https://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/us-police-have-already-killed-more-people-since-christmas-than-uk-cops-have-killed-in-the-last-5-years/
QuoteIn all of 2011, British police killed 2 people. In 2012, 1 person. In 2013, a total of 3 bullets left the barrels of British police guns, and no one was killed. In the last two years, a total of 4 people have lost their lives because of British cops, bringing the total number of citizens killed in the UK to 7 in the last 5 years.
Since Christmas, police in America have killed 14 people. In 1 week, American cops have killed twice as many people as the British police have killed since 2011!
But if we zoom out just a little further, those numbers become even more shocking. Since 1990, police officers in the United Kingdom have killed exactly 58 people.
Since the 14th of December, police in America have killed 60 citizens â€" It took English cops 25 years to do what American cops have done in the last two weeks of December.
On average, British police kill around two citizens a year. American cops kill more than that every day.
Of course, all those killed were not innocent, but many were unarmed, shot while running away, and their deaths recorded on video. And all of them deserved due process.
But... the UK is a smaller country so that has to be the reason... right? Not exactly...
QuoteTo expose this farce, we can compare the US with communist China.
China, whose population is 4 and 1/2 times the size of the United States, recorded 12 killings by law enforcement officers in 2014.
Law enforcement in the United States killed 92 times more citizens in the same period.
That's right... China has more control over it's cops than we do. Just let that one sink in.
The article goes on to talk about the profitability of the drug war and private prisons... that one could be a whole-nother thread of it's own (and one I think we have had more than once) so I will just leave a small snippit here.
Quoteo better understand the multi-dimensional answer to that question, we can start by looking at the prison population of the US.
America imprisons almost twenty-five percent of all people imprisoned in the world, although containing only about 5% of the world’s population.
The U.S. houses 2.3 million inmates, the majority of whom are in for drug offenses.
Absolutely ridiculous. The fact that people still think America is great is beyond me... I don't know of a period in U.S. history besides maybe just after WWII that America was truly "great" (Showed respect to it's citizens and had a stable economy). It's been a long time since then.
I just whistled.
I thought of offering a few opinions connected to each other and all of them makes me the 'condescending heinous witch', but not one of them makes 2.3 millions of inmates look reasonable without defining American culture exclusively in certain terms which can't be done provoking the usual responses. Not that I am good at it, but there is really no sugarcoating this.
Americans are naturally violent ... like certain tribes in other places and other times. Criminal science in the US is about racism, classism and punishment as part of an S&M society. Most people don't realize this derives from the Puritans, who were child abusers, "spare the rod and spoil the child" was taken literally.
The example of what makes US different from GB, or Canada, couldn't be more plain. But being a nation of Gandhis doesn't get the job done. And it is in fact better to be feared than loved. The problem with fear, is that it generated hate in the target ... and too much hate produced blow-back. But blow-back whether in the 'hood or in the ME ... is a gift that keeps on giving. Think Israel vs Palestine, only long distance.
And it isn't just fear of Pearl Harbor ... which was a racist fear of the Yellow Peril anyway ... Mussolini and Hitler weren't as feared, but seen as potential allies of the Anglo-American empire ... in the great war against Bolshevism. War is very profitable and stimulative. Vietnam wasn't an anomaly ... it was deliberate ... just as the invasion of Iraq was. I prefer preparation for war without the actual fighting ... but I am nobody.
What does it even mean "Americans are naturally violent"? Yes, humans are violent we all know that. 'Ghandis' make up a very little of our population. Negligible. Also, apperantly the majority of the prison population is in for drug uses.
All the mass shootings, random gun violence didn't just pop up, because 'Americans are violent' or some are mentally ill. Yes, gun worshipping is a problem. But most importantly, Americans are angry. Different Americans from different groups. They are angry.
One million LEOs. How many shootings?
Quote from: Shiranu on January 03, 2016, 08:49:48 AM
The fact that people still think America is great is beyond me... I don't know of a period in U.S. history besides maybe just after WWII that America was truly "great" (Showed respect to it's citizens and had a stable economy).
I don't think that many people outside of America think that America is great. Influential, yes.
America seems very weird to those of us that take an interest and communicate with people from the US - guns, rampant cops, fundamentalist religion, corporate hegemony. The rest of our population probably think it's all sunny skies, Disney and McDonalds, if they thought about it at all....
Quote from: drunkenshoe on January 03, 2016, 11:16:36 AM
All the mass shootings, random gun violence didn't just pop up, because 'Americans are violent' or some are mentally ill. Yes, gun worshipping is a problem. But most importantly, Americans are angry. Different Americans from different groups. They are angry.
Many Americans are angry but my perception is that many more are fearful. Fearful people are compelled to defend themselves and some Americans believe that self-defense justifies lethal force. When I listen to people regarding guns the common theme is "people have a right to defend themselves" but what I don't often hear is avoiding unnecessary harm to others. It seems using non-lethal force isn't a priority, otherwise more Americans would be defending themselves with Tasers instead of guns and more Americans would be horrified by the number of citizens killed by law enforcement.
Quote from: drunkenshoe on January 03, 2016, 11:16:36 AM
What does it even mean "Americans are naturally violent"? Yes, humans are violent we all know that. 'Ghandis' make up a very little of our population. Negligible. Also, apperantly the majority of the prison population is in for drug uses.
All the mass shootings, random gun violence didn't just pop up, because 'Americans are violent' or some are mentally ill. Yes, gun worshipping is a problem. But most importantly, Americans are angry. Different Americans from different groups. They are angry.
How about changing 'naturally' to 'historically'? Would that suit you better?
Quote from: Youssuf Ramadan on January 03, 2016, 11:51:16 AM
I don't think that many people outside of America think that America is great. Influential, yes.
America seems very weird to those of us that take an interest and communicate with people from the US - guns, rampant cops, fundamentalist religion, corporate hegemony. The rest of our population probably think it's all sunny skies, Disney and McDonalds, if they thought about it at all....
Guns are only a technical problem. Japanese fetishize swords ... if we were more Japanese, we would be decapitating each other with katanas. And swords are regulated in Japan for that very reason, in a way not seen in the US. At Medieval Faires ... talk is the same as at gun shows ... Obama Anti-Christ is going to take away all our medieval re-enactor shit ... and our sporks too! Bwahah.
The mental illness angle is debatable. Most people legally, don't consider criminality as insane. But in some ways one can assume that antisocial behavior is sociopathic, and therefore insane. And even if we weren't insane ... yes, Americans are very fearful. Fear sells.
Life is cheap, in the USA. But, hey, it's even cheaper in Syria...
I find avoiding the cops, to be the best solution for me.
Yes it is a freaking war machine, Mike. But we are talking about people.
Guys, when I say 'Americans are angry' I do include fear or desperation or whatever they think is the 'right' reaction in it when they feel they are in danger. Therefore the observable violence pattern.
But there are many other things that make people violent besides just fear and defense. This is what we can't agree on.
You know how America looks from outside? Scary. Like Jurassic Park. Obviously, I don't mean it is a live dinosaur park out of control, but a place where people created fantastical rights, concepts of freedom, unreal goals, unreal life styles and a system like a wild jungle to get it. And just the paranoia created out of nothing is enough to make a lot of people go crazy. It's isolated, it is under constant unbelievable propaganda.
Are you aware what kind of a change your country went down under the last 15 years? I guess you are. Just the change on how Americans talk about their country in the last 15 years on the net is unbelievable. Young American men talking about America here in this forum were between ages 10-14 when the planes hit twin towers. It's just 15 years ago.
Has any of you ever considered that these things are happening because it actually started to go better? I don't know of course if you see that as a 'better' thing, because it is about what I keep saying on general American identity crisis. America is coming down to the real world from the clouds people wise, but general culture doesn't go that fast and it gets ugly. Your class balance has changed socially and moving to change economially even in a slow pace. It's not going to happen with roses and candy.
Quote from: drunkenshoe on January 03, 2016, 01:30:07 PM
But there are many other things that make people violent besides just fear and defense. This is what we can't agree on.
I wasn't disagreeing, merely pointing out another piece of the puzzle.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ... where did I read that? There are revolutions in progress, not just in color revolutions outside the US. In theory, Conservativism aside, America is supposed to be in continuous revolution ... same as France, Russia, China. Republics are like that ... monarchy not so.
I think that the US has always been scary to most people outside the US. A few have admired the ideals ... fewer have admired the reality. Most people in the world want to either stay in the Middle Ages or Early Modern periods ... with patriarchal tradition and kings and Popes. A few want to jump right into outer space with the Rebel Alliance against the First Order. I would see that both progressive Americans and progressive anti-Americans would imagine themselves first as the Rebel Alliance. But much of America has been coopted by the First Order from London. The First World is stormtroopers with blasters ... the Third World is Jedi with lightsabers. Foreign policy = kill them before they kill you. Domestic policy = you can't be paranoid enough.
Just to make it clear.
The Jurassic Park example is important, because it is the flee circus. The crucial thing with the flee circus is that it actually doesn't exist. If you create an isolated culture; a country on unreal, fantastical notions, generations and generations after people eventually start to act according to it. Doesn't matter how fantastical it is. That doesn't mean they are stupid or extra violent or believe in every one of those or any of those notions. This is human nature.
Americans are not extra violent. The American who believes he needs to kill anyone who attacks him is moving from an unwritten cultural point that it is his right to do this. He doesn't need to be in lethal danger. They are just acting according to what has been given to them. It's coming out with anger because that's how it gets translated through fear when the most basic thing gets changed; identity starts to SHRINK. While the Christian is having this identity crisis, so does the secular democrat. Ironically with similar reasons, from different aspects.
Quote from: GSOgymrat on January 03, 2016, 01:45:54 PM
I wasn't disagreeing, merely pointing out another piece of the puzzle.
I didn't mean you. You are right. I wrote about this before. It was about that. :) Just talking to myself, lol.
I agree that the fear might not be about something real. Or that the despair might be about something we can actually handle. But imagination runs wild, thanks to Hollywood and Madison Avenue. My thought is, all this make-believe is actually healthier than the opposite ... we work out things with movies and video games ... it makes us less violent than we would be otherwise. But if we ever do get attacked like in Mars Invades ... then those little green bastards are going to regret it!
Baruch, your understanding of fantasy is very limited,lol. And when it's a constitution or the culture you live in, your identity, no it is not healthy.
Imagine that for years you have seen yourself in a certain size and look in a mirror and after some time, you start to realise that it is different. You can't put your finger on it or decide if it was like this always or what you actually saw before. But it doesn't feel the same, it feels 'less'. What changed? The mirror is the same mirror.
I think the media has some folks buffaloed.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on January 03, 2016, 02:23:11 PM
I think the media has some folks buffaloed.
That's your resposne to everything about violence in the media.
Shoe ... I thought we were like Exes who aren't talking ;-)
But in response to the ideas you bring up (and you are very good) ...
Addressed to whom it may concern ... yes, perspective is very important. This is particularly difficult for young people who are 20 years old or less ... for almost their entire lives, they have been in a post 9/11 world. I first became aware of politics when I was almost 8 ... so before that really didn't count. The young people today, are in the same boat as I was regarding the Korean War (nobody ever talked about it) or about WW II (fictionalized in movies and on TV). But the Vietnam War gradually came into focus as I went from 8 to 18 ;-)
So how can we deal with gradual change? How do people we know deal with it (parents, siblings)? Life is strange, in that I feel like a person half my age, but my body doesn't agree with my feelings. History (however limited as propaganda), psychology, anthropology ... are correctives to whatever the current narrative might be. Also contact with people outside my ethnicity, religion, nationality, class etc.
So am I just like I was half a century ago? As I see it, aging is like ... going from a fairly specific but ambiguous version of myself, into a much more definite version of myself. That and Ecclesiastes has it exactly right, but younger people won't appreciate, because of their lack of experience. It has taken me all my life, to overcome my parental input, my school input and my cultural input. But in my struggle to perceive what universal values might be (and ugly they might be too) ... I have overcome. But I see no reason to overcome myself ;-)
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on January 03, 2016, 02:23:11 PM
I think the media has some folks buffaloed.
Yes I'm sure it's a media conspiracy to make people believe that cops are shooting people in this country at an exorbitant rate compared to any other civilized (and many not-so-civilized) society.
Those numbers are all part of a media conspiracy I reckon.
Btw... to answer your 1st question...
1,600,000 cops in China in 2007... 94 times less shootings. Again... we are losing to China and that should put up some red flags.
How about some other law enforcement numbers that prove our cops aint saints? I can go ahead and compile some more in a different thread (not that you wouldn't break the broken record cycle of "cops can never be wrong!" that you spout every time they are proven to be ineffective and need to be restructured).
You don't give a shit about the cops; if you did you wouldn't look at this problem and always say "Stop picking on the poor cops! Your just twisting numbers!". If you gave a shit about law enforcement then you would want the problems within it to be fixed.
According to this poll white women are the angriest people in America.
Poll: Whites and Republicans Rank as Angriest Americans
http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/poll-whites-republicans-rank-angriest-americans-n488636?cid=sm_fb
Quote from: Baruch on January 03, 2016, 02:53:58 PM
Shoe ... I thought we were like Exes who aren't talking ;-)
But in response to the ideas you bring up (and you are very good) ...
Addressed to whom it may concern ... yes, perspective is very important. This is particularly difficult for young people who are 20 years old or less ... for almost their entire lives, they have been in a post 9/11 world. I first became aware of politics when I was almost 8 ... so before that really didn't count. The young people today, are in the same boat as I was regarding the Korean War (nobody every talked about it) or about WW II (fictionalized in movies and on TV). But the Vietnam War gradually came into focus as I went from 8 to 18 ;-)
So how can we deal with gradual change? How do people we know deal with it (parents, siblings)? Life is strange, in that I feel like a person half my age, but my body doesn't agree with my feelings. History (however limited as propaganda), psychology, anthropology ... are correctives to whatever the current narrative might be. Also contact with people outside my ethnicity, religion, nationality, class etc.
So am I just like I was half a century ago? As I see it, aging is like ... going from a fairly specific but ambiguous version of myself, into a much more definite version of myself. That and Ecclesiastes has it exactly right, but younger people won't appreciate, because of their lack of experience. It has taken me all my life, to overcome my parental input, my school input and my cultural input. But in my struggle to perceive what universal values might be (and ugly they might be too) ... I have overcome. But I see no reason to overcome myself ;-)
LOL Where did you get that I didn't talk to you. I can get elusive and temperamental. And get irritated when you like my post just for kicks, because we almost never agree. That's it.
You don't get to deal with change -fast or gradual- it deals with you. If someone has the same vision of the world or himself at 20 and 40, he is in trouble. That's why most of the mess change creates is good. Bloody or not. Stagnation is worse.
I don't want to personalise, my situation is alien to the most here and it gets misunderstood every time. But you are a theist and you have that outlook of 'everything happens for a reason', if not typically a religious one. I am not capable of thinking that way, Baruch. My perspective is different than yours. So I don't understand much when it gets filtered from that^ logic. I just don't see 'good' or 'evil'. But that's not a desired trait I guess. People don't like it. It's automatically extreme in the way they find it offensive. Especially, when you are blunt about it. Probably, that's why I am blunt. It doesn't make sense to me otherwise.
How do I see aging? Much better than I thought. I'll be 40 this year and it feels much better in many ways than before. I welcome change. Just trying to adjust like anyone else.
Quote from: GSOgymrat on January 03, 2016, 03:17:28 PM
According to this poll white women are the angriest people in America.
Poll: Whites and Republicans Rank as Angriest Americans
http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/poll-whites-republicans-rank-angriest-americans-n488636?cid=sm_fb
Makes a lot of sense.
Quote from: drunkenshoe on January 03, 2016, 01:30:07 PM
Y
Are you aware what kind of a change your country went down under the last 15 years? I guess you are. Just the change on how Americans talk about their country in the last 15 years on the net is unbelievable. Young American men talking about America here in this forum were between ages 10-14 when the planes hit twin towers. It's just 15 years ago.
Ya know Shoe, I've noted that--and I don't like the change. But part of me questioned whether or not I was seeing correctly. Part of me cautions the rest of me that I am turning into that typical old man with the typical response -it's not like when I was a kid!'. But it's not. We are (as a society) driven more by fear than most anything else. Bush and Cheney used fear so very well, and the politicians have continued to use it. Sound bytes drive so much of what is accepted by society as they way it is. 1984 (Orwell) is now the way politics seems to work--Newspeak is alive and well. Personally, the twin towers did not frighten me. I was never afraid that the bombs would reach downtown Merced. I realized from the get-go what that meant. Not all that died that day were American. I think there was something like 80 countries that lost people. The US could have turned this into a real world wide effort to make change. But it did not. I kept the hurt and pain within our country so it could be exploited by the corp heads and the politicians alike. Too much corporate control, too much fear and too much gerrymandering.
On the other hand--I do see most of the younger generation tired of this as well. I think they may see more than we give them credit for (Maybe Zinn and company made more of an impact than I thoguht). I welcome the coloring of our society--it will be helpful when white is less than 50%. I see females as really beginning to see things and most don't appreciate the male run world we live in. But this type of change is slow and I have to simply accept that.
QuoteThat's right... China has more control over it's cops than we do. Just let that one sink in.
The article goes on to talk about the profitability of the drug war and private prisons... that one could be a whole-nother thread of it's own (and one I think we have had more than once) so I will just leave a small snippit here.
Not for nothing but..
Population of China: 1,357,000,000
Number of police: 2,000,000
Police to citizen ratio: 1 to 679
Population of the United States: 318,900,000
Number of police: 1,100,000
Police to citizen ratio: 1 to 289
When you want to do an honest evaluation of police violence, you need to factor in more than just the numbers and concepts that support your argument. First up, the higher the police to citizen ratio, the greater the number of crimes detected and therefore the greater the potential for police shootings. Chinese police may shoot less people, but they are also stopping less crimes because there are simply not very many of them in an enormous country both in terms of land mass and population.
Second up, you need to consider what exactly it is that the Chinese police do compared the the US police. For example, I found this page: http://factsanddetails.com/china/cat8/sub50/item301.html
It states that the Chinese police are massively corrupt, spending most of their time maintaining government control rather than solving crimes or protecting people. In general, Chinese police are not there to serve the citizens. Their greatest effect in maintaining order is how brutal they depict themselves to be. People in China fear the police greatly, and stay in line just to avoid them (the implication being that while the Chinese police shoot less people, if you step out of line they will fucking kill you. The lower body count simply means that nobody dares to). Finally, it also states that police are often involved in criminal activity themselves.
So I guess its true that if the US police stopped responding to 911 calls and domestic reports, barely ever bothered to investigate crime, intimidated citizens with the threat of brutal retaliation, and actually got involved, en masse, with criminal activity themselves that the incidences of police shootings would probably plummet. Of course, at that point we would have a lot of other problems.
Okay, that makes the U.S.'s numbers okay then.
Quote from: Shiranu on January 03, 2016, 05:40:18 PM
Okay, that makes the U.S.'s numbers okay then.
Sorry i messed up that article's BS segment designed to make idiots think "OMG WE'RE WORSE THAN CHINA?!?!?!?"
The reality is that China doesn't have police as we think of them. They have thugs that call themselves police. Comparing the US to China is apples and oranges, making this part of the article ignorant at best and disingenuous at worst. The writer should have just stuck with the UK comparison, which has the benefit of being both meaningful and truthful. But I guess our police being more violent than the UK's police doesn't get American's backs up, which I suspect is the primary goal of the article.
I don't like being manipulated.
Quote from: Nonsensei on January 03, 2016, 05:55:46 PM
Sorry i messed up that article's BS segment designed to make idiots think "OMG WE'RE WORSE THAN CHINA?!?!?!?"
The reality is that China doesn't have police as we think of them. They have thugs that call themselves police. Comparing the US to China is apples and oranges, making this part of the article ignorant at best and disingenuous at worst. The writer should have just stuck with the UK comparison, which has the benefit of being both meaningful and truthful. But I guess our police being more violent than the UK's police doesn't get American's backs up, which I suspect is the primary goal of the article.
I don't like being manipulated.
I think if we are at the point where we have to make excuses about China being worse just to justify our own sins, then that is reason enough to be concerned. Just because you choose to ignore that does not make everyone else an idiot.
All information presented, anywhere, is with the intent to manipulate. We just pick and choose what manipulation we want to look at in a positive light. So I don't see getting bent out of shape over manipulation particularly helpful.
And yes, I would assume it is to rile people up because what good is knowledge of a crime be without action?
Shoe - yes, we disagree, but I like that. And I never "liked" you for trivial reasons ... you underestimate both me and yourself.
I know I'll get a lot of flack for this, but when you know there are 300 million guns out there, and you're a policeman, whenever you approach anyone, a stranger to you, you have to consider that that person may carry a gun. Unfortunately, in the land of guns, policemen are trained to shoot. PERIOD. That's the reality, policemen fear for their life as much as anyone else. Add to the mix, the divide between blacks and whites, and you've got a recipe for disaster. This is no excuse for all the wrong dead people who got shot when they shouldn't have been but until the question of guns is properly addressed in the US, I doubt that any progress or any kind of amelioration is possible. Yes, I'm extremely pessimistic on that.
Quote from: josephpalazzo on January 03, 2016, 11:30:08 PM
I know I'll get a lot of flack for this, but when you know there are 300 million guns out there, and you're a policeman, whenever you approach anyone, a stranger to you, you have to consider that that person may carry a gun. Unfortunately, in the land of guns, policemen are trained to shoot. PERIOD. That's the reality, policemen fear for their life as much as anyone else. Add to the mix, the divide between blacks and whites, and you've got a recipe for disaster. This is no excuse for all the wrong dead people who got shot when they shouldn't have been but until the question of guns is properly addressed in the US, I doubt that any progress or any kind of amelioration is possible. Yes, I'm extremely pessimistic on that.
You're not a pessimist, you're just an optimist with experience.
Quote from: josephpalazzo on January 03, 2016, 11:30:08 PM
I know I'll get a lot of flack for this, but when you know there are 300 million guns out there, and you're a policeman, whenever you approach anyone, a stranger to you, you have to consider that that person may carry a gun. Unfortunately, in the land of guns, policemen are trained to shoot. PERIOD. That's the reality, policemen fear for their life as much as anyone else. Add to the mix, the divide between blacks and whites, and you've got a recipe for disaster. This is no excuse for all the wrong dead people who got shot when they shouldn't have been but until the question of guns is properly addressed in the US, I doubt that any progress or any kind of amelioration is possible. Yes, I'm extremely pessimistic on that.
I mean, that is basically what everyone has said so... not sure why you are expecting to be a victim...
To be fair with the comparison to China, I don't really expect them to accurately report the numbers of police shootings. It's like asking Iran how many homosexuals they have.
On the other hand, there is no real national database on police shootings in the US. It's entirely up to each department to keep track of numbers.
In any case, police are shooting people.
Quote from: drunkenshoe on January 03, 2016, 02:32:53 PM
That's your resposne to everything about violence in the media.
And?
Comparing UK to USA?
UK - very few cops carry guns, population 65 Million.
USA all cops carry guns, population 320 Million.
pr126 is right. Theres only about 7000 UK police officers authorized to carry weapons. Thats 7000 out of about 130,000 or about 5%.
Despite having less police total, and less citizens total and almost half the police to citizen ratio, UK police officer deaths were nearly as high as US police deaths in 2014 (117 to 124). All things being equal the US deaths should be about 5 to 6 times higher, but they aren't. Perhaps because they are armed? Obviously being unarmed doesn't stop UK police officers from being killed as much as one would hope. Those UK guys are pretty bad ass, going out there and confronting criminals unarmed. Or is stupid the word I'm looking for?
Once you start looking at the numbers in this issue it quickly becomes clear that your position is nothing more than a value judgement. In this case its about whose lives you value more, those of the police or those of citizens. Either way you're going to end up giving the nod to people being shot.
Yes, let's compare people who knowingly sign a contract to be put in a situation where they could be shot... to people who didn't.
Cops put themselves at higher risk, that doesn't mean they somehow can be justified in shooting civilians at a sickening rate. And saying that doesn't magically mean I think cops should be shot like you've said.
But I guess 100-some less cops killed is superior to thousands of civilians not being killed.
Quote from: Shiranu on January 04, 2016, 08:18:03 PM
Yes, let's compare people who knowingly sign a contract to be put in a situation where they could be shot... to people who didn't.
Cops put themselves at higher risk, that doesn't mean they somehow can be justified in shooting civilians at a sickening rate. And saying that doesn't magically mean I think cops should be shot like you've said.
But I guess 100-some less cops killed is superior to thousands of civilians not being killed.
Like I said, its a value judgement. You say they knew the risks when they signed up.
Someone else might pay more attention to just how many of those citizen deaths were unjustified (and go beyond liberal media sources to get the answer). As some people on these forums are so very fond of pointing out, America is a violent country with a lot of guns. Being a police officer in the US, especially in certain parts of it, can be an extremely dangerous profession. Despite that reality, the media doesn't really tend to pay much if any attention to shootings that don't have a controversial story, or in other words shootings where the person killed was at fault. Lately, they only seem interested in reporting on shootings between a white cop and a black suspect. Such shootings happen once every month or two nationally, but its enough for the media to maintain their 24 hour news cycle without ever having to stop talking about the topic. So to the viewer it seems like there's a problem so severe that there's news about it every single day.
The original article here mentioned aggregate shooting numbers. "Police killed x people" i think is the exact wording. When you do that, its really important to get to the bottom of WHY these people were shot or you end up sending the wrong message. Unless you really believe that every time a police officer in the US shoots someone they are doing it in malice, and without sufficient reason.
Theres a lot of bullshit smeared all over this issue from every corner of the political spectrum, and its happening in an environment where news sources have no problem whatsoever with lying by omission and pulling smoke and mirrors bullshit with their reporting cycle to make an issue seem like a bigger deal than it really is from a national perspective (or downplaying it to seem like a complete fabrication).
For me, here's the bottom line: According to wikipedia, the police and other US LEA's kill a total of 1240 people on average every year. If you dont know the circumstances of those killings, but use the number or a number like that ANYWAY to argue anything then you have not met your burden of proof. Its not enough just to spit out a total. Its also not enough to just assume they were all wrongful.
The article opens up saying many were justifiable, so okay then.
Quote
Of course, all those killed were not innocent, but many were unarmed, shot while running away, and their deaths recorded on video. And all of them deserved due process.
Quote from: Shiranu on January 04, 2016, 09:01:02 PM
The article opens up saying many were justifiable, so okay then.
I really love it when they use wording like that. "Not all" and "many".
Lets say there were 995 justified shootings and 5 unjustified shootings. "Not all were innocent"? Yep still true. "Many shot while unarmed and running away"? depends on your definition of many. Some people might say one is too many.
They avoid being concrete here, in this crucial issue, because doing so might undermine the thrust of the article. Cant be seen saying only 3% of shootings were of unarmed people running away. That number, while tragic, is not provocative. Instead they leave the reader to draw their own conclusions based on no concrete facts and then go on to read how we are worse than China.