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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

#111

Post by a3voices »

ctdonath wrote: post #62

You can also significantly adjust your odds of being killed by police by choosing behavior unlikely to attract lethal force. The core issue with terrorism is you have no such choice, the terrorist making the decision to kill people doing absolutely nothing to warrant lethal force. ETA: I didn't say "make your odds 0%", I said "significantly adjust". Sure you could be shot for no reason, and a few are, but nearly all…

You have a choice of not living near a large population center which draws more potential terrorist attacks.

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

#112

Post by scarmig »

Karunamon wrote: post #108

Tangentially related, but I'm a little bit surprised to see something like this coming from CATO. Traditionally, a focus on police abuse and statistics like these have been the purview of the American left, while CATO is a conservative think tank. It's very heartening to see this problem addressed by the other side of the aisle.

Cato has been good on these issues since forever. I picked up my instinctive knee jerk support of civil liberties from them when I was a wee little thing.

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

#113

Post by olivermarks »

IMO the word 'Terrorist' is a hopelessly useless propaganda word used to incite fear of the bogeymen in the population.

It also lumps all sorts of people together, from credible conceptual revolutionary ideas to psychotic mono religious zealots. Slight digression from the point Cato is making but the headline inevitably falls into the sensationalist trap for this reason...

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

#114

Post by dllthomas »

mcnamaratw wrote: post #49

I like numbers, but this one might work better if they put some context: "You're 50% more likely to be killed by lightning than by a terrorist." or "You're six times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a bumblebee." Or the somber "You're 150 times more likely to be killed by a motor vehicle than a terrorist." (The War on Vehicles should apparently be funded to the tune of $150T a year, if I understan…

If something on the order of the 9/11 attacks happened every other day, we'd still lose more Americans to heart disease.

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

#115

Post by briandear »

lpgepk wrote: post #105

Your source does not support your claim. The only thing worse than people who spew lies are people who do so with footnotes that imply that you're not lying. American police officers are out of control. That's not a "meme" that's being "promoted" it's an actual fact that some authoritarian assholes (read: you) are attempting to discredit and hide. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Criminals are out of control. Don't fight with a cop, don't resist arrest, you don't get shot. Pretty simple solution. Perhaps, to be fair, we ought to discuss violence committed by illegal aliens. We don't have that discussion on HN. Perhaps our outrage ought to be directed at the criminals and misfits that seem to think running from cops, fighting with cops or insulting cops is somehow smart. I know far more victims of crime than I do victims of police brutality. You're more likely to be shot by a gangbanger than a cop, thus shouldn't we be complaining about that?

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

#116

Post by mindslight »

steveeq1 wrote: post #65
xacaxulu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 for…

And you are statistically more likely to be killed by a black man than you are by an actual policeman. I agree with chrisBob in that you shouldn't worry about the dangers of policemen in the same way you shouldnt worry about the dangers of black people, even if it's statistically "true". It's simply a bad way to look at it. There is a lot of police brutality news lately in the media so I suspect a lot of availability…

> There is a lot of police brutality news lately in the media so I suspect a lot of availability bias is going on

Sure. The actual rarity is why it has been hard to convince people that reform is needed. The majority will simply not be affected, so anything they're made aware of is easy to pass off as happening to "others".

But regardless of how much it happens, if justice were being achieved then we would expect any case we do become aware of to end with the victims being made whole after the fact. Not just for spectacle cases where someone dies, but in all cases, even if someone is simply arrested yet never sentenced - "You can beat the wrap but you can't beat the ride" is antithetical to due process.

Such compensation not happening routinely is a fundamental problem with the justice system, and I am glad the issue is finally getting attention.

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

#117

Post by mc32 »

Aissen wrote: post #100
dionidium wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Germany have an equivalent to South Chicago or North St. Louis? Because we've got one of those in just about every major U.S. city. It seems relevant.

Maybe the question you should ask yourselves, is why you have those. Why are inequalities so high in your country ?

It's an interesting question. I think there are two things which are in play, at least:

Guns are readily available and we have "a right to guns" so police have to presume civilians of any kind are potentially armed.

Second, we are not the only country with wealth disparity, nor the one with the largest, but... We sell people on the idea that everyone can achieve the dream of living a middle class lifestyle. When people see this opportunity unrealized they feel someone must be actively working against the promise. In some cases there is some truth to that, in other cases it's wishful thinking, but in the end, and on the whole thankfully people don't just assign their station in life to divine assignment and do feel disenfranchised, unlike other places where people might just accept their "fate" as predetermined, to great extent.

So lack of opportunity by itself don't create strife. It's lack of opportunity coupled with a dissonant promise unrealized that creates strife in our cities.

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

#118

Post by chongli »

cryoshon wrote: post #79
cubano wrote: post #45

And you are five times more likely to be killed at a railroad crossing then by a police officer.[1] Headlines like these are obviously created for sensationalism , and while you will be hard pressed to find someone with a bigger animus towards the current USCJS then I, I think we should all be on the lookout for hyperbole, no matter what underlying meme it may be promoting. [1] http://www.popularmechanics.com/technol…

It isn't hyperbole that US cops are far more violent and unstable than the cops of other developed countries. Look at how many people Germany kills per year. Now look at how many people China kills per year. Now look at the US...

Police forces don't operate in a vacuum, they are composed of the citizens of the places in which they serve. Police, like prisons, should be viewed as a reflection of society.

If Americans are going to be serious about eliminating police brutality and killing, they need to take a hard look at their own culture of guns, violence, and racism.

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

#119

Post by aidenn0 »

Aissen wrote: post #100
dionidium wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Germany have an equivalent to South Chicago or North St. Louis? Because we've got one of those in just about every major U.S. city. It seems relevant.

Maybe the question you should ask yourselves, is why you have those. Why are inequalities so high in your country ?

I agree, but if the cops in the US are put in a naturally more violent environment, then it is unfair to solely call out their policing tactics as the cause for the violence, when the underlying problem is much deeper.

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

#120

Post by dllthomas »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #68
schnable wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or maybe some of the effort we put into fighting terrorism is effective.

It's hard to say, generally it doesn't appear to be the case but there's a possibility this information is secret to the public. But take the NSA for example, it has been looked into a lot by government (e.g. congress) itself behind closed doors and it seems to be pretty useless so far. > The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) also issued a report in which it stated, “we have not identified a single…

The NSA is a whole lot more than just the bulk collection program.
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