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EQmWgw87pw | on: Afroman found not liable in defamation case
Personally I’ve had encounters with LE and have not had a gun drawn yet, so it’s obviously not the default. But I disagree, I think brandishing a knife is already extreme behavior, I don’t think it’s logical to think “because he has a weapon he probably doesn’t have another!”. And why would someone threatening people with a knife deserve benefit of the doubt?
danlitt | parent | next
> Personally I’ve had encounters with LE and have not had a gun drawn yet, so it’s obviously not the default.

What does the default have to do with it? We are already not in the default situation. Interacting with police at all is not the default! If you mean to say something like "it's not likely" or "they're not doing it in unreasonable cases" then your anecdote is not relevant.

> And why would someone threatening people with a knife deserve benefit of the doubt?

Several reasons, which would be obvious if you tried to think of them. Most knife-wielding maniacs are, well, maniacs, and aren't fully in control of their actions. Innocent bystanders are regularly killed by police discharging guns accidentally or inappropriately (in fact, even police are frequently killed this way). People are routinely misidentified by police as carrying weapons when they aren't. Police often give misleading or unclear instructions while trying to de-escalate, and with a gun drawn, failure to comply can and does result in the suspect being shot.

Bear in mind that what you are excusing is essentially a (substantially increased likelihood of) extrajudicial execution. It should be a last resort. It's not enough to say "well he's clearly a bad guy, why give him the benefit of the doubt?".

socalgal2 | root | parent
> Innocent bystanders are regularly killed by police discharging guns

False. Innocent bystanders are killed by police discharging guns, but rarely. And, while the goal should be zero, it will never be zero

tsimionescu | root | parent | next
Let's aim for a max of once every year, then, over the entire USA. And once that's achieved, let's aim for once every few years. Once a decade should be good enough, you probably won't get better than that.

The EU has a much bigger population than the USA, in a smaller space, and I'd bet they're already around this number.

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ToucanLoucan | root | parent
Why is it not zero? This strikes me as the exact sort of calculus they used way back when they stopped chasing fleeing suspects in vehicles: the danger to the public is too high to justify the use of force. If you can't hit your suspect without hitting other civilians, then don't fucking fire! And no I don't particularly care if the LEO's life might be in danger either, that's literally the job they signed up for: to put themselves in danger to enforce the law. It's ridiculous that cops just get complete power of life and death every time they feel a spot of stress, and have to be handled with kid gloves by the general public less they be murdered in the streets.
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horacemorace | parent | next
Personally as a teenager I’ve been met with a group of cops all pointing guns at me when I was just walking around at night with no weapons whatsoever. They got a call from a paranoid homeowner nearby. They’re trained to shoot first and ask questions later.
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singleshot_ | root | parent
> They’re trained to shoot first and ask questions later.

If this was true, would you have survived?

watwut | root | parent | next
They should not have guns out at all. Also, expectation on cops are super weirdly low.

Untrained random civilians encountering cops are supposed to have perfect sefl control. Supposedly trained professionals can be irresponsible, escalate for no reasom, risk others and shoot if they merely feel afraid - regardles of actual danger.

gus_massa | root | parent
"Never point a gun at anything you are not willing to kill"
t-3 | parent | next
I got pulled over in Cleveland and had a cop point a gun at me and threaten to shoot - I was apparently wearing the wrong color on the wrong side of town with out-of-state plates and reached for my ID instead of waiting for the cop to tell me to get it. In later stops I've been admonished many times for not preemptively getting out my ID, but I really can't help thinking about almost getting my brains blown out for grabbing my ID too quickly.
dec0dedab0de | parent | next
I had a rifle pointed at me about a week after I got my first car, because I accidentally drove on the wrong side of the median.

Guns are definitely pulled way more often by the police than they should be. but to your point I am okay with cops shooting anyone brandishing a knife or any other deadly weapon.

jbenner-radham | parent | next
I had a gun drawn on me and was told “I’m going to blow your f** brains out” because I was a stupid teenager toilet papering a house when I was young. That’s when fight or flight kicks in and logic goes out the window. Needless to say I didn’t fight.
tverbeure | parent | next
In most civilized societies, there's an extremely high chance that somebody wielding a knife doesn't have a gun.
nsxwolf | root | parent
Wielding a knife is a deadly threat so I am not sure what the relevance is.
tverbeure | root | parent
The relevance is that you don’t need to assume that the knife wielding person can hit you from a distance.

One way or the other, this doesn’t seem to be a problem in other countries.

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cortesoft | parent
> Personally I’ve had encounters with LE and have not had a gun drawn yet, so it’s obviously not the default.

How police respond to you is very dependent on a lot of factors, including your age, race, what you are wearing, where you are, and what time it is. I don’t think you should use your own personal experience as a universal template.

> And why would someone threatening people with a knife deserve benefit of the doubt?

Because, as a society, we should do everything we can to prevent harm to everyone, even people who are acting erratically. There could be all sorts of reasons for the behavior. Anyone can have a psychotic episode, and that shouldn’t immediately earn a death sentence. Of course, I understand that even an innocent person having a psychotic episode can be very dangerous, and I don’t think they should be allowed to hurt others, and it may be necessary to use force, and potentially deadly force, to protect other people.

However, I think that is very different than saying “we shouldn’t worry about the perpetrators well being at all”, or that it is preferable to kill the person rather than take ANY risk that they could hurt someone. The answer lies somewhere in between.