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Comment by snakeyjake | Hacker News Reader

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Police in the us are more likely to be heavily armed and paranoid because they are armed, and are often trained to be paranoid.

Our populace is very heavily armed. If you have an armed populace and a disarmed police force, that sounds incredibly ineffective. The whole point of the government is that they carry the power of the sword.

Our populace isn't homogeneous though. The areas that police target far more frequently (urban, non-white, lesser educated) are the areas that are least armed. Rural, white men with college degrees are significantly more likely to have guns, yet far less likely to be targeted by police. In most cases, they are the police.

One interpretation of this data is that police are systemically targeting lesser-armed areas where they have a fire-power advantage. Policing "their own people" is taboo and dangerous - they are outgunned. They post-hoc rationalize this racist bullying by pointing to all the crime they found, despite only looking in one place.

There is a minority of the country that is over represented in the media that are as you describe but the vast majority are not like that. Also, making vast generalizations about a huge diverse population of people is generally bad form.

>There is a minority of the country that is over represented in the media

Are those that support people to own and carry guns a minority?

Edit: Well, that came out a bit wrong, I think. I didn't mean to support or not support OP. I was just curious.

Its regional and highly nuanced. Like there are folks that might support hunting rifles but not assault rifles. There are some that support a total ban. Some that think there should be no restrictions whatsoever. What I take issue with in the parent comment is when people speak of America as a monolith. Its not. Its a hugely diverse and massive country with a melting pot of view points.

RWA personalities make up 25% of the US population so they're not vanishingly small.

I am not sure where you got that number from but I will assume you got it from a well sourced study or what have you.

Assuming your number is accurate, that is still a minority of the country. They are large enough to have _some_ influence by virtue of being concentrated in certain regions to elect idiots like MTG and Matt Gaetz but not large enough to represent majority viewpoint of the country. I will grant you that they are a big enough base to cause some problems such as the grid lock we see in congress right now.

Bringing it back to the original topic, these right wing gun toting idiots aren't the root cause (I'm not even sure you can point to one root cause, its a complex problem...) of our very real policing problems but they certainly aren't helping.

The study[1] is relevant insofar as it approximately measures the prevalence of such personality types. ie: it's more than a handful of outliers even if it is a minority and subject to geographic variation, you can imagine how some regions have a higher or lower proportion.

At the end of the day, it's a belief problem. It doesn't take a leap to understand how a belief system that agrees with "The only way our country can get through the crisis ahead is to get back to our traditional values, put some tough leaders in power, and silence the troublemakers spreading bad ideas," leads to police who act as tough leaders on troublemakers.

Like you said, it's a complex problem, and beliefs are a component.

1. https://pro.morningconsult.com/articles/right-wing-authorita...

> Since Americans tend to be heavily-armed paranoiacs

While the percentage of gun owners, or people living in a household with a gun owner are high...they aren't the majority.

Just about half of all American adults live in a house with a gun. I would say that's tending towards being armed.

As far as paranoia goes, you only have to look as far as HN, where (according to the commenters) every company is evil, every regulation is oppressive, every new technology is dangerous, every assertion by a professional is a lie, every government is tyrannical, every intention is malicious, and every Apple software release is worse than the last :-)

So for cops to think every person they come in contact with is armed is not outside of the realm of reasonable.

If you yourself are a paranoiac it is hard to see why this is wrong but I'm not so it's jarring but I understand it.

Mostly fair, but the figure for "homes with a gun" is around 40%. And I assume some portion of the group isn't paranoid or "heavily armed".

I was debating the rather blunt assertion "Americans tend to be heavily-armed paranoiacs" versus your more nuanced notion of who cops tend to come in contact with.

I think you're exaggerating here. HN doesn't have a universal opinion about anything. Sure, there are people who have the attitude you describe (although it's rare that a single person has all of those stances), but there are also people who don't. HN commenters overall have pretty diverse opinions about those things, and for each one of them you can find commenters who are of the opposite opinion.

> HN doesn't have a universal opinion about anything.

That's a matter of perspective. I don't think a literal interpretation is useful. There will always be some troll promoting vile or insane things for attention (among other reasons). Functionally? The internet tends to ensure there is always some zeitgeist. Eg https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/28232.html

The world is a big pile of topics, including recent events and discoveries. Users don't see the most sacred cows or derided topics, because they are not promoted, flagged or otherwise down in the pile. This is common among most modern internet communities, as opposed to flat hierarchy formats like newsgroups.

> HN commenters overall have pretty diverse opinions about those things

I'm not as sure about that as you are, looking at another topic that's in the top 20 today - from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39851564

* Snapchat has a long history of accusations regarding the damage to youth

* I have no love for social media companies, but as a citizen of Ontario this is also not what I want my tax dollars going towards.

* There's a lot more to be pissed off about, like the OTPP pissing away $95MM on FTX. (the closest thing to a defense, is whataboutism here)

* If you work for/with these platforms, you are the baddie

* Because no adult wants to provide ID to access normal websites with tracking tied unambiguously to their govt ID

etc.

[Edit] Not without irony, this Policing story was flagged.

Police don’t interact with the majority of the populace, they typically interact with criminals, who are often armed, despite numerous and often overlapping gun laws. Felons will carry guns, or thumb their nose at concealment laws, or ignore gun-free zones. Those who habitually break the law do not care about such rules.

But the police should interact with the majority of the populace. Anyone should be able to approach and ask for help, without feeling like they will get shot at.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com