# (Dallas, Baton Rouge) Violence is not the answer. What is? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 17, 2016, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138 "2016-07-17T18:09:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2016, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/21 "2016-07-17T22:50:56Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > fewer innocent deaths isn’t the solution. Well, it’s at least progress. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2016, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/22 "2016-07-17T23:01:06Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Palestinians are using knives to kill Jews of late … do we also ban clubs, shovels, candlestick holders … take away the guns and we still have violence. > > This isn’t a numbers game … whether 50 dead from gunshots or 5 dead from stabbings … it’s still a tragedy … fewer innocent deaths isn’t the solution. Of course it’s a numbers game. Fewer dead people is about all you can realistically hope for given some percentage of people will do bad things in the best of circumstances. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That should be the pursuit of every endeavor in those realms. As far as the OP, until being poor sucks less in this country, and people of different races and backgrounds are more fully integrated, I think a lot of the same issues are going to keep cropping up unfortunately. It doesn’t matter if it’s school busing or mandatory public service, there needs to be some way to make sure that people are exposed to others who are different from themselves. I also think a large issue with the police can be solved by using technology to limit police interaction with citizens in minor criminal matters, and by creating a some kind of peace keeping force that can be dispatched to deal with people without having to arrest or incarcerate people. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2016, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/23 "2016-07-17T23:08:41Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > This isn’t a numbers game … whether 50 dead from gunshots or 5 dead from stabbings … it’s still a tragedy … fewer innocent deaths isn’t the solution. I thought that fewer innocent deaths was _exactly_ the solution, or goal. Fewer to the point of zero would be the ideal but we all realize ideals can be elusive and so we would be happy to reduce innocent deaths to 10% of what they are. No? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2016, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/24 "2016-07-17T23:19:54Z")
Whenever people talk about wanting a “war on the cops,” I want to ask them - how exactly is such a war “winnable?” OK, suppose you get rid of all cops nationwide. Congrats, you just got a lawless anarchy of a country. Want that? ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2016, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/25 "2016-07-17T23:41:10Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Black Lives Matter is still pushing this “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” bullshit almost two years after everyone with half a brain knew that Michael Brown was running at a police officer whose gun he had just attempted to steal when he was shot and killed. The first thing I’d do is _not_ be that asshole who says that a teenager shot while beating a man’s head against the ground could have been my own son. Interesting that you focus on the one case where there is no video evidence and the facts are in dispute. How do the other cases fit into your world view - the ones where somebody is shot while laying on the ground or in the passenger seat of a car? Or breaks his neck while handcuffed in custody? ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/26 "2016-07-18T00:03:34Z")
The answer is to actually start punishing cops instead of letting them skate by again and again and again. There is absolutely no other solution, over and over again we are presented with actual video of cops acting like criminals who belong in jail and over and over again they get away with it. How to address the problem of cops covering for bad cops is more complicated, I can’t say i have any ideas for that one. ---
**Author:** ![holmes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e95f7d/32.png) [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/27 "2016-07-18T00:19:35Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > The answer is to actually start punishing cops instead of letting them skate by again and again and again. There is absolutely no other solution, over and over again we are presented with actual video of cops acting like criminals who belong in jail and over and over again they get away with it. How to address the problem of cops covering for bad cops is more complicated, I can’t say i have any ideas for that one. Make the Police Union, police departments as well as individual officers responsible for paying the settlements. Right now the police are insulated from feeling the financial burden of misconduct. In many instances the settlements come from the ‘general’ fund or insurance; the police departments themselves are rarely touched by the financial consequences of their misconduct. I’m sure if you started reducing the pensions/benefits of officers or reduced department budgets to pay for the settlements, you would begin to see some breakdown of the blue wall. ---
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/28 "2016-07-18T00:46:31Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > In your above hypothetical (total ban of all guns). Of course everyone would be safer. You don’t see people killing each other with atomic weapons, no? Controlling the production/sale/availability of extremely deadly weapons works. You are assuming that the criminals will turn in their firearms. They won’t. My point is confiscating the guns of law abiding citizens will do ZERO to drop the violence because those guns were never going to be used in a crime. The guns that need to be taken are those in the hands of criminals. But they don’t mind breaking the law and they’re not going to turn them in. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/29 "2016-07-18T00:54:42Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > **Interesting that you focus on the one case where there is no video evidence and the facts are in dispute.** How do the other cases fit into your world view - the ones where somebody is shot while laying on the ground or in the passenger seat of a car? Or breaks his neck while handcuffed in custody? There’s a ton of forensic evidence. Not to mention that the people who said his hands weren’t up later recanted their stories. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/30 "2016-07-18T01:00:29Z")
> [@obbn](#): > > You are assuming that the criminals will turn in their firearms. They won’t. My point is confiscating the guns of law abiding citizens will do ZERO to drop the violence because those guns were never going to be used in a crime. The guns that need to be taken are those in the hands of criminals. But they don’t mind breaking the law and they’re not going to turn them in. That’s ridiculous, every single gun in the hands of a criminal was a gun from a law abiding citizen at some point. The harder it is for anyone to get a gun the harder it is for criminals to get a gun. ---
**Author:** ![Alpheidae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Alpheidae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alpheidae)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/31 "2016-07-18T07:34:49Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Palestinians are using knives to kill Jews of late … do we also ban clubs, shovels, candlestick holders … take away the guns and we still have violence. Imagine this, if you will. You’re walking down the street, minding your own business, when someone stops you and demands your wallet. Would you rather that person be armed with a candlestick holder or a gun? If people can kill people just as effectively with knives, clubs, shovels and candlestick holders, why do armies use guns? The point of gun control is not to eliminate violence. That’s certainly a worthwhile goal, but your own two hands are plenty to kill someone, and as long as people get angry and lose control, violence will happen. The point of gun control is to reduce the impact of violence. If two people get in a fistfight, both of them are likely going to walk away from the fight. If two people get into a gun fight, the likelihood of at least one of them being carted away in a body bag is much higher. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/32 "2016-07-18T07:43:58Z")
… or a truck. etc, etc, etc, if you will. The answer is to not make a population so angry at injustice some of that population see no alternative other than to fight back. Kind of like … revolutions. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/33 "2016-07-18T10:37:46Z")
> [@obbn](#): > > You are assuming that the criminals will turn in their firearms. They won’t. My point is confiscating the guns of law abiding citizens will do ZERO to drop the violence because those guns were never going to be used in a crime. The guns that need to be taken are those in the hands of criminals. But they don’t mind breaking the law and they’re not going to turn them in. That’s true, in the short term… but there’s also the issue of “drying the swamps”, so to speak. After all, where do criminals get their guns? Mostly, they either buy them or steal them from legitimate gun owners. Limiting their supply at the source will, in the long term, help limit the number of guns in criminal hands. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/34 "2016-07-18T12:42:22Z")
Police body cams are a good idea, as is getting rid of the few bad apples in the police nation-wide. That only addresses one side of the issue, though. Since the overwhelmingly vast majority of the time police shooting of civilians, particularly black civilians, are due to the civilians resisting arrest and/or trying to kill police or bystanders, more needs to be done to highlight the much huger number of cases where the black civilian is at fault. We need, IOW, to focus much more on Police Lives Matter and Ordinary Civilians, Black or White, Matter, than on Black Criminal Lives Matter. But it is harder to come up with a catchy acronym. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/35 "2016-07-18T13:11:31Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > We need, IOW, to focus much more on Police Lives Matter and Ordinary Civilians, Black or White, Matter, than on Black Criminal Lives Matter. But it is harder to come up with a catchy acronym. More than once I’ve caught myself wondering why all the recent attention to Bureau of Land Management practices… :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/36 "2016-07-18T13:26:11Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Whenever people talk about wanting a “war on the cops,” I want to ask them - how exactly is such a war “winnable?” > > OK, suppose you get rid of all cops nationwide. Congrats, you just got a lawless anarchy of a country. Want that? No one wants to get rid of all cops nationwide, they want to get rid of racist cops shooting innocent civilians nationwide. Whatever can change how the police force operates is clearly not happening fast enough. How is it winnable? Apply enough social pressure for actual change. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/37 "2016-07-18T13:34:10Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > More than once I’ve caught myself wondering why all the recent attention to Bureau of Land Management practices… :smack: What’s black and white and red all over? All Lives Matter. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/38 "2016-07-18T13:40:27Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Since the overwhelmingly vast majority of the time police shooting of civilians, particularly black civilians, are due to the civilians resisting arrest and/or trying to kill police or bystanders, more needs to be done to highlight the much huger number of cases where the black civilian is at fault. But how do you know this is the case? Remember the Sean Groubert shooting? Is that an utter fluke that almost never happens when cameras aren’t rolling, or is it (as most black people have told me) something that’s actually quite common, and when there’s no camera, the police officer’s account becomes the official story (especially when the black victim was killed)? If there had been no camera for the Groubert shooting, how would that case have turned out? For shootings over the past several decades that weren’t caught on camera, how many that were officially recorded as justified shootings were, in reality, panicked idiot cop shootings, like the Groubert shooting? None? A miniscule number? A significant fraction? Based on the reports of black people, I think the answer is a significant fraction. I don’t know how significant, and I don’t know how it’d be at all possible to determine this, but I don’t see how anyone can conclude with any sort of certainty that the “overwhelmingly vast majority” of shootings are definitely justified (I’ll note that, since the only data aside from official reports are the reports of black people, I’m not absolutely certain my answer is correct either). At the very least, can you consider that it might be reasonable that many black people believe that a significant number of reported shootings that aren’t caught on camera are not justified in the way that the Groubert shooting was not justified? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/39 "2016-07-18T14:01:31Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > But how do you know this is the case? From [examining the circumstances of police shooting](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2016/)black citizens. > [@](#): > > Remember the Sean Groubert shooting? Is that an utter fluke that almost never happens when cameras aren’t rolling, or is it (as most black people have told me) something that’s actually quite common, and when there’s no camera, the police officer’s account becomes the official story (especially when the black victim was killed)? The overwhelmingly large majority of the time, police shootings are either justified, or even unavoidable. Sure, there are incidents the other way. Those get highlighted in the press and by activists. The huge majority of justified police shootings don’t get highlighted, and that gives a distorted picture of reality. Or else the activists misrepresent the circumstances and then you still get a distorted picture. That’s why we still get the “hands up - don’t shoot” nonsense, or the notion of the innocent black teenager skipping down the sidewalk with his Skittles when the evil racist shoots him (without mentioning that he was beating the head of a stranger against the sidewalk for asking him what he was doing). > [@](#): > > At the very least, can you consider that it might be reasonable that many black people believe that a significant number of reported shootings that aren’t caught on camera are not justified in the way that the Groubert shooting was not justified? If it’s reasonable to believe that police are dangerous based on anecdotes, then it is reasonable to believe that black people are dangerous based on anecdotes. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138/40 "2016-07-18T14:04:16Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > Interesting that you focus on the one case where there is no video evidence and the facts are in dispute. How do the other cases fit into your world view - the ones where somebody is shot while laying on the ground or in the passenger seat of a car? Or breaks his neck while handcuffed in custody? Okay, how about Sandra Bland then? It’s true that the cop was far out of bounds, but he didn’t kill her, or even injure her. By all accounts, she was mentally ill and depressed, and did commit suicide. But instead, we get a tapestry of conspiracy theories about how she was murdered in custody, and there was a coverup, etc… Let me tell you… I’ve been to Hempstead, and Waller County. Those hick clowns out there couldn’t pull something like that off if their lives depended on it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dallas-baton-rouge-violence-is-not-the-answer-what-is/760138.md?page=3)