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I would have no problem with being a police officer in iceland, but certainly in the US. I get why they don't want to give up their guns, especially now, but th

I would have no problem with being a police officer in iceland, but certainly in the US. I get why they don't want to give up their guns, especially now, but that has consequences for policing work. If you can assume your "victim" to be unarmed, you approach the situation differently. So I do think it is a quite dangerous job there to be honest. Moreso than the ones you mentioned. Some time ago deep sea fishing was the deadliest job. Would still prefer it from a risk assessment perspective.

Semaphor 6y ago
So it feels more dangerous to you. I’d assume it’s because the danger is so far out of your control?
woah 6y ago
Are you saying that the stats posted above are wrong? Based just on your imagination? Or do you have some information about shortcomings in how they were collected?
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  No, I didn't say that they are wrong. My imagination is unlimited of course. A shortcomming I see here is that the danger is reduced to fatalities as average over the whole profession. There certainly are areas in the US where policing is extremely safe, everyone knows you by name, sponsors you a donut from time to time and is happy to see you. I would do it without a problem and this is probably true for most officers. But allow me to specify, I wouldn't want to be a police officer in urban areas with focal points in crime.
user982 6y ago
> I would have no problem with being a police officer in iceland, but certainly in the US. I get why they don't want to give up their guns, especially now, but that has consequences for policing work. If you can assume your "victim" to be unarmed, you approach the situation differently. Iceland has a fairly high guns-per-capita number, with about one gun for every third person. An odd choice to use as an example of a country safe due to an unarmed populace. > So I do think it is a quite dangerous job there to be honest. Moreso than the ones you mentioned. Some time ago deep sea fishing was the deadliest job. Would still prefer it from a risk assessment perspective. "I see your data, and I willfully ignore it."
- jaxx75 6y ago
  > one gun for every third person. I would suspect it's a high rate of long guns, not hand guns.
  - de_watcher 6y ago
    not hand guns... you mean footguns?
    - blaser-waffle 6y ago
      "Longarms" or "long-arms" generally refers to rifles and shotguns, as opposed to handguns. It's an important distinction, as something on the order of 80-85% of gun violence in the US -- rape, murder, robbery, suicide, etc. -- are with handguns. Attempts to ban handguns have met stiff resistance, though, e.g. Heller v DC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  Almost all deaths deep sea fishing are from mistakes. Many deaths from policing are people intentionally trying to kill you. Maybe that comes into play. With deep sea fishing , if you're careful enough, you can drastically lower the death rate - it's in your hands. Not so with policing.
  - codr7 6y ago
    Are they really? It seems likely to me that many are simply reacting to being cornered and threatened. Taking the behavior of the police out of the equation makes the answer useless.
    - oh_sigh 6y ago
      A major part of their job is arresting people who usually don't want to be arrested. Yes, I'm sure some police over-escalate a situation and end up dead for it, but that's probably not the norm.
dTal 6y ago
Regarding this often-cited argument of "people can own guns, so cops need them" - in a situation with a gun, does it actually help if the cop also has a gun? Now you have a gunfight on your hands. By analogy, people are allowed to own rocket launchers as well (it's true!) but that doesn't mean every beat cop should carry one. What's the actual problem with disarming the police completely, and having them call in a SWAT team in the rare event that someone actually threatens a cop with a firearm?
- gridlockd 6y ago
  Of course it helps to have a gun if your opponent has a gun, because both of you now have a risk of getting shot. If I know you don't have a gun because you're one of these unarmed cops, I can completely dominate the situation. I can make you stand on one leg and do a recital. > By analogy, people are allowed to own rocket launchers as well (it's true!) but that doesn't mean every beat cop should carry one. Rocket launchers are not anti-personnel weapons and no ordinary criminal carries them or would be expected to carry them. The best weapon to neutralize a threat wielding a rocket launcher is not another rocket launcher, it's a rifle. Should we arrive at the situation where criminals routinely arrive in armored personnel carriers or tanks, then we can talk about arming the police with rocket launchers.
  - sukilot 6y ago
    Right, so police need body armor, not handguns.
    - gridlockd 6y ago
      Body armor might save your life, but it doesn't make you invincible to bullets. If you take a bullet with body armor, you're going down. You're no threat whatsoever. You have no power in the situation, you can't get it under control, mitigate the threat, and so on.
- michaelt 6y ago
  If you can easily get a $500 device that makes 95% of cops stop chasing you, wouldn't every rational violent criminal buy one? I suppose it could work if 95% of the police were engaged in something other than apprehending violent criminals...
Someone1234 6y ago
30-40% of police officer deaths aren't gun-related, they're traffic accidents[0] with another 30% being "job related illness"[1]. And in some years traffic accidents is the leading cause of deaths. About 50~ police officers die via guns per year. The police kill about 1,000 citizens per year via guns though[2]. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/leo/default.html https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/leo/default.html [1] https://nleomf.org/facts-figures/causes-of-law-enforcement-deaths https://nleomf.org/facts-figures/causes-of-law-enforcement-d... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/polic...
- marcoperaza 6y ago
  It's worth noting that while every unjustified shooting is one too many, the vast vast majority of shootings by police are unambiguously justified. The US has a lot of violent criminals, many of who are bold enough to even try to kill police officers.
  - minikites 6y ago
    What evidence leads you to this conclusion?
    - marcoperaza 6y ago
      Both of these statements can be true: 1) the vast majority of shootings by police are justified, and 2) there are way too many cases of excessive use of force by police, including shootings. You can look at the reports. They don't usually leave local news, if they even make it there, because there is nothing remarkable about them. People have done aggregations of the data. I'm not saying it's going to convince you if you're already convinced otherwise. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/10/24/on-duty-under-fire/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/10/24/o... "But only a small number of the shootings — roughly 5 percent — occurred under the kind of circumstances that raise doubt and draw public outcry, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. The vast majority of individuals shot and killed by police officers were, like Snyder, armed with guns and killed after attacking police officers or civilians or making other direct threats."
oblio 6y ago
What does Iceland have to do with anything? Those numbers are from the US.
scottoreily 6y ago
Found the delusional power hungry fascist. What’s it like to lack complete empathy?
kube-system 6y ago
I really haven't really heard anyone, even protestors, claim that police in the US should give up their guns. The recent high profile cases of deaths haven't been by gun, but with bare hands. Mostly, the discussion is around if/when deadly force should be used, no matter the implement.
- vanattab 6y ago
  Ummm... I mean the protesters around here want the Police completely disbanded...
  - kube-system 6y ago
    That doesn't mean there won't be police. Other cities have disbanded their police departments. All have been replaced with a new police department. The idea is to replace a poorly run department when reform isn't good enough. The idea isn't to have a completely unpoliced city. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/disband-police-camden-new-jersey-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/disband-police-camden-new-...
    - ajayh 6y ago
      Camden City PD was disbanded to reduce the costs of salaries and benefits with new union contracts. The CNN article doesn't even contain the word 'union'.
      - kube-system 6y ago
        That's beside the point. My reason for linking the example was to illustrate that departments have been disbanded before and it's a more aggressive strategy for change than attempting to reform an existing department, not a call for lawlessness. "disband the police" fits on a sign, but it's an incomplete statement.
- jberryman 6y ago
  I agree with that impression, and actually find it really puzzling that disarming police isn't a central message. I think it's very likely that if the police on George Floyd had been unarmed that eventually the bystanders would have intervened (at least I hope).

Semaphor 6y ago

So it feels more dangerous to you. I’d assume it’s because the danger is so far out of your control?

woah 6y ago

Are you saying that the stats posted above are wrong? Based just on your imagination? Or do you have some information about shortcomings in how they were collected?

raxxorrax 6y ago
No, I didn't say that they are wrong. My imagination is unlimited of course. A shortcomming I see here is that the danger is reduced to fatalities as average over the whole profession. There certainly are areas in the US where policing is extremely safe, everyone knows you by name, sponsors you a donut from time to time and is happy to see you. I would do it without a problem and this is probably true for most officers. But allow me to specify, I wouldn't want to be a police officer in urban areas with focal points in crime.

user982 6y ago

> I would have no problem with being a police officer in iceland, but certainly in the US. I get why they don't want to give up their guns, especially now, but that has consequences for policing work. If you can assume your "victim" to be unarmed, you approach the situation differently. Iceland has a fairly high guns-per-capita number, with about one gun for every third person. An odd choice to use as an example of a country safe due to an unarmed populace. > So I do think it is a quite dangerous job there to be honest. Moreso than the ones you mentioned. Some time ago deep sea fishing was the deadliest job. Would still prefer it from a risk assessment perspective. "I see your data, and I willfully ignore it."

jaxx75 6y ago
> one gun for every third person. I would suspect it's a high rate of long guns, not hand guns.
- de_watcher 6y ago
  not hand guns... you mean footguns?
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    "Longarms" or "long-arms" generally refers to rifles and shotguns, as opposed to handguns. It's an important distinction, as something on the order of 80-85% of gun violence in the US -- rape, murder, robbery, suicide, etc. -- are with handguns. Attempts to ban handguns have met stiff resistance, though, e.g. Heller v DC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
oh_sigh 6y ago
Almost all deaths deep sea fishing are from mistakes. Many deaths from policing are people intentionally trying to kill you. Maybe that comes into play. With deep sea fishing , if you're careful enough, you can drastically lower the death rate - it's in your hands. Not so with policing.
- codr7 6y ago
  Are they really? It seems likely to me that many are simply reacting to being cornered and threatened. Taking the behavior of the police out of the equation makes the answer useless.
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    A major part of their job is arresting people who usually don't want to be arrested. Yes, I'm sure some police over-escalate a situation and end up dead for it, but that's probably not the norm.

dTal 6y ago

Regarding this often-cited argument of "people can own guns, so cops need them" - in a situation with a gun, does it actually help if the cop also has a gun? Now you have a gunfight on your hands. By analogy, people are allowed to own rocket launchers as well (it's true!) but that doesn't mean every beat cop should carry one. What's the actual problem with disarming the police completely, and having them call in a SWAT team in the rare event that someone actually threatens a cop with a firearm?

gridlockd 6y ago
Of course it helps to have a gun if your opponent has a gun, because both of you now have a risk of getting shot. If I know you don't have a gun because you're one of these unarmed cops, I can completely dominate the situation. I can make you stand on one leg and do a recital. > By analogy, people are allowed to own rocket launchers as well (it's true!) but that doesn't mean every beat cop should carry one. Rocket launchers are not anti-personnel weapons and no ordinary criminal carries them or would be expected to carry them. The best weapon to neutralize a threat wielding a rocket launcher is not another rocket launcher, it's a rifle. Should we arrive at the situation where criminals routinely arrive in armored personnel carriers or tanks, then we can talk about arming the police with rocket launchers.
- sukilot 6y ago
  Right, so police need body armor, not handguns.
  - gridlockd 6y ago
    Body armor might save your life, but it doesn't make you invincible to bullets. If you take a bullet with body armor, you're going down. You're no threat whatsoever. You have no power in the situation, you can't get it under control, mitigate the threat, and so on.
michaelt 6y ago
If you can easily get a $500 device that makes 95% of cops stop chasing you, wouldn't every rational violent criminal buy one? I suppose it could work if 95% of the police were engaged in something other than apprehending violent criminals...

Someone1234 6y ago

30-40% of police officer deaths aren't gun-related, they're traffic accidents[0] with another 30% being "job related illness"[1]. And in some years traffic accidents is the leading cause of deaths. About 50~ police officers die via guns per year. The police kill about 1,000 citizens per year via guns though[2]. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/leo/default.html https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/leo/default.html [1] https://nleomf.org/facts-figures/causes-of-law-enforcement-deaths https://nleomf.org/facts-figures/causes-of-law-enforcement-d... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/polic...

marcoperaza 6y ago
It's worth noting that while every unjustified shooting is one too many, the vast vast majority of shootings by police are unambiguously justified. The US has a lot of violent criminals, many of who are bold enough to even try to kill police officers.
- minikites 6y ago
  What evidence leads you to this conclusion?
  - marcoperaza 6y ago
    Both of these statements can be true: 1) the vast majority of shootings by police are justified, and 2) there are way too many cases of excessive use of force by police, including shootings. You can look at the reports. They don't usually leave local news, if they even make it there, because there is nothing remarkable about them. People have done aggregations of the data. I'm not saying it's going to convince you if you're already convinced otherwise. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/10/24/on-duty-under-fire/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/10/24/o... "But only a small number of the shootings — roughly 5 percent — occurred under the kind of circumstances that raise doubt and draw public outcry, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. The vast majority of individuals shot and killed by police officers were, like Snyder, armed with guns and killed after attacking police officers or civilians or making other direct threats."

oblio 6y ago

What does Iceland have to do with anything? Those numbers are from the US.

scottoreily 6y ago

Found the delusional power hungry fascist. What’s it like to lack complete empathy?

kube-system 6y ago

I really haven't really heard anyone, even protestors, claim that police in the US should give up their guns. The recent high profile cases of deaths haven't been by gun, but with bare hands. Mostly, the discussion is around if/when deadly force should be used, no matter the implement.

vanattab 6y ago
Ummm... I mean the protesters around here want the Police completely disbanded...
- kube-system 6y ago
  That doesn't mean there won't be police. Other cities have disbanded their police departments. All have been replaced with a new police department. The idea is to replace a poorly run department when reform isn't good enough. The idea isn't to have a completely unpoliced city. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/disband-police-camden-new-jersey-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/disband-police-camden-new-...
  - ajayh 6y ago
    Camden City PD was disbanded to reduce the costs of salaries and benefits with new union contracts. The CNN article doesn't even contain the word 'union'.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      That's beside the point. My reason for linking the example was to illustrate that departments have been disbanded before and it's a more aggressive strategy for change than attempting to reform an existing department, not a call for lawlessness. "disband the police" fits on a sign, but it's an incomplete statement.
jberryman 6y ago
I agree with that impression, and actually find it really puzzling that disarming police isn't a central message. I think it's very likely that if the police on George Floyd had been unarmed that eventually the bystanders would have intervened (at least I hope).