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In three years, cops have killed 450% more citizens than mass shootings across four decades combined
- Thread starter Duke_Leto
- Start date
Buddha Dharma
Dharma Practitioner
I'm not really shocked if the data bears that out. Police are increasingly given immunity by both our government and the citizens to be brutal. No one seems care very much that it's a violation of due process for a cop to just pull out their gun and open fire. For goodness sake- our current clown in chief said it's okay to be rough with criminals. Take the hand away, and don't be too nice.
Without vetting the claims, some thoughts.....
- The source is rather over the top.
- It would be useful to know the percentage of wrongful deaths.
- The source is rather over the top.
- It would be useful to know the percentage of wrongful deaths.
Buddha Dharma
Dharma Practitioner
Given how our government has used the narrative of sacrifice for the last 50 years or so to blind sight the people to military and police actions- I think the seeming virtue of sacrifice needs to be reanalyzed.
They've made it so you can't even protest wars without the sacrifice of the troops being thrown up in your face. I tell ya- if there's an entity in the history of the world better at propaganda than the US government I haven't seen it.
They've made it so you can't even protest wars without the sacrifice of the troops being thrown up in your face. I tell ya- if there's an entity in the history of the world better at propaganda than the US government I haven't seen it.
You should have seen the Romans in their hey day.
Buddha Dharma
Dharma Practitioner
You should have seen the Romans in their hey day.
Oh is that where we get it from?
No.
It was a comparison, but without enuf info to understand the extent.
Bear in mind that some killings by cops are also murder.
Makes sense to me considering that we are talking about a small volume of events (mass shootings) versus an tremendous number of police encounters.
The numbers are really like comparing apples to bananas.
Think how Westerners (descendants mostly of the Germanic tribes who were enemies of Rome) still feel a tingle of dreamy excitement when they hear about Rome. Propaganda that still has it's hold after 2000 years. That's what I call impressive.
Comparison with the number of mass killings is meaningless. The vast majority of gun homicides (like 13,000 a year) are not mass killings.
The linked article claims 3733 people shot dead by police since 2015. I cannot find a link to the source for that figure. The Washington Post, no friend of gun-toting cops, puts it at 2945, or an average of 982 a year-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2015/
Police shootings 2016 database
Police shootings 2017 database
The Centers for Disease Control data puts the number of homicides by gun for the three-year period 2014-2016 (2017 not yet available) at 39,860 or an average of 13,287 a year.
https://everytownresearch.org/gun-violence-by-the-numbers/#DailyDeaths
13,287 – 982 = 12,305 homicides by gun per year NOT committed by police, or more than 12 times as many as by police. Of those people killed by police, how many were killed because there was no alternative, because they were threatening serious harm to the police or to someone else?
The linked article claims 3733 people shot dead by police since 2015. I cannot find a link to the source for that figure. The Washington Post, no friend of gun-toting cops, puts it at 2945, or an average of 982 a year-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2015/
Police shootings 2016 database
Police shootings 2017 database
The Centers for Disease Control data puts the number of homicides by gun for the three-year period 2014-2016 (2017 not yet available) at 39,860 or an average of 13,287 a year.
https://everytownresearch.org/gun-violence-by-the-numbers/#DailyDeaths
13,287 – 982 = 12,305 homicides by gun per year NOT committed by police, or more than 12 times as many as by police. Of those people killed by police, how many were killed because there was no alternative, because they were threatening serious harm to the police or to someone else?
Buddha Dharma
Dharma Practitioner
Yeah I wonder if it was as serious as a 12 year old running around with a toy gun, or a woman pulling out her gun in Home Depot and opening fire because she witnessed someone in the act of petty theft?
Are you saying that all police killings are of that nature?
Buddha Dharma
Dharma Practitioner
No, but I am acknowledging those kinds of killings happen. That police brutality is to some degree a problem. That there are cases where cops open fire just because someone flees the scene of a crime and that is not their right. Their right in such a case is to apprehend the culprit. Self-defense is one thing...
That kind of thing does happen. It is not unknown for criminal indictments to follow, although certainly not always. But this is not a reason for disarming the police. If the police were not armed but so much of the populace remained armed, that homicide rate, as well as the general crime rate, could easily skyrocket.
Buddha Dharma
Dharma Practitioner
I don't think disarming the police must be the answer. I've heard different things about the successes of police training in states like Colorado- where the police have to pass sensitivity training for dealing with criminals in various scenarios. Stuff like that.
Hmm. I just got off duty tonight. What did I do? Gave a person a ride across town. It was freezing rain, he thanked me and my partner.Helped a woman with a drunk abusive husband. No one was hurt and both parties are safe. Worked a little traffic. Did my best to keep the people of my town safe. Yeah, we're really rotten.
Buddha Dharma
Dharma Practitioner
I hope this isn't a dismissal of the bad cops in the profession. Please tell me it isn't.
Nothing like that.
It's putting it all into perspective. Every day millions of cops do a good job of "serve and protect". But cops are also human beings who do make mistakes and commit crimes.
Headlines like the OP are ridiculous.
Tom
Thinking we could compare mass shootings by police to mass shootings by non-police, justified shootings to justified shootings, and murders to murders.