5 ms·

A lot of you are armed.

by kolla 6y ago

jmpz 6y ago
This does not excuse or allow the frequent and extreme violence that is perpetrated by police on unarmed citizens, which is the reason they feel the need to document their experiences with officers. It was a violent encounter with police officers that led to the proposal that they wear body cameras (https://www.wired.com/story/body-cameras-stopped-police-brutality-george-floyd/ https://www.wired.com/story/body-cameras-stopped-police-brut...) Even with the use of them, the release of them is often blocked or their existence is denied. From the above article: " In Baltimore three years ago, one of the devices caught a police officer as he planted drugs at a crime scene; he was later convicted for fabricating evidence. After Rayshard Brooks was fatally shot by a cop in Atlanta on Friday, body cam footage of the incident was quickly released, and the officer was fired. "
- auggierose 6y ago
  The problem is that when you don't know if a citizen is armed or not, you just default to thinking they are. Because that is the safer assumption for you to make as a police officer. If citizens are not allowed to carry guns, that default assumption changes. It is a whole different dynamic.
  - jlkuester7 6y ago
    > If citizens are not allowed to carry guns, that default assumption changes. I am not sure this is entirely correct. Generally speaking, law-abiding citizens are not the ones that police have to worry about anyway (regardless of if they are carrying guns). Citizens that are not law-abiding (criminals), on the other hand, are the people that police generally need to be concerned about. It does not seem like a great idea to assume these people are not armed simply because they "are not allowed to carry guns." Admittedly, the absolute saturation of American culture with guns is not making the cop's jobs any easier, but the answer to these problems is way more complicated than disarming law-abiding citizens.
    - auggierose 6y ago
      It's not way more complicated. Get rid of the guns, and you will get rid of a lot of problems. It is really that simple. But I would not know how to get rid of guns in the US now, because there are just too many guns around, and "non-law-abiding" citizens will still carry them. A citizen should not carry a gun. Doesn't matter if they are "law-abiding" or not.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - fitblipper 6y ago
      I find your distinction between law abiding citizens and criminals hilarious. There is no difference between the two and to pretend like there is a difference is how we get the same people chanting both "we need to punish criminals more severely!" and "It's shameful the US has so much of it's population in prison" edit: But also, how do you expect a COP to be able to differentiate between the 2 in the field? They are essentially the ones that gets to decide who is a criminal or not which brings us back to how the police are given the ability to abuse their power.
      - jlkuester7 6y ago
        > There is no difference between the two Certainly there is no difference between them in terms of their human dignity and (unless otherwise specified by law) their rights as citizens. But it seems illogical to assert that there is no difference at all between a person who has broken a law and a person who has not...
  - johnisgood 6y ago
    If it was likely the other person has a gun, I would think twice before doing something. It makes more sense to me to be more wary when I assume that the person I may be thinking of robbing has a gun on them, vs. knowing it is extremely unlikely that the person is not going to have a gun on them. Are you sure the problem is guns? What makes you so sure? I am genuinely interested, because Serbia is known for having lots of guns, too, but firearm-related death rate is low, vs. Honduras, which has much less guns per 100 inhabitants and extremely high firearm-related death rate that is homicide. In any case, here is the table: | Country | Homicide | Guns per 100 inhabitants | | US | 4.46 | 120.5 | | Serbia | 0.72 | 37.82 | | Honduras | 28.65 | 9.9-11.24 | Taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r.... What do you think explains this? Curious to explore.
    - 23iofj 6y ago
      "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" as they say. Serbia and Honduras are anomalies. Within the entire data set there's a significant positive correlation between "Guns per 100 inhabitants" and Homicide rate.
      - johnisgood 6y ago
        Are they really anomalies? | Country | Homicide | Guns per 100 inhabitants | | US | 4.46 | 120.5 | | Serbia | 0.72 | 37.82 | | Honduras | 28.65 | 9.9-11.24 | | | | | | Cyprus | 0.50 | 36.4 | | Canada | 0.72 | 34.70 | | Finland | 0.20 | 32.4 | | ... | | | | | | | | Jamaica | 38.20 | 5.8 | | Eswatini | 37.16 | 8.1 | | Brazil | 23.93 | 8.6 | | ... | | | Are they anomalies, too, or what do you mean by anomaly? I do not want to edit the table anymore, but someone also mentioned Switzerland, indeed, extremely low rate of firearm-related homicide (0.13) with high rate of gun ownership (27.6-41.2). There are many more.

A lot of you are armed.

by kolla 6y ago

A lot of you are armed.

jmpz 6y ago

This does not excuse or allow the frequent and extreme violence that is perpetrated by police on unarmed citizens, which is the reason they feel the need to document their experiences with officers. It was a violent encounter with police officers that led to the proposal that they wear body cameras (https://www.wired.com/story/body-cameras-stopped-police-brutality-george-floyd/ https://www.wired.com/story/body-cameras-stopped-police-brut...) Even with the use of them, the release of them is often blocked or their existence is denied. From the above article: " In Baltimore three years ago, one of the devices caught a police officer as he planted drugs at a crime scene; he was later convicted for fabricating evidence. After Rayshard Brooks was fatally shot by a cop in Atlanta on Friday, body cam footage of the incident was quickly released, and the officer was fired. "

auggierose 6y ago
The problem is that when you don't know if a citizen is armed or not, you just default to thinking they are. Because that is the safer assumption for you to make as a police officer. If citizens are not allowed to carry guns, that default assumption changes. It is a whole different dynamic.
- jlkuester7 6y ago
  > If citizens are not allowed to carry guns, that default assumption changes. I am not sure this is entirely correct. Generally speaking, law-abiding citizens are not the ones that police have to worry about anyway (regardless of if they are carrying guns). Citizens that are not law-abiding (criminals), on the other hand, are the people that police generally need to be concerned about. It does not seem like a great idea to assume these people are not armed simply because they "are not allowed to carry guns." Admittedly, the absolute saturation of American culture with guns is not making the cop's jobs any easier, but the answer to these problems is way more complicated than disarming law-abiding citizens.
  - auggierose 6y ago
    It's not way more complicated. Get rid of the guns, and you will get rid of a lot of problems. It is really that simple. But I would not know how to get rid of guns in the US now, because there are just too many guns around, and "non-law-abiding" citizens will still carry them. A citizen should not carry a gun. Doesn't matter if they are "law-abiding" or not.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - fitblipper 6y ago
    I find your distinction between law abiding citizens and criminals hilarious. There is no difference between the two and to pretend like there is a difference is how we get the same people chanting both "we need to punish criminals more severely!" and "It's shameful the US has so much of it's population in prison" edit: But also, how do you expect a COP to be able to differentiate between the 2 in the field? They are essentially the ones that gets to decide who is a criminal or not which brings us back to how the police are given the ability to abuse their power.
    - jlkuester7 6y ago
      > There is no difference between the two Certainly there is no difference between them in terms of their human dignity and (unless otherwise specified by law) their rights as citizens. But it seems illogical to assert that there is no difference at all between a person who has broken a law and a person who has not...
- johnisgood 6y ago
  If it was likely the other person has a gun, I would think twice before doing something. It makes more sense to me to be more wary when I assume that the person I may be thinking of robbing has a gun on them, vs. knowing it is extremely unlikely that the person is not going to have a gun on them. Are you sure the problem is guns? What makes you so sure? I am genuinely interested, because Serbia is known for having lots of guns, too, but firearm-related death rate is low, vs. Honduras, which has much less guns per 100 inhabitants and extremely high firearm-related death rate that is homicide. In any case, here is the table: | Country | Homicide | Guns per 100 inhabitants | | US | 4.46 | 120.5 | | Serbia | 0.72 | 37.82 | | Honduras | 28.65 | 9.9-11.24 | Taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r.... What do you think explains this? Curious to explore.
  - 23iofj 6y ago
    "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" as they say. Serbia and Honduras are anomalies. Within the entire data set there's a significant positive correlation between "Guns per 100 inhabitants" and Homicide rate.
    - johnisgood 6y ago
      Are they really anomalies? | Country | Homicide | Guns per 100 inhabitants | | US | 4.46 | 120.5 | | Serbia | 0.72 | 37.82 | | Honduras | 28.65 | 9.9-11.24 | | | | | | Cyprus | 0.50 | 36.4 | | Canada | 0.72 | 34.70 | | Finland | 0.20 | 32.4 | | ... | | | | | | | | Jamaica | 38.20 | 5.8 | | Eswatini | 37.16 | 8.1 | | Brazil | 23.93 | 8.6 | | ... | | | Are they anomalies, too, or what do you mean by anomaly? I do not want to edit the table anymore, but someone also mentioned Switzerland, indeed, extremely low rate of firearm-related homicide (0.13) with high rate of gun ownership (27.6-41.2). There are many more.