Hacker News Reader

Comment by arkis22 | Hacker News Reader

You're basically arguing that when you get into any situation with a police officer you are absolved of all personal responsibility.

Do you actually consider it prudent to ignore situations of danger and not respond to them with the proper context?

View on HN

Perhaps peacefully interacting with government employees shouldn’t carry mortal danger at all.

Thankfully, the amount of mortal danger for peaceful interactions with government employees is already incredibly close to zero.

People are protesting because that’s simply untrue.

Really? Which of the recent high profile incidents didn't involve someone physically resisting the police and/or acting aggressively to others while repeatedly ignoring the police yelling at them to back off?

For each case you can find (if you can find any at all), there are millions - yes, literally millions - of police interactions that don't end that way.

If you interact with the police peacefully, the odds of you experiencing any violence are virtually zero.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Breonna_Taylor

You were asked to link an example of people not physically resisting. You linked Breonna Taylor, who's death while unfortunate, doesn't quite fit the bill. She had links to 2 known drug sellers, a warrant was being executed, and her boyfriend fired on officers.

Breonna Taylor, who was asleep?

Ryan Whitaker (who was white, incidentally), who opened his front door armed with a gun he was legally and constitutionally permitted to have and to use to protect his home and was kneeling to put his gun down when he was killed?

(And, uh, Jacob Blake?)

I mean, yes, I have been pulled over by the police on 101 and not killed, and I once ran a stop sign in Palo Alto and I wasn't killed either, and I went to pay my ticket at the police station and I still wasn't killed then. But that's true in the other direction - I'm sure I have interacted with millions of people throughout my life, and yet if I killed a single one of them without cause, I would rightly be called a murderer. No one would be saying that the risk of encountering me is virtually zero.

I'm glad you had the good sense not to mention any of the cases over the past few months that have been the main source of riots, but please re-read what I was responding to and what I wrote because it still stands: these cases - though tragic, and worth trying our best to prevent - are so incredibly rare (relative to the number of total interactions with police) that the odds of violence truly are virtually zero.

(FWIW Breonna Taylor wasn't asleep, not that it justifies her death and Jacob Blake was most definitely resisting - even the super shaky cell phone coverage from a bystander makes that obvious)

No, they aren’t.

More people get struck by lightning every year.

I mean, yeah that's fun. "Perhaps someday there won't be any violence." Cops carry guns, it's for a reason.

Cops are people, not some idealized identity of justice. Perhaps it would be prudent to consider the idea that the people with guns who can legally shoot you should be treated with a little more consideration. I can't imagine turning my back on cops and reaching into my vehicle, but maybe that's white privilege.

The government is legally able to take violent action. You don't want it another way. So then really, what's your point besides all cops are bad?

> Cops carry guns, it's for a reason.

I carry a gun every day too, and there is precisely zero mortal danger to anyone who peacefully interacts with me. It is an entirely reasonable expectation to demand that from government staff.

The police do not have any special legal privileges when it comes to shooting people over any private citizen. To grant them such, de facto, as we have done, is to abandon the rule of law (or the equal application thereof) in society.

I think a higher standard is reasonable and possible. Indeed, almost everyone in society is subject to it. Police, if they are to exist, should be as well.

>I carry a gun every day too, and there is precisely zero mortal danger to anyone who peacefully interacts with me.

Well. Yeah. That's the critical part isn't it...

So can cops shoot people only when you think it's ok?

The law dictates when it's okay to shoot people in self-defense. No person should receive special extra privileges to shoot people with a different standard.

The police do not legally have that right; but in practice they get to murder anyone they want and get away with it.

The rules for the police are very different than the rules for everyone else. That's due to inequality in the application of the law: the rules that apply to you and I do not apply to them.

Perhaps you, as many do, think the police should be in a special class of their own, above the law.

I think the laws should apply equally to all people.

Right... Self Defense..! Are you uniquely capable of that? Is it difficult to be moral when everyone else isnt?

SO CAN COPS ONLY SHOOT PEOPLE WHEN YOU THINK ITS OK?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com