4 ms·

How can you possibly think so when there are about 25 police killings in Germany in the last 30 years and about 25 police killings in the US in the last month?

• tommit 6y ago
  Many people won't like this, but I cannot explain this phenomenon other than that it's the result of years of normalizing gun ownership. Shootings are a very real and somewhat regular occurrence in the US. Here in Germany, it's literally not an issue people worry about. When was the last time you saw a gun anywhere in Germany? The majority of Germans would probably say in the holster of a policeman or possibly someone they know is a registered hunter. Indubitably, the crazy amount of guns coupled with a tendency to romanticize them leads to policemen being more on edge and willing to pull the trigger -- because worst case, you have an armed loon in front of you that might just shoot first. The initially suggested idea of sending an unarmed civil service guy to de-escalate some situation sounds great in theory, but honestly I wouldn't want to be the guy trying to talk sense into an armed loon. The fact that the above poster estimates there to be a thousand rightful shootings for every wrong one should really warrant the question of why there are a thousand shootings in the first place. That is not the norm.
  • agensaequivocum 6y ago
    > Shootings are a very real and somewhat regular occurrence in the US. Here in Germany, it's literally not an issue people worry about. When was the last time you saw a gun anywhere in Germany? There was a shooting in February https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanau_shootings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanau_shootings. Germany is also in the top 25 per capita for civilian gun ownership http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Pap...
• downerending 6y ago
  My family is recently from Germany, and at least 50 years ago, they had an extremely strong culture of social order and obeying laws. I suspect variations in crime rates have a lot more to do with that than with differences in policing style.
  • newen 6y ago
    It's not just Germany. Police killings are significantly lower in many many other countries compared to the US.
    • downerending 6y ago
      Arguably we have a lot of violent crime here, so that stats would need to be normalized somehow for that. But yes, US culture is different than a lot of other countries. I suspect policing style is more the effect than the cause.
• therealdrag0 6y ago
  Do you really think that's apples to apples comparison? Perhaps consider reading "how to lie with statistics".