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Comment by walrus01 | Hacker News Reader

Google "suicide by cop", it's a real thing.

And notice how it's not really a thing in Europe, where the cops choose to not constantly shoot people.

People are unarmed in Europe, so shooting at them is almost never necessary. Meanwhile, the cops in America are constantly one pull of the trigger from their early grave, which I imagine is incredibly stressful and also, in fear of their lives, makes them more likely to assess ambigous situations as life-threatening. Compared to most of Europe, I imagine being an US cop is closer to serving in a war zone.

Regular reminder that "Europe" is a big place, including such countries as Switzerland where guns at home are a normal part of military service. Several other countries have strong hunting cultures too.

Regarding Switzerland, IIRC, since 2007, reserve/militia soldiers can keep their guns at home, but not ammunition.

Germany has armed cops and a lot of hunters, and fairly high gun ownership rate for Western Europe. Still police practices a policy of deescalation, rarely fires their guns and basically never kills anybody.

Proper training of police (years, not weeks) and a policy of deescalation have at least as big an effect as rates of gun ownership

> People are unarmed in Europe, so shooting at them is almost never necessary.

Has it occurred to you that cause and effect are non-obvious?

AIUI part of the reason most UK police does not carry a gun is precisely a policy of de-escalation — if the police doesn’t carry a gun, criminals don’t feel the need to match their firepower. Inversely, the fact that American law inforcement treats their beat like a warzone probably contributes to an escalation of violence on the other side too.

Same concept different application: escaping prison isn’t a crime in Germany. You will still be chased by law enforcement to serve the rest of your sentence but the act of running away isn’t a crime unto itself. This means an escapee is likely to avoid committing further crimes on their way out to avoid worsening their sentence, while an American escapee, facing a large penalty for escape itself, is likelier to take an in for a penny, in for a pound approach.

> if the police doesn’t carry a gun, criminals don’t feel the need to match their firepower.

I'm not convinced. Committing crimes, esp. robberies, is much easier with guns. Not to mention that a lot of criminals are involved in intra- an intergang relations and in such environment, a drug dealer without a gun (for example) wouldn't last very long.

I think in America, it is too late. The arms race between police and criminals has gone on for too long. If police stop carrying guns, criminals aren't going to magically stop carrying the guns they already have.

This got me searching, and it appears the US is the only country where there are more civilian-owned firearms than there are civilians.[1]

It seems reasonable then that this might weigh in as an occupation stressor for police officers.

Especially considering unregistered firearms outnumber registered firearms by 392:1.

In 2013 ... there were 33,636 deaths due to "injury by firearms" (10.6 deaths per 100,000 persons). These deaths consisted of 11,208 homicides, 21,175 suicides.[1]

Approximately 1.4 million people have died from firearms in the U.S. between 1968 and 2011.[2]

That’s approximately ten times the number of soldiers who died in the American War of Independence.[3]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War

Criminals in Europe also have guns, anyone can trivially fedex these over from the US and you’ll maybe lose 1-2% of the guns you ship.

I’m not convinced that someone that’s willing to shoot a police officer would be unwilling to smuggle weapons internationally.

Guns also get stolen all the time in Europe, yet we still manage.

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