and UC Santa Barbara used 9000 🤔
Shoutout to UC Davis for having the only police department on the list who “did not use any military equipment during this timeframe”.
For some reason the linked PDF varies from the screenshot in several ways, though most of the numbers are the same. (UC Riverside’s number of rounds of .556-range ammunition used in training is 3000 in the screenshot but 6000 in the PDF now.)
I was curious how much this launcher costs:
… over here I see this glorified paintball gun is normally $2400 but currently on sale for just $1850.
Insanity
9 what???
Fucking excuse me?
Do we think part of why this is happening is because Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are in bed with academia
When the university buys an f35 we can talk about it, this is small arms.
What do they need grenade launchers for???
With a weird mind you could excuse single target weapons, but grenades? Do you want want to free some seats early?
For the 40mm impact munitions in the list. Riot control gear.
“Grenade launcher” here isn’t very specific. Could be like an M203 or something, which is a tube launcher that lobs 40mm rounds up to about 100m. You can absolutely get 40mm frag grenades and blow shit up, that’s what most people think of when they think of a “grenade launcher,” but that’s not what it’s on the list here. You can lob gas canisters, smoke, illumination flares, etc etc etc, just depends on what you’re trying to do.
Less-lethal grenades, probably.
