And that’s why your babysitting jobs dried up.
Is a 12-year-old child any less capable of pulling a trigger and ending an innocent human life than an adult? No. They are not.
Is their race relevant to their ability to do so? No. It is not.
What, then, is relevant?
The California ACLU has a new phone app called CopBlock. It allows you to make a video recording of a police action, upload it to the ACLU’s website, and tag it with information about the encounter. There is also a “Witness” feature which will notify you if there is a police encounter going on in your area so you can go there to participate as a witness to the encounter.
http://www.copblock.org/123734/aclu-launches-mobile-justice-police-accountability-app-in-california/
Actually, they do in many jurisdictions, and it’s the responsibility of the State to prove they weren’t defending themselves. The sooner that law is expanded, and self defence becomes a fully recognised human right, the better.
“Shot my child. Would not re-hire.”
So if you carry, you want someone else to have the right to shoot you down if there are no witnesses(or if the witnesses are friends) as a fully recognized human right?
“Life, Liberty, Getting Gunned Down In A Back Alley And The Pursuit Of Happiness!”
Has a nice ring to it.
That wasn’t my question, though. Would you assume that anyone you approach has a gun, because if you assume they don’t (and they do), it’s a mistake you’d only to get to make once because you’d be dead.
Or if you prefer, dead.
If the pigs weren’t murdering Black youth, this wouldn’t be a problem, now would it?
Also, Smapti, if a police officer can’t deal with a 12 year old with a gun, they need to find another line of work.
Seriously. Get some distance. Talk to them.
Which is exactly what they do when the kid with a gun happens to be white.
No, if I threaten to kill or seriously injure someone, they should have the right to shoot me down, whether or not there are witnesses. The right to self defence should not depend on there being someone to witness it.
I (obviously) don’t carry a gun, but the downside of that is living in a country that effectively doesn’t recognise the right to self defence.
Then I think we’re all of us praying you never ever lay your hands on so much as a water pistol, you lunatic.
I can imagine certain conditions wherein that would be an instructive and worthwhile experience.
No, but if it has to be positively proven you were *not *shooting in self-defence and the default assumption is that you were, on the sole evidence that a gun was found on or around the body, it’s rather self-evident that every back-alley murder will have been committed in self-defence.
And yet that’s not happening in the places where that is the law. But, so what if it does happen? Better than people being punished for defending themselves.
At least twice in my life I was under the erroneous opinion that someone was about to do me grievous bodily harm. I was not armed, and no damage was done. I do not imagine I am qualified to entitle myself to lethal force. I have serious doubts about you, as well. Rather more, actually.
In other words, better let a hundred innocents get gunned down, so long as one isn’t falsely punished. Good, sound logic that.
I was having a good chuckle to myself in the tub, picturing the adventures of Officer Bob “Self-Defence King” Smapti the SWAT member.
- All right guys, robbery at Bob’s House of Unguarded Bags of Currency. Family hostage. Stack up. GO GO GO ! Hostage on the right ! bratttt Smapti ?! That was the wife !
- She looked like she could have had a gun somewhere on her person, I feared for my life !
- Jesus. Moving on…
brattt - That was the father !
- He could have picked up his wife’s putative gun. Feared him but good.
brattt - What the holy fuck is wrong with you ?! He was just a kid !
- Kids can pull triggers as well as adults, sarge. Scary shit.
- There, I see the suspects ! They don’t look armed, cover me while I cuff 'em, guys.
*braaaatttttatatat boom - Officer Smapti, what’s going on in there ?!
- Captain ? I’m fine, I’m all right. But officers down. All of 'em I think. Thank god I was quick on the trigger, I was suddenly surrounded by people pointing guns ! Who knows what could have gone inside their heads ! They could have snapped in seconds ! Send backup, but wait till I reload first !
It looks like Bloomberg was taking BLS data - probably this dataset: http://www.bls.gov/oes/
Medians are robust with respect to outliers. If you take a mean, it can be distorted by extremes. But a median salary gives the point where 50% are above and 50% below. Those figures are for a typical cop - not small town, not biggest 3 cities.
I don’t know whether overtime is handled properly though. Ditto for pensions. This stuff is worth discussion, so I’m glad you posted your reply.
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The headline and the risk data was for the US, not for NYC. NYC cops are paid a lot, due to cost of living and strong unions.
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As a first cut, you really should report something like the median salary (including overtime if possible). Then break out the effects of pensions, etc. The article had plenty of rhetoric and fluff in it: there was room for a 2-3 sentence discussion.
Anyway, the data shows that police work doesn’t rank among the top 10 most dangerous occupations. And most of the risks they face don’t involve firearms. Most cops are paid a professional salary. There may be cops in smaller locales who should be paid more: I won’t rule that out. I would advocate a professional salary structure for all cops if paired with a commitment to raise standards to Swedish levels.