Re:If you see the cops, start recording
by staticassertion on Friday June 05, 2020 @04:20PM
(#23433496)
OK? That doesn't matter. If the vast majority of crimes are not violent, it's not really important what the absolute numbers are. It could be 1,000 or 10, the point is that the majority of responders don't need deadly weapons.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
95% is not “the vast majority”.
To put 5% in more extreme terms: would you play Russian roulette with a 20 chamber revolver and one bullet?
Each interaction for police is like pulling the trigger in that hypothetical game of Russian roulette. This is why the absolute numbers are actually very important.
Re:If you see the cops, start recording
by staticassertion on Friday June 05, 2020 @08:14PM
(#23435500)
Again, this is not absolute numbers. With the number 95% we can say that 95% of the time they do not need to bring a deadly weapon. It doesn't matter if that's still every day, it means 95% of the time it is not necessary.
> With the number 95% we can say that 95% of the time they do not need to bring a deadly weapon.
Well, no. 5% of interactions is frequent, especially for police. They need to be prepared for violent situations. That's a pretty core part of the job.
We can talk about deadly weapons being unnecessary for dealing with violent situations but your quoted numbers just don't support the conclusion you seem to be drawing.
if 95% doesn't qualify as "the vast majority" of anything then the phrase has no usefulness.