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Comment by user982 | Hacker News Reader

> I would have no problem with being a police officer in iceland, but certainly in the US. I get why they don't want to give up their guns, especially now, but that has consequences for policing work. If you can assume your "victim" to be unarmed, you approach the situation differently.

Iceland has a fairly high guns-per-capita number, with about one gun for every third person. An odd choice to use as an example of a country safe due to an unarmed populace.

> So I do think it is a quite dangerous job there to be honest. Moreso than the ones you mentioned. Some time ago deep sea fishing was the deadliest job. Would still prefer it from a risk assessment perspective.

"I see your data, and I willfully ignore it."

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> one gun for every third person.

I would suspect it's a high rate of long guns, not hand guns.

not hand guns... you mean footguns?

"Longarms" or "long-arms" generally refers to rifles and shotguns, as opposed to handguns.

It's an important distinction, as something on the order of 80-85% of gun violence in the US -- rape, murder, robbery, suicide, etc. -- are with handguns.

Attempts to ban handguns have met stiff resistance, though, e.g. Heller v DC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller

That's still less than 1/3 the per-capita number of guns in the US.

Almost all deaths deep sea fishing are from mistakes. Many deaths from policing are people intentionally trying to kill you.

Maybe that comes into play. With deep sea fishing , if you're careful enough, you can drastically lower the death rate - it's in your hands. Not so with policing.

Are they really? It seems likely to me that many are simply reacting to being cornered and threatened. Taking the behavior of the police out of the equation makes the answer useless.

A major part of their job is arresting people who usually don't want to be arrested. Yes, I'm sure some police over-escalate a situation and end up dead for it, but that's probably not the norm.

Probably not? It's not like there's a lack of evidence out there now that everyone has a camera in their pocket.

From what I've seen it looks highly likely that their behavior is a big part of the problem.

Are you the type of person who thinks the world is much more violent today than it was 50 years ago?

I am me, period. Put me in whatever box you feel like.

I honestly have no idea if policing has gotten more violent or if it's just more visible now. I would guess both. But it doesn't really matter, does it? It's still a major issue that we need to fix somehow.

My Dad was a lobsterman for 12 years and just being careful is not enough to "drastically lower your death rate" for a profession fisherman unfortunately.

You can't control how long you've been awake. You can't control a rogue wave the sweeps you off the tail of the boat. Professional fisherman have enormous respect for the sea.

You can control your wakefulness with certain drugs that are very common on commercial fishing boats.

You can improve your odds of not being overswept by using your tethers appropriately and wearing proper protective gear which many people forego because it's less comfortable to work in.

I hadn’t thought of that but you’re right.

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