Having every officer primed to be a para military kill machine is exactly the wrong approach.
You're in agreement with the original core "defund the police" groups when you want first responders to be trained to de-escalate mental health crisis situations, they want the same if not more money in public facing response, but a whole lot less going to the haress the public we view as bad divisions.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/264932/percentage-americans-own...
I agree there’s a steel-manned version of the original statement which is valid. You’re definitely getting a lot closer to it.
I just thought it was important to clarify to the audience that the “average” american is not, in fact, armed with a firearm.
> Thirty-two percent of U.S. adults say they personally own a gun, while a larger percentage, 44%, report living in a gun household
If my wife owns a gun and I "don't," we both still have access to firearms. 44% of households have a similar dynamic. The American population is more armed than Europe. And it is close to half the population. I'm not making a value judgement. I own guns. Multiple of them. I guess I'm not sure what your point was. Mine is saying that nearly half of all households have a firearm.
> Sadly the people they confront in those european countries are significantly less armed than your average american.
Assuming that some reasonable percentage of "confrontations" occur outside the home, if you're being confronted while commuting to work, it's not always relevant that your wife owns a gun. It only matters whether you personally own & carry.
> Not sure your point. > I guess I'm not sure what your point was.
I've honestly been doing a pretty solid job being intentional and respectful to all views here. I don't think it's much intellectual work to try to do the best you can at imagining some reasonable point that can be made with the "32%" statistic and acknowledging some of those likely "points" in your post. It would feel much less dismissive, and show that you at least tried to figure out some points that I might be making while maybe still asking for clarification or confirmation. It demonstrates intellectual honesty.
> Sadly the people they confront in those european countries are significantly less armed than your average american.
Basically, we can all readily accept that police are definitely more likely to interact with an armed citizen in the USA vs. the EU.
There is no way all these police officers are all fit to carry a gun.
I work for a Fire Department. Have seen first-hand the vehement push back both fire and police unions have had when departments/cities have suggested that the CPAT (candidate physical ability test) used at hiring time become an annual requirement.
I know of two firefighters who were rejected from multiple police departments, with at least one being explicitly because they failed the psych assessment...
Yes, but most G20 countries also don't have a population armed to the teeth with military-grade weaponry, and who believe in insane conspiracy theories about Bill Gates microchips in vaccines and Jewish space lasers.
The US is unique, however, in that the police receive generally much less training than in other G20 countries.
The bit that many seem to overlook is that the US police are being called out for all manner of first response calls and traffic management that are essentially equivilant to fire and ambulance calls, the strategy should be to investigate the issue and then bring in the heavy handed response if required.
There seems to be a very general blinkered view that is unable to break out of the "this is how we've always done it, there is no better way".
As "the police" are so strongly identified with violence the best interpretation of "defund the police" is to break out "incidence response | community assistance" away from "armed thuggery" and work to get some respect back from the broader public.
As a firefighter, please, no. And as someone who educates future EMTs and paramedics, I've taken to telling students that if you think you need to be armed to do this job or to "deal" with some of your patients, it may be a clue that you may be dealing with compassion fatigue, burnout or PTSD. Certainly not the only reason, to be clear - we are often in less than ideal situations with less than ideal patients, but that's what you sign up for.
In our county (not known for high crime) we are issued ballistic vests but they're not worn on every call (and when we expect to have to wear them for a call, there's additional resources sent), and there are other "rules" - we have to wear our bunker (structural firefighting) pants, and our helmets, and our vests have "FIRE" printed in large white letters, because our management is adamant about doing everything possible from differentiating Fire/EMS on a scene like that from being confused with LE, for all manner of reasons.
Citizens are armed and that complicates things. But there are still two different tasks being done, one is supporting the community on a local level, and the other is exceptional uses of force to apply law. You shouldn't have the same forces doing both, which is more like how police were prior 9/11, if I had to put a date on it.
The reality is that we managed to create a social mechanism that's beyond our ability to control and that alone means we aren't ready to employ it. We have to understand our natural limits as a species and come to terms that having police is beyond them. There's no shame in that. In fact, that's the most mature outcome.