7 ms·

And none of the charged are cops, who shot an unarmed man just walking out of his house. Do not fire unless fired upon is common rule of engagement for military

• mjfl 8y ago
  Are you seriously suggesting that we disarm the police? "Stop it right there, or I'll... I'll get really mad!"
  • jachee 8y ago
    More like demilitarize them. Edit: To the point: Yes. Anyone who can't respect "Don't fire until fired upon" should 100.0000% be disarmed.
    • deleted 8y ago
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  • blattimwind 8y ago
    Are you seriously suggesting that the police should have rules of engagement far less strict than those applied by many militaries around the world in literal war zones while fighting actual enemies of their state?
  • AlimJaffer 8y ago
    I think it has more to do with training and better use-of-force regulations. The police in the States appear to have a "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality as evidenced by these events. Disarming them in a country like the US is impossible, but surely better training and stricter rules/penalties would help the situation.
  • mjevans 8y ago
    It's appropriate for them to have 'less lethal' weapons. It is also far more appropriate for them to be trained in the proper use of force and de-escalation of situations. Peace officers are supposed to be professionals.
  • allday 8y ago
    Hell, I suggest that we disband the police entirely.
  • bdcravens 8y ago
    Perhaps there should be 2 tiers of officers, with appropriate training and psychological evaluations required for those authorized to carry firearms.
    • spathi_fwiffo 8y ago
      This already exists, with SWAT. They like to shoot people (and dogs) for no good reason, too.
  • mozumder 8y ago
    Yes. The police, along with everyone else, should be disarmed. NOBODY should be allowed to defend themselves with a gun. Guns should only be allowed for hunting. Are you seriously suggesting they shouldn't?
    • make3 8y ago
      also, is hunting that important? like, if that hobby is the only reason for people to keep guns, I'm fine with sacrificing it so that no one has a reason to have guns
      • magduf 8y ago
        I agree, however, hunting is important for keeping wild animal populations (mostly deer) in check, since humans have eliminated most of their natural predators like mountain lions. Therefore, it would need to be replaced with something else, such as state-operated culling (basically hunting, but done by professionals, and preferably in a way so that older/sick animals are killed rather than ones in their prime).
      • 15155 8y ago
        The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America has absolutely nothing to do with hunting. The Federalist papers will enlighten you to the actual purpose of private arms if you need.
        • mikepurvis 8y ago
          I don't disagree with you, but those are documents written over two centuries ago, mostly about long guns, and at a time when it was suggested that the federal standing army be no more than 30k troops. The fact that these things are regularly trotted out as if they have anything but the most peripheral relevance in discussions about things like handguns, bump stocks, and silencers is nuts.
          • 15155 8y ago
            At the time the Constitution was penned, almost all of our actual ordnance and navy was privately owned. People had the right, ability, means to own cannonry and mortars. None of the intent behind the Second Amendment has changed. It's quite frankly sad that to hear that people think so lowly of the Framers' intelligence to foresee technological advances. The Girandoni Air Rifle existed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni_air_rifle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni_air_rifle The Framers couldn't extrapolate or imagine future technology? If you read the original justification, private ownership of arms has everything to do with individual liberty in spite of destructive capability.
  • rectang 8y ago
    In other countries, not all police carry guns. Those countries are not suffering from the epidemic of gun violence which plagues the US. We are definitely doing something wrong, and they are definitely doing something right. So while we may not disarm the entire police force tomorrow, should we consider ways to deescalate? Hell yes.
  • mikeash 8y ago
    Are you seriously suggesting that we should arm people who can’t even behave with at least the restraint that we expect of soldiers in war zones?
  • irrational 8y ago
    The police in other countries function without guns.
  • matwood 8y ago
    Yes, until they get better trained and stop shooting first. They should also get rid of all of the military style equipment. If they want to be soldiers, then go be a soldier...except soldiers have a set rules to adhere to before shooting at possible hostiles.
    • krapp 8y ago
      Barring repeal of the Second Amendment, the police in the US have the same right to keep and bear arms as anyone else, and that right isn't predicated on training or trigger discipline.
      • FireBeyond 8y ago
        Uhh, what? Yes, they do. We also, as their employers, have a right to restrict the choice of arms we supply them with _as part of their employment_. Or is your argument that police should be able to buy and have whatever weapons they like, without restriction, for their jobs?
      • Xylakant 8y ago
        As a private person, yes, they have that right. Doesn’t mean the police precinct needs to stock and hand out military or paramilitary equipment to all officers.
      • matwood 8y ago
        Then treat them like every other person. Claiming "I thought I saw a gun" after shooting someone means most of the population is going to jail. I get that accidents happens, but something has clearly gone wrong with either the training or lack there of.
        • krapp 8y ago
          I agree with you, one of the biggest contributors to police violence in my opinion is tolerance for it within the system.
      • ceejayoz 8y ago
  • hosay123 8y ago
    The UK has 4.9x fewer population compared to the USA, yet manages 246x fewer deaths due to policy activity. While some of our police are armed (covering Northern Ireland only - 1.65m population) the majority are not. The real problem is likely not having armed police, after all, Northern Ireland does not suffer a 246x increase in police-attributed deaths compared to the rest of the UK, but the expectation by police that theirs live are at risk - due to the common access of regular citizens to offensive weaponry
    • pjc50 8y ago
      > Northern Ireland does not suffer a 246x increase in police-attributed deaths compared to the rest of the UK Well, not at the moment, but during the Troubles there were armed troops and armoured cars deployed on the streets. Quite a lot of people were killed by police and army shootings, some of which were extremely illegal (Miami Showband, Bloody Sunday) and one or two of which were actually prosected (Lee Clegg's shooting of Karen Reilly). Reform of the police was critical to peace there, and will be critical in America. America needs a peace treaty with itself.
  • jononor 8y ago
    I'm saying they need to get their act together, and for that there must be consequences for not doing so. Make do-not-fire-unless-fired-upon standard RoE. Suspend or fire officers that violate it. Jail officers who kill or maim innocents. Put management that don't do their part on trial.
  • deleted 8y ago
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• wahern 8y ago
  I think a big part of the problem is our gun culture, in particular our self-defense culture. If you read online gun forums one of the main themes is people hesitating and being afraid of hesitating. For example, Force yourself to make a decision and implement it as quickly and completely as you can. Go all in or GTFO. -- http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2012/04/robert-farago/hesitation-kills/ Similar themes are speed and stopping power. So you're told to never, e.g., use a non-fatal round in a shot-gun. Moreover, people are constantly told to use the most lethal round available. It's much worse with cops because not only do many cops have the same mentality, it can be compounded by an us-versus-them and better-him-than-me mentality. Basically, the mentality and the discipline leaves no room for actually assessing the situation. Whether or not using using the most lethal rounds, for instance, is legitimate, the emphasis is entirely misplaced. Such things are some of the least inconsequential aspects of what should be most concerning to someone training and preparing to use lethal force.
  • BeefySwain 8y ago
    My understanding is that one of if not the primary motivator of the "shoot to kill, not to injure" mantra is to reduce the liability of the shooter. It has been demonstrated many times that when you shoot someone, even if there is insufficient evidence to convict you, you are often able to be held civilly liable if the person you shot survived. Not advocating for this, just repeating what has been expressed to me by many different people.
    • 15155 8y ago
      This doctrine isn't applicable to police, however, as they're (privately) immune to civil action anyway.
  • ben509 8y ago
    How much of that is cultural or due to a "mentality", and how much is due to the mechanics of gunfights, though? It's very easy for a person to be fatally injured but still able to kill you, and likely highly motivated to do so. For most women and men over 60, any aggressor with a knife and surprise can overpower them physically. At that point, you may as well assume their intent is lethal. > So you're told to never, e.g., use a non-fatal round in a shot-gun. Non-fatal rounds make sense in riot control, as do many police tactics where you have a large team and the ability to bring in backup. For an individual, when you reason through it, you think you need to shoot someone with nonlethal, okay, what do you do if it doesn't work? After all, you don't have backup, so you don't really have a "plan B". That article also hints at a legal problem, which is a result of the perverse logic of intent and probably not amenable to any legislative remedies. 1. Speaking generally, you can commit homicide in self-defense if there is a genuine threat to your life. 2. But, if you shoot to wound, you're demonstrating by your actions that you didn't think there was a genuine threat to your life. 3. Therefore you just weakened your claim to self-defense. I think the statistics belie your claim that there's a cultural problem because, despite all this, the fact is that defensive gun use is overwhelmingly simply brandishing a weapon or arresting an individual by holding them at gunpoint. By orders of magnitude, violent situations are resolved peacefully vs. by shooting.
• hourislate 8y ago
  In the USA it's shoot first ask questions later. There is very little consequence when an officer kills someone by mistake (or even intentionally sometimes) because the tax payer will cover the settlement with the surviving family, etc and the officer typically gets a slap on the wrist and at most a demotion. My solution to the quick or reckless trigger finger is either holding the Police Union responsible for any settlements and not the Tax Payer and/or the officer is charged with manslaughter, loses all his benefits and can never own a gun again. There was an officer in Toronto who had a Van Rampage Murderer actually either point a fake gun or motion that he was reaching for one multiple times and to the officers credit wasn't shot but taken into custody. At least now they can figure out why it happened and not have to speculate or attribute to some unknown reason.
• ben509 8y ago
  > Do not fire unless fired upon is common rule of engagement for military operating under much more adverse conditions. No, there are different ROEs depending on the situation. "Don't fire unless fired upon" applies to a checkpoint or other defensive situation. If you're doing a cordon and search, which is very roughly equivalent to what SWAT does, you shoot if you see weapons. The process to clear a room is a team (typically of four) stacks against the door, breaches the door, and then the goal is to get into the room and eliminate targets in your assigned sector. You absolutely would fire preemptively because when you're going into a room there's just no time to wait, and you're relying on speed and ferocity to overcome the fact that you just dived into a room. Now, all that said, that's also why you want to do that sort of thing as little as possible. Source: US Army doctrine and training as combat arms. Thankfully never had to do one myself...
  • emodendroket 8y ago
    OK. That's not the situation here.
    • ben509 8y ago
      Fair point; to be clear, I was responding very specifically to the argument that "but military won't even do this."
  • almost_usual 8y ago
    Had a childhood friend whose dad got his face blown off by a shotgun during one of these searches. It’s easy to be an armchair expert on an Internet forum, whole different world when at the scene.
    • ceejayoz 8y ago
      > whole different world when at the scene That works both ways. Sometimes, it's better to make national law enforcement policies when not pumping with adrenaline at the scene of a tense scenario.
    • deleted 8y ago
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• _bxg1 8y ago
  The officer (read: most officers) needed better training and probably deserves some type of discipline for negligence, but not criminal charges.
  • jumbalaya2346 8y ago
    Okay, but this guy got a paid vacation. You're okay with that?
  • _bxg1 8y ago
    To those downvoting; this is the cause of most cases of police usage of excessive force. Sometimes it's real racism or abuse of power, but those cases seem to be the minority. More often it's fear, combined with a lack of sufficient training in maintaining self-control under tough situations. I often hear veterans weighing in on cases like this, shocked that domestic police are so incredibly undertrained in de-escalation compared to the military.
• rhacker 8y ago
  The fact that these people KNOW it's called "SWAT"ting means they know that a SWAT team is going to go to the house with guns. The people that called it in are more guilty than the police. Yes it sucks that we don't train police better, but they should definitely make the punishment so severe that it helps reduce future SWATTING calls.
  • agildehaus 8y ago
    They know a SWAT team is going to go because they know police will overreact to a phone call.
    • rhacker 8y ago
      That's exactly what I'm saying - yes the police bear some responsibility, but the caller still wanted this dangerous situation to exist.
      • agildehaus 8y ago
        The root problem is the overreaction to the phone call. Swatting wouldn't exist without police overreaction and lack of verification. We can control how police act by settings standards and demanding better. We cannot prevent terrible people from making false 911 calls.
        • GFischer 8y ago
          Exactly, swatting DOESN'T exist outside the U.S. (save a rare counterexample). Cops in my country aren't great, but they don't do this, ever.
  • pavel_lishin 8y ago
    Wouldn't it make more sense to reduce the incentive to commit the crime, rather than increase punishment? Ramping up punishments doesn't seem to deter criminals, and study after study seems to confirm this.
• lend000 8y ago
  Similarly, where are the cries about a flawed system, where anonymous tips can lead to militarized responses? SWAT teams should ONLY ever be engaged after being escalated from a normal police response. Many policemen are happy to promote the view that cops put themselves in harm's way for society's benefit, but in reality, they go in shooting first, instead of taking on the risk of determining without doubt that a forceful response is necessary first (at their own risk). If all the news stories of unarmed victims are any indication, the net innocent lives saved would be much higher as a result of taking on that risk, even if the rarer instances of an armed, dangerous, and aggressive criminal did result in some of those lives lost being officers. In any case, this risk of being wrong should only go down if police modernize, with the availability of drones and other technologies.
  • deleted 8y ago
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