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[Powder Miner]

I don't see this particular shooting as much of a sin from the police -- the guy was holding a loaded handgun, and was in fact warned to drop his gun. Is the cop supposed to wait until he starts getting shot? When you're saying that cops need to risk their lives more rather than using force if someone's got a deadly, loaded weapon, it's like you're expecting them to be some sort of martyrs -- someone really can be shot just like that, and if they're holding a loaded gun and not dropping it, it's a pretty damn significant chance they're gonna get shot, not just some vague "worry". Cops are people too, it's ridiculous to expect them to willingly put their lives out there to get ended any more than they have to.

[RedKing]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country
Poland:      1.3

Wat.
MAYBE if you count in all the military stocks (muh AKs and PPShs) and even then it would be pushing it.

It's actually guns per 100 people. No, America does not have 113 guns per capita.

[Powder Miner]

Oh, and to add on, the criminal was a person too, and it's not a good thing that he died. But this is a literal life and death sort of thing, dude (likely, at least) wasn't just lugging around a stolen, loaded gun for nothing -- one of the situations I do find a policeman shooting another person justified.

[sluissa]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country
Poland:      1.3

Wat.
MAYBE if you count in all the military stocks (muh AKs and PPShs) and even then it would be pushing it.

It's actually guns per 100 people. No, America does not have 113 guns per capita.

Although some localized areas may approach that number.

[Reelya]

And it's worth pointing out that Guns Per Capita doesn't tell the whole story. how those guns are licensed, regulated and stored makes a huge difference to the outcomes: e.g. when Israel stopped letting soldiers take guns home on weekends after 2005 and the national suicide rate instantly fell 40%, or Switzerland, which still has very high guns per capita used to have the highest rate of firearm deaths in Europe, up until 2007. But after 2007, they recalled the bullets from all the militia members houses, and gun deaths fell to the European average. Buying ammo for a gun in Switzerland is also a Kafka-esque nightmare. So just making it harder to buy ammo can make a massive difference even without "taking away the guns". Sure, you could argue that restricting bullets will lead some people to home-make bullets, but the sheer inconvenience of that and the impulsive nature of much gun crime (including accidents, crimes of anger and suicide) means that very few people are going to go out and do that, compared to the number of deaths prevented.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

That doesn't look hard.

[Reelya]

It's crazy hard compared to America. To buy bullets in Switzerland you need to get a criminal background check done that's no more than three months old, you need an up to date weapon permit for the firearm, you also need to submit a form to your local gun regulating government agency detailing the purchase. Another thing that makes it harder is the need to keep renewing your weapon permit every few years: you have to keep justifying the reasons that you need the firearm.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

Can a bureaucrat arbitrarily decline your permit?

[Powder Miner]

I believe that the vast majority of gun crime is committed with guns that were not legally obtained -- As a very, very rough estimate (most gun crime doesn't end up with the gun recovered) Politifact put the number of inmates who bought guns via a gun store to be from 3 to 11 percent -- but with the caveat that guns gifted by family might not have been illegal, and guns purchased from gun stores may not have been purchased legally.

The thing is that Switzerland and the United Stayes have VERY different atmospheres of crime -- the United States has a lot of gang violence, and Switzerland absolutely does not. It's not just random dudes with guns committing most crime, it's usually gangs illegally obtaining guns, by black market, stealing, or other methods... what worked for Switzerland probably won't work for us.

[smjjames]

I believe that the vast majority of gun crime is committed with guns that were not legally obtained -- As a very, very rough estimate (most gun crime doesn't end up with the gun recovered) Politifact put the number of inmates who bought guns via a gun store to be from 3 to 11 percent -- but with the caveat that guns gifted by family might not have been illegal, and guns purchased from gun stores may not have been purchased legally.

The thing is that Switzerland and the United Stayes have VERY different atmospheres of crime -- the United States has a lot of gang violence, and Switzerland absolutely does not. It's not just random dudes with guns committing most crime, it's usually gangs illegally obtaining guns, by black market, stealing, or other methods... what worked for Switzerland probably won't work for us.

Not to mention that theres the whole 'Second Amendment' issue and a gun lobby that is actually sane would be of help.

[Powder Miner]

I'll rephrase -- what worked for Switzerland probably wouldn't work for us.

[Kot]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country
Poland:      1.3

Wat.
MAYBE if you count in all the military stocks (muh AKs and PPShs) and even then it would be pushing it.

It's actually guns per 100 people. No, America does not have 113 guns per capita.

I still think that's too high. If those 1.3 persons out of 100 own guns, WHERE THE FUCK DO THEY LIVE? I've literally never met a single (civilian) person who legally owns a firearm and belive me, I searched.

Though the fact that I was initially willing to accept 113 guns per American says a lot about how I view America. :V

[mainiac]

I probably wouldn't want guns as a variable for predicting difficulty to police unless I had a very long list of variables.  If you could turn different aspects of gun regulation into a bunch of ordinal variables however that might be a good predictor.

[Baffler]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country
Poland:      1.3

Wat.
MAYBE if you count in all the military stocks (muh AKs and PPShs) and even then it would be pushing it.

It's actually guns per 100 people. No, America does not have 113 guns per capita.

I still think that's too high. If those 1.3 persons out of 100 own guns, WHERE THE FUCK DO THEY LIVE? I've literally never met a single (civilian) person who legally owns a firearm and belive me, I searched.

Maybe it's farmers or other rural people with shotguns and/or varmint rifles. Animals like chickens are practically begging to be killed by a fox or a raccoon or whatever the local equivalent might be and need to be actively protected, and there must be some civilian hunting going on.

[Rolepgeek]

You don't want to give ISIS, avid Dwarf Fortress English forum readers, any vague not really articulated ideas?

The amount of benefit gained from posting it is small enough that I'd rather not take the risk. The forum keywords still show up on Google.

It feels like special pleading to me to claim that Americans are more criminal.  First of all, the homicide rate aint a great metric.  You are claiming that the US is hard to police because of the guns but the number of guns inflates the US homicide rate by making people much more likely to kill each other.  For another thing, other countries have problems too.  France for instance has a complicated colonial history that is still with them today and living in the suburbs of Paris.

You are absolutely right. France has had a colonialist history which has resulted in disaffected minority groups, and is having issues with immigrants right now, and I'll bet you they wish they had more trained law enforcement personnel right about now too. However. America has a more 'troubled' history, I would argue. Slavery does that.

Special pleading is meh. America is not a European country. It has different demographics.  I used this site for how much crime there was in a country.

And the reason I say 'hating cops is not the solution' is because that's all I'm seeing, at the ground level. Politicians are going to be politically correct about every matter. It was literally in response to you guys, on this thread.