Excellent story on Darren Wilson

I thought about that, too, but cops aren't constitutionally permitted to shoot someone while he's running away, so I'm not sure what changes there.

I think the far bigger fear is that a desperate criminal would take a shot at a cop now, or at least threaten with a gun, because there would no longer be the immediate fear of being shot and killed on the spot.

 

Dick, shooting a gun is similar to learning the G chord in that analogy. As a physical skill, it isn't difficult. And we are not asking (or at least are not supposed to be asking) the police to be expert marksman. If they can hit roughly center mass from 20 feet or less, that's about all we need.

So it shouldn't take that much training proportionally, even accounting for pressure and adrenaline.

 

2015 post-riot Baltimore may be a decent proxy if you want to see cops without guns.

 

On what do you base your assumption that cops only get killed because they have guns? Several of the cops killed in recent years didn't even have their guns drawn; they were ambushed. Others were responding to 911 calls where the violence had already started before they got there and the criminal had no desire to go to jail. Some were even beaten to death by unarmed assailants.

There are more than 300 million guns in the US and we have a clear problem with violence that transcends what weapon is used. For example, our serial killer statistics are stunningly large compared to any other country and guns were only involved in around 40% of these crimes.

If you want to send unarmed cops into a home invasion hostage situation, a rampage killing in a movie theater, an armed bank robbery, a murder in progress, or up against a heavily armed street gang, then police departments will go the way of the dodo.

A lower body count doesn't mean fewer cops are getting shot. Four key reasons that cop deaths have gone down since the 1930s: widespread use of body armor, tight restrictions on fully automatic weapons (the mob's favorite weapon in the 1930s), better training, and better first responder / hospital medical techniques and training in how to treat bullet wounds. Over the last 10 years, they've averaged 149 deaths, 58,930 assaults, and 15,404 injuries per year, according to the FBI website. How many of those injuries would have been lethal but for these improvements? I once interviewed a woman whose cop husband had been shot in the head walking up to a door to serve an eviction notice in 2001. He was 30 years old at the time, and he's still alive. He's completely paralyzed and will be bedridden and dependent on her the rest of his life, but he's not a number on the deceased officer list.

Another contributing factor in the lower dead body count? The safety features that are now common in modern cars. More cops are surviving car crashes that would have been lethal in prior decades.

When I read comments that combine cop death statistics and the word "only" I get the heebee jeebies that someone sees such death rates as no big deal or that the job isn't particularly dangerous.

 

The police do a crap job at controlling optics.

These two armored trucks serve the same function - to protect who and what is inside in the event of violence. Does one elicit a strong reaction but not the other?

 

I'm not sure what's stopping them from robbing people are gunpoint now. You don't rob people in front of a bunch of cops. I guess we presume the only reason they don't is because cops have guns?

I suspect the "without guns, it's all lawless!" trope is mostly a myth. It may spike for awhile, then subside. I think our culture, generally speaking, is addicted to violence, crime and fighting crime. You either restart that computer and reboot a new program, or you just keep using virus sweeps and watching the computer lock up, blaming the hackers.

At some point, the problem can't just be: It's all the criminals fault. The system is flawed. Cop training stinks. They're training for an action movie.

 

Shooting a gun is harder than assessing and responding to the complexity of a distressed human soul?

 

If you're ever in a situation when someone is punching you in the face and reaching for your gun, you can feel free to take some time to think about how best to respond to the complexity of a distressed human soul.

In the real world, some criminals want to kill cops, and some cops are justified in killing those criminals. The trick is in training cops to question their biases without delaying their response time in cases where shooting the non-cop is necessary. Cops who hesitate can die. Cops who don't think can murder.

 

Just making sure I understand you here: It's the criminal justice system's fault that there are criminals?

 

No, it's the victims' fault. They're co-dependent enablers. If they'd stop being victims there wouldn't be any criminals ... wait, distressed souls.

 

You take away a cop's guns, and you're going to end up with a whole lot of these:

Absolutely the worst idea I've seen on this board, and thats saying something.

 

Constitutionally?