More U.S. Cop Shootings Since Christmas than UK's Last 5 Years

[josephpalazzo]

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.

[Sargon The Grape]

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.

[Shiranu]

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...

[The Skeletal Atheist]

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.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

That's your resposne to everything about violence in the media.

And?

[pr126]

Comparing  UK to USA?

UK - very few cops carry guns, population 65 Million.
USA all cops carry guns, population 320 Million.

[Nonsensei]

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.

[Shiranu]

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.

[Nonsensei]

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.

[Shiranu]

The article opens up saying many were justifiable, so okay then.

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.

[Nonsensei]

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.