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Comment by nickff | Hacker News Reader

Most countries (of which I am aware) have similar issues, in proportion to their population, and its diversity. What makes the USA stand out is that it has a large population, high level of cultural/economic diversity, and very sensationalistic, highly funded media.

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This is just untrue.

US Population: 331.9 million (2021)

UK Population: 67.33 million (2021)

     In 2021 ( in the USofA ), there were 1,055 fatal police shootings, and in 2020 there were 1,020 fatal shootings. [1]

If True:

Est UK Police Killings ~~ 67.33 / 331.9 * 1020 = 206.9 per annum.

   21 Annual deaths during or following police contact (in the UK) 2020-21 [2]

It would appear that the US police kill more people by a factor of 10 than the police in the UK do.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...

[2] https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/research-and-learning/stati...

The US also has around 6x the intentional homicides per capita, compared to the UK. That should probably be taken into account, since a more violent population means police have to use lethal force more frequently.

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

So .. you're saying that the US population is more intrinsically violent than the UK population with a few thousand years of clan warfare and civil unrest, more violent than the New Zealand population of Maori warriors and colonizing invaders, more violent than the Australian population of criminals, soldiers, and aboriginals, etc?

It's pretty basic.

More violent policing leads to a violent population.

Lack of social support leads to a more violent populations.

Stop making excuses and look to root causes - why are there so many intentional homicides in the US? Perhaps predatory capitalism extending a slave economy isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I think they intrinsically have more guns, and that's about the extent of the difference.

Maybe you should check again, the US has around 28 police killings per 10m people. Far more than any other 1st world country. For example the UK has 0.5 / 10m.

But if your main argument is saying that police everywhere are terrible Id agree.

Ya this is utterly untrue. The US has orders of magnitude more police violence than most other developed nations. British cops don't even have guns ffs.

Damn, dude, you literally could not be more wrong. I suggest that you are very much unaware and owe it to yourself to become much, much more aware. It’s pretty easy, too: there’s this thing called “the internet” that you can use to self-educate.

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