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Comment by cesarbs | Hacker News Reader

My wife and I have been in the US for 2.5 years and we had a surreal experience while taking a walk at night once. I must say, we were walking around late at night because we love being in a safe area were we can finally do that - back in our home country, we simply couldn't do that because of the absurd crime rate.

So we're walking around downtown just enjoying a nice summer night, when a police car shows up in a corner. No big deal, it's actually nice to see them around. We walk a block and there's the police car again... and it was like that for basically every block we walked until we got home. Fortunately we were not stopped, but we were definitely being followed and watched.

We come from Latin America but we're both white (German ancestry). I can't help but think the experience would likely have been a little worse if we had more typical Latino looks.

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You were a white couple walking downtown at night. I want to live in the utopia of Star Trek, but the reality of our world is that you were probably being shadowed by the police because they were looking out for you. You likely experienced the reason many downtowns are so "safe" these days. I know many police officers personally because of my past in the military (guard), and this is not uncommon, for police to circle around if they see someone that looks like they're up to no good, or if they look like an inviting target. I really wish we could live in a world where racism wasn't so rampant, but...

Somehow Europe manages to have very safe cities without this sort of behaviour from the cops. I think the Americans have been slow-cooked into finding the police state apparatus to be normal and justifiable.

The U.S. has always been a fantastically more violent place than Europe (at least, than the UK), since long before the modern era of militarized police: http://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/homicid....

I travel to Europe often, and yes, it is a mentality. I think also the opposite is true, however: Criminals will not commit crime if they have the mindset that a police presence is particularly heavy in an area. Europeans don't need guns to keep them safe, but in America, we "need" our guns to keep us safe. It's absolutely a mindset, you're right. But that doesn't mean it doesn't work.

I'm not an American so I don't feel a gun will "keep me safe" i.e. I won't be attacked or house broken. Though when that happens I can defend myself much better than without.

Is it generally that people feel they won't be victims to crime if they're armed?

Americans have a pithy sound-bite-style quote for that:

"When seconds count, the police are only minutes away."

This is a large and diverse country. There are significant areas of land where the median time until an emergency first-responder will appear is a multiple of the median duration of a typical criminal (or dangerous wildlife) encounter. With the right planning, I could probably walk coast to coast unarmed, without ever feeling unsafe. But if I took my hotel budget and bought a tent and sidearm instead, I wouldn't need to do nearly as much research ahead of time. Besides that, not all dangerous animals are human enough to know the law.

I don't typically go about armed, but several people that I know do. They consider it to not just be protection for themselves, but for their entire community, like vaccinations.

The weapon does not prevent the crime, but it does suggest a more favorable outcome.

Not to discount your comment, but it's also probably worth mentioning that the NRA and gun manufacturers comprise a very large and politically influential lobby. Gun culture in the US is in some part manufactured and sustained by the interests of big business.

One could say the same about a lot of different businesses and industries. Profitable businesses spend money on advertising and lobbying to stay profitable. I mistrust people with vested interests on both sides.

In this particular instance, my opinion of the meaning of the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is not clouded by any doubt.

The anecdotal facts I have at my disposal suggest that common gun ownership is neither necessary for public safety nor detrimental to it. The security of a people seems to be correlated more to the strength of their character than that of their arsenal.

Do you mean looking out in the sense that they were protecting them, or looking out in the sense that "white folks downtown must be here to buy drugs"?

What was it about your experience that made you assume negative intent? Have you considered that maybe their presence had nothing to do with you, or perhaps couples had been targeted by robbers in the area that night and they were merely ensuring you didn't become another crime statistic?

I dislike authority and cops more than most, but I also like evidence and I don't feel like this supports the implied harassment.

1) Everything I hear about American police in the news and from people I meet. Ever since I got here I'm amazed how much I hear the "never talk to the police" advice. I don't know how accurate that is but because I hear it so much I'm afraid of even greeting them when I'm walking around.

2) The whole thing made us feel very uncomfortable. Sure, they could have been looking out for us... But if that was the case, why didn't they just pull over and tell us that? Our relaxing evening walk became tense with us wondering why the police was watching us.

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