4 ms·

Exactly. In most parts of the world, law enforcement has a power leverage because officers are armed, and the public is not. (Yes, even criminals are usually u

Exactly. In most parts of the world, law enforcement has a power leverage because officers are armed, and the public is not. (Yes, even criminals are usually unarmed unless they are intending to commit a crime. This is because wearing a weapon outs them as criminals, which they naturally try to avoid.) If you want to deescalate the war between law enforcement and the public, you must not only change the way the law enforcement interprets its duty, you must also disarm the public.

a_humean 10y ago
In the UK the vast majority (don't know the hard figure, but guessing something like 95%) of police are unarmed with the exception of maybe pepper spray or the occasional blunt stick (I think even that is less common now). Only a small minority of police in the UK are even trained in firearms, and they are meant to be the elite (physically, psychologically, and morally) with years of experience and countless hours of recurring training. UK police, in principle, try to operate via a community policing and policing by consent principle that assumes cooperation and negotiation as the norm of police work with coercive force as only a very last resort. UK police don't use the threat of force as leverage as explicitly as you are suggesting, and they very very rarely have guns. Our police force isn't perfect, and is far from having a spotless record with minority groups, but they do represent an alternative model of policing that doesn't have to be about the threat or show of force. Police are meant to be about enabling civilian self-policing; not military occupation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles
- throwaway049 10y ago
  UK police almost always carry a collapsible metal baton and pepper spray.
- boot82050 10y ago
  YES indeed also UK police does this for years no problems no civil executions.. I hope this will someday become the standard in my country as well.
geggam 10y ago
Disarming the public works so well in Mexico, Belgium, France and other places where shootings happened recently... just like making drugs illegal stopped that ... or alcohol * sarcasm* ... what actually does work is fixing the social problems which cause people to want to shoot others mental health being #1 lil chart for you http://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from-mass-public-shootings-in-the-us-and-europe/ http://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from-...
- DanBC 10y ago
  Most of the people shot and killed in the US were not killed by someone with a mental illness. On the other hand, about half the people shot and killed by police in the US had mental illness, which suggests US police need better training.
- vacri 10y ago
  Mass shootings make up about 1% of the annual firearm homicide rate in the US per year. Arguing by using mass shootings as your base is almost exactly the wrong way to go about it. Even in the context of this thread - police having to fear a citizen being armed - it's not appropriate. A cop fearing a citizen with a gun is fearing for their own safety, not that the citizen will go on a mass shooting spree. It's also worth noting that France's homicide rate is about 30% that of the US's, and the US homicide rate is 75% due to firearms. US firearm homicide, per capita, is significantly larger than France's homicide rate from all causes.
Pica_soO 10y ago
Did you ever watch Oldboy? Did you notice that the criminals in it- are armed with hammers, knifes and wooden clubs? That is because of a very tight weapons control in south Korea. If a society has weapons not wildly available- criminals don't have them wildly available. And you can sit in your car, waiting for the officer to ask for your papers, only to live in fear that you might be shot for scratching your head, because some poor guy in the trenches prefers coming home at night with lots of paperwork and his face on national TV to not coming home ever again.

a_humean 10y ago

In the UK the vast majority (don't know the hard figure, but guessing something like 95%) of police are unarmed with the exception of maybe pepper spray or the occasional blunt stick (I think even that is less common now). Only a small minority of police in the UK are even trained in firearms, and they are meant to be the elite (physically, psychologically, and morally) with years of experience and countless hours of recurring training. UK police, in principle, try to operate via a community policing and policing by consent principle that assumes cooperation and negotiation as the norm of police work with coercive force as only a very last resort. UK police don't use the threat of force as leverage as explicitly as you are suggesting, and they very very rarely have guns. Our police force isn't perfect, and is far from having a spotless record with minority groups, but they do represent an alternative model of policing that doesn't have to be about the threat or show of force. Police are meant to be about enabling civilian self-policing; not military occupation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles

throwaway049 10y ago
UK police almost always carry a collapsible metal baton and pepper spray.
boot82050 10y ago
YES indeed also UK police does this for years no problems no civil executions.. I hope this will someday become the standard in my country as well.

geggam 10y ago

Disarming the public works so well in Mexico, Belgium, France and other places where shootings happened recently... just like making drugs illegal stopped that ... or alcohol * sarcasm* ... what actually does work is fixing the social problems which cause people to want to shoot others mental health being #1 lil chart for you http://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from-mass-public-shootings-in-the-us-and-europe/ http://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from-...

DanBC 10y ago
Most of the people shot and killed in the US were not killed by someone with a mental illness. On the other hand, about half the people shot and killed by police in the US had mental illness, which suggests US police need better training.
vacri 10y ago
Mass shootings make up about 1% of the annual firearm homicide rate in the US per year. Arguing by using mass shootings as your base is almost exactly the wrong way to go about it. Even in the context of this thread - police having to fear a citizen being armed - it's not appropriate. A cop fearing a citizen with a gun is fearing for their own safety, not that the citizen will go on a mass shooting spree. It's also worth noting that France's homicide rate is about 30% that of the US's, and the US homicide rate is 75% due to firearms. US firearm homicide, per capita, is significantly larger than France's homicide rate from all causes.

Pica_soO 10y ago

Did you ever watch Oldboy? Did you notice that the criminals in it- are armed with hammers, knifes and wooden clubs? That is because of a very tight weapons control in south Korea. If a society has weapons not wildly available- criminals don't have them wildly available. And you can sit in your car, waiting for the officer to ask for your papers, only to live in fear that you might be shot for scratching your head, because some poor guy in the trenches prefers coming home at night with lots of paperwork and his face on national TV to not coming home ever again.