> If you were a police officer, would you, unarmed, engage another person wielding a hatchet? I'd say that's unlikely. Would you even take the job if you were unarmed?
Great example! Here's how the UK engage someone wielding a machete, without guns or any other weapons beside extendable batons.
They try to deescalate, they bring in reinforcements, they surround, then they disarm him using shields, not weapons, and he survives to stand a fair trial. No guns needed.
And if they thought they couldn't arrest him using shields they could call in a specialist firearms unit, who are specifically trained, authorised, and accountable.
This is ridiculous. You have six or seven officers trying to verbally reason with the screaming guy. Then, at an unspecified later time, you have about twenty to thirty officers subduing the guy.
Look, in this case maybe the screaming guy didn't actually intend to hurt anyone. You can tell by the fact that he isn't actually attacking. There also weren't any victims or bystanders involved.
Now, what happens if somebody actually tries to assault people? The perpetrator gets shot from a safe distance when those "special units" finally arrive:
In the US, this man would be dead. Here, he survived. That's not ridiculous.
> Now, what happens if somebody actually tries to assault people? The perpetrator gets shot from a safe distance, when those "special units" finally arrive:
Yes - that's how it should be. Leave an actual firefight to specially appointed marksman with specialist weapons, not day-to-day officers waving pistols around. And they don't need those weapons when attending other incidents.
> In the US, this man would be dead. Here, he survived.
Well alright, that's one machete-wielding life that was saved. How many non-machete-wielding lives are lost by having an underpowered police force?
I guess we'll never know.
> That's not ridiculous.
It's ridiculous that it takes six or seven officers so long to neutralize the threat, which may not even have been a real threat.
> Yes - that's how it should be. Leave an actual firefight to specially appointed marksman with specialist weapons, not day-to-day officers waving pistols around. And they don't need those weapons when attending other incidents.
So, you get called to a minor domestic disturbance, the unarmed cops show up and it turns out that the guy in question "upgraded" to a kitchen knife. They'll better be good at keeping him occupied with trivia questions until the properly equipped force shows up.
I'm sure there's a trade-off between having police officers armed and dangerous versus having them be harmless. However, most countries in Europe - even those with low crime rates - choose to arm their officers. Deadly incidents remain rare:
> It's ridiculous that it takes six or seven officers so long to neutralize the threat, which may not even have been a real threat.
So just kill people to save a handful of officers having to spend 15 minutes sorting a situation out?
> So, you get called to a minor domestic disturbance, the unarmed cops show up and it turns out that the guy in question "upgraded" to a kitchen knife. They'll better be good at keeping him occupied with trivia questions until the properly equipped force shows up.
How do you think it works in practice in the UK at the moment? If someone attacks you with a kitchen knife you can defend yourself and arrest them using a baton or a Tazer - you don't need a gun that's an insane murderous overreaction.
Our rate of both people killed by the police, and people killed by other people, is very low. Learn from what we're doing.
> So just kill people to save a handful of officers having to spend 15 minutes sorting a situation out?
That's a false dichotomy. What if it had been only two officers? That would be the situation if there happened to be a patrol around.
How do you know how the crazy guy would've reacted when facing a gun? Perhaps he would have surrendered.
What about the officer's safety? Having a gun doesn't mean you have to shoot it, it means you have better means to defend yourself and others.
The fact that almost all other police forces in Europe have guns but then tend to not fire them at people tells me that guns are not the problem.
Either way, I'm not willing to put the lives of police officers on the line just to save a couple of machete-wielding crazy people from a "suicide by cop" situation.
> How do you think it works in practice in the UK at the moment? If someone attacks you with a kitchen knife you can defend yourself and arrest them using a baton or a Tazer - you don't need a gun that's an insane murderous overreaction.
No it isn't. If you are getting attacked with a knife, you and or other person, officer or not, are morally and legally entitled to defend yourself and others with lethal force.
For your own safety, don't bring a baton to a knife fight. You can not intervene at a distance and you're risking your life.
As for Tazers, they don't have the same psychological impact as a gun and they have limited range. You're welcome to use them, but I wouldn't put my or any officer's body on the line just to prevent the attacker from harm.
Statistics give clues, and strongly suggest the method is quite effective at saving non-machete-wielding lives.
> It's ridiculous that it takes six or seven officers so long to neutralize the threat, which may not even have been a real threat.
I think what you're implying here is that it's ridiculous to spend a few hours of a few officers work day to save a life.
Better to kill someone, at least it's over quickly and doesn't need as much... salary?
> They'll better be good at keeping him occupied with trivia questions until the properly equipped force shows up.
The point of the video is that, indeed, they are effective at keeping someone occupied until the properly equipped force shows up, and that it is possible to do that without just killing people when they are freaking out.
It is hardly just trivia questions. If you were paying attention to the video, the positioning of the cars and officers was intentional, to contain the situation while de-escalating it.
> I think what you're implying here is that it's ridiculous to spend a few hours of a few officers work day to save a life.
No, it's ridiculous to keep a threat going for so long. Remember that it is a threat? For how long exactly should these officers be expected to have a machete wielded at their face?
> Better to kill someone, at least it's over quickly and doesn't need as much... salary?
That's not how it would work in a standoff like this. First, you present the gun. That might change the perpetrator's mind. Then, you fire a warning shot. That might change the perpetrator's mind. Then, you shoot at the legs. If that doesn't change the perpetrator's mind, it's going to seriously impede their ability to cause harm.
If the perpetrator chooses to initiate an assault, all bets are off. They're getting shot, but also injury to others is likely going to be prevented.
> The point of the video is that, indeed, they are effective at keeping someone occupied until the properly equipped force shows up, and that it is possible to do that without just killing people when they are freaking out.
How do you know that this was effective? Show me a situation with an attacker actually ready to initiate an assault. The situation couldn't have been brought under control. For example:
We do know, if you'd care to find out, because homicide and suicide rates are significantly lower in the UK and other countries without armed police than the US.
A domestic is a perfect example of a situation where coming in with guns will get people killed.
> We do know, if you'd care to find out, because homicide and suicide rates are significantly lower in the UK and other countries without armed police than the US.
That's not how you know anything. First of all, the vast majority of countries around the world have armed police, so there's very few samples to work with.
Of course you'll have trouble finding any country with a high homicide rate where the police isn't armed, but you can easily find countries where homicides are extremely rare and police are still armed, for example Japan.
Suicide is mostly cultural. Korea, a country with extremely low crime rates has a very high suicide rate. In the Philippines, police are literally executing suspects in the streets, yet the suicide rate is very low. In Syria, a war torn country, suicide is even lower than that.
Great example! Here's how the UK engage someone wielding a machete, without guns or any other weapons beside extendable batons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mzPj_IaMzY
They try to deescalate, they bring in reinforcements, they surround, then they disarm him using shields, not weapons, and he survives to stand a fair trial. No guns needed.
And if they thought they couldn't arrest him using shields they could call in a specialist firearms unit, who are specifically trained, authorised, and accountable.