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[Silas Vitalia]

Police officers ? Pardon my skepticism, but either city policemen or whatever are certainly not trained in hand-to-hand combat, at least where I live (they don't even have guns), and national police may have had a few training sessions occasionally, but that's not their role. The only thing I can imagine them to be efficient in is neutralizing people with a few standard moves or just using their damn stun batons... Hardly experts of krav maga. Except SWAT teams and very special police corps.

Now then, we are playing capsuleers... Not hostage takers ? I am not even sure how such a situation could occur, but why not I guess...?

I am also very skeptical that even a pistol can not be used properly at point blank. Ofc it's probably harder than one thinks, but between one guy armed with a gun and one guy without one at close range, I would bet 95% of the time on the armed guy. You can miss of course, but the case when you stumble across someone at the corner of a small corridor sounds rather... very specific to me.

And yes, eve firearms... I'm pretty sure they have autotargeting and all and can actually fire even without your help...

Do you live in the United States?  Police officers here in Columbus, Ohio are definitely trained in hand-to-hand combat including barehanded striking, control locks, neutralizing armed suspects, use of batons, and more.  I know a few police officers personally who've demonstrated a few maneuvers.  I can't imagine a place on Earth where it would be okay to not know how to handle yourself as a police officer considering you have to follow a use-of-force guideline.  Like I said, you'd be surprised what police officers have to know how to do.  If someone isn't armed and decides to punch the crap out of you, you need to know how to get advantage again.  Patrol officers especially have to take and retake fitness tests in some fairly nasty techniques every year or few years.

Purple is right that shootouts at point-blank range generally involve a LOT of ammo being sprayed and no one being hit.  If you've never fired one before, a firearm is harder to control than you'd think.  First and most important, you need to provide resistance to an autoloading pistol, since it's actually force from recoil that cycles the action.  If you aren't gripping the gun correctly and provide no resistance when you fire, the gun can jam, pistols especially.  Second, keeping control when you fire is exceptionally difficult when you're pulling the trigger quickly.  You also need to be providing some backwards resistance to steady it.  Third, if you fire into something nearby that is not elastic and you're using a regular old FMJ round, the bullet will simply explode and you could be injured by your own shrapnel.

Police officers are trained to not reach for their weapons if they won't have it out and ready to fire before someone arrives to take it from them.  Guns are exceedingly dangerous.  Until they began building in magazine and grip safeties, it was actually very common that, if an officer was shot in the line of duty, it was with his own weapon.  It was in my gun-safety booklet they gave me when my father-in-law took me to a local club, so I might be able to get the precise statistic when I get home.  Even that booklet told me that if I was ever within arm's reach of someone, not to draw while they are looking at me.  As soon as your gun arm isn't entirely in your control anymore, the gun is as dangerous to you as anyone else.

I understand the skepticism, though.  Movies and even real-life professionals make it look very easy after years and years of practice.  Guns aren't as easy to handle as they look, though.  Pistols especially are very hard to control because there is less mass to absorb recoil.  That's more of what I'm talking about with EVE weapons, though.  A laser weapon would essentially have no recoil and no kinetic force.  That would make firing a laser weapon much easier, especially at close ranges.

Your version of police officers and the often out of shape trigger happy variety I'm familiar with are vastly different.   

It's a separate issue anyway, police are supposedly trained to not always use lethal force; armed forces training primarily to kill people are.  They get big guns that hurt people from far away; the sorts of western military we are familiar with on Earth are awfully concerned with civilian casualties and often have to contemplate controlled application of force with the minimum number of outside casualties.

In grimdark EVE they have giant hand cannons and ships from orbit bombarding entire sectors disintegrating everything; they will shoot you to ruin as fast as possible from as far away as possible.

[Elmund Egivand]

My father in law in the met (London) showed me 4 ways to incapacitate a man in three seconds on my husband, who is over a foot taller than him and father in law is prob half his size.  (the first one he just reached for my husbands hand and asked "Wanna see something?")

He also grinned like a predator when the riots kicked off though and WANTED to be in the riot lines with the hopes he got to bash some chav's skull in, but hey.

And sis in law who is in a smalltown police force in England can also beat the shit out of someone in about 3 seconds flat - specifically because they AREN'T armed with anythign but that collapsible baton, and if they're lucky, a family member, or they, added a Maglite to their arsenal of innocent looking objects on their belts.

There is an *impression* that police officers are these lazy slow stumbling things.

Do not believe it.  That's how they land you on your face on the street with your arm bent in interesting ways.  On some level they WANT to look harmless.  They are not to give off the impression of uniformed thugs.  They are to be friendly and approachable.  Which may look like the slightly pudgy smiling absent minded looking fellow (which is my father in law) and though he is slightly pudgy, and he may be smiling, he is not absent minded and will fucking own you, even at 54.

That reminds me of stories of old (ancient) war veterans beating the snot out of some robber with their shoe or walking stick without batting an eyelid.

[orange]

In grimdark EVE they have giant hand cannons and ships from orbit bombarding entire sectors disintegrating everything; they will shoot you to ruin as fast as possible from as far away as possible.

Oddly enough, I have had this thought put-forward for Warhammer 40k, but there is an actual answer in that case.  In the case of the 40k Universe, ground war is important because there is value in physical hardware, even if damaged.  Bombarding a location from orbit is just as likely to destroy an objective you would rather secure & repair than attempt to replace.  It is the difference between wanting to level a castle and take the castle.

In Eve, one has to force the ground war by having incredibly hardened targets.   We are talking about the kind of facilities that put Cheyenne Mountain to shame (Cheyenne Mountain was designed for a 30 megaton nuclear explosion[12] within 1.0 nmi (1.2 mi; 1.9 km)).   In Eve, a mind, an isolated AI or data-network, a particular incredibly unique object, hold actual value.  Non-unique things, groups of people, etc do not hold value in New Eden.  So, unless something is incredibly valuable as a physical thing, then it is 1) unlikely to be defended such that ground forces are needed and 2) is going to be defended in such a way as to make it horribly difficult and nasty and require specialized troops (who are not capsuleers).

[Vic Van Meter]

Police officers ? Pardon my skepticism, but either city policemen or whatever are certainly not trained in hand-to-hand combat, at least where I live (they don't even have guns), and national police may have had a few training sessions occasionally, but that's not their role. The only thing I can imagine them to be efficient in is neutralizing people with a few standard moves or just using their damn stun batons... Hardly experts of krav maga. Except SWAT teams and very special police corps.

Now then, we are playing capsuleers... Not hostage takers ? I am not even sure how such a situation could occur, but why not I guess...?

I am also very skeptical that even a pistol can not be used properly at point blank. Ofc it's probably harder than one thinks, but between one guy armed with a gun and one guy without one at close range, I would bet 95% of the time on the armed guy. You can miss of course, but the case when you stumble across someone at the corner of a small corridor sounds rather... very specific to me.

And yes, eve firearms... I'm pretty sure they have autotargeting and all and can actually fire even without your help...

Do you live in the United States?  Police officers here in Columbus, Ohio are definitely trained in hand-to-hand combat including barehanded striking, control locks, neutralizing armed suspects, use of batons, and more.  I know a few police officers personally who've demonstrated a few maneuvers.  I can't imagine a place on Earth where it would be okay to not know how to handle yourself as a police officer considering you have to follow a use-of-force guideline.  Like I said, you'd be surprised what police officers have to know how to do.  If someone isn't armed and decides to punch the crap out of you, you need to know how to get advantage again.  Patrol officers especially have to take and retake fitness tests in some fairly nasty techniques every year or few years.

Purple is right that shootouts at point-blank range generally involve a LOT of ammo being sprayed and no one being hit.  If you've never fired one before, a firearm is harder to control than you'd think.  First and most important, you need to provide resistance to an autoloading pistol, since it's actually force from recoil that cycles the action.  If you aren't gripping the gun correctly and provide no resistance when you fire, the gun can jam, pistols especially.  Second, keeping control when you fire is exceptionally difficult when you're pulling the trigger quickly.  You also need to be providing some backwards resistance to steady it.  Third, if you fire into something nearby that is not elastic and you're using a regular old FMJ round, the bullet will simply explode and you could be injured by your own shrapnel.

Police officers are trained to not reach for their weapons if they won't have it out and ready to fire before someone arrives to take it from them.  Guns are exceedingly dangerous.  Until they began building in magazine and grip safeties, it was actually very common that, if an officer was shot in the line of duty, it was with his own weapon.  It was in my gun-safety booklet they gave me when my father-in-law took me to a local club, so I might be able to get the precise statistic when I get home.  Even that booklet told me that if I was ever within arm's reach of someone, not to draw while they are looking at me.  As soon as your gun arm isn't entirely in your control anymore, the gun is as dangerous to you as anyone else.

I understand the skepticism, though.  Movies and even real-life professionals make it look very easy after years and years of practice.  Guns aren't as easy to handle as they look, though.  Pistols especially are very hard to control because there is less mass to absorb recoil.  That's more of what I'm talking about with EVE weapons, though.  A laser weapon would essentially have no recoil and no kinetic force.  That would make firing a laser weapon much easier, especially at close ranges.

Your version of police officers and the often out of shape trigger happy variety I'm familiar with are vastly different.   

It's a separate issue anyway, police are supposedly trained to not always use lethal force; armed forces training primarily to kill people are.  They get big guns that hurt people from far away; the sorts of western military we are familiar with on Earth are awfully concerned with civilian casualties and often have to contemplate controlled application of force with the minimum number of outside casualties.

In grimdark EVE they have giant hand cannons and ships from orbit bombarding entire sectors disintegrating everything; they will shoot you to ruin as fast as possible from as far away as possible.

I do have a question about that.  That's been brought up a lot, but if capsuleers have nothing stopping them from melting whole cities to kill their personal targets, you'd think it would happen a lot more often.

I don't think anyone's suggesting military personnel are trained to kung-fu their way through an invasion action, but I didn't even think about if you needed somebody dead and had to break into a hotel room in a hisec station.  If you can't Anton Chigurh your way through one, it's your only option.  But capsuleers don't seem to be glassing planet surfaces or it would probably make the news.

Is it just harder than it looks or is it just a matter of not being able to do so with CONCORD around?

[Leon026]

Well its happened in the past, Mabnen as I recall involving Blood Inquisition and their subsequent withdrawal from the Bleaklands into Delve. But that was before my time around early 2005. They viral-bombed the planet.

I'm sure it happens that some idiot capsuleer will fire shells at a populated planet for giggles, but most likely CONCORD appears, and royally fucks up the capsuleer and his pod-liscence or what not for using disproportionate force in empire space. But as I recall, capsuleers do bomb planets for faction warfare yea?



More importantly, the question is - to what end?

Its a bit like terrorism really. Buying an AK on the market in europe isn't all that difficult. Hell its easy enough to buy a shotgun for hunting. You could easily go into a primary school and start shooting. But what for? To what end? What does it achieve? What is the intended end state?

We could apply this to capsuleers. First of all, more importantly - if they're complete homicidal psychopaths before capsuleer training, how the hell did they get past the screening processes and psych evaluation? I'm sure a percentage got through, but it should be in theory minimal. I highly doubt people were 'born' capsuleers, but became capsuleers. Yes, they could turn into eventual beings with little morals, but the initial psyche they had when they were still human should still in theory still provide a form of "natural" safeguard against complete psychopathic behavior.

What would a capsuleer bombing a planet to kill someone achieve? Disproportionate use of firepower for a personal objective, using a ship that would easily be spotted and traced. Its even quite possible that CONCORD/Yulai demands a form of ship registration for every ship built and flown. There could also be passive tracking of ships that pass through what systems. So getting away without being spotted by CONCORD (unless in 0.0) would be rather.... difficult.

Also it could be that some weapons are simply NOT on the market and not sold. In the IRL weapons market, officially at the government level, you can buy all sorts of shit. Small arms, armored vehicles, jet fighters, tanks, ballistic missiles. You only have to go to Eurosatory for a day to see what sort of weapons are being sold officially on the world arms market. Its impressive at first, but you soon become a little disturbed as you realize that the small rooms in the corner of the hall is not the restrooms nor rooms to get a little action with the hot stand girls, but rooms to negotiate purchases from big armament corporations like Rhinemetal and MBDA to buy the latest missile technology and launch platform. That said.... some weapons are just not for sale. You will not be able to buy nuclear launch vectors. Chemical weapns are not sold. WMDs are not sold. Cluster bombs are not sold. Mines are not sold. And etc etc. I think likewise in EVE, planet bombardment weapons are kept precisely in the total control of State-powers to avoid the retardery involved with capsuleers getting their hands on them. I'm sure those that do will attempt to use them should they be psychotic enough, but the response would be similar to capsuleers shooting at another capsuleer in high-sec without the proper documents. In null-sec perhaps... but noone (CONCORD) cares, since thats no-man's land.

Third potential reason is that its disproportionate. What is the end-state of bombing a planet? What the hell for? To "pursuade" someone into paying protection money? I'm sure the local planetary government could call up the local navy or CONCORD to blow that capsuleer away and revoke his licence. But still, bombing a planet and killing 5 million people. How does that help your cause in having people actually want to deal with you? Probably very counter-productive. Even in terrorism, going after children is a no-no. PR wise its counter-productive, and does nothing to further your cause. You want people to support your struggles, not turn unilaterally against you for being an uncontrolled psychopath.

[Elmund Egivand]

Well its happened in the past, Mabnen as I recall involving Blood Inquisition and their subsequent withdrawal from the Bleaklands into Delve. But that was before my time around early 2005. They viral-bombed the planet.

I'm sure it happens that some idiot capsuleer will fire shells at a populated planet for giggles, but most likely CONCORD appears, and royally fucks up the capsuleer and his pod-liscence or what not for using disproportionate force in empire space. But as I recall, capsuleers do bomb planets for faction warfare yea?

Yes, but only once they receive the coordinates from the Dusters on ground.

[Katrina Oniseki]

I do have a question about that.  That's been brought up a lot, but if capsuleers have nothing stopping them from melting whole cities to kill their personal targets, you'd think it would happen a lot more often.

I don't think anyone's suggesting military personnel are trained to kung-fu their way through an invasion action, but I didn't even think about if you needed somebody dead and had to break into a hotel room in a hisec station.  If you can't Anton Chigurh your way through one, it's your only option.  But capsuleers don't seem to be glassing planet surfaces or it would probably make the news.

Is it just harder than it looks or is it just a matter of not being able to do so with CONCORD around?

It hasn't been properly explained, but there are nebulous reasons for why we cannot, all leading back to CONCORD. After some thinkering on it, I managed to figure out an explanation that works for my small bubble world of RP.

The capsule is a poorly understood device. A scarce few number of people who aren't Jove actually understand how it works. The rest just know how to assemble it and how to use it. The lack of widespread understanding of the capsule is probably why CONCORD can enforce such a monopoly on the command software that it runs on. They can determine what the capsule shows us and what it doesn't.

It's why we can't disable our collision safeties. It's why we can't see escape pods or 99% of civilian traffic. It's why CONCORD can literally disable our entire ship with the flip of a switch if the want to. It's why every locator agent in New Eden has access to our exact whereabouts at any time. It's why we can't target planets unless we're in a CONCORD defined militia.

The capsule is less a symbol of freedom, and more a collar to keep capsuleers restrained. The equipment we use is tightly controlled remotely at all times, and doesn't respond well to tampering (client modification).

Can one still target a planet and shoot it? Yes. People have done it in RP, because I'm sure there are more traditional ways to point a damn gun and shoot it in a specific direction. Doesn't mean the capsule allowed it.

So why don't we see more capsuleers glassing planets in highsec? Because most capsuleers haven't bothered to circumvent the controls by doing comparatively exhaustive targeting calculations that take into account the myriad physics and such that would be required. Also, tunnel vision. They forget it's still possible.

A few inventive baddies (read: roleplayers) have figured out that they don't need the capsule to shoot a city though. For those people? There are OOC power-gaming guidelines to govern fair use of the unverifiable-with-gameplay claims.

[Repentence Tyrathlion]

Well its happened in the past, Mabnen as I recall involving Blood Inquisition and their subsequent withdrawal from the Bleaklands into Delve. But that was before my time around early 2005. They viral-bombed the planet.

I'm sure it happens that some idiot capsuleer will fire shells at a populated planet for giggles, but most likely CONCORD appears, and royally fucks up the capsuleer and his pod-liscence or what not for using disproportionate force in empire space. But as I recall, capsuleers do bomb planets for faction warfare yea?

Yes, but only once they receive the coordinates from the Dusters on ground.

Which makes sense, in a way.  It's all very well to talk about orbital bombardment casually, but unless you have a very specific target to work with, the average ship-based weaponry we have will do little except make pretty lights.  Shells and missiles will burn up, lasers and plasma will dissipate.  With exact coordinates, and some fancy calculations, you can get the right angles and such to get an effective strike, otherwise you'll mostly be wasting ammunition.

Never mind the fact that the range from ground to orbit is a mite larger than the maximum range of any of our weapons...

[V. Gesakaarin]

CCP has always been a tad inconsistent with what capsuleers and CONCORD can and can't do. One day capsuleers are super-powerful space demi-gods that are running amok and CONCORD is powerless to stop them when CCP marketing has the helm. Then other times CONCORD and the DED are omgwtfpwnmachines whenever it's required that they have to be so.

[Lyn Farel]

Police officers ? Pardon my skepticism, but either city policemen or whatever are certainly not trained in hand-to-hand combat, at least where I live (they don't even have guns), and national police may have had a few training sessions occasionally, but that's not their role. The only thing I can imagine them to be efficient in is neutralizing people with a few standard moves or just using their damn stun batons... Hardly experts of krav maga. Except SWAT teams and very special police corps.

Now then, we are playing capsuleers... Not hostage takers ? I am not even sure how such a situation could occur, but why not I guess...?

I am also very skeptical that even a pistol can not be used properly at point blank. Ofc it's probably harder than one thinks, but between one guy armed with a gun and one guy without one at close range, I would bet 95% of the time on the armed guy. You can miss of course, but the case when you stumble across someone at the corner of a small corridor sounds rather... very specific to me.

And yes, eve firearms... I'm pretty sure they have autotargeting and all and can actually fire even without your help...

Do you live in the United States?  Police officers here in Columbus, Ohio are definitely trained in hand-to-hand combat including barehanded striking, control locks, neutralizing armed suspects, use of batons, and more.  I know a few police officers personally who've demonstrated a few maneuvers.  I can't imagine a place on Earth where it would be okay to not know how to handle yourself as a police officer considering you have to follow a use-of-force guideline.  Like I said, you'd be surprised what police officers have to know how to do.  If someone isn't armed and decides to punch the crap out of you, you need to know how to get advantage again.  Patrol officers especially have to take and retake fitness tests in some fairly nasty techniques every year or few years.

Purple is right that shootouts at point-blank range generally involve a LOT of ammo being sprayed and no one being hit.  If you've never fired one before, a firearm is harder to control than you'd think.  First and most important, you need to provide resistance to an autoloading pistol, since it's actually force from recoil that cycles the action.  If you aren't gripping the gun correctly and provide no resistance when you fire, the gun can jam, pistols especially.  Second, keeping control when you fire is exceptionally difficult when you're pulling the trigger quickly.  You also need to be providing some backwards resistance to steady it.  Third, if you fire into something nearby that is not elastic and you're using a regular old FMJ round, the bullet will simply explode and you could be injured by your own shrapnel.

Police officers are trained to not reach for their weapons if they won't have it out and ready to fire before someone arrives to take it from them.  Guns are exceedingly dangerous.  Until they began building in magazine and grip safeties, it was actually very common that, if an officer was shot in the line of duty, it was with his own weapon.  It was in my gun-safety booklet they gave me when my father-in-law took me to a local club, so I might be able to get the precise statistic when I get home.  Even that booklet told me that if I was ever within arm's reach of someone, not to draw while they are looking at me.  As soon as your gun arm isn't entirely in your control anymore, the gun is as dangerous to you as anyone else.

I understand the skepticism, though.  Movies and even real-life professionals make it look very easy after years and years of practice.  Guns aren't as easy to handle as they look, though.  Pistols especially are very hard to control because there is less mass to absorb recoil.  That's more of what I'm talking about with EVE weapons, though.  A laser weapon would essentially have no recoil and no kinetic force.  That would make firing a laser weapon much easier, especially at close ranges.

I just feel like cops are not like shown in movies indeed, they are not chuck norris and probably only have a few training sessions to keep their professionalism up, but that doesnt make them martial art experts. :/

On the small guns not easy to handle, well, if you say so... I never tried anyway.

My father in law in the met (London) showed me 4 ways to incapacitate a man in three seconds on my husband, who is over a foot taller than him and father in law is prob half his size.  (the first one he just reached for my husbands hand and asked "Wanna see something?")

He also grinned like a predator when the riots kicked off though and WANTED to be in the riot lines with the hopes he got to bash some chav's skull in, but hey.

And sis in law who is in a smalltown police force in England can also beat the shit out of someone in about 3 seconds flat - specifically because they AREN'T armed with anythign but that collapsible baton, and if they're lucky, a family member, or they, added a Maglite to their arsenal of innocent looking objects on their belts.

There is an *impression* that police officers are these lazy slow stumbling things.

Do not believe it.  That's how they land you on your face on the street with your arm bent in interesting ways.  On some level they WANT to look harmless.  They are not to give off the impression of uniformed thugs.  They are to be friendly and approachable.  Which may look like the slightly pudgy smiling absent minded looking fellow (which is my father in law) and though he is slightly pudgy, and he may be smiling, he is not absent minded and will fucking own you, even at 54.

If you think that's what I implied, then I must have written something wrong somewhere...

[Vic Van Meter]

Well no, they're not Chuck Norris.  They don't learn karate.  Hybrid styles aren't pretty, flashy, or fun to watch, really.  Like the most boring and effective parts of MMA fighting.  They probably don't look like martial arts experts because they aren't breaking boards with tae kwon do kicks.  But that really depends on what you'd define as a martial arts expert.  Most cops don't look or seem threatening, as Arista said, they're trained to not do their best Clint Eastwood impression.  However, it's logical that if your life would someday depend on being able to defend yourself from some drug dealer who had concealed a knife, you'd take it very seriously.

Most of a police officer's success in that arena comes from tactical control of a situation.  You don't know it, but every routine question and traffic stop is carefully scripted and calculated to provide them with the most control of any situation they walk into so that, if someone they're dealing with decides to start a fight, they're always in a position to immediately fight back.  So you may not see pretty judo hip throws all the time, but you'll hear about bones being cracked, tendons snapped, that sort of thing.

I've known better than to give a cop any reason to think I might not be on the level, and I live in a pretty good part of Ohio.  They may not be Georges St Pierre, but cops are a lot more skilled than most people know.  There was a guy I lived next to in Houston who reached for his cell phone when he was supposed to have his hands on the wall while a cop frisked him.  He ended up having his wrist snapped and shoulder separated.  He was still in a cast and sling when he got out of jail.

[Silas Vitalia]

Well no, they're not Chuck Norris.  They don't learn karate.  Hybrid styles aren't pretty, flashy, or fun to watch, really.  Like the most boring and effective parts of MMA fighting.  They probably don't look like martial arts experts because they aren't breaking boards with tae kwon do kicks.  But that really depends on what you'd define as a martial arts expert.  Most cops don't look or seem threatening, as Arista said, they're trained to not do their best Clint Eastwood impression.  However, it's logical that if your life would someday depend on being able to defend yourself from some drug dealer who had concealed a knife, you'd take it very seriously.

Most of a police officer's success in that arena comes from tactical control of a situation.  You don't know it, but every routine question and traffic stop is carefully scripted and calculated to provide them with the most control of any situation they walk into so that, if someone they're dealing with decides to start a fight, they're always in a position to immediately fight back.  So you may not see pretty judo hip throws all the time, but you'll hear about bones being cracked, tendons snapped, that sort of thing.

I've known better than to give a cop any reason to think I might not be on the level, and I live in a pretty good part of Ohio.  They may not be Georges St Pierre, but cops are a lot more skilled than most people know.  There was a guy I lived next to in Houston who reached for his cell phone when he was supposed to have his hands on the wall while a cop frisked him.  He ended up having his wrist snapped and shoulder separated.  He was still in a cast and sling when he got out of jail.

Dude you are watching too many movies  just watch a few episodes of COPS or one of those police chase reality shows and you'll see just about all of them on film are more of the bungling variety than the tactical expert SWAT variety  

Plenty of ass kickers but plenty, plenty, of normal people quick to use weapons and out of shape.

[Morwen Lagann]

reality shows

I seriously hope you're joking.

I might hesitate to call my mother a variety of synonyms for "fucking idiot" to her face for thinking "reality TV" is anything but scripted to the point that CCP's live events look like an improv troupe in comparison, but I've no such hesitation with anyone else.

[Silas Vitalia]

reality shows

I seriously hope you're joking.

I might hesitate to call my mother a variety of synonyms for "fucking idiot" to her face for thinking "reality TV" is anything but scripted to the point that CCP's live events look like an improv troupe in comparison, but I've no such hesitation with anyone else.

No no no I'm talking late 80s and early 90s COPS on FOX.  Those were certainly not scripted.

Not today's variety for sure

[Vic Van Meter]

reality shows

I seriously hope you're joking.

I might hesitate to call my mother a variety of synonyms for "fucking idiot" to her face for thinking "reality TV" is anything but scripted to the point that CCP's live events look like an improv troupe in comparison, but I've no such hesitation with anyone else.

No no no I'm talking late 80s and early 90s COPS on FOX.  Those were certainly not scripted.

Not today's variety for sure

I loved watching COPS, but I don't know what you were watching.  Back in the 90s, when they'd run people down, you'd see the cops chasing down and hammer-locking crack dealers so quickly you'd think they were just tackling them.  When the camera finally catches up, they've got suspects in one-handed stress positions while they search them.

Maybe you'd have to have tackled people in a retail store while they're tweaking to appreciate how hard that is.  Once, it took me and two 200 lbs security guards to hold down one methhead until he finally wore himself out.  We couldn't move him until then.

Like I said, it's not flashy or impressive looking, but one of the reasons I liked watching COPS was that, every now and then, you'd get to see a cop actually catch one of them.  Most of the time, by the time the camera caught up, the guy was on the ground.

And I like seeing people tasered.