Baton Rouge, Minnesota, Dallas

[HighDeaf1080p]

Snipers killing cops in public is fucking crazy.

100% agree.

Cops shooting innocent motorists of all races because they don't feel that person was "submissive" enough is equally crazy and has happened an order of magnitude more often that the mind can barely comprehend.

Maybe a magic wand that makes all guns instantly disappear from the earth is the answer. Then we can all just stab it out with kitchen knives to get this resolved.

[HighDeaf1080p]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgO7MJNO3oo[/youtube]

Not black person being executed for lack of respect. This is what happens when children who've never been spanked in their lives, meet up with ex-bullies who've done their two week vocational course and been given a gun and badge.

[HighDeaf1080p]

No European could ever understand the American logic of the need to own a gun. Or at least only a few.

This is likely because there is literally no place in Europe where it takes police 2 hours to show up to help you, and when they do, they don't rape and murder you and/or your family. America is big, rural, and the police are corrupt.

[Pepe]

No European could ever understand the American logic of the need to own a gun. Or at least only a few.

This is likely because there is literally no place in Europe where it takes police 2 hours to show up to help you

I really believe that there are some territories where you have to have a weapon at hand, because the police/ambulance has to drive four hours to arrive at your place.

and when they do, they don't rape and murder you and/or your family. America is big, rural, and the police are corrupt.

Your country is even sicker than I thought.

[HighDeaf1080p]

I just wish all the hate and anger toward one another could go away. How can you hate someone else so deeply that you want to take away their life? All that they have and all they are ever going to have?

I pose this equally towards police officers. How can you think its ok to shoot someone just because you're scared, or because you don't feel they're respecting your authority enough?

[snipelfritz]

No European could ever understand the American logic of the need to own a gun. Or at least only a few.

This is likely because there is literally no place in Europe where it takes police 2 hours to show up to help you

I really believe that there are some territories where you have to have a weapon at hand, because the police/ambulance has to drive four hours to arrive at your place.

and when they do, they don't rape and murder you and/or your family. America is big, rural, and the police are corrupt.

Your country is even sicker than I thought.

We're just young and rambunctious. Haven't had the time to mellow out like Europe has. Remember when you guys were murdering Saxons and whatnot?

[Faldoe]

Some much is being said about these incidents and people obvious want fixes - often quick ones - and an area to focus their efforts towards to actually "change" things. A problem that can and does arise though is that people will focus on something - often a "thing" - like guns as the cause of these issues. It's easier to say "If we ban these guys, incidents like this won't happen." I think that kind of approach is useless because it does not address the confluence of various causes and influences - many long standing.

There is the issue of racism or more appropriately - prejudice or bias.

I think we are at a point in human history where we as a species have to gone to grips with and understand ourselves as beings and part of that means understanding our part animality. Disregarding creationism vs evolution debates, I'm going to assume and argue the latter - that we evolved from animals and we still very much are animals. What may make us different is our ability to rise above thinking in animalistic terms. Prejudice and bias - towards "outsiders" those different from "our group" has some needed function in an animalistic paradigm. The problem is that we as humans need to get beyond that, and we are in a way fighting an uphill battle as we're fighting with our evolution and a deep part of our developmental history. Most spiritual or religious ideologies - the sound ones, anyways - seem to advocate doing this. Again, it's no easy task.

So despite our advances as a species - technology, scientifically, etc. - we're still those animal selves, in part.

And so we have (in the USA) a history of racial prejudice - and class prejudice - and we have that occurring amongst humans; all of whom themselves can engage in prejudice. No one is free from falling prey to such thinking. So we have racism against black people, Native Americans, etc. etc. and then there is the reactionary prejudice towards the historic "oppressors" which proliferates. You often hear from more politically left-leaning groups that the origins of the police in the USA was that they were slave patrols. So the modern day law enforcement (LE) can be seen through that lens: that of a group that has historically oppressed people of color. So often people of color will distrust LE - either out of that general bias of historical coercion/violence or peoples those persons of color have had legit first-hand negative experiences with LE. There are those too who can take the former view and then when they get into an encounter with a LE officer (LEO) , that person does not pay attention to their own behaviors and if the LEO reacts aggressively towards said person, said person may just assume it was unjustified.

Then you have LEO who may have a general negative perception about certain types of people, or maybe that LEO has had negative experiences with similar looking or behaving people in the past and errors on the side of caution - or prejudice - when encountering similar looking or behaving people. Or maybe they lost a fellow LEO to something of similar appearance or behavior.

I'm not trying to offer any solutions here, nor blame, but highlighting that this is deep and nuanced stuff, and that media - big media, social media, hashtagging, politics, all, to varying degrees - ignores the nuance and goes with their ideological talking points and points of historical view - "narratives" - about the root causes and thus the solutions.

[HighDeaf1080p]

What is making me furious right now is the CNN coverage today. "This is just horrific, and we now have 5 funerals yet to get through this week." "our coverage tonight will be to honor the 5 people who have died and will not be mentioning the name of the person who perpetrated this crime." "These police officers were gunned down while defending americans first ammendment rights, even while they were protesting the police."

Wow. It's all such madness.

It's like the entire nation has FORGOTTEN the two innocent people who were gunned down to start this whole thing! No mention of those victims or those funerals because they don't want to incite more rage. No mention about the fact that these police who do these things NEVER face any consequences whatsoever. No discussions about those cases at all, like the autopsy results, or the pending cases/charges against those murdering police officers. NOTHING. Complete radio silence about anything the police have done wrong...its just pure "poooor police...they need your support so bad right now..."

I really am ashamed of this country and its bullshit coverups and public mind control right now. It's so sickening.

We are simply unwilling or unable to admit that our police force is the nations largest organized street gang.

[Faldoe]

I was listening to CNN on my phone at work and there was back and forth mention of both the police deaths and of the guy it LA and MN. There is a problem too of lumping all those killed by police - black people killed by police - as all being the same type of conduct in that they were all miss conduct.

The shooting of the guy in MN certainly appears at first glance to be, but the video doesn't show what lead up to the shooting. The cop does sound on edge and kind of freaking out in the video. And it is fucked up that no medics were called to help Castile but the cops that did arrive went to console the cop.

The LA shooting seems to show how a lot of these incidents could be avoided if the cops involved use different and or better methodologies for handling/interacting with the "suspects."

The whole "hands up don't shoot thing" is BS though in that the DOJ report from Ferguson shows that Mike Brown didn't haven his hands up. I bring this up cause the political and ideological/movement aspect of BLM and many of those on the left ignore those facts and say what they want for their narrative. And the media unfortunately echoes this.

[jrfox92]

Alright, so, this is gonna be a long post where I address a lot of shit that I've mostly avoided getting into arguments over.

NSFW: show

4-year-old kids accidentally shoot themselves or their siblings, because some dumbfucks take their guns everywhere to protect their family

I definitely have an issue when it comes to gun safety and that gun safety is rarely taught to children because the parents are often complete idiots who only own a gun because it was either given to them or they're scared about where they live.
I grew up in a military household and understand what a gun could do and why I should be cautious around one ever since I was probably ~6 years old.
Keep in mind that there was a rifle in my apartment which was easily accessible and the only time I ever "played" with it was when I was with my dad and I knew it wasn't loaded.
Since then I've owned a pistol ever since I was 15 and have never played with it nor showed it off to friends because I knew exactly what it was designed to do and the circumstances where it would be acceptable for me to carry it (that is, home invasion or when it's squared away in its case when I would take it to the range).

Some policemen act like maniac sheriffs in the earlier American days - first shoot, then ask. If I don't like your face, I'll smash it. Show me your license and I'll shoot you, because you could draw your weapon instead, and I know you'll do it, 'cause you're black. And so on, and so on.

There's definitely a massive escalation in terms of the police state that the US has become, but I can understand why it's happened, too.
We had buildings drop in New York after a terrorist organization declared war on the country and its citizens.
Gangs control entire sections of cities to the point that anyone unarmed is likely to die/be kidnapped, etc. It's not quite like Mexico, but it's not far enough off that police would be comfortable walking around like a character from Leave it to Beaver.

Also, when it comes to police states, Euros really have no ground to stand on. The violence between police and civilians in the US is also greater than elsewhere because there's still a prevailing yearning for a life of "I want to be free and left alone to my own devices" which Europeans mostly relinquished after the war (yes, I'm ignoring anarchist protests in this instance).
Europeans are well aware their governments practically own them so that's likely why political conversation appears to revolve around concessions and comfortable/acceptable living rather than a belief that "the government should get the fuck out of my life and let me do what I want" like many Americans seem to feel.
That being said, Americans are owned by corporations yet the conversation is largely about preventing a fairly (domestically) docile government from slaughtering/rounding up any dissenters.

(I recognize that a lot of my viewpoints concerning Europe may seem ignorant, but I'm also viewing this from the little first hand experience and perspective I have concerning Europe which is centered around Romania which has a very different history than the rest of Europe, but I digress)

I really believe that there are some territories where you have to have a weapon at hand, because the police/ambulance has to drive four hours to arrive at your place. But do you really need a weapon in Dallas? In the city? On the street? To feel safe, because another man could have a weapon as well? Hello?

1) Police are often 15+ minutes away no matter where you're located in the US and in 15 minutes your entire family could be dead from one guy with a pistol and half a brain.
2) Dallas is scary as shit at night. Downtown is completely deserted come dusk and there are quite a few slums/ghetto areas surrounding the city.
As I mentioned, it's not Mexico, it's not even that bad, to be honest. But when you have no idea who might have a gun and when you have the option of having one yourself, it's better to be prepared for an encounter than be helpless if that encounter actually happens.

What is making me furious right now is the CNN coverage today.

FWIW, I listen to NPR all day at work and they spent most of the time either avoiding the elephant in the room in general (puff pieces about things no one's concerned about) or talking about BLM/Castile/Sterling,etc. and how the black community and black protest community has been affected by the events of this week or how cops need to stop being "psycho murderers" (paraphrasing, obviously) rather than talking about the deaths in Dallas at all.
So, I don't give a shit if news agencies are being biased, I was already prepared for that.

Concerning:

IN AMERICA, 2.72 PEOPLE ARE KILLED BY THE POLICE EVERYDAY.

There were 698,460 police officers in the US in 2011 according to the FBI.
765,246 in 2008 according to the BJS.
That's 1 death per 281,340 officers with the BJS stats or 1 death per 256,786 officers with FBI stats.
And, odds are, there's probably at least 100,000 more officers now than when from the dates when those stats were made.

Now, while recognizing the whole "blue wall of solidarity" thing that's constantly in play, I wouldn't go indicting every single cop for the actions of some.
And I, especially, wouldn't start expecting them to, basically, "check their hearts and prejudices" because certain officers are bat-shit crazy and don't deserve to wear the badge.

Of course, I'm also pissed off that every single cop that's been involved in what's obviously a wrongful death has got off scot-free in the last few years.
I've been fuming about the bullshit in Cleveland ever since I first saw the tape (granted, I blame the shooter's partner/driver for the incident rather the shooter himself).

[HighDeaf1080p]

Finally, admittedly, after 5 hours of watching, the last hour did appear to shift from "those poor innocent cops" to the the shooting in MN so I feel a little better that it's being covered still...a little. I hope it does not get forgotten before we get a chance to illustrate that neither of these cops get so much as a slap on the wrist. *Sigh*. Which I feel is the REAL reason why some whacko decided to take things into his own hands and kill some innocent cops. Taste of their own medicine and stuff like that.

I can't imagine how I would be feeling right now if I were an African American. We really have to keep in mind that we are only talking about these two shootings at ALL because they are in the tiny percentage where actual video footage was shot. While both of these appear to be the same police bullshit of "I felt threatened so I shot him" there are so many shootings involving much worse police conduct that never even make the news because there's no sexy video clips to attract ratings.

[morange]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6CdZ4nJojA[/youtube]

[Invisible Man]

What I'm frustrated about is that I can't even get a handle on this. I have a pretty good grasp on the individual issues (histories of violence, race, legislation, &), but this is too complicated a ball of wax. Most coverage/conversations end up with someone choosing a corner to defend...I can't even think straight.

[Faldoe]

^^^ ya, that's the thing. It usually boils down to the "two camps" scenario where there are those that just defend the police - even in slight of misconduct on their part, and those that defend the person shot - even when the police may - I stress "may" - have had a justifiable reason to use force OR they don't acknowledge other contributing factors on their part which had to the difficulty cops face in doing their job.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6CdZ4nJojA[/youtube]

Lol

[MEC]

Concerning:

IN AMERICA, 2.72 PEOPLE ARE KILLED BY THE POLICE EVERYDAY.

There were 698,460 police officers in the US in 2011 according to the FBI.
765,246 in 2008 according to the BJS.
That's 1 death per 281,340 officers with the BJS stats or 1 death per 256,786 officers with FBI stats.
And, odds are, there's probably at least 100,000 more officers now than when from the dates when those stats were made.

The statistic I referenced deals with fatalities PER DAY.
You have related that to deaths per day, per officer and while not purposely misleading, it is easily confusing.
At first glance it could be mistaken that only 1 in every 281,340 or 256,786 officers shoot & kill someone.
You have to remember that that is PER DAY.

For ease of math and understanding:
If there are 800,000 police officers and last year 990 people were shot and killed (this does NOT include
those that were choked and killed, tased and killed, beaten and killed etc.) by the police, that is 1 death
for every 808 police officers.

Another interesting fact: The # of people shot and killed by the police last year (990) exceeds the number (904) of American soldiers killed in the deadliest year (2007) of the Iraq War.

For the record, I am not anti police by any means and understand that in MOST of these cases, the person
that was killed, played some role in the events that lead up to their demise. I also don't believe that MOST
police officers choose their career or go to work each day hoping for a chance to kill someone.