Protect and Serve . . . yeah right !

Sliver · 5 May 2015 at 20:25

thep02 said:
They've got a lot of kit but they're not very good a winning so I think the people would win presuming the tyrant doesn't use nukes on their own country.

Hypothetical wet dream m8.

thep02 · 6 May 2015 at 12:14

Sliver said:
Hypothetical wet dream m8.

Not a wet dream of mine, you need the iron will of an Afghan man to beat yank armed forces and the yank civilian is nowherenear that level of commitment or willingness to pay the price in civilian deaths.

ThestigGT999 · 1 Aug 2015 at 20:29

stopper · 1 Aug 2015 at 21:14

Burnsy2023 said:
One of the primary reasons that the US is so protective around firearms is that they feel they need it to protect "freedom"

Well, if they didn't protect their freedoms, they would be fined for taking their kids on holiday during school term, fined for riding bikes on a path, fined for dropping degradable litter, fined for not registering a birth, fined for not paying a TV license, bailiffs would take their possessions without a court order....I suppose you can see where this is heading.

Sliver · 1 Aug 2015 at 21:30

ThestigGT999 said:

When you view law enforcement through the lens of that video, you can see that the US needs to rewrite the second amendment. In America he would have been shot and killed and no police officer would have been prosecuted.

andi · 2 Aug 2015 at 00:34

If an armed officer in the UK had been faced with that, they'd have shot him too, so it's not a UK v US thing.

It was more luck than anything else than no officer was hurt, when you watch the full video you realise he gave up very easily and didn't seem like he actually wanted to hurt them. If he had really intended to, it could have ended very badly indeed.

SonniLombardi · 2 Aug 2015 at 01:10

lol 4-5 cops holding him on the ground but can't detain him and cuff him But allow him to reach for an officers gun so they shoot him, fail.

scorza · 2 Aug 2015 at 07:59

Also, how many people die in UK police custody every year?

TheVoice · 2 Aug 2015 at 10:16

andi said:
If an armed officer in the UK had been faced with that, they'd have shot him too, so it's not a UK v US thing.

Unlikely, and they'd have used Taser first. Just because the firearm is available doesn't meant all other methods of force are abandoned.

Sliver · 3 Aug 2015 at 07:25

andi said:
If an armed officer in the UK had been faced with that, they'd have shot him too, so it's not a UK v US thing.

The 'UK v US thing' is a valid comparison to make as the two nations encompass both ends of the spectrum when it comes to guns.

We don't deploy armed police generally to people armed with knives. In the US though, every time you encounter the police, whether you're armed and threatening or simply have faulty break lights on your car, you are met with an armed officer. So the potential for someone to get shot and killed is exponentially higher in the US than in the UK.

teaboy5 · 3 Aug 2015 at 13:38

Sliver said:
The 'UK v US thing' is a valid comparison to make as the two nations encompass both ends of the spectrum when it comes to guns.

We don't deploy armed police generally to people armed with knives. In the US though, every time you encounter the police, whether you're armed and threatening or simply have faulty break lights on your car, you are met with an armed officer. So the potential for someone to get shot and killed is exponentially higher in the US than in the UK.

You forget police in NI are armed and yet don't go shooting people at random.

There are many cases in the US were they could have used a taser instead of a gun.

Sliver · 3 Aug 2015 at 16:16

teaboy5 said:
You forget police in NI are armed and yet don't go shooting people at random.

There are many cases in the US were they could have used a taser instead of a gun.

No I didn't forget, I was simply addressing the majority of cases. NI is an exception.

Yes Americans can and do use tasers and sometimes even these result in deaths, however in the majority of cases US police are trained to use lethal force at the slightest threat they encounter and they do this with guns.

cheesyboy · 3 Aug 2015 at 16:19

Sliver said:
No I didn't forget, I was simply addressing the majority of cases. NI is an exception.

Yes Americans can and do use tasers and sometimes even these result in deaths, however in the majority of cases US police are trained to use lethal force at the slightest threat they encounter and they do this with guns.

Yes they are. I read an interesting article about it, which I referenced earlier in the thread (worth a look if you haven't already);

cheesyboy said:
Very interesting read in the Washington Post on how US Police culture and training is over-emphasising the likelyhood of danger to officers, and the promotion of maximum force as an early intervention;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...f-south-carolina-state-trooper-sean-groubert/

The article loosely hangs off the shooting we've discussed here in the past of the officer instructing a man at a "gas station" to show his licence, and then shoots him when the guy reaching into his car to actually get the licence.

Orionaut · 3 Aug 2015 at 19:52

cheesyboy said:
Yes they are. I read an interesting article about it, which I referenced earlier in the thread (worth a look if you haven't already);

But here is a reason for that.

Although your typical street punk isn't going to be either that fast or accurate it is still nevertheless the case that if an officer waits to actually see (and confirm) that the suspect has pulled a Gun on him he will simply not be able to react in time to avoid being shot at even if his gun is already drawn and his finger is lightly on the trigger!

In this context it is worth remembering that the statistics on "Waistband shootings" (IE where the officer has fired as the result of the suspect seeming to make a move for a gun) that should be worrying is not that around half the people shot are not armed, it is that around half of them actually are!

It is not reasonable to expect police officers to basically toss a coin on their lives every time a suspect makes a sudden move by waiting to see if is actually a gun that is being gone for.

The trick to not getting shot is to stay calm, don't move unless told to do so and above all don't be a tit. There are plenty of examples of suspects being taken into custody (Even really dangerous ones) without shots being fired because they did as they were told when confronted.