Re:Hertz faces lawsuit from 47 customers claiming false arrests
by pb7 on Saturday July 16, 2022 @02:10PM
(#32120451)
How many people do cops kill because they have guns and are trigger happy? If we remove their guns and their death rate goes up by less than the number of people they kill, that’s a net positive. Cop lives aren’t special. It should be a dangerous job. It shouldn’t be dangerous to merely exist as a citizen around cops.
When a given fact supports both sides equally well in an argument that is pretty much the definition of an irrelevant fact.
Crossing guard death rates on the job appear to be around 19 per 100k. For police in the US the rate varies quite a bit year to year, ranging from around 14 per 100k to around double that. The average depends on over what time period you look, so it is not clear if it is actually higher or lower than that of crossing guards, but whichever it is it is not very far from that of crossing guards.
But that is the rate for police with guns. The comparison you want if you are arguing against police guns is the rate without guns.
Using the rate with guns to argue against guns is like arguing that golf tournaments should not shut down when a lightning storm passes over because the rate of people being killed at golf tournaments that shut down during lightning storms is so low.