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The militarization of the police in the US is a huge problem that is out of control. I was extremely disappointed that Obama didn’t not only rein in this milita

The militarization of the police in the US is a huge problem that is out of control. I was extremely disappointed that Obama didn’t not only rein in this militarization but effectively made it worse. We are now having to deal with a generation of cops who think they are GI Joe but don’t have the training. This is why so many unarmed people are getting shot by the cops, because they start their day thinking they are in Fallujah instead of Cleveland.

chrisseaton 5y ago
I don’t understand why normal community police are armed at all. There’s absolutely no need for it.
- anigbrowl 5y ago
  It's a sad fact in the USA that you might encounter an armed criminal almost anywhere. I have personally seen a bunch of crimes involving gunfire, rather than mere brandishing of weapons. On the other hand, police carry a lot of weapons, typically a handgun, pepper spray, a taser, a baton, and a heavy switchblade knife, plus a shotgun or rifle in the car. But they're relatively poorly trained and (even taking police claims at face value) deaths of civilians have resulted from confusion involving use of the wrong weapon. Another factor is that urban areas are often policed by people who live in surrounding suburban towns, and end up feeling like they're going to work in a war zone every day because they are not embedded in the communities they ostensibly serve.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    The vast majority of police never actually need their weapons. So why are they routinely carrying them? https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/08/a-closer-look-at-police-officers-who-have-fired-their-weapon-on-duty/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/08/a-closer-lo... There's tons of dangerous things we could carry around just in case, but we don't because they'd be seen as aggressive.
    - anigbrowl 5y ago
      Same reason I have 3 fire extinguishers although I've never had a fire situation; you don't want to find yourself without if you suddenly need it. Aer they over-armed, poorly trained, and often unreasonably paranoid? Yes. Being armed doesn't defend one against being surprised, and radios have saved far more police lives than guns on hips. But the work is by nature unpredictable, and the US is an unusually heavily armed society. You're going to have a hard time recruiting or getting people to pay taxes for unarmed security. That gap is filled to some extent by community volunteers, but sadly that's not a very effective response in political terms.
      - jackson1442 5y ago
        This same argument could ostensibly be extended to anyone. There are armed criminals everywhere, why aren’t you carrying ${armory} on you at all times? It seems to me like a police station, as well as select trained officers could be stocked with lethal weapons, while regular patrol officers carry nonlethals. Cops generally do not need a gun to pull someone over for speeding. If they are pursing someone known to be armed, it makes sense to do so. Much like I don’t carry my laptop at all times, there are appropriate tools for appropriate situations and I’d like to see that extended to police.
        smegger001 5y ago
        >>This same argument could ostensibly be extended to anyone. There are armed criminals everywhere, why aren’t you carrying ${armory} on you at all times? Many people do. I regularly see people walking around open carrying firearms in my rural town in WA state. People will have gun on their hip walking around Walmart or getting coffee at here.
        anigbrowl 5y ago
        I would like this too as I do not enjoy living in a heavily policed society, not to mention all the racial/class bias that seems to pervade policing in the US. But like I said, I think you'll have a very hard time recruiting or financing unarmed security as a public service in the foreseeable future. Investing more in alternative social services seems like the best approach for reducing demand, but you're probably looking at 5-10 years to produce statistically significant changes than you can rally voters behind. To be clear, I'm not saying police should be heavily armed, but you have an uphill struggle persuading people who do think that, which includes many of the police themselves.
heavyset_go 5y ago
Training isn't the issue, it's the lack of accountability. Military members are under the threat of being court martialed and spending time in military prison. They know they have less rights in military court than they would as civilians, and that punishment can be harsh. Cops, on the other hand, know that the system will bend over backwards to accommodate whatever transgression or crime they commit. They can and do act with impunity, because they're actively aware of that impunity. They know that if they get caught, in the worst case scenario, they'll get a paid vacation, their boss will allow them to resign, and they'll have to work one town over.
- craftinator 5y ago
  I'll second this. In the military (or at least in the Marine Corps, from my experience), the person to your left and right is not only there to help you, but to hold you accountable too. It's started early in training that you don't "let your buddy off the hook", you f** them up if they do something stupid. The goal is to uncover all the dirt and get it cleaned up, not to hide it. And your buddy will testify against you, because they know it's the right thing to do, and you'll spend years in the brigg. It's a hard culture, but it's built to be self-filtering, self-cleaning. That's where the idea of honor comes from. From everything that I've witnessed and heard, police culture is the polar opposite. You "do favors", "hook each other up", and "overlook mistakes". All of this breeds the bacteria, rather than killing it off.
  - csomar 5y ago
    There is money (and usually in cash) in the police line of work. It's much harder to make any money from the public in the army. So there is much less at stake. Police can make arbitrarily good amount of money if they are corrupt. That's what is unbalancing things.
xyzelement 5y ago
\\ This is why so many unarmed people are getting shot by the cop How many unarmed people are killed by the police each year in the us? When I ask this question, most people guess "thousands" or "tens of thousands". The real number is around 50. Of course the ideal number is 0 but the US is very far from having a " police killing unarmed people " problem.
- 0_gravitas 5y ago
  Who decides if the person killed is unarmed again?
  - xyzelement 5y ago
    That's an interesting point. So how did we decide whether there a real problem or not?
- mgleason_3 5y ago
  Source? This article says it was almost 1000 last year. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/polic... A few years ago police shot a man neareby when they mistook a water hose nozzle he was holding for a handgun.
  - jcims 5y ago
    That’s total, not unarmed.
- AYBABTME 5y ago
  My brother is doing research on suspicious usage of "Suicide by cop" as a cause of death, a phenomenon where police departments and coroners may be overly broad in their application of the label. I hadn't thought about this, but apparently this imaginative labelling _may_ be hiding unfavourable statistics . Although I doubt this would change the number from 50 to 10,000.
- essayist 5y ago
kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
Combat vets aren't the problem. They are less likely to shoot. It's the wannabes doing paramilitary cosplay who are the heart of the issue.
- greeneggs 5y ago
  Statistically, combat veterans are 6 percentage points more likely to shoot than non-veterans. (32% versus 26% have discharged their service firearm while on duty, other than at a gun range or during training.) https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/08/a-closer-look-at-police-officers-who-have-fired-their-weapon-on-duty/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/08/a-closer-lo...
  - stevehawk 5y ago
    That stat doesn't mean much to me though. I'd want to know about unjustified discharging of weapons. I'd imagine cities like LA, Baltimore, Detroit, etc are more likely to assign combat veterans to the places with higher crime, particularly gun violence, than anyone else on the force. I'd also expect former military to be involved in S.W.A.T. more than non-veterans. And for that reason I expect their likelihood of discharging a weapon to be higher.

chrisseaton 5y ago

I don’t understand why normal community police are armed at all. There’s absolutely no need for it.

anigbrowl 5y ago
It's a sad fact in the USA that you might encounter an armed criminal almost anywhere. I have personally seen a bunch of crimes involving gunfire, rather than mere brandishing of weapons. On the other hand, police carry a lot of weapons, typically a handgun, pepper spray, a taser, a baton, and a heavy switchblade knife, plus a shotgun or rifle in the car. But they're relatively poorly trained and (even taking police claims at face value) deaths of civilians have resulted from confusion involving use of the wrong weapon. Another factor is that urban areas are often policed by people who live in surrounding suburban towns, and end up feeling like they're going to work in a war zone every day because they are not embedded in the communities they ostensibly serve.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  The vast majority of police never actually need their weapons. So why are they routinely carrying them? https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/08/a-closer-look-at-police-officers-who-have-fired-their-weapon-on-duty/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/08/a-closer-lo... There's tons of dangerous things we could carry around just in case, but we don't because they'd be seen as aggressive.
  - anigbrowl 5y ago
    Same reason I have 3 fire extinguishers although I've never had a fire situation; you don't want to find yourself without if you suddenly need it. Aer they over-armed, poorly trained, and often unreasonably paranoid? Yes. Being armed doesn't defend one against being surprised, and radios have saved far more police lives than guns on hips. But the work is by nature unpredictable, and the US is an unusually heavily armed society. You're going to have a hard time recruiting or getting people to pay taxes for unarmed security. That gap is filled to some extent by community volunteers, but sadly that's not a very effective response in political terms.
    - jackson1442 5y ago
      This same argument could ostensibly be extended to anyone. There are armed criminals everywhere, why aren’t you carrying ${armory} on you at all times? It seems to me like a police station, as well as select trained officers could be stocked with lethal weapons, while regular patrol officers carry nonlethals. Cops generally do not need a gun to pull someone over for speeding. If they are pursing someone known to be armed, it makes sense to do so. Much like I don’t carry my laptop at all times, there are appropriate tools for appropriate situations and I’d like to see that extended to police.
      - smegger001 5y ago
        >>This same argument could ostensibly be extended to anyone. There are armed criminals everywhere, why aren’t you carrying ${armory} on you at all times? Many people do. I regularly see people walking around open carrying firearms in my rural town in WA state. People will have gun on their hip walking around Walmart or getting coffee at here.
      - anigbrowl 5y ago
        I would like this too as I do not enjoy living in a heavily policed society, not to mention all the racial/class bias that seems to pervade policing in the US. But like I said, I think you'll have a very hard time recruiting or financing unarmed security as a public service in the foreseeable future. Investing more in alternative social services seems like the best approach for reducing demand, but you're probably looking at 5-10 years to produce statistically significant changes than you can rally voters behind. To be clear, I'm not saying police should be heavily armed, but you have an uphill struggle persuading people who do think that, which includes many of the police themselves.

heavyset_go 5y ago

Training isn't the issue, it's the lack of accountability. Military members are under the threat of being court martialed and spending time in military prison. They know they have less rights in military court than they would as civilians, and that punishment can be harsh. Cops, on the other hand, know that the system will bend over backwards to accommodate whatever transgression or crime they commit. They can and do act with impunity, because they're actively aware of that impunity. They know that if they get caught, in the worst case scenario, they'll get a paid vacation, their boss will allow them to resign, and they'll have to work one town over.

craftinator 5y ago
I'll second this. In the military (or at least in the Marine Corps, from my experience), the person to your left and right is not only there to help you, but to hold you accountable too. It's started early in training that you don't "let your buddy off the hook", you f** them up if they do something stupid. The goal is to uncover all the dirt and get it cleaned up, not to hide it. And your buddy will testify against you, because they know it's the right thing to do, and you'll spend years in the brigg. It's a hard culture, but it's built to be self-filtering, self-cleaning. That's where the idea of honor comes from. From everything that I've witnessed and heard, police culture is the polar opposite. You "do favors", "hook each other up", and "overlook mistakes". All of this breeds the bacteria, rather than killing it off.
- csomar 5y ago
  There is money (and usually in cash) in the police line of work. It's much harder to make any money from the public in the army. So there is much less at stake. Police can make arbitrarily good amount of money if they are corrupt. That's what is unbalancing things.

xyzelement 5y ago

\\ This is why so many unarmed people are getting shot by the cop How many unarmed people are killed by the police each year in the us? When I ask this question, most people guess "thousands" or "tens of thousands". The real number is around 50. Of course the ideal number is 0 but the US is very far from having a " police killing unarmed people " problem.

0_gravitas 5y ago
Who decides if the person killed is unarmed again?
- xyzelement 5y ago
  That's an interesting point. So how did we decide whether there a real problem or not?
mgleason_3 5y ago
Source? This article says it was almost 1000 last year. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/polic... A few years ago police shot a man neareby when they mistook a water hose nozzle he was holding for a handgun.
- jcims 5y ago
  That’s total, not unarmed.
AYBABTME 5y ago
My brother is doing research on suspicious usage of "Suicide by cop" as a cause of death, a phenomenon where police departments and coroners may be overly broad in their application of the label. I hadn't thought about this, but apparently this imaginative labelling _may_ be hiding unfavourable statistics . Although I doubt this would change the number from 50 to 10,000.
essayist 5y ago

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

Combat vets aren't the problem. They are less likely to shoot. It's the wannabes doing paramilitary cosplay who are the heart of the issue.

greeneggs 5y ago
Statistically, combat veterans are 6 percentage points more likely to shoot than non-veterans. (32% versus 26% have discharged their service firearm while on duty, other than at a gun range or during training.) https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/08/a-closer-look-at-police-officers-who-have-fired-their-weapon-on-duty/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/08/a-closer-lo...
- stevehawk 5y ago
  That stat doesn't mean much to me though. I'd want to know about unjustified discharging of weapons. I'd imagine cities like LA, Baltimore, Detroit, etc are more likely to assign combat veterans to the places with higher crime, particularly gun violence, than anyone else on the force. I'd also expect former military to be involved in S.W.A.T. more than non-veterans. And for that reason I expect their likelihood of discharging a weapon to be higher.