Police shooting deaths in North Carolina/Europe

Submitted by gwfrink3 on

Police in North Carolina (pop 9.9 mil) have shot and killed at least 25 people thus far this year. While in two years, police in Germany (pop 80.7 mil) shot and killed 15 people. Iceland (pop 332,529) has had one fatal police shooting in its 71 year history, whereas Charlotte-Mecklenburg County (pop 1.03 mil) has had five this year. Primarily because training and legal standards push American police toward lethal force.

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I used to think

Submitted by James on

I used to think that we couldn't be more fucked up is a country if we tried. Now we seem to be in freefall. It's frightening.

It is worse than it looks

Submitted by gwfrink3 on

The statistics reported above are for deaths.
Data on those who are shot by police officers and survive still eludes us.
If 75% of those shot survived (there are indications that the number could be higher) then police in North Carolina have shot at least 100 people thus far this year (and of that group, 25 died).

Gun control laws very different

Submitted by scharrison on

You hear a lot of gun-nuts argue about Germany's high gun ownership level, but you don't hear them talking about this:

If gun owners don’t have firearms stowed away, the consequences are serious. Law enforcers go door to door and randomly check on gun owners. If officials find that a gun owner doesn’t have their weapons in a safe, they could lose their guns, be fined, or go to jail. The father of the 17-year-old gunman in Winnenden was tried and sentenced for leaving his pistol in his bedroom, where his son could access it.

In Germany, you have to have a good reason for owning a gun, like if you’re a sport shooter, hunter, or in rare cases, a gun collector. You can’t buy a firearm simply for personal protection; self-defense doesn’t count as a necessity. The yearlong licensing process involves written tests and shooting practice, and costs several thousand euros. Every applicant is background checked. And starting this year, every gun owner is tracked on a national register.

If we tried even a fraction of such gun control methods here, heads would explode. And some members of Congress would probably end up being assassinated. That's how far we've let this issue deteriorate. In the US, police automatically assume a suspect is armed, but in Germany, the assumption is the opposite. And thousands of Germans are still alive today because of that difference.