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by ecdavis
4172 days ago
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I understand the reasoning behind the action, but it's still not justifiable. Following that same reasoning we can argue that police should approach car windows with their weapons drawn and aimed. After all, if an officer approaches a car window and sees the occupant has a gun aimed at them they won't have time to defend themselves if their sidearm is holstered. Officers have certainly been killed by vehicle occupants, so this is not some invented scenario, either. > If the US police were so gun happy I would expect way more people to be shot per year/day. There are, though. A couple of articles on the subject: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-americans-the-p... http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/another-much-higher-count... But if we use the FBI's number of ~400/year[0]it's still ridiculous. In the two decades between 1989-90 and 2010-11, Australian police fatally shot a total of 105 people.[1] Looking at those figures, Australia has ~0.25 fatal police shootings per million people per year. The US has ~1.25 fatal police shootings per million people per year. Five times more. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't believe that's solely due to gun control policy in the two countries. [0] http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/c... [1] http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/rip/21-4... |
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If you stay in the car you have a much easier time dealing with a person who can't easily get into your personal space and limiting the options you have to protect your self.