5 ms·

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? No

by 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...
- Nursie 6y ago
  > I suppose it could work if 95% of the police were engaged in something other than apprehending violent criminals... I would be surprised if apprehending violent criminals was more that 5% of the job, personally. Wouldn't you? To the downvoters; it is your right to do so, but think about it - Police are on patrol, taking reports of crimes that happened previously, they guard things, they help keep order at sporting events, they're on hand for political events. They're being traffic cops, white collar cops, they appear in court, all sorts of activities. And there's paperwork. I would be very surprised if at any one time more than 5% of cops, or for a cop on average, more than 5% of their time was directly "apprehending violent criminals". It's important they do so, of course.
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    It's even lower than that in most of the US where cops are basically waiting around for something to happen most of the time. But the narrative is bullets flying every time they enter the war zone of placid suburbia.
    - greedo 6y ago
      Cop work is exceedingly boring. If you ever do a ride-along, you'll see how boring. And with a ride-along, they try to show you the exciting stuff since it's a recruitment method. Lots of driving around, lots of running tags, lots of looking for something meaningful to do when it's dark and not much is happening. Idle hands are the Devil's workshop etc etc. https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard-cop-bb14d17bc759 https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard...
- deepakhj 6y ago
PJDK 6y ago
Just to extend on this - this is how it's done in the UK. Specifically in London the regular police are not armed. Armed police patrol the city in cars - if you're in the city you can identify these cars as they have a big yellow spot on the windows and there is an officer in the back seat. The aim is to be able to respond to a request within 8 minutes. During the London bridge attack the attackers were shot dead by armed police 9 minutes after the first call to the police.
- rabanne 6y ago
  In 2018 and 2019, there were over 30,000 assaults on police officers in UK.[1] In 2017 and 2018, there were over 110,000 assults on police officers in US. You can't just adopt this in the US, policing is more dangerous in the US. [1] https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2017 https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2017 https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2018 https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2018 [2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/817742/hosb1119-assaults.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
  - mrec 6y ago
    Those figures don't look like they're adjusted for population. US pop is about 5x UK's.
  - evanpw 6y ago
    The US population is more than 4x bigger than the UK, and seems to also have more police per capita, so those numbers would imply that policing is safer in the US. (Which I don't quite believe; more likely those assault numbers are incomparable or just wrong).
    - rabanne 6y ago
      I wanted to point out that the rate of assult to US police, who are armed and more hostile to you is only about 25% lower than UK police where the majority of them don't carry a firearm.
  - 6y ago
rabanne 6y ago
I'm seriously wondering whether this is a form of sarcasm or a bait. 10.8% of sworn officers faced assult in 2018[1], while armed. Cops threatened by people with or without firearm is not that rare. In 2018, 2,116 sworn officers were not only threatened but actually got shot(!) by a firearm.[1] [1] https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2018 https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2018
- sacred_numbers 6y ago
  2,116 officers were assaulted with a firearm, but only 6.1% of those 2,116 were injured in the assault. That's approximately 129 firearm injuries. That means the rate of non-fatal firearm injuries is approximately 16.1 per 100,000. In 2012 the rate of non-fatal firearm injuries from assault was approximately 15.67 per 100,000 for the general population. When adjusted for the sex demographics of the police (88% male) the rate is 24.93 per 100,000. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4700838/#!po=19.8529 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4700838/#!po=19... Edit: It looks like the non-fatal firearm injury rate for officers is actually 23.6 per 100k. I had the wrong number in the denominator because not all police stations responded to the FBI survey.
  - rabanne 6y ago
    You know you're comparing people fully armed and cautious people versus the general population, right? Also it's a biased comparison because the 2,116 could have been shot where the rate of "could have been shot" is much lower in the general public because obvious reasons.
    - rrss 6y ago
      You know that you failed to understand your own source and therefore claimed a number of officer shootings ~16x higher than reality, right? And 'sacred_numbers was kind enough to correct you?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- 6y ago
ryan93 6y ago
So if a guy pulls a gun on the cops they are supposed to hide while he shoots until SWAT gets there? Its reasonable to have cops with no guns when encountering a gun is incredibly rare.
blaser-waffle 6y ago
> 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. They can own rocket launchers the same way they can own private jets. They're comparatively rare, expensive as hell, and utterly unrealistic for the average person. It's a bad analogy. Meanwhile, regular long-arm firearms and handguns are insanely common in the US, comparatively cheap, and often very practical to carry or store in vehicles. The US has a crazy level of per capita gun ownership, like 120 guns for every 100 people. Gun ownership isn't rare, and disarmed police are going to get killed haggling after heavily armed civilians.
austincheney 6y ago
I suspect, and I don’t have any numbers, the occurrence rate of encountering a concealed rocket launcher when performing a traffic stop is quite low.
tengbretson 6y ago
> 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. This would only seem relevant if your knowledge of weapons came from movies or video games where "bigger = better".
noobermin 6y ago
Another option essentially is to move certain functions away from police, such as traffic enforcement (use more cameras and non-armed officers who need not be police) certain kinds of house calls like for the mentally ill to be done by social workers, and such. The police can be reserved for violent, life-or-death situations.

by dTal 6y ago

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...

Nursie 6y ago
> I suppose it could work if 95% of the police were engaged in something other than apprehending violent criminals... I would be surprised if apprehending violent criminals was more that 5% of the job, personally. Wouldn't you? To the downvoters; it is your right to do so, but think about it - Police are on patrol, taking reports of crimes that happened previously, they guard things, they help keep order at sporting events, they're on hand for political events. They're being traffic cops, white collar cops, they appear in court, all sorts of activities. And there's paperwork. I would be very surprised if at any one time more than 5% of cops, or for a cop on average, more than 5% of their time was directly "apprehending violent criminals". It's important they do so, of course.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  It's even lower than that in most of the US where cops are basically waiting around for something to happen most of the time. But the narrative is bullets flying every time they enter the war zone of placid suburbia.
  - greedo 6y ago
    Cop work is exceedingly boring. If you ever do a ride-along, you'll see how boring. And with a ride-along, they try to show you the exciting stuff since it's a recruitment method. Lots of driving around, lots of running tags, lots of looking for something meaningful to do when it's dark and not much is happening. Idle hands are the Devil's workshop etc etc. https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard-cop-bb14d17bc759 https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard...
deepakhj 6y ago

PJDK 6y ago

Just to extend on this - this is how it's done in the UK. Specifically in London the regular police are not armed. Armed police patrol the city in cars - if you're in the city you can identify these cars as they have a big yellow spot on the windows and there is an officer in the back seat. The aim is to be able to respond to a request within 8 minutes. During the London bridge attack the attackers were shot dead by armed police 9 minutes after the first call to the police.

rabanne 6y ago
In 2018 and 2019, there were over 30,000 assaults on police officers in UK.[1] In 2017 and 2018, there were over 110,000 assults on police officers in US. You can't just adopt this in the US, policing is more dangerous in the US. [1] https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2017 https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2017 https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2018 https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2018 [2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/817742/hosb1119-assaults.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
- mrec 6y ago
  Those figures don't look like they're adjusted for population. US pop is about 5x UK's.
- evanpw 6y ago
  The US population is more than 4x bigger than the UK, and seems to also have more police per capita, so those numbers would imply that policing is safer in the US. (Which I don't quite believe; more likely those assault numbers are incomparable or just wrong).
  - rabanne 6y ago
    I wanted to point out that the rate of assult to US police, who are armed and more hostile to you is only about 25% lower than UK police where the majority of them don't carry a firearm.
- 6y ago

rabanne 6y ago

I'm seriously wondering whether this is a form of sarcasm or a bait. 10.8% of sworn officers faced assult in 2018[1], while armed. Cops threatened by people with or without firearm is not that rare. In 2018, 2,116 sworn officers were not only threatened but actually got shot(!) by a firearm.[1] [1] https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2018 https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2018

sacred_numbers 6y ago
2,116 officers were assaulted with a firearm, but only 6.1% of those 2,116 were injured in the assault. That's approximately 129 firearm injuries. That means the rate of non-fatal firearm injuries is approximately 16.1 per 100,000. In 2012 the rate of non-fatal firearm injuries from assault was approximately 15.67 per 100,000 for the general population. When adjusted for the sex demographics of the police (88% male) the rate is 24.93 per 100,000. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4700838/#!po=19.8529 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4700838/#!po=19... Edit: It looks like the non-fatal firearm injury rate for officers is actually 23.6 per 100k. I had the wrong number in the denominator because not all police stations responded to the FBI survey.
- rabanne 6y ago
  You know you're comparing people fully armed and cautious people versus the general population, right? Also it's a biased comparison because the 2,116 could have been shot where the rate of "could have been shot" is much lower in the general public because obvious reasons.
  - rrss 6y ago
    You know that you failed to understand your own source and therefore claimed a number of officer shootings ~16x higher than reality, right? And 'sacred_numbers was kind enough to correct you?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
6y ago

ryan93 6y ago

So if a guy pulls a gun on the cops they are supposed to hide while he shoots until SWAT gets there? Its reasonable to have cops with no guns when encountering a gun is incredibly rare.

blaser-waffle 6y ago

> 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. They can own rocket launchers the same way they can own private jets. They're comparatively rare, expensive as hell, and utterly unrealistic for the average person. It's a bad analogy. Meanwhile, regular long-arm firearms and handguns are insanely common in the US, comparatively cheap, and often very practical to carry or store in vehicles. The US has a crazy level of per capita gun ownership, like 120 guns for every 100 people. Gun ownership isn't rare, and disarmed police are going to get killed haggling after heavily armed civilians.

austincheney 6y ago

I suspect, and I don’t have any numbers, the occurrence rate of encountering a concealed rocket launcher when performing a traffic stop is quite low.

tengbretson 6y ago

> 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. This would only seem relevant if your knowledge of weapons came from movies or video games where "bigger = better".

noobermin 6y ago

Another option essentially is to move certain functions away from police, such as traffic enforcement (use more cameras and non-armed officers who need not be police) certain kinds of house calls like for the mentally ill to be done by social workers, and such. The police can be reserved for violent, life-or-death situations.