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It's a DANGEROUS take. The alternative is that police come into a scenario potentially unequipped to handle an actual violent situation. I think the real solu

It's a DANGEROUS take. The alternative is that police come into a scenario potentially unequipped to handle an actual violent situation. I think the real solution is that SWAT teams need to be especially trained on the fact that swatting is a thing, and to try to recognize when they're in a swatting incident.

slotrans 3y ago
> The alternative is that police come into a scenario potentially unequipped to handle an actual violent situation. Police are now trained to treat EVERY situation as potentially violent, no matter how innocuous or factually safe. They assume everyone they interact with is a lethal threat. > I think the real solution is that SWAT teams need to be especially trained on the fact that swatting is a thing, and to try to recognize when they're in a swatting incident. That would require humility, which police don't have, because again they are trained to immediately escalate and use violence to control every situation.
- jfengel 3y ago
  They have to treat every situation as violent. On average, every American owns a gun. There is no encounter with the police that doesn't run a genuine risk of becoming deadly in seconds. The rest of the civilized world has decided that this isn't a good way to live. But here in America we want to be 100% certain George III isn't coming back, and if the cost of that is unarmed people occasionally murdered by the people assigned to protect them, that's just the way it is.
  - senojsitruc 3y ago
    This is a hysterical take when every interaction with a cop involves interacting with someone who has a gun, but clearly that’s okay…? Because cops are always peaceful and judicious?
    - jfengel 3y ago
      That's the point. Cops have guns because we have guns. Other countries don't arm every cop all the time, so every encounter isn't a potential standoff. We face every cop knowing that he is jumpy and checking your every move.
  - quickthrowman 3y ago
    > They have to treat every situation as violent. On average, every American owns a gun. There is no encounter with the police that doesn't run a genuine risk of becoming deadly in seconds. No they don’t, the vast majority (99%?) of police interactions with the public are non-violent. I spoke with a cop in my city who told me that was at a new officer training where 13 out of 15 training scenarios were ‘violent encounters’. The man was a career officer with 25+ years and he said almost every interaction he has with the public is non-violent, and that training cops to expect every encounter to go sideways is creating expectations that don’t match reality. Violent encounters happen, but cops are trained like every interaction is going to turn violent. Re: on average every American owns a gun Something like 50% of the guns are owned by 3% of Americans or some ridiculous number. Roughly 1 in 3 adult Americans own guns. Personally I agree with you that we would be better off without having more guns than people in this country, but reality is reality.
    - jfengel 3y ago
      Oh yes. Reality is that we train our children to prepare for being shot. And we made it impossible to make it any other way.
  - maximinus_thrax 3y ago
    > On average, every American owns a gun. That is factually incorrect. 4 in 10 Americans (at most) own guns. Few of them carry them around.
    - jfengel 3y ago
      But the ones who do own guns tend to own several.
      - maximinus_thrax 3y ago
        How does this add anything to the conversation?
        tbrownaw 3y ago
        It's where the justification for that that misleading "on average" comes from.
    - stjohnswarts 3y ago
      Eh it's close enough, "them's pretty good odds" as my pepaw used to say. I don't expect cops to be martyrs.
helpfulclippy 3y ago
Your take is also dangerous. Sending a load of militarized cops to breach someone's home with the intent to use lethal force at an instant based only on an anonymous phone call empowers bad guys to create extremely dangerous situations for chosen targets on demand, and this is now common knowledge. You can't train your way around that.
maximinus_thrax 3y ago
> It's a DANGEROUS take. Dangerous for cops or for people? A gang of SWAT cops overreacted to an incident in my town and got scared to the point of shooting 30 rounds from their rifles in an apartment hallway. The bullets went through the walls of 5 apartments, none of which were the one they were responding to. > potentially unequipped to handle an actual violent situation Have you seen a cop lately? Like a regular cop on patrol in a cruiser? They are equipped to handle an actual fucking foreign invasion. And they act accordingly. Aside from running into someone armed with a grenade launched, a regular cop in the US is fully equipped to handle 99% of all violent situations.

slotrans 3y ago

> The alternative is that police come into a scenario potentially unequipped to handle an actual violent situation. Police are now trained to treat EVERY situation as potentially violent, no matter how innocuous or factually safe. They assume everyone they interact with is a lethal threat. > I think the real solution is that SWAT teams need to be especially trained on the fact that swatting is a thing, and to try to recognize when they're in a swatting incident. That would require humility, which police don't have, because again they are trained to immediately escalate and use violence to control every situation.

jfengel 3y ago
They have to treat every situation as violent. On average, every American owns a gun. There is no encounter with the police that doesn't run a genuine risk of becoming deadly in seconds. The rest of the civilized world has decided that this isn't a good way to live. But here in America we want to be 100% certain George III isn't coming back, and if the cost of that is unarmed people occasionally murdered by the people assigned to protect them, that's just the way it is.
- senojsitruc 3y ago
  This is a hysterical take when every interaction with a cop involves interacting with someone who has a gun, but clearly that’s okay…? Because cops are always peaceful and judicious?
  - jfengel 3y ago
    That's the point. Cops have guns because we have guns. Other countries don't arm every cop all the time, so every encounter isn't a potential standoff. We face every cop knowing that he is jumpy and checking your every move.
- quickthrowman 3y ago
  > They have to treat every situation as violent. On average, every American owns a gun. There is no encounter with the police that doesn't run a genuine risk of becoming deadly in seconds. No they don’t, the vast majority (99%?) of police interactions with the public are non-violent. I spoke with a cop in my city who told me that was at a new officer training where 13 out of 15 training scenarios were ‘violent encounters’. The man was a career officer with 25+ years and he said almost every interaction he has with the public is non-violent, and that training cops to expect every encounter to go sideways is creating expectations that don’t match reality. Violent encounters happen, but cops are trained like every interaction is going to turn violent. Re: on average every American owns a gun Something like 50% of the guns are owned by 3% of Americans or some ridiculous number. Roughly 1 in 3 adult Americans own guns. Personally I agree with you that we would be better off without having more guns than people in this country, but reality is reality.
  - jfengel 3y ago
    Oh yes. Reality is that we train our children to prepare for being shot. And we made it impossible to make it any other way.
- maximinus_thrax 3y ago
  > On average, every American owns a gun. That is factually incorrect. 4 in 10 Americans (at most) own guns. Few of them carry them around.
  - jfengel 3y ago
    But the ones who do own guns tend to own several.
    - maximinus_thrax 3y ago
      How does this add anything to the conversation?
      - tbrownaw 3y ago
        It's where the justification for that that misleading "on average" comes from.
  - stjohnswarts 3y ago
    Eh it's close enough, "them's pretty good odds" as my pepaw used to say. I don't expect cops to be martyrs.

helpfulclippy 3y ago

Your take is also dangerous. Sending a load of militarized cops to breach someone's home with the intent to use lethal force at an instant based only on an anonymous phone call empowers bad guys to create extremely dangerous situations for chosen targets on demand, and this is now common knowledge. You can't train your way around that.

maximinus_thrax 3y ago

> It's a DANGEROUS take. Dangerous for cops or for people? A gang of SWAT cops overreacted to an incident in my town and got scared to the point of shooting 30 rounds from their rifles in an apartment hallway. The bullets went through the walls of 5 apartments, none of which were the one they were responding to. > potentially unequipped to handle an actual violent situation Have you seen a cop lately? Like a regular cop on patrol in a cruiser? They are equipped to handle an actual fucking foreign invasion. And they act accordingly. Aside from running into someone armed with a grenade launched, a regular cop in the US is fully equipped to handle 99% of all violent situations.