by Sixstrings » Fri 28 Nov 2014, 01:50:54
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409.. is that such a bad number? That's what, less than 1.5 per million people? Seems reasonable to me. For every million people, I'm not surprised there's one or two that are idiot enough to rush an armed officer with his weapon drawn.
Or, what most of the shootings are from, actual firefights with armed criminals.
We have to remember statistics and perspective. That's really not too bad there, 409 out of 300ish odd million people. If you read an article or see one thing on the news, then it's all blown out of proportion like some kind of epidemic when really it's not.
If you arm the police, then they can do more to stop crimes in progress, but the cost of that are more police shootings too. Same thing is going on in China now:
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Shootings rise after China gives its police gunsBEIJING (AP) — A string of shooting incidents involving Chinese police — leaving at least four people dead — has the public wondering if rank-and-file officers are really ready to carry guns, as mandated by new regulations.
Last month,
two policemen brought a loaded gun to a kindergarten show-and-tell. The handgun mistakenly went off, injuring four parents and one child.
The next day, an officer responded to a village quarrel and fatally shot a man in murky circumstances.
Police also fired repeatedly at a knife-wielding man driving a truck, killing him, even though witnesses said he posed no real threat.The incidents — which have generated widespread media coverage and social media buzz — come after authorities decided in April to issue guns to patrolling officers to better protect the public and improve police response to crime and attacks.
The trigger seems to have been a brazen attack by a group of assailants who stabbed 29 people to death and wounded 140 others in train station in the southern province of Yunnan. Officials blamed the attack on extremists from the western Xinjiang region.
For decades, Chinese police were unarmed because the country has very little gun violence and firearms are hard to obtain. The change leaves Britain, Norway and New Zealand among developed countries where patrolling police officers generally aren't armed.
"Broadening the right (to carry guns) to more police officers could bring more harm than good if they do not follow the laws," said Liu Zhirong, an independent scholar who was once a researcher at an elite Chinese military police academy. "Police must learn to minimize use of force."
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/shootings-rise-after-china-gives-its-police-guns Anyhow, US police doesn't have a choice. For better or worse there are more guns than people in the country. All the criminals have guns, so the cops must as well.
Whatever happened to tasers, by the way? Officer Wilson said he had mace, but why aren't all police carrying tasers these days?
And then THAT just gets to be a problem too, and people get tasered even more than shot. And a lot of innocent people have died from tasering.
I don't know what the ultimate answer is here, other than for people to HAVE SOME COMMON SENSE and don't beat up police officers, do not fight with them, do not punch them, do not slam their cop car door on them, and after all that when they've got their gun drawn and are warning they're gonna shoot -- then you had best listen.
People just need to have some sense. YOU MUST LISTEN TO THE POLICE, PERIOD.
It needs to be taught in schools, too, like a public safety thing -- look, you can't ever fight with a cop, kids need to be taught that in schools.
Maybe there's TOO MUCH of "the police is your friend," maybe what kids need taught is that they have to RESPECT those cops and they need to understand what being armed is, etc., and things you can't do to an armed law officer or you're gonna wind up shot.