The frequency of police homicides suggests that we, as a society, need to disarm the police.
Police Homicides in the United States
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Re: Police Homicides in the United States
#112I can't manage to read the whole thing. It starts from an assumption of guilt and corruption. It is looking for support for an accusation. Such an agenda does not make for good science. Don't get me wrong. I would be very interested in finding real solutions for the tendency to see Blacks gunned down by the police. My assumption is this known trend is the driving force behind this piece. I just think this is the wron…
Do you disagree that American police are more prone to violence, and perhaps more eager to apply violence than other police around the world?
I actively avoid American police. Unlike in other developed nations, they treat civilians as the enemy. Yet, unlike in developing nations, you can't just bribe them and get on with your day!
Re: Police Homicides in the United States
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think your explanation is somewhat simplistic, but the observation that societies different from the US manage without the massive police violence is of course spot on. There was a (now deleted) comment a few minutes ago about a police response resulting in someone being shot by the police, the commenter concluded that it was overall reasonable given the circumstances, since no one else got hurt. That looks like a…
Mass shootings in America are not an easy problem to fix. If 0.00005% of the population decides to spend the last 20 minutes of their life going on a murder spree, there's not much you can do, at least in the context of America. Guns are prolific in the US: between 2000 and 2010, 2,000,000 AR15s alone were manufactured for domestic use. Deciding on a set of laws to control that number of firearms to end these arbitra…
I didn't say anything about gun control or other measures that might be employed to control issues such as regular shootings. I only said shootings don't seem to be considered a problem that needs fixing by (presumably) a majority of the society you live in.
On a societal scale just because there is a differential across different societies does not mean that one is wrong and the other is correct. They might just be different. For some people, for example, it is obvious that you can't compare median European culture to American culture (in as much as American and central Chinese culture do not compare, to cite another, perhaps more obvious and common example), for they are vastly different even if superficially similar and sharing some set of values.
Since these societies do not compare, assuming measures to control issues transfer between societies is foolish. I.e. assuming that gun control would work in America based on gun control working in other places is nothing but a non-sequitur in my mind.
Again, and just to reiterate, I am not arguing for some set of regulation or another that (presumably) your society should enact or not. I merely observe differences and of course see things in a certain light and tend to rank and order things a certain way, after all, I know in which society I want to live, and I know in what society I would never want to live.
(clarification: when I write "America" I specifically mean the United States thereof)
Re: Police Homicides in the United States
#1143 years ago German police officer /u/krautcop posted on reddit about his opinion on why police violence is much higher in the US than in Germany. [1] This might open a new perspective to some people. 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLEO/comments/2dgwkp/what_makes_a...
Just to show some numbers, in the last 10 years, there are about 50 shots fired by the police per year for whole Germany, killing less than 10 persons per year. The precise numbers can be found in the table here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffengebrauch_der_Polizei_in_...
Re: Police Homicides in the United States
#115and this is why i don't like to deal with police. They can't control their weapons
They can't control their weapons because they have to operate in a society that can't control its weapons...
Other countries have plenty of weapons around, yet don't have police that use deadly force immediately. Finland is a prime example[1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_c...
Re: Police Homicides in the United States
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you elaborate on why you want to blame the NRA? I should disclose that I own a number of firearms, many of them sidearms, and don't like the NRA very much, nor have I ever donated to them or been a member. I'm just curious as to how you see them as being the source to blame.
I’m not sure what I need to elaborate. The NRA promotes wider gun ownership and more expansive concealed carry. Police use wider ownership of guns and concealed carry to justify more use of deadly force and militarization. In any other country than the US, this feedback loop would be obvious. In the US the NRA works to blur the obvious by talking about “responsible gun owners” while eliding the leakage between respon…
And this led to the police militarization?
Re: Police Homicides in the United States
#1173 years ago German police officer /u/krautcop posted on reddit about his opinion on why police violence is much higher in the US than in Germany. [1] This might open a new perspective to some people. 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLEO/comments/2dgwkp/what_makes_a...
I just read that opinion and it is pretty solid, but I can offer a more precise correction for his opinion of American behaviors.
Yes, he is correct about attitudes regarding individuality. According to the Geert Hofstede indexes the US is the most individualistic country in the world by a lot. As an American who has lived outside the US for years it isn't this individualism that is to blame.
The actual behavioral culprit is thoughts on security. The US is a generally safe place and the wealthiest nation in the world, but the attitudes on security here are more similar to those of third-world countries I have live in. Americans have a cultural fear of injury whether that injury is a physical harm, disrespect, or an injustice. This was one of the huge selling points when Trump was campaigning for President. He really capitalized on people's fear of terrorism and ISIS. No matter how remote and irrational those things are these were real fears people had.
These security fears are such a huge deal to American culture that it explains our use of military and politics to such an extent that the US always scores relatively low on the Transparency International Index considering the actual low corruption and efficiency of government services.
Re: Police Homicides in the United States
#118Interesting analysis. As a counterpoint to the headline that might be little fear-inducing, my first reaction when reading it was: only so little? Things must be bad. I mean: the perfect situation is when there are no homicides at all. But in a little less perfect imaginary world, in which bad people never get the chance to hurt innocents because police stops it, some bad people might still go down resisting arrest,…
Maybe it's not the actual number of shootings, but the video evidence, the militarization of policing, and the lack of even personal responsibility much less punishment for things that look like murder.
Yesterday's example:Graphic video shows Daniel Shaver sobbing and begging officer for his life before 2016 shooting
According to the police report, Brailsford was carrying an AR-15 rifle with the phrase “You’re F—ed” etched into the weapon. The police report also said the “shots were fired so rapidly that in watching the video at regular speed, one cannot count them.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/12/0...
How many like this should we see every year? How many don't have a nice video to release?
Re: Police Homicides in the United States
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think your explanation is somewhat simplistic, but the observation that societies different from the US manage without the massive police violence is of course spot on. There was a (now deleted) comment a few minutes ago about a police response resulting in someone being shot by the police, the commenter concluded that it was overall reasonable given the circumstances, since no one else got hurt. That looks like a…
Mass shootings in America are not an easy problem to fix. If 0.00005% of the population decides to spend the last 20 minutes of their life going on a murder spree, there's not much you can do, at least in the context of America. Guns are prolific in the US: between 2000 and 2010, 2,000,000 AR15s alone were manufactured for domestic use. Deciding on a set of laws to control that number of firearms to end these arbitra…
It will take decades and billions of dollars to meaningfully reduce the amount of guns in the US.
We should get started asap.
Re: Police Homicides in the United States
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a Puritan mentality. It's the fact that any person they interact with could be armed. The reason many other countries police deal with violent criminals in a different way is because it is very unlikely those criminals will be armed. Where I live (Hungary) there is almost no gun violence. The few instances I'm aware of that do involve guns are things where violent groups are involved like organized crime or…
The proliferation of guns isn't everything. Finland has one of the highest number of guns per capita[1], yet their crime rates are one of the lowest. There is a massive correlation between (gun) crime and poverty. Regional inequality means that those who live in poverty have a pretty poor chance of improving their lives. To me, the problem stems less from guns and more from a poor quality of life for massive numbers…
But if you compare communities equal in poverty then amount of gun violence correlates with amount of guns.
So either give poor communities heaps of money or take away guns. Or just wait till they shoot themselves, which is current US approach to the problem.