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Comment by danpalmer | Hacker News Reader

Having unfortunately seen a police body cam video of an obviously unarmed man being shot, and having read about this one, it seems to be a case of men hitching their trousers up because they aren’t wearing a belt, being mistaken for reaching for a gun.

This is a normal thing, it’s an unconscious thing, we do it without thinking so can’t stop when told not to do it. People should not die because they’re wearing loose fitting trousers.

Americans need to be doing more about their fellow citizens being murdered by the people supposed to protect them.

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what are we supposed to do exactly?

Wear belts

Reduce the number of guns in the US.

People should still be able to own guns, but they should need a valid reason (such as hunting or farming). Shooting people (this includes self defence) should not qualify as a valid reason.

This is how it works in most developed nations with sometimes quite high rates of gun ownership (0.2+ per capita) but without the endemic gun violence of the US. It's worth noting that these sorts of restrictions effectively rule out ownership of handguns - and concealed handguns (real or imagined) seem to play a major role in most police shootings of innocent people in the US.

Agreed. If there were far fewer guns, Police wouldn't be assuming a concealed weapon anywhere near as much as they do now.

I think Police training needs to be changed significantly as well though. Training Police to de-escalate situations, and to deal with normal people who are scared, in danger, and unpredictable but not malicious - this is the significant majority.

Police in America seem to act like soldiers, and forget that the people in front of them deserve protection as much as everyone else, not least because they are innocent until proven guilty in a court.

Promote the view that you do not deserve to get instantly killed just because you are a criminal, even if you are violent. Because many people believe this is fine, they seem to accept "mistakes" where a non-criminal is killed as collateral damage. But neither is reasonable in a civilized society.

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