Re: USA gun violence thread

[Guest]

For those who say the police shoot only black people, here's a video of them shooting a white teenager:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/13/body-camera-footage-released-dylan-noble-police-shooting

Skin colour isn't the issue. The issue is these idiots not doing what the officers tell them to. Another one here who is just asking to be shot.

Then why don't officers in your country shoot people who don't listen to them?

Why should our country, built on freedom from tyrants, have to deal with such a case?

Finland police fired 6 bullets in all of 2013. Why is that the case? Are people just magically smarter in Finland? That can't be the case because we lead the world in invention and innovation.

I feel its really easy to sit back, with a grin, and say there is no issue and people are just idiots when you don't have to deal with a militarized police force

[Guest]

Look at this idiot not listening to cops.


People in Europe would NEVER put up with this.

[Unique]

Finland police fired 6 bullets in all of 2013. Why is that the case? Are people just magically smarter in Finland? That can't be the case because we lead the world in invention and innovation.

ive never been to finland or the USA but if I had to guess id say its down finland having far less crime and are a far less violent country

[Guest]

ive never been to finland or the USA but if I had to guess id say its down finland having far less crime and are a far less violent country

But crime in general has nothing to do with people listening to police.

If a police ask you a question, and you don't answer, they don't magically look to pump some lead in you in Finland. Why can't police do that over here?

[McLewis]

It's hard to forget for someone like me, who's family is from the South, that white officers were clearly targeting blacks and killing them at a far greater rate than now. Peaceful protesters under MLK were a soft target for white officers under men like Bull Connor who beat them with billy clubs, hosed them down with high pressured water or used attack dogs on them. People died from all 3 and they were unarmed. Go back even further and look up the Race riot of Atlanta in 1906, where whites literally charged into the black part of town and killed indiscriminately. While neither of those events are happening in anywhere near the viciousness that that occurred at the time, the undertones are unmistakable to black communities as the memories of those events are all too real for most, especially those from older generations. Those same generations have passed down this apprehension to my generation.

So this is why there is so much more anger when police kill an unarmed black person than there is when the same happens to a white person. When whites (privileged, middle class and poor alike) have been killing blacks with impunity for over 200 years, we tend to get pissed of when it keeps happening in this day and age with still little to no accountability.

I have all of the sympathy in the world for the families of white unarmed men and women killed senselessly by police and I hope they get the justice they are looking for, but blacks have been relentlessly victimized by whites for centuries. There is no comparison historically.

And yes, blacks kill whites and blacks kill blacks at a rate far higher than anyone else. There's no denying that. It's the logical conclusion to such disproportionately high unemployment rate. When there are no legitimate ways to make money and the lure of making it illegitimately is too much given how much you can make and how much quicker you can make it, there's bound to be violence. Combine that with the gun ban that I find ridiculous and you have an entire city of soft targets for gangs who simply won't abide by the law. So of course there is much higher violence in communities like that. Solving that problem is incredibly difficult and I don't have the answer, but unlike most black people who are bothered by these killings, I at least will acknowledge that problem.

[Moondoggie]

and knifes forks and spoons make people fat.

No, they don't. Nobody swallows knives, forks and spoons. They swallow food. But bullets do tear holes in people's bodies and kill them.

I left my guns and ammo at home today. came back and they never killed anyone.

And the food that nobody ate this morning didn't make anybody fat either. You're still making bad analogies.

Quite literally, when somebody dies from a gunshot wound, it is the bullet that makes the wound. It rips open the flesh. It tears up internal organs. It does all sorts of nasty things because that's what bullets were designed to do. The gun doesn't do it. The finger that pulled the trigger doesn't do it. The mind of the person who pulls the trigger doesn't even do it because many people shoot at other people with the intention of killing and miss. The only thing that actually does the killing is the bullet.

Spout all the right-wing platitudes and NRA talking points you want. Guns exist so that men can kill using bullets, shotgun shells or whatever. Unlike cars, baseball bats and even most knives, guns and ammunition were designed with one purpose in mind.

[rwo power]

The bullet alone doesn't do the killing. Take a bullet in your hand and throw it at someone - it won't kill. It needs to have the speed that only the gun can give it, so it is in fact the combination of gun+bullet that kills.

[Art Morte]

For those who say the police shoot only black people, here's a video of them shooting a white teenager:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/13/body-camera-footage-released-dylan-noble-police-shooting

Skin colour isn't the issue. The issue is these idiots not doing what the officers tell them to. Another one here who is just asking to be shot.

Then why don't officers in your country shoot people who don't listen to them?

Why should our country, built on freedom from tyrants, have to deal with such a case?

Finland police fired 6 bullets in all of 2013. Why is that the case? Are people just magically smarter in Finland? That can't be the case because we lead the world in invention and innovation.

I feel its really easy to sit back, with a grin, and say there is no issue and people are just idiots when you don't have to deal with a militarized police force

The (sick) gun culture in America is the main reason for the difference, no one can know who's carrying and who is not, whether legally or not. The cops over here don't have to make their decisions under such fear.

[Moondoggie]

The bullet alone doesn't do the killing. Take a bullet in your hand and throw it at someone - it won't kill. It needs to have the speed that only the gun can give it, so it is in fact the combination of gun+bullet that kills.

Obviously there needs to be a combination of something happening to trigger the shot (usually someone pulling the trigger), the gun propelling the bullet and the bullet ripping the flesh. But ultimately it is the bullet that does the actual killing. A person can pull a trigger and a gun can shoot a bullet, but if the bullet misses the target isn't killed.

But in terms of Unique's poor analogy of comparing knives and forks not making people fat to my sarcastic twist on the "Guns don't kill. People do." idiocy (this started when I said "Guns don't kill. Bullets do."), it is the bullet that does the actual killing, just as it's too much food -- not the knife and fork -- that makes people fat. The bullet is equal to the Twinkie, not to the fork.

[Unique]

bullets and forks are metal objects that are completely harmless until humans get their hands on them.

[LeBéninois]

Imo the cops who kill black people because there are racist are a small minority. However, they are too many of them. that being said, others cops just react too quickly because of fear, bias. I do not believe that black people are specifically targeted. The problem is more complex than that.

[Lex]

bullets and forks are metal objects that are completely harmless until humans get their hands on them.

A fork has only one purpose in life; to assist eating. A bullet's purpose in life is to be fired from a gun......which kills

[Unique]

bullets and forks are metal objects that are completely harmless until humans get their hands on them.

A fork has only one purpose in life; to assist eating. A bullet's purpose in life is to be fired from a gun......which kills

a knife is made to cut and stab but is not a problem to humans until its put in a persons hands. lots of things can harm and kill people but they never do so on their own. guns kill people. spoons make people fat. cars make people drink and drive. but they only do them things when put in the hands of people.

[rwo power]

spoons make people fat.

Spoiler:

cars make people drink and drive.

I have yet to see a car that makes people drink

[Unique]

and i have yet to see a gun that makes anyone kill. cars don't motivate people to drink and drive. spoons don't motivate people to eat. guns don't motivate people to kill. drugs. passion. greed. jealousy and religion motivate people to kill.

[Lucifer]

The bullet alone doesn't do the killing. Take a bullet in your hand and throw it at someone - it won't kill. It needs to have the speed that only the gun can give it, so it is in fact the combination of gun+bullet that kills.

Beg to differ mam. Agree only bullets cannot kill someone but only guns can. How u ask?

[McLewis]

Guns and bullets are tools. They are inanimate objects. They can no more kill someone on their own than knives.....or a truck( sad stuff coming out of Nice). What kills people is the intent of the person behind the gun, knife, or truck. That's because if a person wants to murder people, they will find a way to do it. They always have and they probably always will in our current society.

Guns just so happen to be the easiest and most efficient way of doing it here in the US unfortunately. It's fast, easy and you buy as many of them as you need without having to provide explanation for it. I personally oppose banning them outright, but I do think common sense regulation is needed as I do believe it's far too easy to buy guns in this country. It shouldn't be. Given the damage they can cause, it should be more difficult.

[DuringTheWar]

And before you comment further, take a little bit of time to go through the information in each of those links then come back to this thread

Ok, done.

African-Americans don't use drugs at a higher level than whites but "wind up going to prison six times more."
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/jul/13/van-jones/van-jones-claim-drug-use-imprisonment-rates-blacks/

The first thing he has attempted to establish is the rate at which people of different races do drugs, so he can compare it to arrest rates, of which according to the National Research Council blacks have a 3-4 times higher rate. (*There is a reason for the disparity in arrest rate mentioned on the site that I'll comment on later)

It's a flawed analysis to start with, this hypothetical scenario illustrates why: If 99% of one group took drugs once in their lives whereas 1% of another group took drugs every day, which group would be arrested more? the latter I think. I cannot see any data anywhere provided by this site shedding light on the frequencies at which people of different ethnicities take drugs.

I've looked at the data in the surveys by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration that the politifact site linked to - It's notable that despite a greater percentage of whites, 12 years or older, taking illicit drugs during their lifetime than do blacks (51.1% > 45.4%) when it comes to drug use in the previous year, or previous month, blacks have higher rates of drug use, albeit not by a huge amount. Does that indicate their usage is more frequent on average? Possibly but i'd rather see survey data that actually asks this question.

He goes on then to look at imprisonment rates, he makes the claim that blacks have a 5.8 times higher imprisonment rate which is bigger than the discrepancy in arrest rates. Does that suggest harsher treatment? (** The writer suggests a different reason for this later on)
It is really ambiguous as to how he derived this 5.8 figure. He mentioned two sources, the Bureau of Justice statistics which he admits are flawed because they don't include drug offenders who committed worse crimes, and the U.S. Sentencing Commission that only considers drug offenders in federal prisons. It is really unclear from where and how he got this 5.8 number, either way I don't see how it can be considered very reliable.

But the statistics provided by the U.S. Sentencing commission on drug offenders in federal prison are very interesting. They have a table showing the relationships between different drugs and races:

- 80% of offences related to crack cocaine were committed by blacks
- 69% of marijuana offences were committed by Hispanics
- 38% of methamphetamine offences were committed by whites

Those are the highest figures each race has regarding any one drug.

48.4% of all drug offences were committed by Hispanics, double either whites or blacks.

Anyway this strongly suggests drug offences by race are not evenly distributed amongst the drugs, and I've got no idea what variations there are in how law enforcement handles each drug. Is this even an apples to apples comparison?

Next he cites the NAACP who don't provide sources to their claims, and they switch from absolute to relative comparisons in a bit of statistical trickery, so i'll just ignore their claims.

*As mentioned near the start, we get to one of the definitive reasons why blacks have a higher arrest rate for drug offences. The politifact site quotes Michael Tonry, a professor of law - "Whites are more likely to sell to people they know, and they much more often sell behind closed doors. Blacks sell to people they don't know and in public, which makes them vastly easier to arrest"

In addition to which the politifact writer then says - "Police tend to patrol high-crime areas more aggressively.... which have a higher proportion of minorities"
Your source of information is basically making the same argument here as mine...

Then finally he writes:
** "Blacks arrested for drugs are more likely to be sent to jail because theyre more likely to have had a previous run-in with the law"

Well what i got from that politifact post is that there are indeed more important factors than racism when it comes to arrest rates and imprisonment rates; Variations in how blacks and whites sell drugs and previous criminal records.

"African-Americans are more likely to be arrested by police and sentenced to longer prison terms for doing the same thing that whites do."
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/feb/26/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-says-blacks-more-likely-be-arreste/

After reading that it is clear that the writer rated Clinton's claim true because it is technically true, not because of what was implied. Yes, blacks are more likely to be arrested for the same crime, yes they are given harsher sentences. Is it because of racism as Hillary implied? The politifact writer didn't seem to think so as far as I can tell.

So first things first, Clinton's campaign referred to a Washington post blog that used data showing blacks are 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for selling drugs than whites despited whites being 45% more likely to sell drugs.
Aside from the fact that the quote by Michael Tonry from the previous politifact post can explain this, the data used is 36 years out of date.

It then moves on to look at discrepancies in traffic offences....

" The Bureau of Justice statistics.... found that white, black, and Hispanic drivers were stopped at similar rates"

Doesn't sound like racism does it?

" However, black drivers were about three times as likely to be searched during a traffic stop"

But this does not explain why. You cant assume this is unfair treatment or racism without evidence. It is plausible that blacks are more uncooperative and show more animosity towards the police because of the resentment that exists between them as a group and the police as a group. If that is the case the police may be more suspicious of them.
If it is racial profiling, well why don't they stop blacks more than whites and Hispanics?

It then says some organisation called "The Sentencing Project" finds that blacks are twice as likely to arrested during a traffic stop despite being less likely to be found carrying contraband.
Again though this may be SUGGESTIVE of racism it is not evidence, it does not explain why the situation escalates into arrest. We know statistically blacks are more likely to resist arrest. If you aren't respectful to and compliant with police there is a good chance they'll arrest you.

Then the topic switches to sentencing harshness...

According to the Politifact writer - "When judges have discretion over how long a sentence should be for a specific crime, they tend to select longer sentences for blacks"

This is a disingenuous statement, trickery even. Not the claim that there is a discrepancy in the sentence, but the inference that it is the judges discretion that is at fault. The source he uses refutes this...

The Yale Law Journal, slide 1: " We find no evidence that racial disparity has increased since Booker, much less because of Booker. Unexplained racial disparity remains persistent, but does not appear to have increased following the expansion of judicial discretion"

The Yale Law Journal, slide 55: " If judges were, in fact, inclined to use broader sentencing discretion in ways that disadvantaged black defendants, one would expect to see at least some of that effect in the immediate vicinity of Booker"

The Politifact writer then backs away from the racism narrative by blaming poverty and the fact that there is more pressure on blacks to "cop a plea bargain" because they cant afford bail or a good lawyer.

So where is the evidence that black are mistreated because they are black? This just doesn't cut it.

And here's a little more of your "black people commit more crime" talk analyzed
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/nov/26/rudy-giuliani/giuliani-black-and-white-people-charged-murder-are/

This Politifact post says that according to the Bureau of Justice statistics - "  It found that of all people convicted of murder or non-negligent manslaughter in 2006, 46% were white, and 51% were black"

Apparently this "undercuts" Rudy Giuliani's "fragmented" point, whatever it was, but it seems to support my "black people commit more crime talk"...

[Myesyats]

Guns are not the problem. Education and mentality is.

[rincon]

But if education and mentality are a problem, then its a terrible decision to easily give people guns.

[Myesyats]

See the picture. Guns are BANNED in Honduras. Yet they find their ways.

Do you  honestly think the situation in US would change if they suddenly made it almost/or completely impossible to legally acquire a gun?

[RealGunner]

If guns are banned and the homicide rate is one of the highest then the problem is corruption and poverty.

[Hapless_Hans]

See the picture. Guns are BANNED in Honduras. Yet they find their ways.

Do you  honestly think the situation in US would change if they suddenly made it almost/or completely impossible to legally acquire a gun?

Of course.

You cannot shoot people without a gun. ONLY guns shoot people. Not index fingers, not knives, umbrellas, pitchforks, chainsaws. Not humans either. There's no part of a human body that expels fast flying lead bullets.
It's the easiest thought in the world to understand. How the *bleep* is this even a discussion?

The 2nd amendment is a constitutional right stemming from concerns over British militia or some shit. We're talking 18th century.
Now there's an interesting thought in having the force/violence monopoly not solely in the hands of the state.
That's something Europeans can't really grasp, and shoudnt fully judge.

But it's a no brainer that you shouldn't be able to just buy high powered assault rifles, noone outside of an army needs them, and these high powered assault rifles are almost always the weapons executing the mass casualty shootings.
Good luck killing 80 people with a kitchen knife.

[Unique]

If baning guns will stop people from getting shot maybe we should try banning crack meth and heroin as well

[DuringTheWar]

This guy is a shining ray of sanity in an insane world.

[RealGunner]

Charles Kinsey...

Behaviour therapist helping his autistic patient. Both hands in the air and not resisting

Got shot by the cops

Survived though thankfully

What's the 'justification' of shooting here?

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