Police Fire At Hostage & Use Human Shields

[Galloism]

I'm going to need some kind of a source on that - the average human sprints at about 29 feet per second, so sixty feet is just a hair over 2 seconds away.

That's "here" to me.

I don't know that I'd hold a door open for someone who was 60 feet away

I probably would if they were sprinting.

[Alvecia]

I don't know that I'd hold a door open for someone who was 60 feet away

I probably would if they were sprinting.

I'm not sure. I'm trying to time it in my head, but it's hard without doing some actual running.

But then I might get some odd looks if I started sprinting up and down the office

[Galloism]

I probably would if they were sprinting.

I'm not sure. I'm trying to time it in my head, but it's hard without doing some actual running.

But then I might get some odd looks if I started sprinting up and down the office

Just tell them it's market research.

[Risottia]

You get that I'm not British, yeah?

Next thing you'll be telling us that this isn't your flag.

[Risottia]

...So sure while the army is certainly better at these situations, they also specifically train these people to get shot at, because that's kinda the major thing that happens during war. While police need to learn different things, like apprehension, cuffing, rights, etc. So comparing the training of the military to police is stupid. ...

You know some countries have military forces dedicated to police service? They're called a Gendarmerie (French Gendarmerie, Italian Carabinieri...).

[Aristoqueer Neo-Taipei]

Privatize the cops so that they will snitch on each other's abuses for profit

Apply regulations when necessary for humanist sensibilities because incremental improvement is still better than zero

etc.

[Armed Southern Republic]

take power away from police officers

[Jebslund]

Privatize the cops so that they will snitch on each other's abuses for profit

Apply regulations when necessary for humanist sensibilities because incremental improvement is still better than zero

etc.

Why? So police protection can join good health and good education in the category of 'things that should be rights that are now luxuries'?

[Aristoqueer Neo-Taipei]

Privatize the cops so that they will snitch on each other's abuses for profit

Apply regulations when necessary for humanist sensibilities because incremental improvement is still better than zero

etc.

Why? So police protection can join good health and good education in the category of 'things that should be rights that are now luxuries'?

Universal access is best ensured through subsidy, not nationalization, which restricts supply. But anyway, universal police protection isn't a thing either in the current scenario, where police departments in America need only protect the "public at large" and do not owe police services to any single person.

[GlobalControl]

Just here to say

This poll is bias and stupid.
To hecc with abolishing the Police, Abolish this Poll.

[Ifreann]

1. Really? Even if the police could conceivably have managed the threat and arrested the person alive without shooting them? Even if the threat was perceived but not real?


2.cYou've taken a study about racial bias in police shootings to mean that the overwhelming majority of police uses of a weapon are responsible. That's quite the stretch.


3. You're the one telling me that the police wrongfully killing people isn't a problem beyond the behaviour of those individual officers until there's some threshold hit, some percentage of all killings that are unjustified.

1. Yes to the former, no to the latter considering that you haven't actually proven that any of the instances included were merely percieved threats as opposed to being actual threats.

But then, nor have you proven them to be based on anything at all. So we don't really know what the criteria are here.

And allowing yourself to be potentially stabbed, shot or beaten simply to bring someone in alive is not something police should have to do. You're gonna have to work on that critical thinking.

Rather depends on the situation, doesn't it? Or do you think that the police were justified in shooting at people holding a hostage? Because that would mean that the police can justifiably shoot a person who is not armed, not a threat, not even suspected of being a criminal, and in fact known to be an innocent victim. At which point the concept of a justified shooting is clearly worthless.

2. Because the study also looked into whether or not most police shootings are justified. You haven't actually shown there to be any sort of flaws in the study, so I'll stick by it. It's actually quite simple, I assure you.

The problem is that you are expanding the findings of the study far beyond what was actually found. The statement you quoted said that most police shootings were of people who were armed and posed a threat or had fired at officers. You have continually expanded that "most" to represent an ever more exaggerated majority, and have expanded that "shootings being justified" to mean "responsible in all uses of their weapons".

3. You claim that disarming most police officers will reduce the number of police shootings and make the public safer. You were initially relying on this as evidence that there's a serious threat to the public, but now you're backpedaling after being shown evidence that most officers are behaving responsibly with their guns and after being called out making an inaccurate OP. So you're lacking a bit in the intellectual honesty department.

I'm not back-pedalling at all. I still think that the police pose a threat to the American public. I am not basing that assessment on the percentage of police officers who are responsible with their weapons. I have never suggested that my position was based on the percentage of police officers who are responsible with their weapons. But you clearly do think that way, you brought this up in the first place, you keep saying that there is no problem because most officers are, you believe, responsible with their weapons. You shouldn't assume that I am using the same reasoning as you just because I am asking you about your reasoning.

What do you want it reduced to, given that you find yourself dissatisfied with the overwhelmingly majority of officers behaving responsibly?

A study claiming that most police shootings were of someone who was armed and posed a threat or had opened fire on officers doesn't mean that the overwhelming majority of officers behave responsibly. This really should be obvious, but just in case you aren't deliberately exaggerating the scope of the study you cited I will explain. Would it be responsible for a police officer to use their baton to beat someone who had already surrendered and was not resisting arrest or posing any kind of threat? Obviously not. Would that behaviour constitute an unjustified police shooting? Obviously not. But maybe you'll now say that by "weapon" you only meant "gun". Would it be responsible for a police officer to get drunk at a bar while still carrying their gun? Obviously not. Would that behaviour constitute an unjustified police shooting? Obviously not.

What threshold are you going for?

I would like there to be zero police shootings. I trust that isn't a controversial position.

Do you have any actual evidence that it would do anything besides put more police officers at risk?

It is self-evident that taking their guns away would stop the police from shooting people, so there you go, evidence that disarming police would do something other than putting police officers at risk.

And no, the UK and NZ and whatever country you might be thinking of are not reflective of America. Please try harder.

I've never said that the US is reflective of any other country.

From the beginning I've been asking you to simply do the small task of proving that what you want is necessary, and you've been woefully inadequate in doing that.

If you need me to prove that stopping the police from shooting innocent people is necessary then I don't know what to tell you, man, maybe consider that people being alive is good?

[Satuga]

If people aren't killing for the love of murder then what makes you say that they are murder loving psychopaths?


But clearly not what is being talked about.

This is starting to seem like you're arguing that anyone who commits murder must be a psychopath because they committed murder, and that's not particularly good reasoning.

So someone murdering over $20 isn't an unhinged person who will kill just to kill? If you will kill someone over something so petty, then yes you're doing it because you enjoy the feeling of power that comes with killing someone.

Except it is, because the robbers already had a petty motive to kill the hostage, the fact they were there to begin with and could have seen or heard something is a petty enough reason for these robbers to kill someone especially after they already shot someone.

No I'm arguing that people have, and will continue to kill others over petty reasons as a "justification" to murder another person.

[Ifreann]

If people aren't killing for the love of murder then what makes you say that they are murder loving psychopaths?


But clearly not what is being talked about.

This is starting to seem like you're arguing that anyone who commits murder must be a psychopath because they committed murder, and that's not particularly good reasoning.

So someone murdering over $20 isn't an unhinged person who will kill just to kill? If you will kill someone over something so petty, then yes you're doing it because you enjoy the feeling of power that comes with killing someone.

How do you know that? Seems to me that someone killing for money probably just wants the money.

Except it is, because the robbers already had a petty motive to kill the hostage, the fact they were there to begin with and could have seen or heard something is a petty enough reason for these robbers to kill someone especially after they already shot someone.

They shot at someone while trying to rob their store. That doesn't mean that they'll kill anyone for any reason.

No I'm arguing that people have, and will continue to kill others over petty reasons as a "justification" to murder another person.

None of which has anything to do with the claim you are disputing that psychopaths who kill just for the pleasure of it are rare.

[Satuga]

How do you know that? Seems to me that someone killing for money probably just wants the money.

For something as low as $20 it is not near enough of a justification for murder.

They shot at someone while trying to rob their store. That doesn't mean that they'll kill anyone for any reason.

You put way to much faith into murdering criminals, they killed before what stops them from killing again? You don't treat a murderer as a upstanding citizen simply because "Oh they only did it once, they might not do it again."

None of which has anything to do with the claim you are disputing that psychopaths who kill just for the pleasure of it are rare.

>People kill for petty reasons, as justification for murder
>"That has nothing to do with psychopaths murdering for the pleasure of it"
>

[Jebslund]

If people aren't killing for the love of murder then what makes you say that they are murder loving psychopaths?


But clearly not what is being talked about.

This is starting to seem like you're arguing that anyone who commits murder must be a psychopath because they committed murder, and that's not particularly good reasoning.

So someone murdering over $20 isn't an unhinged person who will kill just to kill? If you will kill someone over something so petty, then yes you're doing it because you enjoy the feeling of power that comes with killing someone.

Except it is, because the robbers already had a petty motive to kill the hostage, the fact they were there to begin with and could have seen or heard something is a petty enough reason for these robbers to kill someone especially after they already shot someone.

No I'm arguing that people have, and will continue to kill others over petty reasons as a "justification" to murder another person.

Killing over money is entirely different from killing for no reason. A person who will beat you to a pulp for looking at his girlfriend isn't just going to jump some rando for no reason, as the arguably psychotic overreaction to you looking at his girlfriend was a reaction to a slight, not an out of the blue action. That $20 is something the killer believed he was entitled to, not just a power trip.

It's too petty when weighed against the fact that the hostage is only good to them alive and becomes a liability as a corpse. Criminals are not some alien 'other' that acts completely different from humans. They're humans that, while having skewed morals, operate on a risk/reward mode of thinking like anyone else. If there isn't enough reward to overcome risk, they won't do it, and that includes killing a hostage.

You seem to be arguing from an assumption that people who kill illegally are nonhuman and therefore do not operate according to the principles of human psychology. As I've said many times in this thread, that level of irrationality is rare. Enough so that it should not be the default assumption.

[Page]

Whether these particular perpetrators would have acted rationally based on risk and reward, the police definitely could have and should have - they failed.

[Ifreann]

How do you know that? Seems to me that someone killing for money probably just wants the money.

For something as low as $20 it is not near enough of a justification for murder.

I'm not talking about killing being justified or not. I'm saying that if someone killed for money then they probably just wanted the money, as opposed to secretly being a sadistic psychopath.

They shot at someone while trying to rob their store. That doesn't mean that they'll kill anyone for any reason.

You put way to much faith into murdering criminals, they killed before what stops them from killing again?

I'm not aware that it is known that they killed anyone. The people who died, to the best of my knowledge, might have been killed by the police. It's possible that confirmation to the contrary has since come out and I've missed it.

You don't treat a murderer as a upstanding citizen simply because "Oh they only did it once, they might not do it again."

I'm not talking about treating them as an upstanding citizen, I'm just disputing your belief that people who do violence while trying to steal jewels are bloodthirsty psychopaths who will certainly kill at every available opportunity.

None of which has anything to do with the claim you are disputing that psychopaths who kill just for the pleasure of it are rare.

>People kill for petty reasons, as justification for murder
>"That has nothing to do with psychopaths murdering for the pleasure of it"
>

Yeah. You saying that some people kill for petty reasons has nothing to do with your assertion that psychopaths who get off on killing are less rare than we might think. If I told you that carnivorous plants are more common than you might think, and then talked about how carnivorous plants exist, I'm not actually saying anything about them being more common than you might think.

[The Republic of Fore]

Replace "Cops" with "Black people" and you begin to realize how ironic the arguments being made are.

Do please expand upon this concept. Exactly why is that a useful thought experiment.

---

Well, yeah. The US approach to social issues has created a lot of criminals, and this is not a reversible process. The issue won't be resolved until they're all dead or in jail.



Have them executed, then. But let's not blame militarization for something fundamentally at odds with the military.



And by the time they show up, the criminals will have killed everyone in their path. Fear of being shot is the only thing holding American criminals back.

Maybe consider the possibility that criminals aren't all insane killers.

---

Perhaps you should consider why that is. The majority of police shootings are justified.

According to who? The police?

If the majority of police officers are capable of handling their weapons responsibly and only using them to defend themselves then there would seem to be little reason to strip most of them of their weapons. You're advocating for a solution to a problem that does not exist.

Except it is a problem, even if you're right and most police shootings are justified. That means the police are still unjustifiably shooting people. Why should the American public accept that some of them will be killed by the police as the cost of having a police force?

Either prove that most cops are actually using their weapons irresponsibly or otherwise there is no reason to take anything you've said seriously,

Imagine that tomorrow morning we learned that overnight 49.9% of police officers in the US had unjustifiably shot someone. Would you tell me that since that's not a majority, there is no wider problem?

especially when considering how clickbaity and inaccurate your OP has been proven to be.

Well unless more than half of it is wrong there's no problem, right?

---

1. Good for those countries. When they have shit holes like Detroit and Chicago that their police have to deal with then what they do or don't do will be relevant. Speaking of Chicago, a police officer there was beaten nearly to death because he was too scared of the backlash to draw his pistol.

If the police are in particular danger in certain parts of the country then all officers there could be routinely armed. The alleged shit-hole-ness of Detroit or Chicago doesn't make any difference to police forces distant from those cities.

2. Oh so you'd fail to do your job and allow the bank robbery to happen. Sounds like a great way to enforce law and order.

Yes, I would allow a bank robbery to happen rather than try to fight off two heavily armed and armoured assailants with the handgun the force issued me. I would allow a hundred bank robberies to happen rather than futilely get myself killed trying to stop them, and I would expect the same of any law enforcement officer. Fall back, get backup, don't just run in on your own and die, that's stupid.

3. Have fun figuring out how to stay alive for the more than 15 minutes it takes US police forces to respond on average in major cities. If they even show up at all.

So increase their funding so they can have more people available, spread out over the cities, to improve response times.

*Edit*
Also claiming you're more in danger from the police than criminals is extremely dishonest. There's been a few hundred people killed by the police in all of 2019. Most of whom were armed with a gun.

Americans have the constitutional right to be armed with a gun.

There's no reason to disarm police officers. law abiding citizens usually don't interact with the police. So whether we have a right to own a gun is irrelevant. If you don't want to get shot by the police, you can try not breaking the law. I hear that works pretty well. Preventing a few accidents isn't worth causing far more problems by allowing criminals to operate freely. Personally, I shed no tears for idiots like the teenager in St. Louis who thought it was a good idea to shoot at the swat team.

[Ifreann]

If the police are in particular danger in certain parts of the country then all officers there could be routinely armed. The alleged shit-hole-ness of Detroit or Chicago doesn't make any difference to police forces distant from those cities.

Yes, I would allow a bank robbery to happen rather than try to fight off two heavily armed and armoured assailants with the handgun the force issued me. I would allow a hundred bank robberies to happen rather than futilely get myself killed trying to stop them, and I would expect the same of any law enforcement officer. Fall back, get backup, don't just run in on your own and die, that's stupid.

So increase their funding so they can have more people available, spread out over the cities, to improve response times.

Americans have the constitutional right to be armed with a gun.

There's no reason to disarm police officers.

It'll stop them shooting people.

law abiding citizens usually don't interact with the police.

Law abiding citizens have plenty of interactions with the police.

So whether we have a right to own a gun is irrelevant. If you don't want to get shot by the police, you can try not breaking the law. I hear that works pretty well.

And fails with tragic consequences.

Preventing a few accidents isn't worth causing far more problems by allowing criminals to operate freely.

Criminals don't operate freely if cops don't have guns. Cops don't just shoot criminals, that's not what policing is.

Personally, I shed no tears for idiots like the teenager in St. Louis who thought it was a good idea to shoot at the swat team.

I'm sure you don't.

[Union of Pepe]

Disarming the police is of utmost stupidity. The strength of law is dependent on the strength of arms. Fear is what morality and the law are upheld by, take away their arms and no one will listen to the government, much less follow the laws.

Highly agreeable.

[The Emerald Legion]

I mean, I'm of the opinion that your average citizen of the US should possess enough military equipment to raze a small city to the ground.

Obviously, the police would also need to be similarly armed.

[Fartsniffage]

There's a gofundme page for the family of the dead UPS driver. Shit shouldn't be needed, the police department should just be tossing money at the family by now.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/frank-ordonez-go-fund-me

[Gim]

I mean, I'm of the opinion that your average citizen of the US should possess enough military equipment to raze a small city to the ground.

Obviously, the police would also need to be similarly armed.

I agree solely with the U.S., Korea, Canada, and Britain, not any other nation.

[Totenborg]

Do please expand upon this concept. Exactly why is that a useful thought experiment.

---

Maybe consider the possibility that criminals aren't all insane killers.

---

According to who? The police?

Except it is a problem, even if you're right and most police shootings are justified. That means the police are still unjustifiably shooting people. Why should the American public accept that some of them will be killed by the police as the cost of having a police force?


Imagine that tomorrow morning we learned that overnight 49.9% of police officers in the US had unjustifiably shot someone. Would you tell me that since that's not a majority, there is no wider problem?

Well unless more than half of it is wrong there's no problem, right?

---

If the police are in particular danger in certain parts of the country then all officers there could be routinely armed. The alleged shit-hole-ness of Detroit or Chicago doesn't make any difference to police forces distant from those cities.

Yes, I would allow a bank robbery to happen rather than try to fight off two heavily armed and armoured assailants with the handgun the force issued me. I would allow a hundred bank robberies to happen rather than futilely get myself killed trying to stop them, and I would expect the same of any law enforcement officer. Fall back, get backup, don't just run in on your own and die, that's stupid.

So increase their funding so they can have more people available, spread out over the cities, to improve response times.

Americans have the constitutional right to be armed with a gun.

There's no reason to disarm police officers. law abiding citizens usually don't interact with the police. So whether we have a right to own a gun is irrelevant. If you don't want to get shot by the police, you can try not breaking the law. I hear that works pretty well. Preventing a few accidents isn't worth causing far more problems by allowing criminals to operate freely. Personally, I shed no tears for idiots like the teenager in St. Louis who thought it was a good idea to shoot at the swat team.

Yeah, not breaking the law doesn't work. Many cops will still harass, beat, or kill you.

[Page]

Do please expand upon this concept. Exactly why is that a useful thought experiment.

---

Maybe consider the possibility that criminals aren't all insane killers.

---

According to who? The police?

Except it is a problem, even if you're right and most police shootings are justified. That means the police are still unjustifiably shooting people. Why should the American public accept that some of them will be killed by the police as the cost of having a police force?


Imagine that tomorrow morning we learned that overnight 49.9% of police officers in the US had unjustifiably shot someone. Would you tell me that since that's not a majority, there is no wider problem?

Well unless more than half of it is wrong there's no problem, right?

---

If the police are in particular danger in certain parts of the country then all officers there could be routinely armed. The alleged shit-hole-ness of Detroit or Chicago doesn't make any difference to police forces distant from those cities.

Yes, I would allow a bank robbery to happen rather than try to fight off two heavily armed and armoured assailants with the handgun the force issued me. I would allow a hundred bank robberies to happen rather than futilely get myself killed trying to stop them, and I would expect the same of any law enforcement officer. Fall back, get backup, don't just run in on your own and die, that's stupid.

So increase their funding so they can have more people available, spread out over the cities, to improve response times.

Americans have the constitutional right to be armed with a gun.

There's no reason to disarm police officers. law abiding citizens usually don't interact with the police. So whether we have a right to own a gun is irrelevant. If you don't want to get shot by the police, you can try not breaking the law. I hear that works pretty well. Preventing a few accidents isn't worth causing far more problems by allowing criminals to operate freely. Personally, I shed no tears for idiots like the teenager in St. Louis who thought it was a good idea to shoot at the swat team.

The people who were recently gunned down in their own homes by cops might disagree with your assessment. As would the UPS driver who was taken hostage by the jewel thieves. As would the other innocent bystander who died in this incident.