4 ms·

Starting with a lot of guns. Police don't have a lot of time to make decisions when situations escalate. It seems like shoot first and ask questions later in ma

Starting with a lot of guns. Police don't have a lot of time to make decisions when situations escalate. It seems like shoot first and ask questions later in many cases.

croh 6y ago
I somewhat agree with you. If both parties have guns, then it is only question of who shoots first. Even small error in judgement, can end up shooting and tragedy. We seriously need to look into gun control.
- creato 6y ago
  I agree with you completely, except I think gun control is a lost cause, and attempting anything significant here is a disastrous waste of political capital. The degree of gun control required to change this dynamic (that police need to anticipate a gun in every pocket and under every car seat) will not fly in this country in my lifetime.
  - DuskStar 6y ago
    And IMO will not fly before 3d printers capable of manufacturing reliable guns become widely available, which will render the whole thing moot. (since at that point you'll never be able to get rid of enough guns to make the police stop anticipating them)
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  Given the current political situation with a president "joking" about 12 more years at his party's convention, mass protests in Belarus being put down by force, I am firmly against gun control now more than ever.
nfw2 6y ago
I'm not sure if this is the point you're making, but I think the problem starts with the United States having a lot of guns in general, not just in the hands of police. The United States in the only country in the world with more guns than people. I'm not saying US police aren't too trigger-happy, but comparing gun use by the police in the US to other developed countries that have a fraction of the guns per capita (in England, for example, there are .04 guns per capita), isn't apples-to-apples.
- hodgesrm 6y ago
  It's guns in general, exactly as you suggest. It turns even simple encounters like a traffic stop into potential life-or-death situations. This is not the only issue with American policing (by far), but if the starting assumption is that people on both sides of encounters are in fear for their lives it's not surprising that we see a lot of bad decisions.
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    I'm fairly pro-gun but even I'll concede this is a big BIG reason why police shoot first. A bunch of US police studies found that if the suspect looks like s/he is pulling a gun, then you pull first and shoot first. And this being the US, that's not a crazy or unlikely situation (compared to somewhere like Japan or the UK). Generally the studies backed that the winner of the gunfight is 1) who pulls a gun first, 2) who shoots first, 3) who scores a disabling hit within the first three (3) shots. The downside of teaching all of your officers this means that they see someone sneeze or move their hand incorrectly and they assume s/he's reaching for it and goes for a killshot with 3+ rounds. The drunk (white) guy who got shot by the cop when he tried to pull his pants come to mind[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver
Shacklz 6y ago
While I agree that the availability of guns is definitely a problem, a lot of the videos that end up in the news show that police are often acting extremely amateur-ish and escalate situations themselves instead of trying to deescalate. Most people, even criminals, most likely do not want to shoot a police officer because that essentially means that you're screwed for life; one shred of DNA, a photo, a name; that's all it takes to make life miserable, even if you get away with it initially. So the only reason people actually pull the trigger is when acting extremely irrational (drawing a weapon against a police officer is already irrational per the above), and that's exactly what happens in so many of the videos that we see lately. I mean, let's take the recent Jacob Blake shooting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS5cSwVEyDg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS5cSwVEyDg Why is he being shot? He poses almost no threat whatsoever, what is he going to do, pull out an AK in his car and shoot the officers in broad daylight in front of witnesses? The officers with their weapons drawn and their shouting only increase the stress levels of everyone involved; it's amateur-ish on so many levels. As a Swiss (another country with high availability of guns), this is absolutely unimaginable here; an officer drawing a weapon on someone will result immediately in an investigation whether it was justified (at least that's my understanding but I might be wrong, at least that seems to always happen when something ends up in the news); I have witnessed some nasty arrests in person where the person to be arrested resisted but never, ever did any officer draw their weapon. And I would be surprised if even the thought of doing so crossed their mind; they certainly were trained not to. I do think that the USA has a gun problem, and I do think that it plays a role in why so many people are shot by the police, but I also think that, at least from what I see in the media (and might thus be heavily biased), that the police seem to be badly trained, especially when it comes to deescalation techniques, and that there is not enough accountability for their actions and bad behavior.
- CapricornNoble 6y ago
  >>>He poses almost no threat whatsoever, what is he going to do, pull out an AK in his car and shoot the officers in broad daylight in front of witnesses? One of the most graphic shootings I've ever seen is damn-near such a scenario. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kyle_Dinkheller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kyle_Dinkheller But I agree with most of your post: the US has an over-abundance of undisciplined, poorly-trained police who are VERY quick to escalate a situation to their firearm.

Starting with a lot of guns. Police don't have a lot of time to make decisions when situations escalate. It seems like shoot first and ask questions later in many cases.

croh 6y ago

I somewhat agree with you. If both parties have guns, then it is only question of who shoots first. Even small error in judgement, can end up shooting and tragedy. We seriously need to look into gun control.

creato 6y ago
I agree with you completely, except I think gun control is a lost cause, and attempting anything significant here is a disastrous waste of political capital. The degree of gun control required to change this dynamic (that police need to anticipate a gun in every pocket and under every car seat) will not fly in this country in my lifetime.
- DuskStar 6y ago
  And IMO will not fly before 3d printers capable of manufacturing reliable guns become widely available, which will render the whole thing moot. (since at that point you'll never be able to get rid of enough guns to make the police stop anticipating them)
ntsplnkv2 6y ago
Given the current political situation with a president "joking" about 12 more years at his party's convention, mass protests in Belarus being put down by force, I am firmly against gun control now more than ever.

nfw2 6y ago

I'm not sure if this is the point you're making, but I think the problem starts with the United States having a lot of guns in general, not just in the hands of police. The United States in the only country in the world with more guns than people. I'm not saying US police aren't too trigger-happy, but comparing gun use by the police in the US to other developed countries that have a fraction of the guns per capita (in England, for example, there are .04 guns per capita), isn't apples-to-apples.

hodgesrm 6y ago
It's guns in general, exactly as you suggest. It turns even simple encounters like a traffic stop into potential life-or-death situations. This is not the only issue with American policing (by far), but if the starting assumption is that people on both sides of encounters are in fear for their lives it's not surprising that we see a lot of bad decisions.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  I'm fairly pro-gun but even I'll concede this is a big BIG reason why police shoot first. A bunch of US police studies found that if the suspect looks like s/he is pulling a gun, then you pull first and shoot first. And this being the US, that's not a crazy or unlikely situation (compared to somewhere like Japan or the UK). Generally the studies backed that the winner of the gunfight is 1) who pulls a gun first, 2) who shoots first, 3) who scores a disabling hit within the first three (3) shots. The downside of teaching all of your officers this means that they see someone sneeze or move their hand incorrectly and they assume s/he's reaching for it and goes for a killshot with 3+ rounds. The drunk (white) guy who got shot by the cop when he tried to pull his pants come to mind[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver

Shacklz 6y ago

While I agree that the availability of guns is definitely a problem, a lot of the videos that end up in the news show that police are often acting extremely amateur-ish and escalate situations themselves instead of trying to deescalate. Most people, even criminals, most likely do not want to shoot a police officer because that essentially means that you're screwed for life; one shred of DNA, a photo, a name; that's all it takes to make life miserable, even if you get away with it initially. So the only reason people actually pull the trigger is when acting extremely irrational (drawing a weapon against a police officer is already irrational per the above), and that's exactly what happens in so many of the videos that we see lately. I mean, let's take the recent Jacob Blake shooting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS5cSwVEyDg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS5cSwVEyDg Why is he being shot? He poses almost no threat whatsoever, what is he going to do, pull out an AK in his car and shoot the officers in broad daylight in front of witnesses? The officers with their weapons drawn and their shouting only increase the stress levels of everyone involved; it's amateur-ish on so many levels. As a Swiss (another country with high availability of guns), this is absolutely unimaginable here; an officer drawing a weapon on someone will result immediately in an investigation whether it was justified (at least that's my understanding but I might be wrong, at least that seems to always happen when something ends up in the news); I have witnessed some nasty arrests in person where the person to be arrested resisted but never, ever did any officer draw their weapon. And I would be surprised if even the thought of doing so crossed their mind; they certainly were trained not to. I do think that the USA has a gun problem, and I do think that it plays a role in why so many people are shot by the police, but I also think that, at least from what I see in the media (and might thus be heavily biased), that the police seem to be badly trained, especially when it comes to deescalation techniques, and that there is not enough accountability for their actions and bad behavior.

CapricornNoble 6y ago
>>>He poses almost no threat whatsoever, what is he going to do, pull out an AK in his car and shoot the officers in broad daylight in front of witnesses? One of the most graphic shootings I've ever seen is damn-near such a scenario. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kyle_Dinkheller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kyle_Dinkheller But I agree with most of your post: the US has an over-abundance of undisciplined, poorly-trained police who are VERY quick to escalate a situation to their firearm.