ShadowBoxing said:
Not only would sending it incriminate you (because YOUR fingerprints would be on it)
That's why God invented gloves.
ShadowBoxing said:
but it would totally remove the guilty party. They'd lose those drugs you sent or dropped off, but they cannot just take you at your word.
You could have taken a photo of said evidence in the home of whatever criminal you're investigating for furthur proof.
ShadowBoxing said:
Furthermore, the cops already have informants. The reason they have them is because they cannot just trust some average joe for information. They need someone (like an insider) who they can give leverage too. Or even better yet have a field agent go undercover. However, you in a cape won't sway them to investigate some crime unless you call it in and identify yourself.
Like I said, if you actually send them evidence, inclduing photographic evidence, it might be enough to get them interested.
ShadowBoxing said:
They may act on their own but a larger agency provides them with the product and they get a cut. Unless they grow or produce it on their own.
Which some do.
ShadowBoxing said:
How would you know exactly? There was a hitman who lived here in a local homeless shelter (partially to cover his tracks) and he was batf*** crazy too. I truly doubt his rates were high.
A hitman and a mercenary are two different things. Hitmen pretty much always work for a specific organized crime group. The only freelance ones are assassins, and they are usually tied up in political killings.
ShadowBoxing said:
If you make it at home you might as well write your name on it, pretty much a dead give away to forensic scientists.
Why? If you're using over the counter chemicals and scrap found in a junkyard, how would it specifically tie any evidence left behind to you?
ShadowBoxing said:
Not true, you could be on file in Hospital records or employee records.
They still need a suspect. They can't check your DNA against every person in the city who's on file.
ShadowBoxing said:
You'd have to buy all your stuff locally in cash to avoid a paper trail. Buying things in bulk as suggested by Begins doesn't do sh**. And that stuff doesn't exactly store easily in the home.
Which is why you have some place to hide them.
ShadowBoxing said:
Now we are stretching it. You'd have to have a wide array of facilities open and available to you in order to make and manufacture weaponry.
That depends almost entirely on the weapons. If we're talking throwing knives/shurikn, all you really need is the proper type of metal and carving tools.
ShadowBoxing said:
You still will find very little if that. Cops have trouble catching crimes in progress without phonecalls.
I never made the claim otherwise. But you'll help some people down the line.
ShadowBoxing said:
Most likely, yes they would. Actually they would not even need to search the whole city. Just around the spots you've been seen.
And what if you've been seen all over the city? Or if you got training in a completely different part of the city from where you've been spotted?
ShadowBoxing said:
You'd need a lot of training to be specific. You'd at least have to be noticably in shape, spend lots of time in the gym, have martial arts or combat training. That narrows down suspects quiet a bit. Especially considering that a recent study found only 98% of America is in what's considered "Athletic Shape". You'd have to be beyond that 2%.
Why would you have to be beyond it? I doubt it would require you to be at the absolute peak of human physical condition. Simply in very good shape and possessing good combat skills.
ShadowBoxing said:
Well your pretty much going to kill your social life since crime happens between 10 and 2 am. You probably will have friends or social interactions unless you will become a Punisher style hermit. You will at least need people who can account for your whereabouts.
Again, it depends on your job. If you go to bet about 3 AM, then you'd wake up about 10-12. Unless you have some sort of cubicle job, it's not out of the question to get a job where you start at about noon. Work till about eight at night, then come home and get ready for patrol.
ShadowBoxing said:
"Hi, I got shot playing football, can you help me out?"
Or, as I said, you could say that you got mugged.
ShadowBoxing said:
Not really. You won't have the ability to lay low like serial killers if indeed your goal is to "make a difference". And unless like Nighthawk and Punisher you are willing to kill, all your going to do is piss off a bunch of thugs and the Police for interfering with investigations.
I don't see why you wouldn't be able to lay low. I mean, unless you're onto some major breakthrough in bringing down a criminal organization (which seems highly unlikely), then you could probably afford to take a break for a while until the heat dies down.
Bill said:
Where do you suppose they get the drugs they sell?
Some drugs can be made in the home. Not all, but some.
Bill said:
I doubt you'd get that far, but the expense of hiring mercs or pros would be easily compensated when they got rid of one guy who was biting into a major portion of their trade. And their own guys usually aren't pushovers either. Either way, you won't be waiting atop a darkened staircase for the unsuspecting drug dealer to walk under you and do his thing.
Still, there's not much they can do if they don;t know who you are or where you're going to be at any given time.
Bill said:
You still have to buy the raw materials to put together. You also need large amounts of it because you'll be patrolling each night and getting into scrapes on regular basis, and I'd imagine you'll be using the smoke more than often because you'll be wanting to escape the barrage of bullets heading your way.
True. But like I said, buy different supplies in different places to avoid total suspcion.
Bill said:
Mail order or in person? Will you buy in bulk or make frequent purchases using dummy names? Will you change up the chems from each separate company each time you order or will you buy the same chem from the same company each time?
Probably a combination of all of those.
Bill said:
Scrap metal is traceable. They won't know exactly where you got it, but they'll know what kind of metal it is and what it came from. They'll be able to narrow it down to you either cannibalizing something or visiting a junkyard. So you'll also need to be trained in metalworking. You won't just be making throwing weapons, you'll be making grenade bodies and fuses and some type of ignition system.
I didn;t say it would be easy.
Bill said:
That's fine, but unless you plan on carrying everything with you, you will either have to have a cache or two, or you will be relegated to only one mission a night.
You wouldn't have to be carrying a huge arsenal. It's doubtful you'd get into a **** load of scrapes. You'd probably stop across a few muggings on a more active night and none on what I would hope are the more common nights.
Bill said:
The kind of training you'd need wouldn't be hard to track down. You wouldn't need to track down everyone, just those with SF training. And you would need training and discipline to do the things you'd need to do in order to survive.
Of course. But really, there are more than a few people in one city capable of training you like that. And this whole thing hinges on wether or not they'd tell anybody about you.
Bill said:
So what single style would you employ to handle gun wielding thugs and professionally trained gunmen? Remember, they're not going to out to just hurt you, they're going to be trying to kill you.
And what does that have to do with learning multiple styles? Knowing more than one style doesn't automatically make you a better fighter. There are specific moves in some styles that are highly useful, but that doesn't make any one style better than any other, nor does it make learny multiple styles in their entirety necessairy.
Bill said:
So you're going to be a "part-time" vigilante?
You can't do it 24 hours a day.
Bill said:
Actually, it'd be more along the lines of,"Doctor, I got shot doing______." Or "Nurse, I got stabbed doing_______." I hope you have good insurance, and a good explanation for the cops who ask why you're visiting the ER so often and a good alias when the guys who injured you start checking the ER's for you.
There are multiple hospitals in one city. I doubt you'd need to go to the same one every time. As for excuses, saying "I got mugged" for the harder to explain injuries would suffice, but for simple cuts, bruises, and broken bones, which would be the most common injuries you would sustain, there are many different possible explenations.
Bill said:
If it is difficult to figure out for them, then it will be the same for you. There are levels of contingency that you have to consider if you plan on doing this for more than a week.
Of course. But, a vigilante would have a slight advantage. If a person's a mob boss, you know he;s a mob boss even if it can't be proven. The mob would have no idea who a vigilante is.
Bill said:
No, low level dealers wouldn't, but the men who supply them their drugs would, and they would do one of two things. They would either stop supplying the dealer you took out or supply him with muscle to deal with you. And if that didn't work, they would find someone in your city with enough muscle to deal with you and supply to them. No one works in that trade "alone."
Actually, some do. There are drug dealers in the world who make their own drugs. Also, if you take out a dealer, he's going to be in jail. Thus, they wouldn;t have the chance to supply him with reinforcements. And as I said, sending a hitman after someone who's name, home, and physical apearence are completely unknown to them is problamatic.
Bill said:
Also, like I said. Those watching you would just watch. You would have to either have an extremely intricate network to know where to catch everyone doing their thing or just get lucky. Frankly, I would place a drug deal right in your AO, and set a sniper armed with a NV and thermal scope with a clear field of fire in that area. You would never hear the shot that killed you. And a decent sniper is cheap.
As I said, frequent changing of patrol routs would solve that problem. They wouldn't know where you would be on any given night