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I have to wonder how many of those civilian deaths prevented police deaths? Obviously we have seen plenty of news about bias and wrongful deaths of civilians, b

I have to wonder how many of those civilian deaths prevented police deaths? Obviously we have seen plenty of news about bias and wrongful deaths of civilians, but how many of the rest were life saving defensive uses of deadly force? I don't actually know the answer, but I would think that contributes to the bias of the numbers.

gervase 10y ago
I was wondering the same thing, and did some back-of-the-envelope calculations to get a feel for that. Surprisingly, when compared to British officers who (for the most part) are not armed, providing officers with guns seems to decrease both their own survival AND the survival of civilians, percent-to-total. I did make several gross assumptions, such as only counting deaths and not injuries, and that 100% of US police officers are armed and 0% of British officers are, but for a rough calculation, I think it's okay. (Note that British officers are much more likely to be assaulted, and injured in those assaults, than U.S. officers.) If I had to guess, it could be because the presence of guns (on both sides) tends to escalate the situation. For example, regardless of whether you're a police officer or a criminal, you're naturally going to be much more likely to shoot if you believe you are about to be shot yourself. If British police officers CAN'T shoot, then potentially British criminals are less likely to shoot them, because there's no need to do so - just knock them over the head and then run away. This is purely speculation on my part, of course, but it seems plausible, does it not?
- woodchuck64 10y ago
  > providing officers with guns seems to decrease both their own survival AND the survival of civilians, I don't find that surprising at all. The glaring omission in the posted article is accounting for prevalence of guns. It would make sense that more unarmed people would be shot in an environment in which guns are more common.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Surprisingly, when compared to British officers who (for the most part) are not armed, providing officers with guns seems to decrease both their own survival AND the survival of civilians, percent-to-total. The question becomes, does the arming of officers cause the lower survival rates, or does the violence level cause both the arming of officers and the lower survival rate. (I suspect that arming officers is a big contributor, but the correlation alone doesn't tell you the causal relationship.)

gervase 10y ago

I was wondering the same thing, and did some back-of-the-envelope calculations to get a feel for that. Surprisingly, when compared to British officers who (for the most part) are not armed, providing officers with guns seems to decrease both their own survival AND the survival of civilians, percent-to-total. I did make several gross assumptions, such as only counting deaths and not injuries, and that 100% of US police officers are armed and 0% of British officers are, but for a rough calculation, I think it's okay. (Note that British officers are much more likely to be assaulted, and injured in those assaults, than U.S. officers.) If I had to guess, it could be because the presence of guns (on both sides) tends to escalate the situation. For example, regardless of whether you're a police officer or a criminal, you're naturally going to be much more likely to shoot if you believe you are about to be shot yourself. If British police officers CAN'T shoot, then potentially British criminals are less likely to shoot them, because there's no need to do so - just knock them over the head and then run away. This is purely speculation on my part, of course, but it seems plausible, does it not?

woodchuck64 10y ago
> providing officers with guns seems to decrease both their own survival AND the survival of civilians, I don't find that surprising at all. The glaring omission in the posted article is accounting for prevalence of guns. It would make sense that more unarmed people would be shot in an environment in which guns are more common.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Surprisingly, when compared to British officers who (for the most part) are not armed, providing officers with guns seems to decrease both their own survival AND the survival of civilians, percent-to-total. The question becomes, does the arming of officers cause the lower survival rates, or does the violence level cause both the arming of officers and the lower survival rate. (I suspect that arming officers is a big contributor, but the correlation alone doesn't tell you the causal relationship.)