Hacker News Reader

Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

> The ones who pay the most are LE.

This is simply not true. Cops die via gunfire in sub-100 numbers annually. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_enforcement_office...

View on HN

I meant pay for the right to bear arms in being exposed to the consequences.

Might want to look at gunfire injuries that are not deaths. There is also the issue of how this happens despite training, their own weapons, armor, etc that are daily requirements. The general populace would probably see better survival rates with these things as well, right?

It's more than a little biased to just point at deaths.

> It's more than a little biased to just point at deaths.

It's less biased than your argument, which pointed at no evidence.

> I meant pay for the right to bear arms in being exposed to the consequences.

The 50,000 dead annually via firearms would appear to be paying more. (Even when you adjust for relative populations; 800k cops with 50 deaths, 300M Americans with 50,000).

> Might want to look at gunfire injuries that are not deaths.

I went looking and was unable to find any particularly reliable sources on police-specific firearm injuries. I did find that cops are at higher risk of firearm death via suicide than via suspects as an additional data point.

Perhaps they could do with some therapy and anger management in addition to all the armor and weaponry?

Each year more than 250,000 civilians are injured by police. At least 600 are killed. between 2014 and 2019 there was an average of 245 officers shot per year, many of which were injuries only.

It's extremely clear that in an average encounter a civilian is much more likely to be shot and kileld or injured by police than the other way around. Gun violence against police is extremely rare.

Uses aggregate numbers then transitions to relative probability as if the math logic follows. This thread is a clown show.

Probability in a given encounter, is how the post is written, which is fine. That is, in an encounter between police and non-police, it's much less likely that a police officer is killed or injured than that someone else is.

Now, police officers are obviously going to be involved in a lot more of these encounters than the average person, and there are fewer of them, which I think is what you're getting at, but this is valid from an "in a given encounter, which party is more-justified in fearing for their physical safety?" sort of way.

> I meant pay for the right to bear arms in being exposed to the consequences.

uh no, school-age children (including elementary school children) are the ones who pay the most for our gun-happy culture.

As with crime statistics, you need percentages to make a point and not aggregate numbers. Also tell us which other professionals are murdered by guns on American streets for doing their jobs, at this rate.

From a quick google search, the number is roughly 660300. Divide 100 by that, you get .00015. A fraction of a fraction. 301 died to Covid in 2021. Hell, according to [0], the deaths to gunfire were only 61. 58 died to traffic related causes. Nearly five times as many cops died to Covid than gunshots!

Another question would be, of those 61 deaths to gun violence, how many were because somebody was further instigated into a shootout BECAUSE of the confrontations with police? What about friendly fire?

If police are quick to resort to violence, why should the people not be?

[0] - https://nleomf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2021-EOY-Fatal...

>Also tell us which other professionals are murdered by guns on American streets for doing their jobs, at this rate.

Cab drivers are #1 last time I looked. Pizza delivery close. Cops didn't even make the top 10.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com