Do the police in America need firearms?

look out piano said:
He didn't have a gun, but I'd question why he was out at like 3.30am ffs.

No gun in his hands when they shot him.
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He’d just threw it away.
Like I say, if they’re chasing someone who has a gun, imagine the adrenaline and worry flowing through you. In that split second, you’re not sure if they still have it or not.
Folk can kick off about the police, institutional racism, etc... all they want, but the reality is the ridiculous gun laws will always be the main problem.
 


look out piano said:
Usually if you put your hands up it means you're surrendering ffs, fair enough if he was aiming at them but that wasn't the way it looked to me tbh.
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I imagine in that situation you might think a little differently, if he thought he hadn’t dropped the gun then he is well within his rights to shoot him, no one wants to go to work and not return to their family
 
One of these two shot and killed two men, then walked back through police lines still carrying his assault rifle, was offered a drink of water, went home and was peaceably arrested later. One of these two threw his gun away and put his hands up and then was shot, standing with his hands up.

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Get Into Em said:
I always say similar. The idiotic gun laws are massively to blame for the amount of police shootings.

However, surely there's a link to racism if we're both using this argument as to why there's so many police shootings, as a higher percentage of white people in the US own guns than black people. 36% of white people to 24% of black people in 2017. 50% of white men own a gun. Despite this, the rate that black people killed by police officers is considerably higher than white people: 35 per 1 million of black people are killed by police shootings, 14 per 1 million of white people are killed by police shootings. 36% of white people own a gun, compared to 15% of Hispanics, almost double the amount of Hispanic people per 1 million are killed by police officers compared to white people. Links at the bottom for these stats. There's definitely a link to race mate.

Every single person they speak to/arrest could potentially be carrying a firearm, no wonder they're jumpy as fuck.

As you say, they need more training. I'd hazard a guess if you put a US Marine into an American Police Officer's shoes they wouldn't be as jumpy as the vast majority.

www.pewresearch.org

1. The demographics of gun ownership

Understanding gun ownership in America is not as simple as knowing who does and does not own a gun. Some Americans who don’t personally own guns live with
www.pewresearch.org www.pewresearch.org

www.statista.com

Police shootings: rate by ethnicity U.S. 2024 | Statista

The rate of fatal police shootings in the United States shows large differences based on ethnicity.
www.statista.com www.statista.com
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I think it is far too complicated to pinpoint any one or few factors
 
Jon Dough said:
In fairness to LEO in the States, they have a tough job.
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Sadly that's irrelevant now, the narrative that is being played out is that all cops are racist and trigger happy. Out of hundreds of thousands of US policemen there will be few bad apples just like any Police force. The agenda is to undermine all law enforcement and to make their jobs even harder. Seriously who would want to be a copper in the US right now. You couldn't blame them for not rushing to a crime scene or keeping a low profile in certain areas.
 
Get Into Em said:
Even if you don't believe it, you can't blame other people for pinpointing it to race given what I've just showed you.

More white people own guns, less white people get shot by trigger happy coppers.
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Shocking amount of people killed by police in America, over 1000 last year. Actually far more white than black. A very strange country, I wouldn’t be a copper over there for all the tea in China.
 
Ghandi Floss said:
He’d just threw it away.
Like I say, if they’re chasing someone who has a gun, imagine the adrenaline and worry flowing through you. In that split second, you’re not sure if they still have it or not.
Folk can kick off about the police, institutional racism, etc... all they want, but the reality is the ridiculous gun laws will always be the main problem.
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I think your last sentence nailed it. The country is so awash with guns it’s become impossible to police. The genie is well and truly out of the bottle now and there’s no putting it back in. They’re probably closer to making it compulsory everyone has to armed then taking guns away tbh. Must be like trying to police a war zone, a sad state of affairs for everyone
 
Select coaches said:
Shocking amount of people killed by police in America, over 1000 last year. Actually far more white than black. A very strange country, I wouldn’t be a copper over there for all the tea in China.
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There probably is mate, but that's just down to there being a larger population of white people in the US. The statistics I had found earlier though show there is a much higher percentage of black and Hispanic people killed by police than white people (per ethnicity). The country is fucked, and as I also said earlier: racism isn't the only problem, awful gun control and lack of police training are two huge factors.

Just incase you didn't see my post earlier: Do the police in America need firearms?
 
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Hue Jorgan said:
Yes as long as the stoopid public have them. That recent story is so tragic 13 and shot down, but what the news fails to mention very often is he DID have a gun as well as his marra in the Car, and they had been shooting at passing cars.

now that copper knew all this, and in the moment definitely made an error of judgment and a fatal shot was fired, but come on if the copper got shot or one of the passenger in cars they were shooting would it make the media like this? Would it fuck.
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Only 13, what an absolute tragedy. The poor kid had his whole life ahead of him :(

Admittedly, most of it would have undoubtedly have been spent in prison, but still. What a shame, eh?
 
The King of Um said:
One of these two shot and killed two men, then walked back through police lines still carrying his assault rifle, was offered a drink of water, went home and was peaceably arrested later. One of these two threw his gun away and put his hands up and then was shot, standing with his hands up.

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also according to Fox news the top one is a "13 year old man" and the bottom one a "little boy"...
 
Marty Moose said:
That's a good point. In order to protect yourself and your home (as that argument for arms goes) you should be allowed a little six shooter, and some sort of regulated limit of ammunition quantity you can stockpile at any one time. Absolutely no need for anything heavier. Wouldn't put a stop to gun related crime altogether, but would surely minimize the amount of times nutters can go postal with laser sighted semi automatic weapons and wipe out folk tens at a time.
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No, it wouldn't. It would massively increase the number of sad men killing themselves with small hand guns.
 

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