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Somehow Europe manages to have very safe cities without this sort of behaviour from the cops. I think the Americans have been slow-cooked into finding the polic

Somehow Europe manages to have very safe cities without this sort of behaviour from the cops. I think the Americans have been slow-cooked into finding the police state apparatus to be normal and justifiable.

fapjacks 11y ago
I travel to Europe often, and yes, it is a mentality. I think also the opposite is true, however: Criminals will not commit crime if they have the mindset that a police presence is particularly heavy in an area. Europeans don't need guns to keep them safe, but in America, we "need" our guns to keep us safe. It's absolutely a mindset, you're right. But that doesn't mean it doesn't work.
- tertius 11y ago
  I'm not an American so I don't feel a gun will "keep me safe" i.e. I won't be attacked or house broken. Though when that happens I can defend myself much better than without. Is it generally that people feel they won't be victims to crime if they're armed?
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    Americans have a pithy sound-bite-style quote for that: "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away." This is a large and diverse country. There are significant areas of land where the median time until an emergency first-responder will appear is a multiple of the median duration of a typical criminal (or dangerous wildlife) encounter. With the right planning, I could probably walk coast to coast unarmed, without ever feeling unsafe. But if I took my hotel budget and bought a tent and sidearm instead, I wouldn't need to do nearly as much research ahead of time. Besides that, not all dangerous animals are human enough to know the law. I don't typically go about armed, but several people that I know do. They consider it to not just be protection for themselves, but for their entire community, like vaccinations. The weapon does not prevent the crime, but it does suggest a more favorable outcome.
    - krapp 11y ago
      Not to discount your comment, but it's also probably worth mentioning that the NRA and gun manufacturers comprise a very large and politically influential lobby. Gun culture in the US is in some part manufactured and sustained by the interests of big business.
      - logfromblammo 11y ago
        One could say the same about a lot of different businesses and industries. Profitable businesses spend money on advertising and lobbying to stay profitable. I mistrust people with vested interests on both sides. In this particular instance, my opinion of the meaning of the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is not clouded by any doubt. The anecdotal facts I have at my disposal suggest that common gun ownership is neither necessary for public safety nor detrimental to it. The security of a people seems to be correlated more to the strength of their character than that of their arsenal.
rayiner 11y ago
The U.S. has always been a fantastically more violent place than Europe (at least, than the UK), since long before the modern era of militarized police: http://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/homicide-rates-in-the-united-states-and-england-1900-2000-pinker-2011-jpg.jpg http://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/homicid....

fapjacks 11y ago

I travel to Europe often, and yes, it is a mentality. I think also the opposite is true, however: Criminals will not commit crime if they have the mindset that a police presence is particularly heavy in an area. Europeans don't need guns to keep them safe, but in America, we "need" our guns to keep us safe. It's absolutely a mindset, you're right. But that doesn't mean it doesn't work.

tertius 11y ago
I'm not an American so I don't feel a gun will "keep me safe" i.e. I won't be attacked or house broken. Though when that happens I can defend myself much better than without. Is it generally that people feel they won't be victims to crime if they're armed?
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  Americans have a pithy sound-bite-style quote for that: "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away." This is a large and diverse country. There are significant areas of land where the median time until an emergency first-responder will appear is a multiple of the median duration of a typical criminal (or dangerous wildlife) encounter. With the right planning, I could probably walk coast to coast unarmed, without ever feeling unsafe. But if I took my hotel budget and bought a tent and sidearm instead, I wouldn't need to do nearly as much research ahead of time. Besides that, not all dangerous animals are human enough to know the law. I don't typically go about armed, but several people that I know do. They consider it to not just be protection for themselves, but for their entire community, like vaccinations. The weapon does not prevent the crime, but it does suggest a more favorable outcome.
  - krapp 11y ago
    Not to discount your comment, but it's also probably worth mentioning that the NRA and gun manufacturers comprise a very large and politically influential lobby. Gun culture in the US is in some part manufactured and sustained by the interests of big business.
    - logfromblammo 11y ago
      One could say the same about a lot of different businesses and industries. Profitable businesses spend money on advertising and lobbying to stay profitable. I mistrust people with vested interests on both sides. In this particular instance, my opinion of the meaning of the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is not clouded by any doubt. The anecdotal facts I have at my disposal suggest that common gun ownership is neither necessary for public safety nor detrimental to it. The security of a people seems to be correlated more to the strength of their character than that of their arsenal.

rayiner 11y ago

The U.S. has always been a fantastically more violent place than Europe (at least, than the UK), since long before the modern era of militarized police: http://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/homicide-rates-in-the-united-states-and-england-1900-2000-pinker-2011-jpg.jpg http://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/homicid....