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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

>> military training/civil service mandatory. >> Basic combat training and paramedic abilities

Those are very different things. Not every soldier is taught hand-to-hand combat. Not every civil service volunteer is taught to handle a weapon. And basic first aid training is almost universal already. More lives could probably be saves by everyone being trained in basic mental health and de-escalation techniques.

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Among what populations is it near universal? I grew up in an upper-middle class bedroom community, and I only had to get first aid certified in order to be a lifeguard at a local pool. That was just about a decade ago, and I’d be hard-pressed to do anything other than apply a cold compress and perform the Heinrich maneuver now. My father-in-law was a trained physician overseas but became a pharmaceutical researcher when he came to the US, and the last time he was in a situation where he had to perform CPR, he had no idea what to do. I doubt more than 20% of American adults would be useful in a serious casualty situation.

I doubt more than 20% of American adults would be useful in a serious casualty situation.

And 99% of those would fear lawsuit.

Maybe additional training in first aid helps in a terrorist attack, maybe it helps when grandpa has a heart attack. At any rate it is hard to see the downside. Maybe, except that if you do this in the US you end up politicizing first aid too.

The other side of the coin is that we should be focusing left-of-bang, preventing terrorism much earlier.

I'm curious where you get the idea that "Not every soldier is taught hand-to-hand combat". It's certainly not true in the US Army.

The US army is only one of the US armed forces. The US is only one of many countries. Many train soldiers very differently than the US does.

Granted, but the US Army is the only one I have direct experience with. Hand to hand combat seems like such a basic component of combat training that I would be shocked to hear that it is completely absent from any armed forces boot camp.

You didn't answer the question by the way.

What if they don't want to be de-escalated?

Then the worst case scenario is the status quo.

But most situations that currently result in someone getting shot can be resolved less violently, as demonstrated by the lack of firearms carried or desired by the majority of UK cops.

A culture shift isn’t an overnight thing, but better worlds are possible.

Not trying to nail down exactitudes here just throwing out some ideas…

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