Do You Find Yourself Profiling??

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CAPTAIN MIKE

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Happens more often these days..... I'm doing a lot more 'Profiling' these days -- more than usual.

While walking down the aisle of a local gunshow with my little son, looking for a certain holster. Meanwhile, 3 guys with the classic 'Gang Banger Look' seem to be checking out some AK47s as we walk past. I'm thinking to myself -- these guys have "the look". If they drove near me and my son outside, I"d be on very high alert and ready to draw.

While many in law enforcement and the judiciary seem to be leaning away from profiling as a self-defense screening, I honestly don't know if it can or even should be avoided.

Any thoughts?
 
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"Profiling" is natural, normal, and logical.

And LEOs still do it on a daily basis. The only thing that has changed is that it's no longer PC for them to act when their sensors get tripped.
 
I do it every day without even consciously thinking about it. Today, even. My wife and I were at the California State Fair. I was weaving us in and out of the crowds. She even mentioned that I was 'reading people'.
 
Of course, it's a natural response. 90 year old white women from Phoenix aren't the ones who rob banks or hijack planes. Not to say that it's always accurate but it's a good stepping stone.
 
Sure do. Ive never been shot at by a 70 year old lady driving a Lincoln Towncar, but the same can not ge said by a couple of gang bangers in their lowered, primer grey Dodge neon gangsta-mobile. No offence to anyone with a neon :)
 
A good friend and fellow carrier-of-arms once mentioned that to his chagrin, when walking down the street, he would unconciously angle his sidearm away from any shabbily dressed black males who happened into his vincinity. He considered that this was, at some level, reasonable, and at another level, unenlightened.

My response was that in nature, certain patterns become associated with danger, and that any organism that has evolved to this late date has built in, courtesy of his ancestors and natural selection, some of the best pattern recognition 'ware that can be conceived.

I concluded that laying such spectacular built in gear entirely aside was foolishness, but that one had to place the datum into context, and not as the final determinate.
 
The human brain likes patterns. We will attempt to find a pattern in everything. It doesn't matter if something is laid out in a random arrangement, or a perfectly orchestrated grid, we will look for a pattern. It is how we survive.

All you're doing is looking for a pattern. If you believe, for instance, based on any level of information, that black men between 18 and 30 wearing baggy shorts commit the majority of crimes, you will immediately begin to look for signs that any black male between 18 and 30 who wears baggy shorts is the type to commit crime.

That sort of reaction, in and of itself, is simply a manifestation of a basic human tendency, and there's nothing wrong with it. It's right up there with thinking that the buffalo (or whatever game animal) lounging in the shade while his herd munches on grass is probably not in the best of shape, and will be an easier kill. You learn to spot that, and it is a useful tool for keeping lots of tasty buffalo steaks on the table.

The problem, in both applications, is not being smart enough to adapt your tactics when you're just flat-out wrong. If the buffalo jumps up and charges at you, you had better be ready to change your approach, or you'll be dinner for the buzzards. By corollary, if the three black men between 18 and 30 happen to be having a lively discussion about the merits of the aforementioned AK as compared to the M-16, you might well end up seriously ticking off some THR members who will then write an angry post right next to this one about how people can't just leave well enough alone and mind their own business.

Profiling, whether officially sanctioned or not, is a powerful tool that allows LEO types (in this instance anyway. everybody who pays attention is doing it, too) to quickly sort out the various behaviors they see on a daily basis. Most criminals act criminal. Most law-abiding folk just act normal. As long as the officer is smart enough to know that a person acting criminal may, in fact, be performing some completely inoccuous act, and is willing to just back off and go hunt for real criminals when he's wrong, we all get along just fine, and the bad guys go to jail.
 
Profiling---
Dave Chappelle said it best when he said you may not be something...

But if your wearing the uniform people are going to think you are that thing..

You not be a thug. But your wearing a thug's uniform. don't get offended by people treating you like a thug.
 
Sure do. Ive never been shot at by a 70 year old lady driving a Lincoln Towncar, but the same can not ge said by a couple of gang bangers in their lowered, primer grey Dodge neon gangsta-mobile.
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Same here, however I do profile the 70 year old lady as a potential hazard behind the wheel :uhoh: :D .

It is natural & we all do it constantly in many different ways. The problems occur when you deny it & ignore the subconscious warning signals.
 
Pilgrim--
gaijin--Foriegner---in Japanese is pretty darn close..

My buddy (Active duty Airforce) used to live in Japan. He used to say he go into some bars and be chased out the door by the Bartender saying "NO NO Gaijin!!"

They were polite about it (Most Japanese are) but the Idea was the same.
 
as Dennis Miller would say.....

Noticing that 14 of the 19 hijackers are Saudi's is not profiling....its being minimally observant.
 
I find myself profiling all the time. I think we all do it. As others have posted, it's normal, ingrained, and necessary to survival.

This last winter, I took a course in public speaking and the professor said we're all people readers. To profile some, I bet you're thinking of some middle aged tweed-wearing Liberal fuddy-duddy. Nope, this professor is a Conservative 34 year old woman from Kansas who looks a lot like Greta Van Sustren. We're all people readers and those of us in her class spent a lot of time reading each other and we had a pretty good cross section, but fortunately no gangstas. Also, it was covered material that we communicate through the filters of our own experience and understand as well as distracting factors in the current local environment and listening is half of communicating.

profile the 70 year old lady as a potential hazard behind the wheel
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Good possibility, but no offense meant to senior citizens. Where I live, I've found we do have to watch and we have had some near misses.

By corollary, if the three black men between 18 and 30 happen to be having a lively discussion about the merits of the aforementioned AK as compared to the M-16, you might well end up seriously ticking off some THR members who will then write an angry post right next to this one about how people can't just leave well enough alone and mind their own business.
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My question is are they talking ebonics and acting like gangbangers while they have that "lively discussion". It's all in the context.
 
Heh, my profiling went wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy up after seeing this crap happening in New Orleans. It's crazyness. Seeing these people act like animals had made me realize that in the event SHTF you don't trust anyone that you don't currently put your pecker in or is related by blood. And even some of them you still need to watch you back.
 
martin luther king jr said something to the effect of 'i was walking down the street late one evening when i heard somoene walking behind me. It was with great releif that i turned around and saw that it was NOT a young black man'

profiling is fine as long as it isn't the only thing. And for you, it apparently wasn't. Racial profiling is basing your decision on the person's race. That isn't what happens. Other factors come to play, and the greater degree that MANY factors come to play in 'profiling' the better of we are. Age and Gender are great ones to start with, followed by clothing, location, bodylanguage, etc etc etc.

Straight profiling however, can be dangerously ineffective. Yes, the vast majority of the 9/11 hijackers were saudi. However, if we decide to only pull 15-35 males with middle eastern passports out of airport lines for careful inspection because 'an 80 year old woman from portland isn't going to do this' we may well miss the caucasian kid from Boise Idaho who went to pakistan and became the next American Taliban, or the black man who was converted to extreme muslim in prison, or the nonmuslim who decided to follow timothy mcveigh's lead.
 
martin luther king jr said something to the effect of 'i was walking down the street late one evening when i heard somoene walking behind me. It was with great releif that i turned around and saw that it was NOT a young black man'
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I believe it was jesse jackson in Washington, D.C. who said that.

Pilgrim
 
Profiling!!

We in the military that have been trained in Boarding ships like to call it, "Mind Set Yellow." Most of the time we are invited to search these ships, but you never know. Look at all the high level terrorist. These men are in there 50's and are not all Arabs. Red Brigade (Italy), Provisional Irish Republican Army (Ireland), and Weatherman (American) these are just a few!

Thats why I dont profile. You never know who your walking pass, sitting next to, or even talking with. Be ready for anything from anybody. I don't wear clothes that are 3 sizes to big, but not all are evil.

Willyboi
(Its better to be judged by 12, than carried by 6!!)
 
Profiling

Let's face it, everyone profiles, and only the government is stupid enough to cave in to the libs screaming. I would like to see ted kennedy, schumer, feinstein, and the others of their ilk, walk alone in the dark in certain neighborhoods and see if they profile. Bet they would, or they are even more stupid than I think.
 
I was talking to a cop friend of mine the other day and he was saying that one fo the things that triggers their alert system is a person who doesn't look at them. When driving in traffic everybody looks at the cop car .... they may do it surrupticiously, but everyone does it .... unless you REALLY don't want the cops to notice you and then you keep your eyes straight ahead and try hard to "look normal". Looking normal is looking at the cops ... looking straight ahead and trying to appear innocent is not normal. He claimed that 9 out of 10 people who won't look at cops that he's stopped have had something to hide.

Our cops are apparently allowed to stop drivers for random alcohol breath testing. If they happen to find anything else during a routine stop (run the tags and find a stolen car, suspended licence, skipped bail, outstanding warrant) or suspicious behaviour that gives them probable cause then they can move on from there to searches and questioning.

Cops (or anyone else) can profile on the basis of any number of things - behaviour as well as appearance.

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