6 ms·

Why is this such a rarity these days? My grandfather was an AP (MP) for decades and never shot at anyone, despite handling uncountable hairy/critical situation

Why is this such a rarity these days? My grandfather was an AP (MP) for decades and never shot at anyone, despite handling uncountable hairy/critical situations with individuals trained in killing. Shoot first and ask questions never? Deescalation and self-control should be job #1 along with verbal/social skills to solve problems before jumping to the nuclear option out of fear.

logicslave 6y ago
Because criminals have alot of guns
- failwhaleshark 6y ago
  That seems oversimplified. Do you have any data about the trends of gun possession by criminals or gun crime related to attacks on police? There are also a lot of innocent people being shot too, or the visibility of it has increased. Edit: also, could it be police are less trained or more fearful than in the past?
  - logicslave 6y ago
    I'm a highly educated individual, commonly read dense scientific works, philosophy, political science etc. Its my opinion that violent crime, and especially brazen violent crime is just flat out more common. Police are more frequently in life threatening situations. The demands on them to act perfectly are enormous. And so we see mistakes, broadly painted as racism. Its a cancerous thought framework, and it threatens the law and order of a civilized nation. But the video that is coming out is making it clear to the common people, that despite what the media says, you can see for yourself what occurs. The narrative can only be held for so long before too much video evidence to the contrary piles up. George Floyd robbed a women by holding his gun to her pregnant stomach. Duante Wright robbed a girl by choking her, holding her at gun point, for 800$ Adam Toledo was known in his neighborhood as "Lil Homicide" The 16 year old girl shot recently was running at people swinging a knife.
    - failwhaleshark 6y ago
      > I'm a highly educated individual, commonly read dense scientific works, philosophy, political science etc. For a second, I thought you were going to mention MENSA. So do many of HN old guard. Appeal to authority isn't evidence; it's an opinion, and not even an expert opinion. > threatens the law and order of a civilized nation The US has the highest incarceration per capita on the planet (sans Seychelles), disproportionately imprisoning minorities. Consider the works and interviews by Chris Hedges, who teaches classes in prison. Many of his students are in for petty drug crimes. Furthermore, there are numerous aging inmates who were snared by the War on Drugs and in prison for no good reason. Remember, the WoD was explicitly used to target Nixon's perceived enemies: hippies and minorities. Then, (Nancy) Reagan decided it would be a good idea to go after drugs while simultaneously arming the Contras using cocaine, leading to the crack epidemic.
      - logicslave 6y ago
        "disproportionately imprisoning minorities" Go look at the murder rate of ethnic groups, against their own groups and then against other groups. If minorities are killing alot of people, its not a "racism" problem. Framing it as so is brainwashing. You are a political pawn If you want to take it further, look at a break down of murder rate of ethnic groups by income decile.
        olivermarks 6y ago
        A sobering article to back up @logicslave's point https://www.city-journal.org/media-silence-on-black-on-black-violence https://www.city-journal.org/media-silence-on-black-on-black...
    - mkl 6y ago
      Maybe you should base your opinions on data: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/table-1 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-... Violent crime in the USA has fallen dramatically in the last 20 years.
watwut 6y ago
Different training. Different level of accountability/liability/etc. Cops are not trained to deescalate, their are taught to have commanding control and respond aggressively. And they are trained to shoot to kill. They are also taught to fear a lot, the emphasis is on danger they are in. And plus, this behavior is rewarded with promotions. And courts progressively removed legal obstacles to the above.
- wingspar 6y ago
  >...trained to shoot to kil. There’s really not another option. Shoot to wound isn’t an option. You don’t shoot to kill, you shoot to neutralize the threat. https://www.ajc.com/news/national/here-why-police-don-shoot-wound-the-case-deadly-force/IV4ohtIm6r8FaEMj78u1bO/ https://www.ajc.com/news/national/here-why-police-don-shoot-... https://www.forcescience.org/2006/03/why-shooting-to-wound-doesnt-make-sense-scientifically-legally-or-tactically/ https://www.forcescience.org/2006/03/why-shooting-to-wound-d...
  - watwut 6y ago
    Shoot to wound is not an option in USA. Elsewhere it is literally trained and seen as option. And I am saying that cause I personally know non-American cop that has it as regular part of training. There are also such options as shoot as warning, not shoot at all and generally use tactic that is less likely to create situation on which you have to shoot.
    - Vecr 6y ago
      Shooting to warn is highly dangerous, you can't just discharge firearms in random, non-targeted directions.
creato 6y ago
I'm not sure about entire departments, but for individual officers, it's not rare. Many if not most police officers never fire their weapon on duty for their entire careers. For some perspective, there are around a million police officers in the US (https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=dcdetail&iid=249 https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=dcdetail&iid=249). A lot of police shooting incidents have made the national news in recent years, but I can think of tens of such incidents over a decade.
- dfrankow 6y ago
  Police kill about 1000-1200 people per year in the U.S., depending on who's counting. See for example the Washington Post data. So it's not just tens over a decade.
  - failwhaleshark 6y ago
    IIRC, isn't the CDC forbidden by law from investigating all types of deaths by firearms?
    - jeffbee 6y ago
      The CDC WISQARS database contains fatal and non-fatal injuries for many different mechanisms, including firearms. The law you are thinking of is the "Dickey Amendment" which forbade the CDC from spending its budget advocating for gun control. It was named after Republican and galactic asshat Jay Dickey of Arkansas, who thankfully has been removed from influence over national politics by his much-awaited death in 2017. His idiotic law passed out of effect in 2018. Just before he died, in a meaningless act which did not redeem his evil life even slightly, he recanted and called for government funding of research into gun violence.
      - Vecr 6y ago
        How would the CDC be allowed to advocate political positions contrary to the constitution, and without congressional approval? As far as I know, it's at least looked down upon when federal agencies advocate that sort of thing, even in roundabout ways.

logicslave 6y ago

Because criminals have alot of guns

failwhaleshark 6y ago
That seems oversimplified. Do you have any data about the trends of gun possession by criminals or gun crime related to attacks on police? There are also a lot of innocent people being shot too, or the visibility of it has increased. Edit: also, could it be police are less trained or more fearful than in the past?
- logicslave 6y ago
  I'm a highly educated individual, commonly read dense scientific works, philosophy, political science etc. Its my opinion that violent crime, and especially brazen violent crime is just flat out more common. Police are more frequently in life threatening situations. The demands on them to act perfectly are enormous. And so we see mistakes, broadly painted as racism. Its a cancerous thought framework, and it threatens the law and order of a civilized nation. But the video that is coming out is making it clear to the common people, that despite what the media says, you can see for yourself what occurs. The narrative can only be held for so long before too much video evidence to the contrary piles up. George Floyd robbed a women by holding his gun to her pregnant stomach. Duante Wright robbed a girl by choking her, holding her at gun point, for 800$ Adam Toledo was known in his neighborhood as "Lil Homicide" The 16 year old girl shot recently was running at people swinging a knife.
  - failwhaleshark 6y ago
    > I'm a highly educated individual, commonly read dense scientific works, philosophy, political science etc. For a second, I thought you were going to mention MENSA. So do many of HN old guard. Appeal to authority isn't evidence; it's an opinion, and not even an expert opinion. > threatens the law and order of a civilized nation The US has the highest incarceration per capita on the planet (sans Seychelles), disproportionately imprisoning minorities. Consider the works and interviews by Chris Hedges, who teaches classes in prison. Many of his students are in for petty drug crimes. Furthermore, there are numerous aging inmates who were snared by the War on Drugs and in prison for no good reason. Remember, the WoD was explicitly used to target Nixon's perceived enemies: hippies and minorities. Then, (Nancy) Reagan decided it would be a good idea to go after drugs while simultaneously arming the Contras using cocaine, leading to the crack epidemic.
    - logicslave 6y ago
      "disproportionately imprisoning minorities" Go look at the murder rate of ethnic groups, against their own groups and then against other groups. If minorities are killing alot of people, its not a "racism" problem. Framing it as so is brainwashing. You are a political pawn If you want to take it further, look at a break down of murder rate of ethnic groups by income decile.
      - olivermarks 6y ago
        A sobering article to back up @logicslave's point https://www.city-journal.org/media-silence-on-black-on-black-violence https://www.city-journal.org/media-silence-on-black-on-black...
  - mkl 6y ago
    Maybe you should base your opinions on data: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/table-1 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-... Violent crime in the USA has fallen dramatically in the last 20 years.

watwut 6y ago

Different training. Different level of accountability/liability/etc. Cops are not trained to deescalate, their are taught to have commanding control and respond aggressively. And they are trained to shoot to kill. They are also taught to fear a lot, the emphasis is on danger they are in. And plus, this behavior is rewarded with promotions. And courts progressively removed legal obstacles to the above.

wingspar 6y ago
>...trained to shoot to kil. There’s really not another option. Shoot to wound isn’t an option. You don’t shoot to kill, you shoot to neutralize the threat. https://www.ajc.com/news/national/here-why-police-don-shoot-wound-the-case-deadly-force/IV4ohtIm6r8FaEMj78u1bO/ https://www.ajc.com/news/national/here-why-police-don-shoot-... https://www.forcescience.org/2006/03/why-shooting-to-wound-doesnt-make-sense-scientifically-legally-or-tactically/ https://www.forcescience.org/2006/03/why-shooting-to-wound-d...
- watwut 6y ago
  Shoot to wound is not an option in USA. Elsewhere it is literally trained and seen as option. And I am saying that cause I personally know non-American cop that has it as regular part of training. There are also such options as shoot as warning, not shoot at all and generally use tactic that is less likely to create situation on which you have to shoot.
  - Vecr 6y ago
    Shooting to warn is highly dangerous, you can't just discharge firearms in random, non-targeted directions.

creato 6y ago

I'm not sure about entire departments, but for individual officers, it's not rare. Many if not most police officers never fire their weapon on duty for their entire careers. For some perspective, there are around a million police officers in the US (https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=dcdetail&iid=249 https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=dcdetail&iid=249). A lot of police shooting incidents have made the national news in recent years, but I can think of tens of such incidents over a decade.

dfrankow 6y ago
Police kill about 1000-1200 people per year in the U.S., depending on who's counting. See for example the Washington Post data. So it's not just tens over a decade.
- failwhaleshark 6y ago
  IIRC, isn't the CDC forbidden by law from investigating all types of deaths by firearms?
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    The CDC WISQARS database contains fatal and non-fatal injuries for many different mechanisms, including firearms. The law you are thinking of is the "Dickey Amendment" which forbade the CDC from spending its budget advocating for gun control. It was named after Republican and galactic asshat Jay Dickey of Arkansas, who thankfully has been removed from influence over national politics by his much-awaited death in 2017. His idiotic law passed out of effect in 2018. Just before he died, in a meaningless act which did not redeem his evil life even slightly, he recanted and called for government funding of research into gun violence.
    - Vecr 6y ago
      How would the CDC be allowed to advocate political positions contrary to the constitution, and without congressional approval? As far as I know, it's at least looked down upon when federal agencies advocate that sort of thing, even in roundabout ways.