5 ms·
> Therefore if everyone fights back when "they" come for you, the outcome for society is positive, even if hopeless for individuals. The insane gun ownership in
by pg314 9y ago
> Therefore if everyone fights back when "they" come for you, the outcome for society is positive, even if hopeless for individuals. The insane gun ownership in this country could be a benefit. Sure, you're not going to beat the army, but if every 10 people to be liquidated take out one secret police guy, then the civilian population as a whole will be safe.
That argument only works if it were an all-out battle between the population as a whole on one side and the secret police on the other. That is not how authoritarianism works. They start by isolating minorities, and target individuals one by one. In every single 'battle' the secret police outnumbers their opponents. Any resistance is used to justify the use of more force.
Imagine what would happen if 'illegal' immigrants (which number in the millions) that are being deported by ICE (about 20,000 employees [1]) start fighting back with guns. How do you think Fox News would react? Or public opinion?
Or just look at police brutality against minorities in the US. Do you think that the use of more guns by minorities is likely to lessen police brutality, or exacerbate it?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Immigration_and_Customs_E...
- leereeves 9y agoMore than half of all people killed by police are white.
- beebmam 9y agoThere's a lot of intersection between class and race when it comes to police violence, and I don't think the phrase "minorities" is sufficient in discussing the issue.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- icebraining 9y agoIn the reports I've read, white people were the largest group, but weren't more than half. Where did you get your data?
- pg314 9y agoI'm not sure which point you are trying to address, but where did you get your data? According to the data collected by the Washington Post [1], in each of the years since 2015, less than half of the victims (excluding 2018 the percentage varied between 49.9% and 46.3%) of fatal police shootings have been white. There is some uncertainty because for some cases the race is unknown. That data also only deals with shootings, so it is possible that if you count all killings the data is different. Can you share your data source? [1] https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-police-shootings https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-police-shootings
- leereeves 9y agoI got my data from The Guardian [1]. Their data only covers 2015 and 2016 but appears to be more comprehensive for those years, listing 1146 killings in 2015 and 1093 killings in 2016, vs 995 and 963 in the Post data, perhaps simply because they list all killings rather than only shootings. They list enough "white" victims that more than half were white even including victims of unknown race. But this is a minor point. It's very close to 50% in either source so perhaps we should simply say "half of all people killed by police are white". 1: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/...
- NotSammyHagar 9y agoEven if half, it's still true that driving while black is a thing with police.
- tptacek 9y agoJust 12% of the US population is black.