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Militarization of the police is just symptom. Root cause is that police needs to expect that almost anyone in the US could be armed. This is not the case elsewh
by timeon 3y ago
Militarization of the police is just symptom. Root cause is that police needs to expect that almost anyone in the US could be armed. This is not the case elsewhere.
- actionfromafar 3y agoIf we are going for root causes, aren't there assault rifles in most Swiss homes, for instance? And yet...
- johannes1234321 3y agoIn Switzerland the guns are typically locked away and out of reach. While guns may exist in a house, for police it's unlikely to be confronted with it.
- Clubber 3y agoIt's unlikely police get confronted with guns in the US too; we just have 350 million people, extremely authoritarian police culture, and a corporate news that jumps on the chance to report every instance. I would wager way more citizens are killed by police (rightfully or not) than police are killed by citizens.
- nucleardog 3y agoEstimates are that there’s a firearm in 23-33% of Canadian households, while estimates for the US are around 44%. I don’t disagree that the firearms are a problem, or even a factor, but it certainly doesn’t seem likely that it’s the root cause unless there’s some tipping point between 1-1.5/5 houses and 2/5 houses that makes things substantially more dangerous.
- int_19h 3y agoThis was true long before police was militarized. Militarization of police was indeed a symptom, but rather a symptom of the War on Drugs - the first SWAT team (in LA) was organized largely for that purpose.