Pic Of The Moment: Food For Thought

[EarlG]

Ferguson Cop Who Killed Mike Brown Shot More Bullets Than The Entire British Police Force In A YEAR

This Is How UK Police Stop Someone With A Knife

Follow @demunderground

[tclambert]

1. The answer to this problem is obvious:

British police need more guns!

[swilton]

25. The answer to this

is sadly -

our country lusts after guns. No clearer way to phrase it.

[shedevil69taz]

2. The reality is this

There are criminals with guns in our country at a higher rate than any other...there was only 1 British officer killed in line of duty in all of 2013, from being hit by a car. In the same year 30 U.S. officers were killed by gunfire ALONE, until we find a better way to keep criminals from obtaining firearms there isn't a compelling argument to disarm those that enforce the laws.

[BklnDem75]

11. The reality is this...

We are talking about one unarmed person here. More bullets to kill someone unarmed than an entire police force in a land of 65 million.

[cascadiance]

3. Perhaps if we're comparing him to other countries, also compare him to Iceland...

where he's killed one person in his life, and the country of Iceland's police has only killed one person (recently) too.

http://www.pri.org/stories/2013-12-03/iceland-grieves-after-police-kill-man-first-time-its-history

Someone do a new photoshop that combines those two comparisons. Would really tell a good story about this country's obsession with guns and violence.

[awoke_in_2003]

22. I would love to live in Iceland...

the wife couldn't handle the cold, however.

[ffr]

4. Graph sums it up, but 3 is the number of "incidents," not bullets

According to aattp.org.

Still doesn't change the immense difference between here and there.

There were three shooting incidents in 2013. Multiple bullets could have been fired in each of the incidents, and exact numbers of shots fired are unavailable. Of over 10,000 operations in which the use of firearms was authorized, police actually fired shots in just .027% of them. - AATTP.org

[War Horse]

14. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks n/t

[BainsBane]

5. Note that the British public doesn't have nearly the number of guns we do

Policing doesn't exist in a vacuum. Our police are heavily armed and violent because we as a society are violent. Allowing the gun lobby to militarize private life in America impacts policing.

[melm00se]

8. Violent of gun violent?

The number of assaults on police officers here and in the UK are dramatically different.

Number of police officers in the UK: 128,351
Number of assaults on police officers in the UK: 19,670

rate: ~15 per 100

Number of law enforcement officers in the USA: 900,000+
Average number of Assaults: 58,261

rate: ~6.5 per 100

[BainsBane]

9. Do you think guns are irrelevant to lethality?

That it makes no difference if such an attacker is armed or not? Or do believe that the citizenry should be militarized but not the police?

We are a violent people. We continuously wage war and hundreds of millions of guns circulate in private hands. We are a society with very little respect for human life. Rights to property and merchants of death trump the rights of citizens to life. People love to externalize issues and pretend it's always someone else's fault. That is why our society becomes increasingly more violent. Ferguson is a mirror reflecting the American character, which is both violent and racist. The police have become death squads because Americans value property, particularly deadly property, above human life.

[truedelphi]

29. Yet your comment and the logic behind it does not at all explain

The huge numbers of death at the hands of gun-wielding police, experienced by the mentally challenged individuals, who have the misfortune of having a neighbor call the police.

For instance, down in Novato, Calif. where the police usually experience run of the mill situations, such as stolen car reports, here is what happened to a mentally ill individual:

When a guy living in Novato called the police at 2Am to report that a neighbor, known by everyone in the community to be mentally ill, but harmless, was standing on top of his car, twirling a broom, he thought the police would show up and easily get the man down off his car roof.

And they did get him down from the roof easily. (Easily for them that is.)

As the neighbor tearfully told the local newspaper reporter later that day, "I own a gun. If I had known the Novato police would be shooting this neighbor of mine DEAD, I could have gotten my firearm out, killed the man myself, and they could have avoided making the trip over here."

That was about ten or twelve years ago. And I see that sort of story told again and again in newspapers across Calfiornia. Including a Clearlake mentally ill man whose mom finally took a much needed vacation. While she was gone, the individual went on a rampage, destroying items inside the family moblile home.

A neighbor dialed the police, and the police came and smashed the door open, and then killed that man. Note: he had never left his home, and was not even really a danger to himself, just to physical property.

I have worked with developmentally disabled adults. Usually all that is needed is to give the individual time to settle down.
(Basically treat them the way you would treat a two or three year old who is throwing a tantrum.) But police feel that they can issue an order, and if the individual doesn't IMMEDIATELY comply, then they can shoot the person, as they have other police matters to attend to.

[BainsBane]

30. It's not meant to be a causal explanation

I'm not arguing that there is a 1 to 1 correlation. Rather, the violence of the police forces reflect our violence as a people, and continuous war and a domestic arms race are part of that.

However, police do have more reason to fear the public here than the do in the UK.

[truedelphi]

35. Actually, the police have the weapons - our government is slowly but surely divestng us of

Them.

So it is the public that is afraid of the police, most of the time.

[geretogo]

6. I would bet money this guy is a white supremicist . He fits right in here not the UK .

[Lobo27]

7. A bit like Germany.

I think it was cops in Germany fired 89 times and 40 were warning shots. Look at it this way between Brown's death and the killing St. Louis, cops fired at minimal 16 times at two unarmed man.

[SoapBox]

10. wow...

Maybe ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, PBS will state this!

Oh...not...scared of the Nutters of the NRA and Baggers.

MSNBC? And even that's questionable.

Seems we're doomed in America by the violent/paranoid gun ways.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

12. K&R. Bears looking into.

[samsingh]

13. this is the consequences of the gun lover's motif

[Dont call me Shirley]

15. Albuquerque and New Mexico State police both have shoot first training.

The DOJ have been called to ABQ earlier this year because of the number of shootings and excessive force by the police. They target the homeless, mentally unstable and transgender people. It's sick. They police units across this country must be picking folks with aggressive sociopathic personalities intentionally.

[delete_bush]

17. Not sure if you've seen it,

but this is absolutely sickening involving the ABQ police. And a warning to those who are squeamish about seeing a man executed, it's quite graphic.

[link:http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/20/us/albuquerque-police-investigation/|

[SummerSnow]

16. what a damn shame

[Cha]

18. Ferguson is a mad dog killer. I don't say that lightly.

Yeah, I wrote "Ferguson" instead of Darren Wilson.. sorry.

[Electric Monk]

19. Ferguson is the township, Darren Wilson was the shooter, and Michael Brown was the victim

Ferguson is a mad dog killer. I don't say that lightly.

[Cha]

20. Oh Gawd.. Darren Wilson is the mad dog killer. thanks Electric Monk for pointing that out. I

know the difference I just wrote Ferguson.. been writing that too damn much.

[Cha]

21. ..

Yamiche Alcindor ✔ @Yamiche
Follow
Dasha Jones won't stop protesting b/c she saw the body of Brown laying in the street. "He is not resting in peace."
5:25 PM - 20 Aug 2014 1,121 Retweets 680 favorites

http://theobamadiary.com/2014/08/22/ferguson-140-characters-of-truth/

[Thor_MN]

23. 6 shots? 1 in car, 1 while Brown was running away, 6 into Brown, plus ?

He fired a minimum of 8 times. Plus other potential misses. Just saying..

[athenasatanjesus]

24. No fair, British police use wands. nt

[orpupilofnature57]

28. Hmmm, Bullet or wand ??? Hmmmm

[LloydS of New London]

26. Well, I wouldn't call Albuquerque a "small city"

But we do "excel" in the number of people gunned down by cops.

[orpupilofnature57]

27. Which makes me ask, how many bullets cops use in America in a year ?

Last edited Sat Aug 23, 2014, 05:19 PM - Edit history (1)

[niyad]

31. "we're number one!!! we're number one!!!!"

[Uncle Joe]

32. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, EarlG.

[pa28]

33. K&R

[meathead]

34. When was N. Ireland set free?

Excluding N. Ireland is the way to speak truthiness!

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

36. My grandfather was a policeman in Glendale CA

from the 1920s to the 1950s, he told me that he pulled his gun only twice in that time and fired it once in the air.

[OldRedneck]

37. Maybe the Brits should . . .

Maybe the Brits should come to the States and hire some REAL cops . . . you know, cops who will SHOOT!!!!!!