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You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

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Re: You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

#21

Post by cryoshon »

a3voices wrote: post #5

This is ignoring black swan events. There is no chance that police officers will kill 10 million people tomorrow, but there is a non-zero chance that terrorists will.

Dodges the issue entirely. Police kill people in a non-black swan fashion anyway, because their flaws are systemic. We can actually fix the flaws that the cops have.

Terrorists are working as intended, not killing millions of people here but instead squabbling over dirt in a destabilized wasteland while the Russians explode them.

Re: You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

#22

Post by dudul »

Zigurd wrote: post #8
a3voices wrote: post #5

This is ignoring black swan events. There is no chance that police officers will kill 10 million people tomorrow, but there is a non-zero chance that terrorists will.

No, there isn't such a chance. The only WMDs with the ability to kill tens of thousands are nukes. Terrorists only have nukes on TV, the kind with big countdown displays on them. It's the difference between a black swan and the fantasy of a black swan. The is no real-world hypothesis of how such a black swan happens. That's why black powder bombs are the highest technology terrorists actually use, because it is the m…

There are other ways to kill tens of thousands of people other than nukes.

Weaponized viruses is one. Other indirect ways such as triggering a large scale war, economic warfare, etc.

Re: You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

#23

Post by hieronymous »

And we are even more likely to be killed by each other (homicides, vehicle accidents) and ourselves (suicides, vehicle accidents). Honestly I take issue with the statistic. Many criminals are shot and killed by the police for good reasons. I would like to see the statistic for the likelihood of being killed when not in the commission of a crime or unlawfully resisting arrest. This is just sensationalizing the issue.

Re: You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

#27

Post by philipkuklis »

"[...]one should ask why police officers are such a significant source of danger."

The statements are based on data from 2011. 155 people were killed by police officers in US, total population was about 311.7 million back then.

That's roughly 0,00005% and we don't even know the circumstances in which they got killed.

Saying you're 8 times more likely to [insert extremely unlikely event] than [insert exceptionally unlikely event] might be true but it's pure sensationalism.

Re: You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

#28

Post by DiffEq »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #12

...and twice as likely to commit suicide, than be killed by anybody.

So this is the problem with statistics; these statistics apply to the average person. But there is no such thing as an average "real person". For instance MY chances of suicide are zero; and the chances of me being killed by a terrorist are far below the average person because of where I live and where I spend my time; the same goes for being killed by a police officer. This applies to MOST people for at least the "being killed by a police officer category". I think we all know the subset of society that is most prone to being shot by police officers: those that are breaking the law.

Re: You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

#29

Post by melling »

"400,000 Americans have been shot and killed since 9/11;"

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/10/27/polic...

Since we're fucking around with numbers can someone figure out the probability of being killed by another American than a terrorist?

Re: You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

#30

Post by xacaxulu »

chrisBob wrote: post #3

The problem is the people are going to look at this the wrong way. Its not that you should be scared of police; its that you shouldn't be scared of terrorists.

I'm scared of police and I'm basically a WASP. If I were black or latino, I'd be even more scared. Civil asset forfeiture, drug dogs that always indicate presence of drugs, camera/drone tracking of movements of people, illegal phone searches, militarized police departments with special forces type weapons and vehicles, etc. I'm a former US Marine and the police are basically becoming a domestic occupying military force, similar to what I saw in Afghanistan. I'm more scared of police than terrorists because it's statistically way more likely that I'll die, be injured or be defrauded by a member of the police/legal/civil industrial complex.
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