5 ms·

Our US society is sick beyond belief.

squarefoot 9y ago
The problem goes way beyond the US borders, and is a clear sign of corruption among the ruling class. When a cop is acquitted for murdering some innocent thanks to some intervention form above, he could become in the future a pawn of a private army for whoever was helping him/her from above. Suppose you're a high profile politician who needs some dirty job to be done, who would you trust more, some thugs recruited around or ex cops who don't serve jail time because of you?
- chmod775 9y ago
  > The problem goes way beyond the US borders Name one more western first world country besides the US, where cops shooting someone is hardly news. And no, the problem probably isn't guns. In the US there's about 1 gun per resident, Germany 0.3, UK 0.06, and Canada 0.3. Meanwhile there were about 987 fatal shootings by cops in the US in 2016, compared to 13 in Germany, 4 in the UK, and 9 in Canada. Even adjusting these numbers for population and number of guns per resident, you will still be off by an order of magnitude.
  - GrantSolar 9y ago
    >And no, the problem probably isn't guns. The biggest factors do revolve around guns though. Not just numbers, but the culture which feeds into itself and the perception that guns are not a problem, but a solution ("The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun"). Of course, this then provokes a "Have-a-go-Harry" take on confrontation where people who are woefully ill-equipped to deal with a situation attempt to do so. The lack of training, the fetishisation of guns, and the sheer number of guns are all extremely significant factors in gun crime. Take away any one of these and the rate of gun crime would drop significantly. Unfortunately, any solution has to work within the framework of "no further regulation" to even get close to implementation which rules out swathes of methods
    - thirdsun 9y ago
      I agree - from afar there seems to be a very unique culture of fear and urge to "protect" prevalent in the US. I was reading a reddit discussion some time ago, where most commenters concluded that it's fine to shoot a burglar entering your house at night, which feels very alien to me. Sure, it's a frightening situation, but in my mind a burglary clearly doesn't justify the, potentially deadly, use of a gun. Those are not equal actions and measures.
      - DrScump 9y ago
        burglary clearly doesn't justify the, potentially deadly, use of a gun Problem is, you can't know if it is "just" a burglary until after the perpetrator leaves.
- Waterluvian 9y ago
  Nope this is you guys. I'm pretty relaxed up here regarding our police.
bitlax 9y ago
Don't put Baltimore on the rest of us.
- kerkeslager 9y ago
  Is there a US city where cops who murder unarmed black men are convicted with any sort of regularity?
  - weberc2 9y ago
    How many cities in the US have police who "murder unarmed black men" regularly to begin with? Of course if that number is small, then the number of cities who regularly convict them will be small. You can't take the small number of cities that regularly convict as evidence of a problem.
    - kerkeslager 9y ago
      Well-documented cases of cops murdering unarmed black men and not being convicted have occurred all over the United States. This isn't a Baltimore problem, it's a US problem.
      - weberc2 9y ago
        1. There are well-documented cases of cops murdering unarmed men and not being convicted. "unarmed black men" is a red herring, because there is no evidence that this happens disproportionately on a racial basis. 2. My claim was that there are not many cities with a trend of cops murdering unarmed black men, so your comment isn't a valid rebuttal, however true it may otherwise be.
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        > there is no evidence that this happens disproportionately on a racial basis. There's actually considerable evidence that adverse interactions with law enforcement of all kinds (and not just LE murder) are not evenly distributed by race. Whether that is a result of deliberate LE racism vs. other factors which contribute to such encounters being distributed disproportionately by race has more mixed evidence.

The problem goes way beyond the US borders, and is a clear sign of corruption among the ruling class. When a cop is acquitted for murdering some innocent thanks to some intervention form above, he could become in the future a pawn of a private army for whoever was helping him/her from above. Suppose you're a high profile politician who needs some dirty job to be done, who would you trust more, some thugs recruited around or ex cops who don't serve jail time because of you?

chmod775 9y ago
> The problem goes way beyond the US borders Name one more western first world country besides the US, where cops shooting someone is hardly news. And no, the problem probably isn't guns. In the US there's about 1 gun per resident, Germany 0.3, UK 0.06, and Canada 0.3. Meanwhile there were about 987 fatal shootings by cops in the US in 2016, compared to 13 in Germany, 4 in the UK, and 9 in Canada. Even adjusting these numbers for population and number of guns per resident, you will still be off by an order of magnitude.
- GrantSolar 9y ago
  >And no, the problem probably isn't guns. The biggest factors do revolve around guns though. Not just numbers, but the culture which feeds into itself and the perception that guns are not a problem, but a solution ("The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun"). Of course, this then provokes a "Have-a-go-Harry" take on confrontation where people who are woefully ill-equipped to deal with a situation attempt to do so. The lack of training, the fetishisation of guns, and the sheer number of guns are all extremely significant factors in gun crime. Take away any one of these and the rate of gun crime would drop significantly. Unfortunately, any solution has to work within the framework of "no further regulation" to even get close to implementation which rules out swathes of methods
  - thirdsun 9y ago
    I agree - from afar there seems to be a very unique culture of fear and urge to "protect" prevalent in the US. I was reading a reddit discussion some time ago, where most commenters concluded that it's fine to shoot a burglar entering your house at night, which feels very alien to me. Sure, it's a frightening situation, but in my mind a burglary clearly doesn't justify the, potentially deadly, use of a gun. Those are not equal actions and measures.
    - DrScump 9y ago
      burglary clearly doesn't justify the, potentially deadly, use of a gun Problem is, you can't know if it is "just" a burglary until after the perpetrator leaves.
Waterluvian 9y ago
Nope this is you guys. I'm pretty relaxed up here regarding our police.

bitlax 9y ago

Don't put Baltimore on the rest of us.

kerkeslager 9y ago
Is there a US city where cops who murder unarmed black men are convicted with any sort of regularity?
- weberc2 9y ago
  How many cities in the US have police who "murder unarmed black men" regularly to begin with? Of course if that number is small, then the number of cities who regularly convict them will be small. You can't take the small number of cities that regularly convict as evidence of a problem.
  - kerkeslager 9y ago
    Well-documented cases of cops murdering unarmed black men and not being convicted have occurred all over the United States. This isn't a Baltimore problem, it's a US problem.
    - weberc2 9y ago
      1. There are well-documented cases of cops murdering unarmed men and not being convicted. "unarmed black men" is a red herring, because there is no evidence that this happens disproportionately on a racial basis. 2. My claim was that there are not many cities with a trend of cops murdering unarmed black men, so your comment isn't a valid rebuttal, however true it may otherwise be.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        > there is no evidence that this happens disproportionately on a racial basis. There's actually considerable evidence that adverse interactions with law enforcement of all kinds (and not just LE murder) are not evenly distributed by race. Whether that is a result of deliberate LE racism vs. other factors which contribute to such encounters being distributed disproportionately by race has more mixed evidence.