Genuine question: is getting pulled over in the US really that hazardous that people have to record it in case things go wrong?
While this single link does not argue for all the expenditures, it does show the corruption in the system. https://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2014/06/05/...
> Generally not. Unfortunately civil forfeiture is a thing. There are many stories, frankly 1 is more than enough, where people are driving with cash...
Right now, I think people are more concerned with getting shot or roughed up by the police than with getting their money stolen by them.
If you are scared of law enforcement (first not to get shot, but also to not have your stuff stolen), how can you ever live comfortably?
The only regular exception I see to this is when there are large crowds like concerts or public events where the cops are standing guard. Even then there's a relatively large space between the cops and the crowd.
I guess the answer is that you live comfortably until you see cops
On the whole though it seems that trust in police has gone down since the 90s. Look at popular cop procedurals from then like Law and Order. I watched a few episodes and youd see little things that showed the cultural view at the time. For instance in one episode, they portrayed a new detective as a bad partner and hopelessly naive because he wanted a warrant before breaking open someone's car so that the evidence was admissable. The episode painted it as him getting in the way of catching that criminal because the cops just _knew_ he was at fault and they were cops so of course they were doing the right thing.
Every episode I saw had large violations of rights bit portrayed the cops as the good guys and I don't think you'd see that sort of portrayal on any modern US media
There's also the fact that being near police means you're more likely to get into trouble, even if you're just a normal person doing normal things. Sort of like how everyone who drives regularly commits minor ticket-worthy infractions, even if you're a good driver. It's super-uncomfortable to have a police car behind you, because you know everything you're doing is probably getting analyzed for opportunities to punish you.
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/03/americas/us-gun-statistic...
"The US has one of the highest rates of death by firearm in the developed world, according to World Health Organization data. Our calculations based on OECD data from 2010 show that Americans are 51 times more likely to be killed by gunfire than people in the United Kingdom."
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/10/06/5558618...
"The U.S. gun violence death rate is also higher than nearly all countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including many that are among the world's poorest."
Not being facetious here, I'm merely asking because 1-2 weeks ago somebody else made exactly the same point in another US gun-violence discussion I participated in.
And just like you, he didn't support his claim with any numbers.
But even at first glance, this argument does not check out at all. It basically argues that all the extra gun violence in the US is the result of people buying guns only for the purpose of committing suicide.
Yeah, no, not buying that. Suicide is an issue, but it's not that big of an issue that it alone accounts for the massive gun violence outlier the US represents among developed countries.
Especially in the context of prescription meds also being way more easily and readily available in the US (opiate crisis) than many other places, I find it hard to believe that all US Americans simply prefer firearms to pills for their "suicidal needs".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...
I don't see a problem with that as long as the statistics for all the countries are handled that way, the datasets still remain comparable.
Or are you suggesting other countries don't account for the suicides, yet that's the only real difference?
What about the argument that people killing themselves with firearms, due to easier access to them, might have gotten proper help elsewhere and survived? In that context, even these suicide deaths can be considered victims of the failed firearms regulation.
A loaded firearm is quite a low barrier of entry for any person in emotional distress. Most other methods of suicide require at least some level of research, planning and preparation and often still fail.
Also, the method of suicide people use tends to be highly cultural, even with gender differences. In France, the methods of suicide primarily used by men - guns and hanging - tends to be much more deadly than the ones used by women - medication overdose, causing women to have a higher rate of suicide but men representing the majority of deaths.
The regulation resulting from the needs for these kinds of restrictions is exactly the same.
Firearm permits often have mandatory hours of safety training attached, that's also to protect people from themselves and drive home the point that this is a dangerous device they own and handle.
The same applies to drivers licenses, these have mandatory training requirements not just to protect other people on the street, but also the person driving the car and getting the permit.
In that context, it is completely irrelevant why you regulate something when both are valid reasons for regulating something, protecting people from themselves, by requiring them to show they are actually able and reliable to handle a dangerous device, and protecting others from people who handle their dangerous devices irresponsibly by requiring at least a basic amount of training and competency.
From a quick look at Wikipedia (not exactly the gold standard of research, but hey) the US has a truly astounding suicide-by-firearm rate compared to the UK (7.1 vs 0.15), but if we only compare homicide-by-firearm it's actually even worse than before (4.86 vs 0.06 -> ~80x higher, but it's unreliable because we're dividing by such a small number). But then our income inequality is at least a bit higher than the UK (41% vs 34% Gini coefficient), we certainly have substantially worse social safety nets across the board, and we have serious systemic socioeconomic issues in a downright embarrassing number of locations.
But to me at least, by far the most important factor is one I can't easily turn up reliable statistics on - gangs, cartels, and other organized crime. Having lived in some questionable areas, I've seen first hand that in many cases criminal groups will engage in conflict with one another and not intentionally target innocent bystanders. I used to live in an area where there were nightly shootings (!!!) that I could hear from my house, but it was a seemingly mutual exchange of gunfire. I have no idea how you're supposed to account for that sort of thing in an analysis, but it seems clear to me that it must be accounted for if you're going to attempt to claim that it's reasonably unbiased.
TL;DR. The US seems to be slightly above the average EU suicide rate, but below several individual European countries.
The vast majority of "bad cop" stories come from the corrupt good old southern boys or inner city issues. Your average American isn't terribly worried about getting shot or money being confiscated.
your media is doing huge damage to American society by reporting it the way it does
In the US, different people have different experiences with police.
Blacks and Latinos in particular are disproportionately high recipients of negative police interactions, caused by a history mutual distrust between members of those groups and police.
Cops generally have a lot of leeway in how they handle a situation and current training focuses on protecting the officer at all costs. This means the public is viewed as the enemy.
Post 9/11 the US police departments have been militarized with surplus equipment and trained like soldiers. While I still think most cops are "good" the fact is that the "bad" ones can ruin your life in an instant and you will have no recourse. The only safe interaction with US police is the absolute minimum required by law.
You cannot assume a police officer will help you and they should be avoided as much as possible.
US police don't actually have to lift a finger in the case of a crime being committed in front of them?
How is that a thing?
Both parts of that were true for quite a long time before 9/11. Big accelerations in militarization of police were political/race conflicts in the 1950s-60s, the drug war in the 1980s, and the aftermath of the 1997 North Hollywood shootout.
Is that really true? Sure we see the extreme examples here in the UK media of some shooting, or extreme overreaction with a dozen cars for just one guy, but are they really representative of day to day policing?
UK police are unarmed and a traffic stop normally little more than pretending to be polite with a polite but overly sarcastic guy in a hat, then maybe getting a ticket. If you decide to drive off the game changes a bit.
Does an average Joe really think an innocent US traffic stop may turn out so bad?
this was 15 years ago, long before things got as bad as they are now.
during a traffic stop or any other close encounter with the police, your life is at risk in america. ten times more so if you are black or look poor.
People just don't usually write about the 99.9% of occurrences when nothing eventful happens. And many of the people who do have issues with the police provoked them by intentionally being difficult and/or rude.
There are numerous news stories about Australians gettting shot by police while traveling to America but virtually none from within Australia. Last police shooting I remember in Australia was when the person was running at the police with a knife.
Well, there are many people on this thread who tell you that since they have never had a problem, the problem must not exist.
Also, as you'd expect given it has all these guns, Switzerland sees a higher rate of gun deaths than most European countries. If your goal is "lets have fewer gun deaths" the lesson is still "have fewer guns" not "copy Swiss culture".
This surprises me. I have quite a few family members who are card-carrying NRA members and they all seem to support restrictions for violent offenders and mentally ill.
I don't doubt that reduced access to guns would reduce gun deaths, but if there is a cultural element--for example, if inner-city cultures are more violent (this is an example; no idea what percentage of gun deaths are attributable to inner-city violence), perhaps we should tackle that problem instead of taking guns away from responsible gun owners.
It's also very easy to calculate the number yourself: 3 to 6+ per million in the US (depends on source) and you'll have a hard time finding a Western European country with even 1 per million.
Stats from Belgium would be interesting but I couldn't find any.
Also consider that England and Wales has a higher number of police per capita (~302) than the US (~284).
"In the first 24 days of 2015, police in the US [population 316 million] fatally shot more people than police did in England and Wales [population 56.9 million], combined, over the past 24 years."
The whole US justice and law enforcement system has serious issues. Look at the incarceration rate compared to the rest of the world, it's absurd.
Density could be a factor, but then you need to explain, on top, why Europe, being much more dense than the USA, has fewer relative police incidents.
There are numerous news stories about Australians gettting shot by police while traveling to America
I certainly wasn't trying to imply that being rude justifies an officer pulling a gun or anything like that.
Traffic stops are more hazardous for the police in the US compared to other countries where guns are not as common. Interactions are thus more tense.
But where it really gets divisive is about racial disparities in policing including who gets pulled over how often. There have been many protests movements about this going back many decades, and of course they are still active today. Some people, however, do not believe that those protest movements have a basis.
racial disparities in policing including who gets pulled over how often
I’m curious, do you have data that support that assertion?
A quick search shows less than 50 police officer killed per year by gunfire in the US: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36748136
This article claims “10 to 15” officers in the UK are shot and killed per year. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-19634164
Given that the population of the UK is 65 million, that’s one shooting death per 4.3 to 6.5 million citizens. The US population is 325 million, which comes out to one death per 6.5 million citizens.
That doesn’t break down by type of interaction, but if your assertion were true I’d expect to see a more apparent difference.
The organisation said 256, including PC Bone and PC Hughes, have been shot since 1945. That's roughly 3 a year, and includes Northern Ireland during the Troubles which is 80% of the total. England: 51 shot and 19 stabbed in total since 1945. So roughly one death a year since 1945 from shooting or stabbing.
The 10 to 15 a year is police killed in the line of duty by all means, including traffic accidents.
The others are traffic accidents not during a chase, or falling ill.
While it is true that there are poorly-trained and malicious cops in the USA (and anywhere in the world), the reports that go viral are very much in the minority. That doesn't diminish how tragic they are, however.
It really upsets me that people in our country grow up thinking that law enforcement officers may not be the people to go to when they need assistance. It is an issue that permeates into various others—for example, in light of the Kavanaugh circus, who would go to law enforcement to report sexual assault if they feel (or have been told they will be) discriminated against?
A very sad state of affairs...and it can't be solved with dynamic programming. :(
Turns out there was an unmarked police car there waiting for people to pull over and ditch their stash or whatever.
Cop was extremely rude and so sure I was hiding something he started pulling on the dash of my rental car to see if I had something hidden inside it. I was worried he'd damage the vehicle and I'd lose my insurance. So something like this would have been handy at the time.
No system is going to be perfect, but the problem is that when blatant abuses or violation of the law happen like in my case, the best course of action is to do just suck it up. If you take action against the police you are at best going to get money, but no action against the police. On top of that now you are a known "agitator" and have to be worried about every cop in that area being against you at worst or ignoring any calls for help at best
There have been numerous incidents where police killed unarmed citizens due to the flimsiest of reasons. Which can range from failing to follow poorly worded instructions precisely to running away. Even full, immediate compliance is sometimes not enough and can get people shot or killed.
It's a complete breakdown of the rule of law and leads to more and more disregard for the law, which is only going to be met with more authoritarian responses unless the police decide to actually apply the law to themselves as well.
I was shocked at how many people are charged with resisting arrest or assault on an officer. Are that many people really resisting and assaulting the officers? Maybe, maybe not.
edit: in my experience
Don't make the mistake of thinking that what you see on the news or social media is normal.
Then you tell him he's not thinking clearly or critically.
Could you be more any more patronising and dismissive?
What I responded to was different.
So I see how it appears that way.