4 ms·

Why does a victim of sexual assault need to report to someone who has a gun? Why does a wellness check need to be performed with a gun? Why does a standard high

Why does a victim of sexual assault need to report to someone who has a gun? Why does a wellness check need to be performed with a gun? Why does a standard highway patrolman or cop doing routine speed traps need a gun? Why does every cop in a school need a gun? Why is the gun the constant?

iamstupidsimple 6y ago
> Why does a standard highway patrolman or cop doing routine speed traps need a gun? Because this is statistically the form of policing most likely to get cops shot. > Why does every cop in a school need a gun? A symptom of America's school shooting problem. When your child is being gunned down you'll probably wish the police there were armed.
- zepto 6y ago
  School shootings where children are being gunned down are vanishingly rare.
  - zaroth 6y ago
    In 2019, eight people were killed and 43 were injured in 25 school shooting incidents. 2018 was much worse with 37 kids killed in school shootings. This is roughly the same as the number of unarmed black people shot and killed by police in the line of duty (at least this number has been trending downward for several years).
    - zepto 6y ago
      Do you have a source for the this? Reporting of school shootings is notoriously unreliable: https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/08/27/640323347/the-school-shootings-that-werent https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/08/27/640323347/the-sch...
      - zaroth 6y ago
        I agree, there's no standard definition. I grabbed the 8 / 43 number for 2019 here [1]. I see they have similar numebers as what I found for 2018 as well [2]. The 2018 numbers I was referencing was from this 10 year overview [3]. [1] - https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/school-shootings-of-2019-behind-the-numbers.html https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/school-shooting... [2] - https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/school-shootings-2018-how-many-where.html https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/school-shooting... [3] - https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/07/us/ten-years-of-school-shootings-trnd/ https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/07/us/ten-years-of-scho...
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  Perhaps, but school resource officers have a poor track record of addressing school shootings.
umvi 6y ago
> Why does a standard highway patrolman or cop doing routine speed traps need a gun? Because civilians have shot and killed police during traffic stops? And not just with guns. I seem to remember a road rage case in Colorado where the raging driver shot and killed another driver with a crossbow.
- andrewprock 6y ago
  It's not clear how "there is a non-zero chance a motorist has a gun" leads to the conclusion that "all traffic enforcement must have a gun".
  - raarts 6y ago
    As someone from the Netherlands I can say there's a non-zero chance that a motorist has a gun. It's smaller than the US, but it's not zero. Still our cops carry guns. In the US the chances are way, way higher. I can understand that cops are armed there.
  - solzhenitsyn 6y ago
    It's to mitigate that risk factor. You wear your seatbelt every time you drive as "there is a non-zero chance you will crash" even though the vast majority of the time wearing the seat belt was unnecessary.
  - starkd 6y ago
    Because the cop showing up doesn't know before hand whether or not the motorist have a gun. There's a lot of other things they don't know. The person could be a drug/human trafficker, or have a warrant out for him. In which case, they are armed.

iamstupidsimple 6y ago

> Why does a standard highway patrolman or cop doing routine speed traps need a gun? Because this is statistically the form of policing most likely to get cops shot. > Why does every cop in a school need a gun? A symptom of America's school shooting problem. When your child is being gunned down you'll probably wish the police there were armed.

zepto 6y ago
School shootings where children are being gunned down are vanishingly rare.
- zaroth 6y ago
  In 2019, eight people were killed and 43 were injured in 25 school shooting incidents. 2018 was much worse with 37 kids killed in school shootings. This is roughly the same as the number of unarmed black people shot and killed by police in the line of duty (at least this number has been trending downward for several years).
  - zepto 6y ago
    Do you have a source for the this? Reporting of school shootings is notoriously unreliable: https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/08/27/640323347/the-school-shootings-that-werent https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/08/27/640323347/the-sch...
    - zaroth 6y ago
      I agree, there's no standard definition. I grabbed the 8 / 43 number for 2019 here [1]. I see they have similar numebers as what I found for 2018 as well [2]. The 2018 numbers I was referencing was from this 10 year overview [3]. [1] - https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/school-shootings-of-2019-behind-the-numbers.html https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/school-shooting... [2] - https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/school-shootings-2018-how-many-where.html https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/school-shooting... [3] - https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/07/us/ten-years-of-school-shootings-trnd/ https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/07/us/ten-years-of-scho...
joshuamorton 6y ago
Perhaps, but school resource officers have a poor track record of addressing school shootings.

umvi 6y ago

> Why does a standard highway patrolman or cop doing routine speed traps need a gun? Because civilians have shot and killed police during traffic stops? And not just with guns. I seem to remember a road rage case in Colorado where the raging driver shot and killed another driver with a crossbow.

andrewprock 6y ago
It's not clear how "there is a non-zero chance a motorist has a gun" leads to the conclusion that "all traffic enforcement must have a gun".
- raarts 6y ago
  As someone from the Netherlands I can say there's a non-zero chance that a motorist has a gun. It's smaller than the US, but it's not zero. Still our cops carry guns. In the US the chances are way, way higher. I can understand that cops are armed there.
- solzhenitsyn 6y ago
  It's to mitigate that risk factor. You wear your seatbelt every time you drive as "there is a non-zero chance you will crash" even though the vast majority of the time wearing the seat belt was unnecessary.
- starkd 6y ago
  Because the cop showing up doesn't know before hand whether or not the motorist have a gun. There's a lot of other things they don't know. The person could be a drug/human trafficker, or have a warrant out for him. In which case, they are armed.