Why "All Lives Matters" is wrong

[Sommerswerd]

Your normal "Everyday Cop" probably doesn't need a gun in a country that doesn't allow ordinary citizens to carry guns... A cop in an american low-income area though? Yeah, that guy absolutely needs a gun, and it's the expected outcome that sometimes bad people are shot to save innocent people.

Why do "American" cops "absolutely need" guns specifically in "low income areas"? You specifically said "low income", so I interpret that as meaning that you think that cops in high income areas don't need guns, but they do need them in low income areas, is that correct? Is this related to the idea that "low income areas" have higher crime? Do you also attribute it to the idea that "low income areas" have more dangerous violent people? Do you also believe that "low income areas" have higher rates of gun ownership/possession? Finally, can you describe what you mean by "low income areas"? In other words do you simply mean any municipality or neighborhood where the average income is below the local (city/state/national) mean/average? Or are there other characteristics you had in mind?

Also, I'm assuming you said "American" because we allow gun ownership. Is that the only reason? In other words, do you take the position that any country that allows gun ownership should have their police force fully armed, or is there something else about America specifically that makes you favor armed police?

You said that " it's the expected outcome that sometimes bad people are shot to save innocent people"... I'm assuming that you are talking mostly about the police doing the shooting, since that's the topic... So do you also feel that it's the expected outcome that innocent people are shot unnecessarily? In other words, do you take the position that innocent people getting killed by the police is an OK exchange to give them the ability to kill bad people?

Kind of a tangent, but you also commented that in a place "that doesn't allow ordinary citizens to carry guns", the "normal "Everyday Cop" probably doesn't need a gun." Well, Chicago, and Washington D.C. for example had gun bans in place (that were eventually struck down by the Courts). Assuming those bans were still in place, did you have Chicago and D.C. in mind as the kinds of places where cops would not need guns? Or did you have a different kind of area/neighborhood in mind when you said that? In other words, if American cities had gun bans, would you support city cops going without guns?

 

[KmDubya]

Just to get an idea of where you're coming from, let's say a cop happens upon a teenager running away from a store, having shoplifted at it. He's too fat to give chase. Does he shoot the fleeing teenager with his gun or does he act as a "clerk taking down the facts after the crime has occurred"?

Regardless of the fitness level of the cop you don't shoot a shoplifter. Even if the cop is fit enough to chase them, the cop would need to decide if chasing was worth the potential risk to the public. If the shoplifting flee'er ended up in a high speed car chase that also would be a bad outcome so better to let them escape. Things like this are what cops should be trained to make decisions on in the field.

The above would apply to an armed shopkeeper or an armed citizen in the store during the incident, you don't shoot a shoplifter. Depending on the local laws you might not even be able to brandish the firearm in a threatening manner.

 

[metalhead]

Five meters is actually too close to let an assailant with a knife. The Tueller drill is done in training where it shows that a bad guy 21 feet (6.xx meters) can cover the distance in 1.5 seconds which is faster than a person can identify the threat, draw his weapon and fire. You take a criminal intent on inflicting harm, give them a knife and 21 feet of distance to a cop and the criminal will probably come out victorious.

It certainly will not help the cop to worry that if he does kill a criminal in the line of duty he will be vilified, publicly shamed and threatened and will probably have to move far away for his and his families safety. Better for the cop to get stabbed as long as they live, or better yet just don't try too hard to actually catch or get too close to a bad guy.

If all the police will be unarmed then you'd better not hire any women or guys that aren't above average size and strength. You put Rhonda Roussey (the former womens MMA champ) up against Michael Brown at something like 6'5" and 300 lbs and she's not winning that fight without a firearm. Your typical cop will have way less training and athleticism than a pro MMA champ so it'd go even worse for them.

The willingness to aggressively fight to win (which the criminal has in abundance) will trump training, especially the non-lethal style that police will have to take. They're not going to be trained in dirty lethal fighting that SF or some commando team gets that results in killing and maiming. They don't even teach them chokeholds anymore due to people occasionally dying while being choked out. A criminal is not going to have that sort of moral dilemma when it comes down to a survival fight.

Why is it that police in other countries are able to function without firearms, but you don't think American police would be up to the task?

Being big doesn't make one able to fight. Ronda Rousey would annihilate an untrained person in a fight, regardless of the person's size. This is a silly post.

 

[Lexicus]

Regardless of the fitness level of the cop you don't shoot a shoplifter.

Oh ok, good to see there are some limits with some of the bootlickers, at any rate.

 

[Farm Boy]

Lame.

Sommer: Dispatchers, being unarmed and untrained in physical confrontation are not generally allowed out in public if they can be identified as such, like when they're in their work clothes. This applies everywhere, but it's more important at the county fair. Why?

 

[KmDubya]

Why is it that police in other countries are able to function without firearms, but you don't think American police would be up to the task?

Being big doesn't make one able to fight. Ronda Rousey would annihilate an untrained person in a fight, regardless of the person's size. This is a silly post.

What country with similar crime statistics have unarmed police? Not trying to be snarky I honestly don't know and I believe that that crime rate would have an affect on the effectiveness of having unarmed police.

A trained 140 lb women is going to get beat by a 220 lb man who is reasonably fit and used to fighting. I'm talking criminals who've been in and out of juvie and prison, gangbangers not some sort of couch potato or millennial snowflake. At the same weight a trained man will beat a trained women just do to physiological differences in upper body strength. This is why men and women compete in separate sporting events and on top of that combat sports have weight classes because bigger matters. Denying the basic differences between men and women is silly.

 

[Ryika]

Why do "American" cops "absolutely need" guns specifically in "low income areas"? You specifically said "low income", so I interpret that as meaning that you think that cops in high income areas don't need guns, but they do need them in low income areas, is that correct? Is this related to the idea that "low income areas" have higher crime? Do you also attribute it to the idea that "low income areas" have more dangerous violent people? Do you also believe that "low income areas" have higher rates of gun ownership/possession? Finally, can you describe what you mean by "low income areas"? In other words do you simply mean any municipality or neighborhood where the average income is below the local (city/state/national) mean/average? Or are there other characteristics you had in mind?

Yes, I was referring to the increased rates of (violent) crime happening in poor areas.

Also, I'm assuming you said "American" because we allow gun ownership. Is that the only reason? In other words, do you take the position that any country that allows gun ownership should have their police force fully armed, or is there something else about America specifically that makes you favor armed police?

Yes, I was naming America because of its liberal gun policies.

You said that " it's the expected outcome that sometimes bad people are shot to save innocent people"... I'm assuming that you are talking mostly about the police doing the shooting, since that's the topic... So do you also feel that it's the expected outcome that innocent people are shot unnecessarily? In other words, do you take the position that innocent people getting killed by the police is an OK exchange to give them the ability to kill bad people?

Yes, that too is expected to happen, and yes, that exchange is generally okay. The heartless comparison here is how many people are saved by cops that take out bad people in the act of trying to harm others vs. how many innocent people are killed. The ideal is that the first number is a lot higher than the second number, and I'd say in most of the civilized world, that's easily the case. In America, the amount of innocent people killed by the police is certainly way too high, but again... better training. And maybe better processes to weed out the cops who just aren't suited for the job.

Now, I do understand that there's an argument to be made that we should focus as much as we can to not create situations where cops kill innocent people, but that inevitably means that cops are less effective at taking down bad people, which in return means that they harm more innocent people. In most part of the developed world, the number of innocents hurt or killed will go up.

Kind of a tangent, but you also commented that in a place "that doesn't allow ordinary citizens to carry guns", the "normal "Everyday Cop" probably doesn't need a gun." Well, Chicago, and Washington D.C. for example had gun bans in place (that were eventually struck down by the Courts). Assuming those bans were still in place, did you have Chicago and D.C. in mind as the kinds of places where cops would not need guns? Or did you have a different kind of area/neighborhood in mind when you said that? In other words, if American cities had gun bans, would you support city cops going without guns?

I don't know enough of these places to say something about that. I was mostly thinking about places like your average German city. Unless cops here are patrolling through the worst parts of the worst cities, the number of emergencies that involve violent situations that can't be solved with patience and non-lethal weapons are limited.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Lame.

Sommer: Dispatchers, being unarmed and untrained in physical confrontation are not generally allowed out in public if they can be identified as such, like when they're in their work clothes. This applies everywhere, but it's more important at the county fair. Why?

Something having to do with stampedes/riots/drunken brawls, combined with the Dave Chappelle joke about women wearing a "prostitute's uniform"?

 

[Farm Boy]

I don't know. I've never actually watched anything with Dave Chappelle that I remember. You'll have to explain that one for me if you want me to catch the nuance, I'm not googling it from here.

I don't really think it's to do with drunken brawls. I think it has everything to do with the fact that the county fair concentrates into a large crowd both the need for policing and the people who are most likely to have had negative interactions with the police.

 

[SkeleTony]

FTR... The bolded appears to be referring to the police custody death of Freddie Gray.

If that is correct, I am curious where the "tried to slam his head against the police van so he could claim he was beaten but accidentally killed himself" story comes from?

The other criminal in the same van said this before he realized he was messing up the BLM narrative. A few days after he said this he tried to change his story to be in concert with the 'cops are all bad' narrative.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

In all the times I've wandered thru strange neighborhoods, not once did I conclude people watching me were anything other than residents concerned by my presence. Is being watched creepy?

If you don't think there's a difference between "watching" and "following" it's probably best if you just stay inside without a guardian. The world really is dangerous for people of extremely limited capacities.

 

[SkeleTony]

Even with his actions after the trial, openly revealing himself for the filthy sociopathic person that he is, so many ignorant people still defend this excrement Zimmerman.

To be clear -and speaking only for myself- I fully understand that Zimmerman is an ignorant, probably very racist, sociopath and a wimp with an ego problem.

However the issue here is that Travon Martin was a far more violent, ignorant sociopath who felt like he was being followed and his typical way of dealing with people he had issues with was violently beating them. On this particular day he chose to assault an idiot with a gun in one of those moronic 'stand your ground' areas and he was killed.

 

[metalhead]

Yes, that too is expected to happen, and yes, that exchange is generally okay. The heartless comparison here is how many people are saved by cops that take out bad people in the act of trying to harm others vs. how many innocent people are killed. The ideal is that the first number is a lot higher than the second number, and I'd say in most of the civilized world, that's easily the case. In America, the amount of innocent people killed by the police is certainly way too high, but again... better training. And maybe better processes to weed out the cops who just aren't suited for the job.

But "cop" is going to be like any other job that is done by thousands of people - some are going to be bad at it. It's the nature of any job. The idea that you can weed out the bad cops just isn't realistic. What you need is to stop enabling bad cops to kill people with impunity.

Also, police don't exist to stop criminals in the act, because for the vast majority of crimes, doing so is impossible. I'd wager that the amount of murders stopped by police is extremely small when compared to the number of innocent people killed by police every year. Moreover, guns are completely unnecessary to stop crime while it is happening.

 

[Farm Boy]

Skele, Zimmerman is a creep with an even worse fetish than most people who carry weapons and pick out strangers to follow around in public. The whole situation is messed up, but possibly the most messed up thing is the laws that didn't even let us get him off the street after he killed a teenager.

Concealed carry weapons laws are largely written to protect people like Martin against people like Zimmerman.

If somebody was armed and stalking my son around my neighborhood in 10 years, I'd want to know. And I'd want to know so I could draw a bead on his skull. Actually, I'm not that good a shot. I'd aim for the center of his chest.

 

[Lexicus]

However the issue here is that Travon Martin was a far more violent, ignorant sociopath

How many domestic abuse charges did Trayvon have again? How many physical altercations had he gotten into with the cops?

The other criminal in the same van said this before he realized he was messing up the BLM narrative. A few days after he said this he tried to change his story to be in concert with the 'cops are all bad' narrative.

More racist lies to justify murder. Again, congratulations.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Regardless of the fitness level of the cop you don't shoot a shoplifter. Even if the cop is fit enough to chase them, the cop would need to decide if chasing was worth the potential risk to the public. If the shoplifting flee'er ended up in a high speed car chase that also would be a bad outcome so better to let them escape. Things like this are what cops should be trained to make decisions on in the field.

The above would apply to an armed shopkeeper or an armed citizen in the store during the incident, you don't shoot a shoplifter. Depending on the local laws you might not even be able to brandish the firearm in a threatening manner.

See, here's the core of the problem. You recognize that if the fleeing teenager jumps in a car and a high speed chase ensues that endangers the public it is a bad outcome. This is obvious because catching the shoplifter right this second isn't that important. Get enough information, look for a better opportunity, enforce the law. The shoplifter isn't going to slip out of the country with his ill gotten gains. He isn't going to go home and let admiration for his criminal exploits turn him into a mass murderer. There's really no rush here.

But you don't seem to recognize that confronting the teenager in a threatening manner and triggering a fight or flight response and ending up shooting them dead is just as bad an outcome, if not worse. Things like this are what cops should be trained to make decisions on. Things like this are what everyone should demand something be done to prevent. Instead half the public just shrugs and says "well, he probably had it coming" or "well, that only happens to black kids not my kids so it's okay I guess."

True situation and outcome:

Guy crashes his car and is disoriented. Cops help him out of his car and put him in the back of a patrol car, suspecting he's a DUI. Cops find a gun in his wrecked car and run his info finding he has a felony record. Now he is a felon in possession of a firearm. They want to get him out of the car, cuff him, and arrest him. They open the door and he refuses to get out. A cop "goes in to pull him out" and in the struggle he "grabs for the cops gun" and gets "justifiably" shot dead by multiple cops.

Do you say "well a felon in possession of a firearm was surely about to commit some heinous crime so great." Or do you recognize that the guy was locked in the back of a squad car. This wasn't exactly a hostage situation requiring an immediate 'breach and kill' response.

 

[SkeleTony]

I grew up in an all black neighborhood so I didn't have to worry about being stalked by neighborhood watch people... just the cops.

I grew up in Tacoma, WA. The city that was for a long time right behind Los Angeles for gang violence. Back in the mid-to-late 1980s if you were not in a gang and surrounded by gang members, especially if you were not black or Samoan, when you went outside you stood a good chance of at least being beaten. A whole lot of people were shot. I had the advantages of close ties to many black and Samoan gangbangers so I was not beaten nearly as often as many people I knew.
The point I am getting at is that there is an undeniable fact here and the reason we see this large faction of black Trump supporters spouting off on Youtube and such; A black man in America is at least one hundred times more likely to be assaulted or killed by a young black man than he will ever have of being so by a police officer. That is a real thing guy. I fully realize that white people are to blame for this situation as it was white people who kept ****ing blacks over for so long that, in the proverbial race for success in life blacks had to start about 50 meters behind whites (this has been changing for the better in the last several decades but still...).

I do not deny reality at all and one reality I continually see others deny is that no one, regardless of color should be pulling out guns, trying to run away from or trying to fight cops who are trying to do their jobs. While some of these killings are unjustified even those usually (almost always) involve a black man doing exactly that! Trying to run, pull a gun or assault cops. No running from police should not be a death sentence but think of how difficult a cop's job is to begin with with the spit second decisions s/he has to make that will have dramatic repercussions no matter what happens and black men want to provoke them?!

 

[Farm Boy]

Around here we remove from duty police that chase when they aren't supposed to chase. That gets people killed over stupid stuff. Yea, the job is hard. You still don't get people killed over stupid stuff. If you can't be trusted not to do that with your split second decisions, well, then you don't get to keep making them. You don't get people killed over stupid stuff. You don't get people killed over stupid stuff.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I grew up in Tacoma, WA. The city that was for a long time right behind Los Angeles for gang violence. Back in the mid-to-late 1980s if you were not in a gang and surrounded by gang members, especially if you were not black or Samoan, when you went outside you stood a good chance of at least being beaten. A whole lot of people were shot. I had the advantages of close ties to many black and Samoan gangbangers so I was not beaten nearly as often as many people I knew.
The point I am getting at is that there is an undeniable fact here and the reason we see this large faction of black Trump supporters spouting off on Youtube and such; A black man in America is at least one hundred times more likely to be assaulted or killed by a young black man than he will ever have of being so by a police officer. That is a real thing guy. I fully realize that white people are to blame for this situation as it was white people who kept ****ing blacks over for so long that, in the proverbial race for success in life blacks had to start about 50 meters behind whites (this has been changing for the better in the last several decades but still...).

I do not deny reality at all and one reality I continually see others deny is that no one, regardless of color should be pulling out guns, trying to run away from or trying to fight cops who are trying to do their jobs. While some of these killings are unjustified even those usually (almost always) involve a black man doing exactly that! Trying to run, pull a gun or assault cops. No running from police should not be a death sentence but think of how difficult a cop's job is to begin with with the spit second decisions s/he has to make that will have dramatic repercussions no matter what happens and black men want to provoke them?!

Credibility limits exceeded. "I was not beaten nearly as often as many people I knew" while growing up on the mean streets of Tacoma Washington doesn't cut it.

I got in some fights as a kid. Won some, lost some. None of them, in either direction, would justify the use of the word "beating." Unless you are joining us from your wheelchair in the institution you have spent your life in and most of these "people you knew" are dead there weren't "beatings" going on in your neighborhood either. Is it distinctly possible that losing one or more fights and the resulting embarrassment is a 'scar' that you have carried into adulthood? Absolutely. Advise: grow up and get over it.

Now, is having gangs of wild youngsters running around a great way of life? Of course not. Is encountering a gang of wild youngsters unpleasant, and potentially dangerous? Of course. Is the solution "back the badge and turn armed grown men loose on them" the best we have? No.

 

[Lexicus]

I fully realize that white people are to blame for this situation as it was white people who kept ****ing blacks over for so long that, in the proverbial race for success in life blacks had to start about 50 meters behind whites (this has been changing for the better in the last several decades but still...).

See you keep saying things like this but then you just go ahead and support the status quo.