Self Incrimination? There's an App for that!
Just kidding. iSelfIncriminate was rejected from the App Store.
Actually, what phone was used? I doubt it was an iPhone and the articles are silent on it.
A Philadelphia teenager turned himself into police after his self-portrait was captured on a cell phone he's accused of stealing during an armed robbery. Suspect's self-portrait Cook turned himself after this self-portrait was sent to police The incriminating photo showed 18-year-old Kadeem Cook holding a large handgun to …
I've got a "large handgun" like the one pictured by our shining star here. Sure, it's physically large, and a bit intimidating if you're not familiar with it, but it's not overly dangerous. Mine was built by Crosman, the BB gun company, and is a single shot pump action air pistol. If he had pumped it up several pumps, sure it could do some damage, but a "real gun" it ain't. Pretty dumb to use something like that for armed robbery.
http://www.pyramydair.com/p/crosman-1377-pump-pistol.shtml
What phone can be told to automatically "zap" every photo taken back to the user? Presumably it emailed the photo. But how? Every phone make/model I've used keeps the image stored locally until you physically tell it to "zap" it somewhere else.
I want that phone!
Actually, you can do that with Windows Mobile. if you install the Microsoft MyPhone service you can can setup a schedule to sync photos, music, documents, contacts, textmessages etc.
when you login it looks a bit like the live spaces interface.
you can set it up to report its location back to you if lost (or stolen too i guess)
I think I saw an app that has this functionality during ADC2. I skipped it since well - I'm a nerd and don't go outside.
I've played with Android dev, and don't think it'd be too hard to do on it, using the camera is simple enough, then it's just a case of background uploading.
And just looking on the Market, there are a few apps: iTookThisOnMyPhone automatically posts photos and videos taken to sites like Facebook, Flickr, Picasa etc.
I've not used a BlackBerry or iPhone, so no idea how doable it is on those platforms.
Over the last few weeks I have been thinking how useful a camera that phoned home would be in those encounters with the "friendly" police at demos. Or when stopped for being too tall/terrorist/face don't fit/etc."Delete the pics officer? Yes, certainly, officer. Three bags full, officer" Tee hee.
We find them useful. Some people put food on the table with them. And when times are tough and you need to feed the kids it doesn't matter if it is hunting season or not. We protect our homes with them. And it is normally enough for people to know we have them. Look at the looting after Katrina in New Orleans and look at the lack of looting in Galveston. Same amount of damage but in Texas we keep our guns.
Sure you can hook up video surveillance equipment and monitor from work (IT angle), but that only helps afterwards, maybe. If they don't steal the equipment too. Or maybe the alarm company will call the police for you. Average response time for a 911 call in Dallas is fifteen minutes.
It is idiots like the guy in the picture who give gun owners a bad name. And he is going to plea bargain out before the cop finishes his paperwork.
Paris, because with all of her money and security equipment she still got robbed.
I think you'll find that the worst looting was carried out by corporates, free marketeers and their cronies in the administration. In fact the same types who brought us global financial meltdown (and continue to do so). I imagine it's quite difficult to steal whole neighbourhoods but they seem to have managed it.
For a more in depth explanation see here:
http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2007/12/shock-doctrine-action-new-orleans
Your guns won't help you against that lot.
I will concede, however, that the guy in the article is an idiot.
well it's lucky we don't have your insane lack of gun control or we'd be getting shot by them too.
How dumb are you pro gun people that you will spout this rubbish in the comments of a story, where an American version of a chav poses with a gun that he used to rob someone?!?
and are you really suggesting that in the event of problem with a member of the local constabulary, that I should pull a gun on them?!?!
Good luck with that!
Sorry Mate, but look at Switzerland. All males are required by law to serve in the military with periodic training, and they keep a rifle in their home. That means it is one of the most heavily armed countries in the world per citizen. Their gun crime is non-existent. This is owing to other factors such as homogenous society, prosperity, strong education, and high standard of living. So high gun crime is not related to stricter laws restricting or mandating their possession, but unfortunately there is an apparent correlation with restriction since as violent crime tends to increase then historically the more guns are restricted (outside of political restriction preceding genocide.) Question: is this due to the opportunistic nature of criminals? Answer that yourself. Oddly when Concealed Weapons Permits are issued another trend appears: lower violent crime in the State. Related? Answer that yourself. If you walk into a store brandishing a shotgun with some thug buddies in some States you might very well be facing a citizen with a lot of range time and an extra clip who happens to be in there.
Criminals are created by societal effects, inequality, poor education, lack of hope for a better future, and desperation. Criminals are not created by possession of firearms (or air powered pellet pistols as in this case,) and you need to work that into your little equation. Watch as those factors appear in a country and violence and crime follows regardless of gun laws. If you think restricting knives in England is going to stop your latest little wave of fun and games then off to the feelies with you and don't forget your soma.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate_to_1999
Granted these studies are a decade old.
Let's compare two "relatively" similar countries in terms of homicide rate: Germany and Switzerland. Germany has a fairly involved background check and you must belong to a gun club and attend events to get a license. Switzerland, men are required to keep their military service rifle at home, so there is much higher ratio of armed households. Their homicide rate is close, but the firearms homicide number differs slightly. So if you are not shot, you are axed or stabbed in the rare event you are murdered. Neither society seems pre-disposed towards criminal violence in the first place yet there is a substantial difference in the ratio of armed households. Toss England in there and France, and the same sort of picture is portrayed. Similar levels of criminal violence but stark contrast in the number of guns.
All I am saying, and the tables here seem to re-inforce it, is that guns do not CAUSE criminal behavior, violence, and murder. If that is to be fixed, then the root cause needs to be addressed not the convenient thing that can be legislated: making guns illegal.
I did quite a bit of searching to find something which will do this and the closest I could find is a flickr app called Shozu. Here is a similar story where is snapped a perp:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/balf/2018631168/
Maybe she really did "program" it herself?
Plenty of other apps to remote erase, disable, locate, SMS, etc.
Paris, obviously.
- Paul
<--------- NOW, if he really wanted to go out in style, obtain one of these (see adjacent icon), place between legs, and pull the pin.
OTOH, this fool is completely capable of removing himself from the human gene pool in any of a number of ways.
If that weapon was really a firearm, (as opposed to being a BB gun as some comenters have noted). Simple, POINT and CLICK! (So to speak!!!! That is - POINT the gun at your brains, and CLICK the safety off, and then pull the trigger)
The world would be a slightly better place if he were to do that. One less idiot in the gene pool.
Now, if he were concerned about leaving a mess behind (or he preferred to live), then he could accomplish the same goal by pointing the gun at his nutz, and then pull the trigger. No matter which way he goes, society is the better for it.
Forgetting for the time being whether 'enthusiasm' equates to 'love', the answer is 'for the same reason almost everybody everywhere 'loves' some class of inanimate object or other'.
I would expect a person who asks such a question to be one who can't see the quality of design and manufacture in certain guns, which would suggest either someone too shallow to credit craftsmanship in anything whatsoever, let alone a firearm, or someone who can't see the object for their own negative emotion projected onto it.
which appears to be stuck in hole and can't get out. At least we did it on a pathectically small amount of cash - like our space rockets (where we a damn sight more sucessful than the US and Soviet ones at the time before the funding was cut)
"Weapons laws only disarm the law abiding. The criminals simply don't care."
If you are a burglar in a country with 'gun laws' there is no advantage in taking a gun with you, only added risk and bigger sentences if you are caught. If you are a burglar in the USA you'd better take a gun with you, 'cause many of your 'customers' will be armed.
It's really a weapons race.
Guns are extremely cheap for the criminals in the States, as thousands of weapons are stolen from law abiding citizens every year and there is a big market for illegal smuggled weapons.
Psychopaths will kill people in both kinds of countries, but in the States they can easily obtain extremely powerful weapons. So if you are a psychopath, and live in a country with 'weapons laws' , you are most probably stuck with a very small 'massacre size' using knifes or swords or a hunting shotguns, while in the States you can purchase 'professional gear' and kill 20 or 30 people in ten minutes without breaking sweat.
As for the 'citizens defending themselves' argument, there are several figures I would love to know, but for some reason or another seem to be very difficult to find ;):
- Number of innocent law abiding citizens killed or wounded by armed criminals every year
- Number of innocent law abiding citizens killed or wounded by accidents with weapons
- Number of criminals shot by the above said innocent law abiding citizens
- Number of weapons stolen every year in the USA, and an estimation of the number of weapons smuggled into the country.
My guess is that the NRA wouldn't like these figures being publicly discussed, for quite obvious reasons.
There are far too many innocent, law abiding citizens killed or wounded by accidents with weapons in the US, that is why the NRA is a very strong advocate of firearm safety training. (Too bad automobile enthusiasts aren't as obsessed with safety) Yes, your odds of actually using a firearm against a criminal are infinitesimally small, but responsible gun ownership is more effective as a deterrent to crime rather than as an active means of dealing with a crime in progress. Finally, if you are a 5 foot tall, 90 pound female about to be raped by a 6 foot, 300 pound man, would you rather engage him in hand-to-hand combat, or shoot it out with him? The point of a weapon is that it gives the weak a fighting chance, especially against an intoxicated assailant.
"that is why the NRA is a very strong advocate of firearm safety training"
No, the reason the NRA advocates anything with the word gun in it is because it is run by people with a vested interest in gun sales and aftersales. Own a gun safely = 1) own a gun 2) train at one of our family owned ranges 3) buy our bullets.
THAT is why the NRA does anything.
I'm guessing the accuracy of any one measurement is lower than 0.1mm, but when you take the average it does mean something. For example, maybe the accuracy is ±5mm for each measurement. You can calculate the error in the mean from the standard deviation divided by the square root of the number of samples. In this way, with a large enough sample size, you'd easily end up with a number like 13.97±0.01cm. Which, incidentally, still makes American penises significantly smaller than British ones.
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Guns are extremely cheap for the criminals, as thousands of weapons are stolen from law abiding citizens, government organisations, and areas where there is no formal control every year and there is a big market for illegal smuggled weapons.
EFA.
If you're not fussed about being legal, firearms are readily availible in the UK and not very expensive either.
@Moss -- If you're in the armed robbery business, what're you going to carry? A spiked stick?
@Hud: They don't have guns in New Orleans? The accounts I read certainly suggested that they did.
@Alistair: Efficient, but hardly unique, if one can judge from assorted Register pieces.
Lang debates about gun ownership aside, thats an airgun "not a LARGE FIREARM" unless in the UK its over 6ft LBS muzle velocity (well it was when I was a kid). There is no FIRE in an Airgun, hence the name AIR.
So next time you read anything in "The papers" remember that Journalists dont know very much, it would appear, about anything. (Or maybe they do, but ignore it)