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Unfortunately the prevalence of guns in America is a seriously mitigating factor on behalf of police blame for swatting here. With ~15,000 gun homicides every y

Unfortunately the prevalence of guns in America is a seriously mitigating factor on behalf of police blame for swatting here. With ~15,000 gun homicides every year, >20,000 gun suicides, and several tens of thousands of additional shootings, you can’t fault the police for expecting a call about gun violence to actually involve gun violence.

watwut 5y ago
I really really don't think suicides explain or excuse strong aggressive action. The cops themselves are most likely to die or get injured in car accident - due to them being on streets a lot. America does not have significantly more homicides then other western countries. Most gun homicides are people who know each other shooting each other in dispute. And they are clustered in high violence places making the rest of America safer then average.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  Herring approached the police with a gun drawn. That's how things happen in America. In any case, showing a dominant amount of force is imperative for safety in this country where guns are common. That's just the facts. If we want the police to disarm, we need to first disarm the population. We shouldn't be sending police into armed situations with inferior weapons.
  - AstralStorm 5y ago
    Do you mean superior weapons such as gas grenades? Guns are the worst, they need line of sight, overpenetrate, protective measures are ineffective, and they might not take the actual target either. (Only tasers are worse.)
    - fckthisguy 5y ago
      > Only tasers are worse. Only tasers are worse at killing people. They're perfectly adequate for their intended use; allowing an officer to halt a person who presents a real danger to the officer, when alternatives are not available.
  - watwut 5y ago
    > In any case, showing a dominant amount of force is imperative for safety in this country where guns are common. Seems like treating every encounter as struggle for dominance instead puts you all in more danger.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      Well yeah. But that's America's culture. So lets take a step back. There's two sides to this encounter. It is common for Americans, when they feel like they're in danger, to approach situations with a gun drawn. Police, knowing that other Americans will approach them with guns drawn (since criminals see Police as a threat), will also approach with guns drawn. And guess what? The gun advocate will point out that everyone acted as an adult in this situation. No gunfire was exchanged. The heart attack was unfortunate, but this is actually one of the better situations. Compare / Contrast instead with say: Breonna Taylor. The Police begin to knock down the door, someone gets confused and shoots at them. The Police shoot back killing Breonna Taylor. -------- You can't deny that the job that Police do and put themselves in means that Police are expected to get shot at. Changing this expectation will require more than just changing how Police operate, it also means changing America's culture to not have so many freaking guns.
      - watwut 5y ago
        Police are much less likely to be shoot at then rumor has it. Including by "criminals" which is quite wide category. I also find it ridiculous that a country that says it is OK to defend your house with gun, also says it is OK for police to create situation in which people think they are attacked by violent strangers - where those strangers are cops.
  - avs733 5y ago
    I would argue that showing a dominant amount of force is the norm not an imperative. Police justify many actionsl/systems/norms based on the fact that their job is dangerous. However they have also, in doing so, created a situation where anything they do to reduce risk to themselves is valid. That hits a limit at some point You could insist that police behave in a way that actually puts them at some risk…i.e., not presume they will be attacked or to be unarmed. We could decide that that risk is worth it as a society and insist upon it just as we insist that essential workers put themselves at risk during covid to feed us. If potential risk is always used to justify force, eventually the risk will be gone because force will be the default.
- pbourke 5y ago
  > America does not have significantly more homicides then other western countries. The US has 2-5x the murder rate of peer nations. US 4.96/100k Canada 1.76 UK 1.20 Germany 0.95 Japan 0.26 Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intenti...
  - VBprogrammer 5y ago
    The usual argument is that if you exclude gang violence then the number is way lower. However, if you arbitrarily throw away the number one cause of violence in other countries, surprisingly enough, their numbers are also way lower.
    - watwut 5y ago
      The murder may count as gang violence whenever one of person is associated with gang - even if actual event happened due to jealousy or other crap. And being associated with gang can be also just due to who you know. The point is, gang violence as aggregate is not meaningfully different from other violence.
      - merpnderp 5y ago
        Where the violence takes place in public, the relationship between the perpetrators and victims, the fact that both parties are usually armed, that bystanders are often caught in crossfire, the motives for the violence being beefs over territory, and the minimal events required to trigger the violence. Except for those and more, it's just like any other violence.
      - zepto 5y ago
        > gang violence as aggregate is not meaningfully different from other violence This is just false. The reason gang violence is separated out is that gang violence is perpetrated against other gang members. I.e. the gun violence rate for non-gang members is dramatically lower. It doesn’t mean gang violence is not a problem. It does mean that unless you are in a gang, the US doesn’t have a high murder rate.
- LorenPechtel 5y ago
  You are right that the homicides are highly clustered, but that doesn't mean there aren't more of them than in other countries. However, what is happening is that most of those homicides are criminals killing other criminals and aren't very relevant to non-criminals. This greatly changes the balance of value vs risk to the average American. The typical self-defense use of a gun is simply showing it and making some scumbag run away.
avs733 5y ago
I don’t see that as a counter to what I’m saying, that seems like part of the model of those other countries.
zepto 5y ago
Thus just isn’t true. There may be more gun violence in the US, but all countries police bring guns when responding to respond to reports of guns.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  I believe the point is that in America, police SOP is to assume every call will involve guns because of the demographics of the country.
  - zepto 5y ago
    Sure but my point is that this is irrelevant to swatting, which by definition involves a claim that guns are involved.

watwut 5y ago

I really really don't think suicides explain or excuse strong aggressive action. The cops themselves are most likely to die or get injured in car accident - due to them being on streets a lot. America does not have significantly more homicides then other western countries. Most gun homicides are people who know each other shooting each other in dispute. And they are clustered in high violence places making the rest of America safer then average.

dragontamer 5y ago
Herring approached the police with a gun drawn. That's how things happen in America. In any case, showing a dominant amount of force is imperative for safety in this country where guns are common. That's just the facts. If we want the police to disarm, we need to first disarm the population. We shouldn't be sending police into armed situations with inferior weapons.
- AstralStorm 5y ago
  Do you mean superior weapons such as gas grenades? Guns are the worst, they need line of sight, overpenetrate, protective measures are ineffective, and they might not take the actual target either. (Only tasers are worse.)
  - fckthisguy 5y ago
    > Only tasers are worse. Only tasers are worse at killing people. They're perfectly adequate for their intended use; allowing an officer to halt a person who presents a real danger to the officer, when alternatives are not available.
- watwut 5y ago
  > In any case, showing a dominant amount of force is imperative for safety in this country where guns are common. Seems like treating every encounter as struggle for dominance instead puts you all in more danger.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    Well yeah. But that's America's culture. So lets take a step back. There's two sides to this encounter. It is common for Americans, when they feel like they're in danger, to approach situations with a gun drawn. Police, knowing that other Americans will approach them with guns drawn (since criminals see Police as a threat), will also approach with guns drawn. And guess what? The gun advocate will point out that everyone acted as an adult in this situation. No gunfire was exchanged. The heart attack was unfortunate, but this is actually one of the better situations. Compare / Contrast instead with say: Breonna Taylor. The Police begin to knock down the door, someone gets confused and shoots at them. The Police shoot back killing Breonna Taylor. -------- You can't deny that the job that Police do and put themselves in means that Police are expected to get shot at. Changing this expectation will require more than just changing how Police operate, it also means changing America's culture to not have so many freaking guns.
    - watwut 5y ago
      Police are much less likely to be shoot at then rumor has it. Including by "criminals" which is quite wide category. I also find it ridiculous that a country that says it is OK to defend your house with gun, also says it is OK for police to create situation in which people think they are attacked by violent strangers - where those strangers are cops.
- avs733 5y ago
  I would argue that showing a dominant amount of force is the norm not an imperative. Police justify many actionsl/systems/norms based on the fact that their job is dangerous. However they have also, in doing so, created a situation where anything they do to reduce risk to themselves is valid. That hits a limit at some point You could insist that police behave in a way that actually puts them at some risk…i.e., not presume they will be attacked or to be unarmed. We could decide that that risk is worth it as a society and insist upon it just as we insist that essential workers put themselves at risk during covid to feed us. If potential risk is always used to justify force, eventually the risk will be gone because force will be the default.
pbourke 5y ago
> America does not have significantly more homicides then other western countries. The US has 2-5x the murder rate of peer nations. US 4.96/100k Canada 1.76 UK 1.20 Germany 0.95 Japan 0.26 Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intenti...
- VBprogrammer 5y ago
  The usual argument is that if you exclude gang violence then the number is way lower. However, if you arbitrarily throw away the number one cause of violence in other countries, surprisingly enough, their numbers are also way lower.
  - watwut 5y ago
    The murder may count as gang violence whenever one of person is associated with gang - even if actual event happened due to jealousy or other crap. And being associated with gang can be also just due to who you know. The point is, gang violence as aggregate is not meaningfully different from other violence.
    - merpnderp 5y ago
      Where the violence takes place in public, the relationship between the perpetrators and victims, the fact that both parties are usually armed, that bystanders are often caught in crossfire, the motives for the violence being beefs over territory, and the minimal events required to trigger the violence. Except for those and more, it's just like any other violence.
    - zepto 5y ago
      > gang violence as aggregate is not meaningfully different from other violence This is just false. The reason gang violence is separated out is that gang violence is perpetrated against other gang members. I.e. the gun violence rate for non-gang members is dramatically lower. It doesn’t mean gang violence is not a problem. It does mean that unless you are in a gang, the US doesn’t have a high murder rate.
LorenPechtel 5y ago
You are right that the homicides are highly clustered, but that doesn't mean there aren't more of them than in other countries. However, what is happening is that most of those homicides are criminals killing other criminals and aren't very relevant to non-criminals. This greatly changes the balance of value vs risk to the average American. The typical self-defense use of a gun is simply showing it and making some scumbag run away.

avs733 5y ago

I don’t see that as a counter to what I’m saying, that seems like part of the model of those other countries.

zepto 5y ago

Thus just isn’t true. There may be more gun violence in the US, but all countries police bring guns when responding to respond to reports of guns.

shadowgovt 5y ago
I believe the point is that in America, police SOP is to assume every call will involve guns because of the demographics of the country.
- zepto 5y ago
  Sure but my point is that this is irrelevant to swatting, which by definition involves a claim that guns are involved.