Oh, I agree that it is different - but (once again, assuming the subjective impression is correct - I can’t easily find info on this) I think that those differences may be illuminating for this issue, in light of the similarities that also exist.
To my mind, the two most significant differences are:
The legacy of slavery and racism, leading to a mostly urban population that is disaffected from the majority culture and vice versa. Canada’s analogy to this is not racism vs. Blacks (not to say such racism is absent!), but rather, Canada’s fraught relationship with its aboriginal population - but much of that population is rural.
The ready access to guns, and in particular, to handguns. The notion that Canada is “gun free” is of course incorrect - long guns are commonly owned (my dad has several) but that is, again, mostly a rural thing. Also, smuggling from the US puts guns in the hands of Canadian criminals, and the police go armed. What is different, is the level of casual handgun ownership.
I agree. Another difference is the prevalence of illegal drugs in the US and basically economic class segregation which is a lot more prevalent in the US than Canada, at least in the parts of Canada I lived and worked in. But I think the legacy of racial issues is the biggest problem lingering in the US…that’s the REAL ‘elephant in the room’, though as a poster up thread said it’s not really an elephant in the room since we do talk about it and acknowledge it quite often. Regardless, the OPs assertion that it’s a ‘police culture’ that’s the root cause is way off the mark…basically, it’s like saying that it’s the symptom that’s the issue, not the disease.
Ya know, any solution is viable. Any solution at all. It just takes lots of work to implement some of them, but your nitpick request for a “viable” solution is bullshit. It comes across as a cop out taken in order to not have to do anything to change the police and gun culture in this country; i.e. “oh that’ll never happen; next ‘viable’ solution please!”
Slavery was pretty entrenched in this country, but somehow we found a “viable” solution to that and the means and will to implement it. Child labor, workplace safety, women and minorities voting, etc. are other examples of things that eventually became normal and accepted, when at one time there was seemingly no “viable” solution to the problem.
There are viable solution to America’s gun violence problems; the fact that they aren’t palatable to everyone does not make them unfeasible. And people’s perceptions can change; that’s the legwork that would need to be done before the US would be willing to change. But the necessity of that work doesn’t make a proposed solution nonviable, just more difficult to implement.
Ending slavery, establishing fair labor laws, and extending universal enfranchisement all involved significant bloodshed in the process of change, especially ending slavery. How much blood, and whose blood, are you willing to shed in the process of this change? Any solution and all…
Oh, so that’s all we have to do? I suppose we’d best get on that, then. Removing the vast majority of the guns from the people should go over smoothly and I foresee absolutely no complications or opposition to that plan.
Well, there’s our problem - our criminals just aren’t decent enough. I propose we start by sending every known criminal a copy of Emily Post’s guide and offering them tuition-free seminars on the polite and genteel way to rob convenience stores and assault policemen.
Michael Brown seems to be one of those ordinary, decent criminals, since he used no weapon when he robbed the convenience store and assaulted the clerk. It was only when he assaulted Officer Wilson and tried to grab his gun that he got his ass shot.
Poor innocent lamb that he was, corrupted and laid waste by the Evil Gun Culture.
They think tactically, plan, make decisions, call for back up, don’t get shot in the process and rarely kill anyone in the process. It’s called skilled policing.
This is great advice, a really useful post. When confronted by a person with a gun, don’t get shot. This should be forwarded, not just to police departments, but to all Americans. If only the students at Columbine or VA Tech had the benefit of this wisdom.
I am not advocating removal of guns. Merely accountability for their use and adoption of less trigger happy minders. Many European police forces manage to be fully armed while refraining from killing hundreds a year.
Death by cop of someone who assaulted the officer, may have been armed at the time but the officer wasn’t sure he was unarmed, and who was charging an officer who had his weapon drawn and had warned him to FREEZE!
It’s tragic, yes, a young man lost his life, but let’s be mindful of the relevant facts.
Please, then, explain to us what a European police officer, with the same equipment at his disposal that Darren Wilson had, would have done differently that would not have resulted in Michael Brown being shot. Do not tell us he would have “been prepared” or “made decisions”. Give us a specific description of what would have happened differently.