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Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

Interesting analysis.

As a counterpoint to the headline that might be little fear-inducing, my first reaction when reading it was: only so little? Things must be bad.

I mean: the perfect situation is when there are no homicides at all. But in a little less perfect imaginary world, in which bad people never get the chance to hurt innocents because police stops it, some bad people might still go down resisting arrest, at which point 100% of all homicides would be police-inflicted, and that would be good. Not perfect, but better than what we have.

Statistics are funny this way.

The real question is, how many of those killed by the police were killed in totally justifiable self-defense, and not just because of policemen being trigger-happy. Or, put another way, what's the probability that a person who is not resisting arrest to get "accidentally" killed by the police.

View on HN

This is based on a false assumption: that the proper police response to life-threatening criminal acts is to kill the perpetrator.

If you get past the they deserve it Puritan mentality, the ideal scenario is for police minimize death (of criminals and police officers) at all costs. Numerous other countries handle violent criminals in ways other than "kill them immediately"; the tendency of police officers to use immediate lethal violence can most likely be explained by the aforementioned Puritan "punishment" mentality, a strong culture of guns and violence encouraged constantly through the media (news, movies, and otherwise) and a myriad of other factors.

the tendency of police officers to use immediate lethal violence can most likely be explained by the aforementioned Puritan "punishment" mentality

It must be horrible to be an American cop. All that training, the weapons, the body armour, the radio to immediately summon a whole squad of armed goons who may or may not even have a tank, and they regularly feel so terrified by women in pyjamas or pet doggos that they must immediately resort to lethal force.

Blame the NRA. The proliferation of handguns and the militarization of the police are a positive feedback loop.

The NRA is responsible for militarization of domestic police?

Sure, both to that and to policemen‘s fear of simple traffic stops.

In most other countries the police officer can encounter a citizen without drawn gun because the odds of the citizen wielding a gun or worse are miniscule.

In America even the drawn handgun might not be superior armament.

I'm no fan of the NRA but let's be honest about cause and effect. Fear by the police, the proliferation of firearms in the US and the arms race between the people and the state are all consequences of the Second Amendment of the US Constitution working, arguably, as intended.

The NRA didn't cause any of that, although they do make hay of it for their own political and financial ends.

The NRA is the predominant defender of 2nd amendment rights, which is, arguably, the second worst idea of the US constitution (after the extreme formulation of the first amendment).

Really? My position is that the 2nd amendment is one of the best ideas in the US Constitution.

Yes, really. One of those points where it seems to matter a lot in which culture one has been brought up.

If the 2nd amendment were a great idea, they'd have written it intelligibly.

Some of us parse the rationale such that it seems obsolete: we no longer rely on a militia to defend the nation, we have a professional military for it.

> A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State

Some of us, obviously, don't.

The authors probably thought it was intelligible, the intent was obvious and didn't need to be elaborated on.

And now we're still arguing about the meaning of that damned comma...

I feel that the Citizens' Committee to Investigate the FBI did more to keep the overreaching State in check than all the handguns combined.

The broadness of the first amendment is largely responsible for modern American society having as much personal liberty as it does by encompassing the "live and let live" concept

The 2nd amendment then keeps the government from having a great justification for countless "protective" measures. Don't help me when I can help myself.

>The 2nd amendment then keeps the government from having a great justification for countless "protective" measures. Don't help me when I can help myself.

Can you give any examples of such measures, or evidence that the threat of violent revolution implied in the Second Amendment, versus the political power of the gun lobby and American gun culture, has ever been effective at limiting the US government or its rationale?

The post to which you replied refers to self defense rather than a threat of violent revolution.

I don't see how self defense prevents the government from having a justification for any "protective" measures, but I concede I may have misinterpreted the parent.

With what I'm talking about, you aren't going to see 1 for 1 examples of cause and effect. It's more that having these measures in place will necessarily prevent certain types of measures from even being considered since they've been excluded from the Overton window.

My two favorite amendments!

Curious what makes them your favorite? I kinda like the ninth.

The proliferation of firearms is a factor, but the main driver is income inequality and racism.

You can go to a wealthy white neighborhood in a hard-right place like Texas and there will be plenty of guns. But the cops won’t feel the need to dress up like soldiers and kill people for minor offenses.

Enforcing the kind of economic system where the poor have few ways to carve out a better life for themselves necessitates violence. Wage stagnation and an ever-increasing criminalization of poverty pushes more and more people into contact with the police. And austerity politics ensures that there is nothing to respond to any form of crisis with except the police.

> You can go to a wealthy white neighborhood in a hard-right place like Texas and there will be plenty of guns. But the cops won’t feel the need to dress up like soldiers and kill people for minor offenses.

The video of the cop executing an innocent civillian[1] and getting away with it kind of disproves this statement.

I agree that inequality and poverty are the issues, and I agree that there is a correlation between certain races and poverty, but I don't believe that the issue is just racism.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M62Va6Ft2cw

Even with all of the guns it is highly unlikely a cop will be shot at during a routine traffic stop. It's highly unlikely to get shot at in general. Risk factors include living in an open carry state (Arizona), heavily tinted windows (the cop can't see in), not being white, and driving a risky car.

In this case, while not a traffic stop, the attempted arrest protocol was just stupid and it resulted in his death. That whole department needs to be reformed by the FBI. I hope his widow wins a huge settlement.

The argument that someone was reaching for a weapon or afraid for safety needs a higher burden of proof.

You‘re absolutely right that the risk is objectively low. Do officers /perceive/ it as low?

I‘d argue that they would if asked whether they should fear heart attacks more or less than guns on the street, but if you don‘t frame it that way they will probably tell you that of course guns are a real danger.

Just because it may be low, does that mean they shouldn't do everything they can to mitigate that to as low as possible?

If my loved one was a police officer, I'd want them taking every precaution they could - so they get to come home tonight.

Can you elaborate on why you want to blame the NRA?

I should disclose that I own a number of firearms, many of them sidearms, and don't like the NRA very much, nor have I ever donated to them or been a member. I'm just curious as to how you see them as being the source to blame.

I’m not sure what I need to elaborate. The NRA promotes wider gun ownership and more expansive concealed carry. Police use wider ownership of guns and concealed carry to justify more use of deadly force and militarization. In any other country than the US, this feedback loop would be obvious. In the US the NRA works to blur the obvious by talking about “responsible gun owners” while eliding the leakage between responsible and irresponsible owners.

And this led to the police militarization?

It's not the only cause (I'll save you the rant on US defense spending, you can watch Why We Fight (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0436971/) , but it's a positive feedback loop. I don't believe I used the word "led" or suggested one caused the other. I am suggesting that once gun ownership (and concealed carry) and police militarization are established, one reinforces the other.

Ah, you said blame them. I'd assumerd that meant you felt they were the cause of both. I was pretty confused. Thanks for clearing that up.

I am a fan of responsible firearm ownership, but not the NRA - by the way. I don't know if I'd blame them, but I'd agree that they contribute to the 'gun culture' that ends up with irresponsible people wanting to own firearms.

9/11 and the two wars led to police militarization. Directly due to funding to Police departments to purchase ex-military weapons and indirectly by hyping the terrorist threat.

Any data on police shootings of concealed carry permit holders? Also any data on how many concealed carry permit holders actually shoot police?

Hint: practically zero.

Making a correlation between concealed carry and shootings is beyond ridiculous — there is zero data supporting such conclusions.

I think your explanation is somewhat simplistic, but the observation that societies different from the US manage without the massive police violence is of course spot on.

There was a (now deleted) comment a few minutes ago about a police response resulting in someone being shot by the police, the commenter concluded that it was overall reasonable given the circumstances, since no one else got hurt. That looks like a rather low standard to hold police to, at least from my socialization...

... and I think it is pretty clear that the relation between police and (the other) people [1] is a societal dialogue. When the majority of people think it is ok for the police to shoot people over fairly minimal whateveractions or -inactions, then the police force will act in that direction. If the majority considers that unacceptable, then the police will try harder not shooting people. It is similar to guns methinks; if a majority actually felt that regular shootings are an issue that ought to be fixed, then ... duh... something would happen. Nothing happens, though. What does that say about the society this takes place in?

[1] A word that gets used here sometimes (in mostly American, Russian or 3rd world contexts) is civil[ists], which sounds kinda strange to me (from my perspective police is a civil institution, not a para-military institution that you can contrast with civil - more differences in the same vein).

Mass shootings in America are not an easy problem to fix.

If 0.00005% of the population decides to spend the last 20 minutes of their life going on a murder spree, there's not much you can do, at least in the context of America.

Guns are prolific in the US: between 2000 and 2010, 2,000,000 AR15s alone were manufactured for domestic use.

Deciding on a set of laws to control that number of firearms to end these arbitrary events is not simple, and perhaps not feasible with how many citizens regard firearm ownership a right. California has some of the strictest gun laws, but has been victim to more mass shootings than other states (of course depends on the definition of mass shooting).

America Uncovered (from Chris Chappel of China Uncensored) does a relatively good unbiased video on the topic https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hAtLnTyimT0

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/us/25shooters.html [2] https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/dec/17/how-ma...

I didn't say anything about gun control or other measures that might be employed to control issues such as regular shootings. I only said shootings don't seem to be considered a problem that needs fixing by (presumably) a majority of the society you live in.

On a societal scale just because there is a differential across different societies does not mean that one is wrong and the other is correct. They might just be different. For some people, for example, it is obvious that you can't compare median European culture to American culture (in as much as American and central Chinese culture do not compare, to cite another, perhaps more obvious and common example), for they are vastly different even if superficially similar and sharing some set of values.

Since these societies do not compare, assuming measures to control issues transfer between societies is foolish. I.e. assuming that gun control would work in America based on gun control working in other places is nothing but a non-sequitur in my mind.

Again, and just to reiterate, I am not arguing for some set of regulation or another that (presumably) your society should enact or not. I merely observe differences and of course see things in a certain light and tend to rank and order things a certain way, after all, I know in which society I want to live, and I know in what society I would never want to live.

(clarification: when I write "America" I specifically mean the United States thereof)

It will take decades and billions of dollars to meaningfully reduce the amount of guns in the US.

We should get started asap.

This would do more harm than good IMO. There is a large proportion of the population that does not want this done, and would actively fight against any attempt to remove their constitutional right to bear arms.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people. I think focusing on mental health and inequality/poverty alleviation is a more viable option in our country than weapons removal.

I think the method matters. Building support for amending the Constitution and then doing that would undermine the argument about arms being a constitutional right.

Of course that could happen in parallel with policies that fit into current law and have a more immediate impact.

> Building support for amending the Constitution and then doing that would undermine the argument about arms being a constitutional right.

My point is that this isn't possible. There is _not_ popular support for these kind of changes, and if you think there is, I implore you to spend some time talking to people from the Midwest. There absolutely would be armed resistance to these kinds of changes, assuming an amendment could be passed(which it can't).

You've got to be practical and realistic with legislation. Would it be better if there were no guns? Maybe, but the reality is that millions of people in the US have guns, and millions of people will always have guns. We've got to learn to work around that.

I live in the Midwest and understand the challenge. The first step to passing an amendment is obviously creating the conceptual space for that to happen, and gee look where we are.

Go the Chris Rock route and charge an obscene tax on bullets for handguns. Also, make it illegal to own handguns.

Beyond some of the more obvious ones like our lawmakers know about (gun show loopholes, etc.), maybe something like requiring insurance, just like you have for your car.

There's a lot more regulation that can't be done but no willpower or even political power, seeing as that new terrible bill about concealed carry just got passed by the House.

No resolution in sight, at least for 2-4 years.

The Constitution talks about militias. Not individual citizens. The Supreme Court ended up INTERPRETING the Constitution so it ended up what we have today.

Needless to say 90% of US gun owners wouldn't make it in the military and thus would not be allowed to bear arms. Problem solved.

How do you think inequality alleviation is more likely than removing the right to bear arms? The whole society is built on make or break as much as it is on owning guns. In that atmosphere the make part of this equation is conditioned to make sure they make more in the future and protect that. I feel these things are linked somewhat: the word 'fight' is used a lot. There is the seemingly constant struggle to get ahead and stay ahead. And once ahead this must be protected; with guns if need be.

> How do you think inequality alleviation is more likely than removing the right to bear arms?

Most of the people committing gun violence in the US are in poverty. They use guns and other weapons to earn money(mostly in drugs and robbery) and to gain control of their lives.

_Most_ people with guns never use them illicitly, because they are never in a position where they feel the need. I want more people in our country to never feel the need, and I feel poverty alleviation would be a fantastic way to do that.

From my perspective, I'd rather have someone spending the last 20 minutes of their life on a shooting spree than spending the last couple of days cooking up some AMFO, renting a truck from U-Haul, and causing some serious issues. A lot of people seem to assume that the fallback from a rifle (for the purposes of a killing spree) is a kitchen knife or something - I don't think this is universally accurate.

It's not a Puritan mentality. It's the fact that any person they interact with could be armed. The reason many other countries police deal with violent criminals in a different way is because it is very unlikely those criminals will be armed.

Where I live (Hungary) there is almost no gun violence. The few instances I'm aware of that do involve guns are things where violent groups are involved like organized crime or right-wing groups. In those cases I think that the police go in prepared for something different when they interact with people on a day to day basis.

When I moved here from the US it was a big adjustment. I would hear a loud bang and think someone had fired off a gun. Now I hear the same noise and realize it is fireworks or construction. When I'm out in the city I no longer have to worry about an armed confrontation and that's relaxing. In fact I didn't realize how much those things weighed on me in the US until I got away from it.

The proliferation of guns is the reason so many people get shot in the US and it's no surprise the police are a big part of it.

1) Where did you live in the US? I'm in a medium-ish sized metroplex (whatever that means) of about a million people, and I never hear live fire.

2) Why would you worry about a (remote) gun-shot that you heard? By the time you hear it, you will be already shot-or-not. If not - why worry?

> By the time you hear it, you will be already shot-or-not. If not - why worry?

If you're not shot now, you could still be shot later. So trying to assess the situation to find out whether more shots will be fired seems like a good idea.

I have lived in a number of places - Phoenix, AZ, Chicago, IL, Orlando, FL are probably the spots I spent the most time.

When I lived in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix, the city installed a system that could track gunfire and pinpoint the location for police. I can say I've heard gunfire in every city I've mentioned and called it in to police in those places more than once.

I don't even know where to begin with 2. I was fishing with a friend on the Verde river in AZ. We were just below the Horseshoe dam. We were fishing for catfish at night. Someone a little further down river (couldn't see them through the bushes and such) started firing off guns. We immediately packed up and left. They were probably partying and shooting up into the air.

The idea that if you hear gunfire you should just ignore it unless you've been hit - well I have to believe you are just trolling.

No - not trolling. Probably just naive.

I've been near the edge of war-zones. Once or twice, in them. But apparently I've missed out on the urban American experience.

It'd be ridiculous to call in every gunshot I heard...

1.) November just ended, and so deer hunting season. There's still black powder season ongoing, plus rabbit, coyote, and game bird seasons.

2.) There's a rifle range two miles away. Then there's a Sig Sauer training facility to the other side. It's pretty common to hear automatic weapons fire.

The proliferation of guns isn't everything. Finland has one of the highest number of guns per capita[1], yet their crime rates are one of the lowest.

There is a massive correlation between (gun) crime and poverty. Regional inequality means that those who live in poverty have a pretty poor chance of improving their lives. To me, the problem stems less from guns and more from a poor quality of life for massive numbers of people in America.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_c...

But if you compare communities equal in poverty then amount of gun violence correlates with amount of guns.

So either give poor communities heaps of money or take away guns. Or just wait till they shoot themselves, which is current US approach to the problem.

I don't understand your logic. You acknowledge that low quality of life is a huge part of what pushes people to commit crime, yet you'd rather take away their weapons instead of doing something about poverty?

We have 101 guns per 100 Residents[1]. Do you really think removing guns is a viable option at this point? What makes you think this wouldn't be met with violent resistance from people who want to defend their constitutional rights? Even if we _could_ remove all guns, wouldn't those in poverty just begin using knives, acids, and explosives like they do in other countries? Why not make people's lives better instead?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_c...

> you'd rather take away their weapons instead of do something about poverty?

I'm just pointing out it's cheaper solution to resolving gun violence.

> Even if we _could_ remove all guns, wouldn't those in poverty just begin using knives, acids, and explosives like they do in other countries?

Mostly knifes I guess. But it's harder to kill a person accidentally with a knife then it is with a gun. Almost all gun death are accidental. Killer just wanted the victim to stop doing something or to punish him/her for some percieved transgression and it wasn't supposed to be capital punishment.

Cops won't even go to areas that are gang infested with a proportion of poverty and guns. They call these "no go" areas.

I don't think it is everything but I think it is a lot. Comparing a very small northern European country to the whole of the USA is a bit difficult in my opinion. I think it's hard to make comparisons that make sense.

Extremely interesting list!

I'd love to see a set of worldwide correlations:

- homicide rate VS gun ownership (very little, apparently!)

- homicide rate VS income inequality

- homicide rate VS wealth inequality

Even armed criminals are not approached this way most places in Europe. The policy in the UK is to get civilians away, contain the threat, call for reinforcements, and if possible wait and/or try to negotiate. If it quite rare for it to become necessary to shoot. You don't engage someone armed unless it is to avoid immediate and acute danger to anyone.

The proliferation of guns make it harder to respond like that, but still a lot of the cases we see with gunfights involving the police in the US is cases where individuals or pairs of officers go after suspects alone without waiting for backup and without trying to contain and de-escalate.

I think the ability to take an approach that time and resource intensive is made possible by the fact it happens so seldom.

I don't think that makes sense, because resorting to violence so often ends up escalating conflicts to ridiculous levels.

De-escalating these conflicts costs more resources in the initial response, but tends to make most conflict end quickly.

Importantly it also gives criminals a very strong reason to avoid being pulling weapons at police - they can be confident police will not arm themselves first, and will not escalate a situation unnecessarily.

> the ideal scenario is for police minimize death (of criminals and police officers) at all costs

Do you really believe this in all situations? I don't. In a standoff between 5 cops and 15 criminals I'd rather see the cops kill them all than vice versa, since the cops didn't create the bad situation in the first place. We all weight lives based on their moral value and culpability in the situation.

Maybe that's an extreme example, but the way it happens more often is that a suspect pulls a gun, points it at a single cop, and the cop has to decide whether to kill the suspect or die him/herself. I'd always argue that in such a situation the cop should shoot.

Are you suggesting that shoot to wound is a better policy?

If there is a standoff and the police does not have a significant advantage of numbers, they've already messed up. Maybe using their guns will be the right response at that point, but where they failed at minimizing death was when their response was so crazily inadequate in the first place that they got pinned down by superior numbers (if they're not pinned down, and there aren't civilians at immediate risk, they can/should wait for reinforcements).

In the UK for example, police is more likely to respond with a factor of 4x-5x more officers than suspected criminals, and will avoid approaching until they know they have numerical and tactical superiority.

Of course, sometimes that fails - you can't predict every possible situation, but it's rare.

An example I tend to give is the case a while back where someone was wielding an axe. Two police officers went after him, and the axe-wielding man was shot and killed because he went for one of them.

Success, surely? He protected his partner, who might have been harmed.

The way something like this would likely have gone down somewhere like the UK would be that the first responders would have called for reinforcement, and then kept their distance and waited. You don't engage someone armed unless there is immediate danger to others. She should never have been close enough to be in danger.

In the UK they may or may not call in a firearms team in such a case, but if they did, they'd be brought in as a precaution. More likely they'd close down the area around him and wait, and wear the guy down, and then see if they could get him to drop the weapon peacefully.

For comparison there was a case of a man robbing a house near me a while back unarmed, and the police brought in 20 officers, chased him until he climbed onto a roof. Then they simply waited for 4-5 hours until he accepted he had no way out.

So many of the cases I hear about from the US is down to impatience and seemingly some kind of belief that they need to stop things as quickly as possible rather than trying to stop things with as little conflict as possible.

I don't think it's necessarily so much punishment as fear that if they don't do something, things will escalate. But most of the time if you contain a threat and wait, the level of conflict will de-escalate. So much violence boils down to fear that the other side will be willing to use more violence. And that fear is pervasive through some groups of people. E.g. we see that in the insistence of keeping or carrying weapons.

On that last point: people are more likely to resist arrest when they're afraid police are going to kill them during the process of arrest

Or through neglect after arrest

I wonder if some of the preference for violence in the American policing tradition goes back to Western films - where outlaws are wanted dead or alive, a quick draw is the main thing a lawman needs, and the climax of the film is the lawman meeting the bad man in the street, drawing first and shooting him dead.

You see that also in American action movies where the "good" guy often with joy kills the "bad" guy. You don't see that that much in European movies where a killing situation is often portrayed with more internal conflict.

You can also see quite violent Hong Kong movies with police officers shooting fleeing criminals in crowded public places, but as far as I am aware they don't have the same issues.

One could also easily point to the much higher probability that a criminal has a gun in the United States, although I do not think that that alone is sufficient.

I think it's more likely that U.S. police are, on the whole, poorly trained for these kinds of situations. I don't have any hard evidence to support this but have heard interviews with people who study the problem of police violence say that improper training (or more likely zero training) contributes mightily to the problem.

American police officers training depends on the state. It's generally a months long process and quite rigorous physically and mentally. I have a friend who literally just went through this and I can say he definitely had a lot of training. At the end of the day what they are trained to do is come home at the end of the night. Keeping themselves safe is top priority in a job that can put them in a lot of dangerous situations. We've had many discussions about this line between police officer shootings and justification.

There are so many comments worth responding to in this thread, but this one in particular raises my ire. Are you really trying to reduce policing tradition in America to western films? How about the real west, where self defense was a way of life. I don't want to be too combative but I seriously don't understand peoples inability to understand the principles of self defense as a natural human right, and yes that includes killing when applicable. It just reeks of a naive liberal mindset when people try to say you shouldn't shoot someone who breaks into your house in the middle of the night. Police don't have a duty to protect you, and very often will not protect you, and most of the time will just draw chalk lines around the bodies.

Its your own responsibility to protect yourself and your loved ones or other people who can't protect themselves, that's a fact, and it's high time the anti-gun crowd pulled their heads out of their ass, because a gun equalizes an otherwise unequal situation.

God made humans, Sam colt made them equal. I'm an atheist but the principle still stand. This goes for one of the most vulnerable classes of humans as well, women.

As a combat vet I have some major issues with the militarization of police, and their poor training/methods, so I got a bit ot. If we were to have a real conversation, I think we would be better served to talk of the pinkertonian origins of policing, or the CIA/FBI influence on it (eg. OccupyWall Street snipers), and the general lack of punishment of oath breakers, or the thin blue line.

Instead far too many use it to pivot to a session of anti-gun circlejerking.

  western films? How about the real west, 
  where self defense was a way of life.

I restricted my comment to western films as I can talk about them truthfully, having seen several. I can't comment on the real west truthfully as I wasn't there and neither have I engaged in the serious scholarly study that would let me tell reality from legend.

I'm not sure how the rest of your comment relates to my comment.

As a trained member of the military I would sincerely hope that you realize there's a huge continuum in self defense that doesn't automatically begin any response to a perceived or real threat by shooting at someone.

The United States has areas of significantly bad crime. 4 of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world (measured by murders per capita) are in the U.S. These cities have murder rates from 44 to 60 per 100,000 people.[0] For reference the United States as a whole has a murder rate of 4.88, and United Kingdom has a rate of 0.92.[1] Making matters worse the violence isn't distributed evenly in those cities, it's often concentrated in a few "bad parts."

There are neighborhoods in the U.S. where your chance of being the victim of a violent crime in given year is 1 in 7.[2] That's for civilians. When we send police in to try and protect those victims it's hard to send them unarmed.

[0] - http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-dangerous-cities-in-... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... [2] - http://abcnews.go.com/Business/worst-neighborhoods-violent-c...

Perhaps the reason we have such violent cities has something to do with our gun culture. It could be the ease in which we get firearms. It could be skewed due to mass shootings. It would definitely be an interesting point to look into but just saying that we have more violent cities doesn't mean our police should necessarily have a higher rate of officer involved shootings, just a higher overall number.

Note that while I think there's a severe issue with US gun culture, most of what I wrote applies irrespective of whether or not police go in armed. That is not the point.

The point is whether or not you 1) go in without backup, 2) seek to de-escalate rather than escalate with armed threats from the outset.

If you're likely to meet armed resistance, then the UK strategy of getting civilians away, contain while waiting for backup and then seek to wait out and de-escalate is even more applicable exactly because the risks are higher, and indeed UK police tends to stick to that even more firmly when they come across armed resistance, while the US approach seems to be the opposite of going in more aggressively when they see a weapon.

If the government cannot be counted on to use their monopoly of force why wouldn't everyone resort to vigilantism?

Maybe it's not the actual number of shootings, but the video evidence, the militarization of policing, and the lack of even personal responsibility much less punishment for things that look like murder.

Yesterday's example:Graphic video shows Daniel Shaver sobbing and begging officer for his life before 2016 shooting

According to the police report, Brailsford was carrying an AR-15 rifle with the phrase “You’re F—ed” etched into the weapon. The police report also said the “shots were fired so rapidly that in watching the video at regular speed, one cannot count them.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/12/0...

How many like this should we see every year? How many don't have a nice video to release?

Btw: the police was acquitted of any wrongdoing

Yes, and they (police) believe they did the right thing... that's the point.

Statistics are funny this way.

I know what you are arguing but it really is a distraction from what is a very serious issue in America.

Sure, but I've seen it ocassionally portrayed as much more serious than it really is through abuse of fear-inducing headlines, so I wanted to make a general reminder about how numbers work.

It's not a distraction at all, it is in fact cutting to the bone of the argument - the article is using that statistic to push the point of view that things are worse than we've all accepted, and TeMPOraL is pointing out that in a better world, that statistic would look even worse. So this article adds absolutely nothing to the discussion.

If we want to talk about the serious issue in America, let's talk about the number of unjustified homicides committed by police versus by others. I and most people don't care one shred about situations where a criminal is pointing a gun at another person and gets shot, that's exactly what should happen, and in many or most police shootings that's the way it goes down. Those make up a big part of the number in this article.

FWIW I'm not disagreeing that abuses by police are a serious problem in America, I think they are, and we need to do something about that, and it goes much deeper than just when they kill. Using shoddy numbers to promote awareness is counterproductive, though, because anyone who doesn't already agree with the conclusion will immediately see what's wrong with the argument, and dig their heels in deeper. There are enough real statistics to talk about (BLM has done a great job promoting those, so I won't dig them up here) that we don't need to resort to misleading linkbait ones.

I believe the reality you described is the basis for the movie minority report, where the cops are so good crimes are stopped before they happen. If I am a relatively good person when I decide to commit a crime there would be no warning for cops. There’s no trail of paperwork, rap sheet, or perp associates... if cops were to be able to stop me given what I just described, I’m not sure I would want to live in that reality.

With the title in mind a third of strangers killed are killed by cops, shouldn’t they be better at not killing people?

> I believe the reality you described is the basis for the movie minority report, where the cops are so good crimes are stopped before they happen.

Or maybe criminals are mostly nonviolent. Implementation details, anyway. What I was aiming at is: in a world where the only people killed are ones who absolutely deserve it, the statistics would likely show that close to 100% of homicides are committed by police.

> With the title in mind a third of strangers killed are killed by cops, shouldn’t they be better at not killing people?

Yes, of course.

In places without the death penalty, the set of people who "absolutely deserve it" is, by definition, null.

Touché.

Without knowing or inferring how many they didn't kill you don't know if they are brilliant or terrible.

I find this analysis strangely comforting: it makes me even less afraid of walking around strange neighborhoods or going into new places.

That's a good point, but much of social research breaks down when you start talking about imaginary worlds. For example, I see (mostly very young) people oppose affirmative action on grounds similar to, "but in a perfect world, skin color shouldn't matter, therefore such laws are bad." This may be true, but laws are aimed to tackle the world we actually live in, not the one we wished we lived in. I call that "spherical-cow sociology".

Similarly for most of social research; it assumes that the findings be taken in the context of other information we have about our actual world. In a perfect world, 100% of homicide deaths would be for those who "deserve" it (I don't think resisting arrest qualifies, but let's say they're killed in the course of stopping them from killing others on the spot), but the assumption of such statistics is that we don't live in such a world. It would still be interesting to know how many of those deaths were necessary, but I think that knowing what we know about the chance of the police being present during homicides, the number of perpetrators vs. number of victims etc.[1], one third seems like a high number. That it's low compared to what we'd expect in a spherical-cow world where the police have super-powers should not affect much how we view the data given what we know about the real world (although it's true that some additional data would clarify matters further).

[1]: For example, one of the few very clear cases of justified homicide is during mass shootings, vehicle-ramming and the like. The ratio of perpetrators to victims in those cases is usually much lower than 1:3.

> I don't think resisting arrest qualifies

This pull quote isn't related to your main point, but to digress a bit on it...

The state, having a presumed monopoly on the legitimate use of pre-emptive force, reacts this way to application of laws, no? For example - there is a law that says that I can't plant pink flowers or sell looseys or whatever. I violate that law. The progression of consequences subsequently goes like this:

o I get a fine. I don't pay it

o I get a fine on that fine. And a stern warning. I don't pay it.

o They send a note or an armed-or-not person to invite me to go spend a few days in a metal box. I do not go.

o They send armed persons to forcibly retrieve me to put me in that metal box. I resist.

o They apply overwhelming force to ... well, force me. I resist more.

o They kill me.

It does NOT matter what the law is (chewing bubble gum, paying taxes, open container, lemonade stand licensure, drinking a beer outside of 7-11), the sequence of escalation is largely the same.

How can we NOT expect cops to kill us? That's what the state is - that's what it does - that's its function when faced with non-compliance with whatever set of rules our elected representatives have put into place.

> How can we NOT expect cops to kill us? That's what the state is - that's what it does

That's not what happens in most countries, though, so clearly it's not a problem with "the state", but with American law enforcement. Police can overpower one unarmed person, regardless of how strongly he resists, without killing him. Not only they can, but that's what they do in most places: you resist -- they take you by force, but they don't kill you.

Also, using violence to enforce the laws long predates the state (what we call "the state" today was largely created only in the 17th century). The role of the state is to reduce the number of people who can employ violence when enforcing the law (and, of course, to centralize the law itself), from your local lord and his soldiers, the church and its inquisitors, your local robber-baron and his Pinkertons, to those whose training and licensing is, at least hopefully, supervised and sanctioned by the general public.

> That's not what happens in most countries ... with American ...

Fair point. In the process of resisting, USians are a risk of shooting back.

But I can't say whether I agree or disagree with your election of the qualifier "most"

In my small (I say) set of adversarial encounters with law enforcement in Japan, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, there were more than one person on the law-enforcement side of the encounter that appeared more than willing to do terminal violence, should there be any sort of excuse to do so. And those are "nice" places! I don't know what I would have found if I'd actually gone somewhere rough...

If force is overwhelming then you are overwhelmed and put in the metal box. There's no posdibility for you to meaningfully resist so there's no reason to kill you.

The killing is only possible by mistake at any stage of this process.

Even on the first one. They collected a fine from you and you have no money to buy yourself life saving medicine and you die. They killed you by taking away you last money at the moment your life depended on it.

Probability of killing you obviously increases as escalation progresses but never reaches 100%

> They collected a fine from you and you have no money to buy yourself life saving medicine and you die. They killed you by taking away you last money at the moment your life depended on it.

I am probably more aware of this than most. In addition to the clinical example, it actually occurs (in the US) in family law a fair amount more than I see admitted in the public discourse.

> Probability of killing you obviously increases as escalation progresses but never reaches 100%

Well, yes. But uncertainty abounds on both sides. Neither of the counter-parties to the violent transaction know each other well enough to prevent a certain non-linear ratchety-ness to the escalation.

I am not for cop's killing civians ... but I don't see any other outcome to the environment (cultural context, and situational uncertainty) that we have (collectively) created.

I will admit that we might be wise to hire calmer officers of the law, but, on average, when they have come to "get me", I've found them pretty calm. (Some nicer and more accomodating than others - but usually mostly professional).

EDIT: Comments in this thread may make me appear as if I am some sort of bad-man or out-law. I tend to not think of myself that way - I don't rob, break-in, assault, rape, kidnap or murder. Or even take stuff that isn't mine. Or break or paint on other people's property. The US regulatory system is complex and one might get caught up in any number of ways. The other thing, though, is that I am curious, and often wonder: What would they do if a non-violent offender just says "no"? The direct consequenses are usually not very harsh, but there are some knock-on effects that do impair one's life. "Civil disobediance" (whatever that means) can be costly over time. (Maybe that's the point of it? IDK)

What kind of Judge Dredd-fantasy is this?

Clearly the better outcome is that criminals are arrested by the police using the appropriate and necessary amount of force, and then sentenced in a court of law. Having the police metering out and executing death-sentences on the fly is not a good idea, regardless of how "bad" the perpetrator is.

Or are you imagining a world where crime always happen in the open where police is around, so police by shooting at exactly the right moment can prevent violence or murder?

> But in a little less perfect imaginary world, in which bad people never get the chance to hurt innocents because police stops it, some bad people might still go down resisting arrest, at which point 100% of all homicides would be police-inflicted, and that would be good. Not perfect, but better than what we have.

What kind of dystopian nightmare is this?

> The real question is, how many of those killed by the police were killed in totally justifiable self-defense, and not just because of policemen being trigger-happy. Or, put another way, what's the probability that a person who is not resisting arrest to get "accidentally" killed by the police.

It's rarely an accident.

> What kind of dystopian nightmare is this?

One in which, say, 3 of 3, is still 100%.

"But in a little less perfect imaginary world, in which bad people never get the chance to hurt innocents because police stops it, some bad people might still go down resisting arrest, at which point 100% of all homicides would be police-inflicted, and that would be good. Not perfect, but better than what we have."

No, because every police killing is extra-judicial execution. Our laws don't put a capital punishment on resisting arrest, fleeing from police, reaching for a wallet, or being scary looking (i.e., black) (/s). They don't even prescribe capital punishment for most malicious acts and crimes. It's not up to police to serve as judge, jury and executioner.

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