Watch what you say

[GunnyGene]

More from the "Incentive to not complain about Govt" brigade. :roll:

Florida House and Senate budget leaders have awarded Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw $1 million for a new violence prevention unit aimed at preventing tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., from occurring on his turf.

Bradshaw plans to use the extra $1 million to launch “prevention intervention” units featuring specially trained deputies, mental health professionals and caseworkers. The teams will respond to citizen phone calls to a 24-hour hotline with a knock on the door and a referral to services, if needed.

The goal will be avoiding crime — and making sure law enforcement knows about potential powder kegs before tragedies occur, Bradshaw said. But the earmark, which is a one-time-only funding provision, provoked a debate Monday among mental health advocates and providers about the balance between civil liberties, privacy and protecting the public.

Bradshaw said his proposal is a first-of-its-kind in the nation, and he hopes it will become a model for the rest of the state like his gang prevention and pill-mill units.

“Every single incident, whether it’s Newtown, that movie theater, or the guy who spouts off at work and then goes home and kills his wife and two kids — in every single case, there were people who said they knew ahead of time that there was a problem,” Bradshaw said. “If the neighbor of the mom in Newtown had called somebody, this might have saved 25 kids’ lives.”

Bradshaw is readying a hotline and is planning public service announcements to encourage local citizens to report their neighbors, friends or family members if they fear they could harm themselves or others.

The goal won’t be to arrest troubled people but to get them help before there’s violence, Bradshaw said. As a side benefit, law enforcement will have needed information to keep a close eye on things.

“We want people to call us if the guy down the street says he hates the government, hates the mayor and he’s gonna shoot him,” Bradshaw said. “What does it hurt to have somebody knock on a door and ask, ‘Hey, is everything OK?’ ”

That’s enough for Senate budget chief Joe Negron, R-Stuart, who helped push through the funding last weekend.

http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/new ... -un/nXbs4/

 

[MikeD]

Just another way to turn us against each other. I wonder if they would consider one of these tips as RAS to do more than knowk at the door and ask if you needed help. What would they do if someone just slammed the door in their face?

If everyone that make off the cuff threats or comments was reported they would never be able to respond to all the calls.

The basic problem is that even though people say they saw signs, those signs arent always visible without looking back through the events that follow. Hundsight is always more clear. Even if the signs are there what legal right so they have to do anything but offer help?

In the end I think this will create more of a divide amonst people than it will help stop people from going off the deep end.

 

[carbinemike]

Nice. Kiss more of the Constitution good bye. I wonder how many calls they will get from people that just want to screw over someone they are mad at. Good point MikeD about the signs being a lot clearer after the events that followed.

 

[GunnyGene]

Nice. Kiss more of the Constitution good bye. I wonder how many calls they will get from people that just want to screw over someone they are mad at. Good point MikeD about the signs being a lot clearer after the events that followed.

And when you start to connect the dots over the last few years, it's no wonder that stats like this are rising. There's about 170million registered voters last I heard, so the 29% is about 50million adults if you extrapolate from the sample. That conforms rather well with the increase in gun sales over the same time period, I think.

Dots on dots on dots. Pretty soon a pattern emerges.

Twenty-nine percent of registered voters think that an armed revolution might be necessary in the next few years in order to protect liberties, according to a Public Mind poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University.

The poll, which surveyed 863 registered voters and had a margin of error of +/-3.4, focused on both gun control and the possibility of a need for an armed revolution in the United States to protect liberty.

The survey asked whether respondents agreed, disagreed, neither agreed nor disagreed or did not know or refused to respond to the statement: "In the next few years, an armed revolution might be necessary in order to protect our liberties"

Twenty-nine percent said they agreed, 47 percent said they disagreed, 18 percent said they neither agreed nor disagreed, 5 percent said they were unsure, and 1 percent refused to respond.

Results of the poll show that those who believe a revolution might be necessary differ greatly along party lines:

18 percent of Democrats
27 percent of Independents
44 percent of Republicans

The poll found that 38 percent of Americans who believe a revolution might be necessary support additional gun control legislation compared to 62 percent of those who don't think an armed revolt will be needed.

Dan Cassino, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson and analyst for the poll, says:

"The differences in views of gun legislation are really a function of differences in what people believe guns are for. If you truly believe an armed revolution is possible in the near future, you need weapons and you're going to be wary about government efforts to take them away."

The poll was conducted nationally between April 22 and April 28, 2013.

http://cnsnews.com/blog/gregory-gwyn-wi ... -necessary

 

[MikeD]

The poll, which surveyed 863 registered voters and had a margin of error of +/-3.4, focused on both gun control and the possibility of a need for an armed revolution in the United States to protect liberty.

Not to side track but it always amazes me how polls can take such a small sample and predict results for the entire range. It's always possible that the "random" sample is not as randon as they intend, which is statistically possible. Also the wording of the poll questions have a tremendous influence on the illicited responses. Subconciously scientists tend to try to see patterns in their data even if they don't exist.

Not trying to claim their numbers are right or wrong, just something that jumped out at me.

 

[GunnyGene]

The poll, which surveyed 863 registered voters and had a margin of error of +/-3.4, focused on both gun control and the possibility of a need for an armed revolution in the United States to protect liberty.

Not to side track but it always amazes me how polls can take such a small sample and predict results for the entire range. It's always possible that the "random" sample is not as randon as they intend, which is statistically possible. Also the wording of the poll questions have a tremendous influence on the illicited responses. Subconciously scientists tend to try to see patterns in their data even if they don't exist.

Not trying to claim their numbers are right or wrong, just something that jumped out at me.

Valid and common issues in any sampling plan, whether it's a receiving inspection of rivets or an opinion poll. Most folks think that a sample is always representative of the population(lot), which is often not the case. Sampling at it's core is a cost saving measure (to reduce inspection costs) that's intended to provide 'some' information for a decision on disposition of a lot (or in the case of polling to provide information for policy purposes). Error is inherent in the process. The basic question being asked is: "How much risk of making a bad decision are you willing to take?" The answer to that will determine the sample size, and/or process control measures you put in place.

When it comes to destructive testing (such as testing of bullets, or stress testing of parts) you cannot test to destruction every item (you wouldn't have any left to sell or use), so sampling is your only option other than complete control of the manufacturing process - which is also very difficult and expensive, and also incorporates "in-process" sampling (often automated).

In contracts (private or govt) and regulated industries, the method or combinations of methods used are normally dictated in the contract and/or pertinent regulations. When I did this for Boeing, part of my job was to justify and clear every statistical method the company used with the FAA, including those we imposed on our supplier base. Not exactly an easy thing to do, especially if they had reason to suspect a manufacturing problem existed or there was an accident in the airline fleet that might have been caused by a part failure. Did more than one tap dance for them. Pretty high stress job actually, and one reason I took early retirement.