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> The alternative is that police come into a scenario potentially unequipped to handle an actual violent situation. Police are now trained to treat EVERY situa
by 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 agoThey 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 agoThis 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 agoThat'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 agoOh 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 agoBut the ones who do own guns tend to own several.
- maximinus_thrax 3y agoHow does this add anything to the conversation?
- tbrownaw 3y agoIt's where the justification for that that misleading "on average" comes from.
- stjohnswarts 3y agoEh it's close enough, "them's pretty good odds" as my pepaw used to say. I don't expect cops to be martyrs.