American police killed more people in March than the UK has since 1900
- Thread starter afternoon delight
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Dunno. If you find some info though feel free to post it.
you made the comparison, the onus is on you to provide info.
TAJ
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
It's odd that one of them is used at all.
But hey, at least we changed the Department of War to the Department of Defense even though the older name was more accurate.
Monty Mole
Member
In the UK we have the freedom to go out the house with a much lower risk of being shot by a police officer or A N Other. People forget that freedom includes the positive results of laws and actions.
benjipwns
Banned
But this isn't the case. Police practices are to the point where they're actually more dangerous to police if the person they're going after is armed and willing to defend themselves. Good police and most military people will happily explain this from a tactical perspective.
The high gun rate is no way an excuse for police culture, the numbers really don't fit together, UK and European style policing would work just as well in most cities in the US despite the gun rate.
Germany is the better example, high gun rate (not as high as US obviously but probably largest in Europe IIRC), good size cities, but an hours worth of police crime rate and no significant difference negatively in general OR violent crime rate.
Meh, switzerland is full of fully automatic assault rifles and police aren't paranoid about doing a road check or searching a house.
It should yes. The RUC for example killed 55 people during the Troubles.
Whereas I've seen our police here in Northern Ireland getting stuff in Tesco with an MP5 on them, and a load on St. Patrick's day in Belfast with what I think was a G36.
benjipwns
Banned
How do Swiss police search a house? Knock and ask to come in and show their warrant during the daylight hours?
Or slam through the door clad in black at 4AM, yell "police! hands up!" while firing at the first thing that moves? Then trashing the place while seizing anything of value.
How about picking up a suspect? Wait for him to go out to a store or something during the day? Or visit him at 4AM?
I mean, even if you account for higher gang activity etc. that's still a pretty horrifying stat and i've always had trouble understanding that there isn't more outrage about it in the US. This should be something you can sink a government for.
benjipwns
Banned
My opponent patapuf is soft on crime, he wants criminal hordes to run free in the streets. Our cops are already underfunded, our borders are overrun by drug gangs, it's impossible to walk down the street without being gang raped. Our police have had their arms tied by the liberal courts, these criminals can't be punished or even touched. I want our police to be able to arrest criminals instead of giving them welfare handouts. I want our kids to be safe instead of dying from drug overdoses and sexual interaction. I want violent rioters arrested and thrown in jail instead of being invited across our borders and given shows on our TV channels. The police need to be able to do their jobs and keep us all safe rather than being hunted down by criminals and defenseless against their evil.
It's time to end the War on Cops, God Bless Our Men and Women in Uniform and God Bless America.
MisterFalcon
Member
All the shit the Blacks and Tans did in Ireland like shooting civilians and burning down villages as reprisal should be counted too, they were a police force and not the British Army.
The law on armed policing is different in Northern Ireland. Unsurprisingly, it stems from the troubles. Nevertheless (according to the wikipedia article in the OP) there hasn't been a single police killing in Northern Ireland since November 1992.
travisbickle
Member
It's the shooting of innocent unarmed people that boosts the U.S. numbers.
This statistical comparison is a proven fallacy brought about by the Republicans sometime during the last election cycle, I believe. The UK records crime very differently to the US, and many of the crimes we record as violent ones are ones that fall outside the US definition and as such inflate our figures massively when you do a direct comparison. There is also a much higher reporting rate for crime in the UK compared to the US which further increases the stats.
MilkyJoe
Member
Actually it's 1380x the amount of time.
dark_prinny
Banned
America Wins once again.
/s
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
Has it been attempted to use this sort of data as basis for passing laws for stricter gun control in the US, as opposed to referring to school shootings?
Because I think this could be a stronger argument actually.
Because I think this could be a stronger argument actually.
Its like the UK isn't even trying.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
There were 126 deaths in the line of duty for all police officers across the US in 2014, the second lowest number since 1964. Most are traffic accidents. Roughly 50 were shot, which is again one of the lowest recorded numbers in the modern era. Even with the historically high rate of gun ownership in many states.
I've posted about it here before.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...mber-of-police-officers-killed-spikes-in-2014
Taken quite literally, one officer was shot and killed per state during the line of duty last year.
Now, compare and contrast to civilian deaths, and tell me which number better reflects your descriptor, "good chance".
Edit: taking Baron's pic above, civilians are 8x as likely at least to be shot and killed by police than the other way around.
Baki
Member
Then it just highlights how much of a fundamental problem that it is. Not only cops, but the society as a whole.
The fact that (with population adjusted) the US has had 276x more deaths shows how its a wider cultural / societal problem.
MisterFalcon
Member
There is also a persistent claim that the numbers for murders in England are actually far greater then reported because only a murder where someone was charged counts as a murder. If no suspect is charged it's filed differently and not shown in the statistics as such. Scotland has a different system and has 50% more murders then England and Wales where a coroner's inquest is used.
I've tried to find any real info on this but it's a murky subject.
Shake Appeal
Member
benjipwns
Banned
You think that'd do anything to cops?
http://www.nysheriffs.org/articles/sheriffs’-response-ny-safe-act
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/18/ny-gun-law-tweaks/1845935/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/17/ny-gun-control-laws-anger-police-retired_n_2495417.html
http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/...se-senate-exempts-retired-cops-from-safe-act/
Pankratous
Member
I dunno about that. Sure they don't really have to deal with guns, but we are the knife capital of Europe (maybe the world?). People are still carrying lethal weapons.
Napoleonthechimp
Member
The majority of UK police aren't armed, so unless they're going to physically beat someone to death then I don't see how they could kill people.
US cops, without the use of guns, probably killed more than the UK have.
Pankratous
Member
As far as I know all (or most) officers in Northern Ireland carry firearms.
Police were carrying guns at 'high risk' spots during the Olympics. Saw a bunch of armed police in Euston Station. It was pretty fucked up.
In comparison, when I was in Houston, Texas, two Americans in an argument pulled guns on each other in the hotel lobby. That wasn't during an Olympics though, that was a Tuesday (probably).
| Praxis |
Banned
They could be carrying small screwdrivers!
The number of Police officers that are authorised to carry firearms in the UK is quite small compared to the number of officers overall.
Also, to actually be able to carry a gun , the selection process and training is quite stringent, failure rates are exceptionally high which ultimately leaves very few officers that have demonstrated the ability to be able to make the right split second decision as to whether to shoot or not shoot.
Also, to actually be able to carry a gun , the selection process and training is quite stringent, failure rates are exceptionally high which ultimately leaves very few officers that have demonstrated the ability to be able to make the right split second decision as to whether to shoot or not shoot.
Makes sense. A vastly higher percentage of the population has guns. And as said before, a lot of uk cops do not carry guns. The U.S. has the problem of escalation and what happens when you end up in a situation where both sides have such weaponry. Each situation they approach has a high possibility of someone being armed, which combined with being called on because they're belligerent/drunk/drugged/crazy/anything leads to a likelihood of the weapons being threatening. I'm not in any way excusing the excessive brutality we've been seeing in the news, this is another problem on top of all of this.
Saw dudes with automatic rifles around the Louvre when I went to Paris. Thought that was interesting.
So what you are saying is that the police adapted and learned to shoot first which prevents the criminals from shooting back and this explains the two trends?
benjipwns
Banned
Except criminals were never killing police officers in numbers that justify police officers shooting first. Always. At everything.
And even if they were, it'd still be wrong for police to shoot first as policy or practice.
I am not talking about what's justified or not or what's right or not. I am saying that it is a perfectly rational response to environmental pressures.
Police officers have probably seen plenty of guns being carried by criminals in their line of work. As long as there is a reasonable chance that their suspects are carrying a gun, it makes perfect sense to fire first to protect themselves from being fired upon. It comes down to choosing between paperwork and being shot at and the choice is clear.
With the media sensationalizing gun crimes and the wide reach of the media due to the prevalence of the internet, the effect is probably magnified.
If the training of cops is so bad that media influence is such a big factor that might point to a small problem.
this kind of data is used to get more guns.
benjipwns
Banned
It's rational but not supported by evidence, to quote myself from above:
Why discount the vastly different police policies in Germany and Switzerland and so on in order to justify the police shooting innocents?
Police officers rarely confront violent crime as it happens, the majority of arrests are for non-violent crimes or after the fact. Working in law enforcement is not a dangerous job in America.
This is marijuana arrests ALONE:
Police are by and large not confronting armed bank robbers, spree killers, drug kingpins and so on. They're enforcing warrants or arresting for low-level crimes, handing out tickets, engaging in dispute resolution, and shooting dogs.
shadowsdarknes
Member
Blame the chemtrails and fluoride designed to keep the sheeple in line.
They are brainwashed.
They need a dose of some Ron Paul common sense.
GrizzleBoy
Banned
Wow.........reading the first few pages of this thread and all the incredible ways people immediately tried to downplay the disgusting numbers is kind of worrying.
Rug Monkey
Member
They are 'armed' with
batons ..
incapacitant spray (5% solution of CS or 0.3% of PAVA/Captor)
and
occasionally tasers
the rules on tasers are tight
"Tasers are to be deployed with Specially Trained Officers, where the authorising officer has reason to suppose that they, in the course of their duty, may have to protect the public, themselves and /or the subject(s) at incidents of violence or threats of violence of such severity that they will need to use force.
Extended operational deployment of Taser for Specially Trained Units
People tend to die from undisclosed medical conditions i.e. asthma, heart condition combined with drunkenness/intoxication (or mistaken drunkenness/intoxication) and badly handled restraining techniques .. exacerbated by a slow response calling medical aid.
n64coder
Member
I'm pretty shocked by the statistics comparing the US with the UK. I wonder if there is a similar comparison between the different states in the US to see which ones are more violent than the others? Massachusetts has one of the toughest gun control laws. Does it have less violence than other states?
There is an article in today's boston.com with the headline Marathon Bombings Report: Weapons Discipline Was Lacking in Watertown
Pretty scary.
There is an article in today's boston.com with the headline Marathon Bombings Report: Weapons Discipline Was Lacking in Watertown
Pretty scary.
*as long as we have guns
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