Crime Stand your ground? No

[nhbbear]

Slow Horses is fiction showing fictional situations. MI5 are an intelligence-gathering org not a hands-on org that throw down with terrorists and enemy spies or whatever, they have to jazz their role up for tv purposes i suppose because following what MI5 really do would be really, really dry. I haven't seen the show but if they are showing 'agents' in jeopardy-type situations on any kind of regular basis they are showing entirely fictional scenarios, the vast majority of people who work for MI5 are analyst geeks and the vast majority of work they do is behind a screen. If they were looking to apprehend a threat or go into a situation where firearms were necessary they would so do in the company of armed police. Thats just how UK LEO's/Intel agencies are organised.

Thanks for the info, mate. Either way, it’s a pretty good show. I plan to pick it back up in a week or two-I ran out of episodes and started watching game of thrones all the way through for about fifth time.

But again, it is still a culture shock to me to see unarmed police. I rarely thought about my gun once I got used to it-before that point, I was terrified someone would come up behind me and try to grab it because it happened a few years before I came on the department. Some fuckhead snuck up behind one of our officers and pulled his gun out of the holster and held it to the officers head. Homeboy didn’t realize that there was a second officer in the 7-eleven store that went to the bathroom. That second officer walks up behind the guy who telling the clerk to empty the register or he will shoot the cop. Second officer pops the top of his head off and everyone in the five foot radius got splattered. The next day, the store clerk quit…..then she joined our department and many years later, it briefly my sergeant until k was also promoted to sergeant in 2010. The officer that had the gun pulled on him went on to be one of my mentors and one of my all time favorite supervisors. Really nice guy, extremely intelligent and he might seem timid, if he looks like a gorilla wearing glasses


Again, I think Bobbie’s do a good job dealing with knives and I tried to take some of their methods and put them into our self-defense training for officers but the department wouldn’t equip us with the tools I requested-riot shields; oversized batons.

I have gone hands on with at least three individuals knife armed suspects that I had to wrestle with to get control of the blade. I didn’t even have my gun out of any of those calls .

The flip side is that I have had my gun out dozens of times including my first week in uniform we were chasing a semi that ran several other vehicles of the road. We finally get home stopped, drag him out of the cab and the sergeant tells me to point my gun at him until the cab could be checked. He was begging me I’m a thick African accent to lower the gun because he had never had a gun pointed at him-so I just smiled at him and told him it was the first time ever pointing a gun at anyone: his eyes damn near popped out of his skull.

The very next day; we get a call to the super 8 where the cleaning lady gets slipped a note that says “call the police-help me.” So we head out there, stack up outside the door and all the guns come out: my partner kicks the door in, I go to the right and it’s a bathroom and homeboy is taking a piss and I yell at him to put his hands up and don’t reach for his pants. Dumbass quickly turns to see me and is still pissing and some goes on my boots.

Later that day, we had a foot pursuit that ended up on a highway with a bridge over the river. We tackle him and are fighting to get him handcuffed while cars are speeding by. It was an insane first week.

I got distracted, but real short-I have had my gun out dozens of times and came close to pulling the trigger. We had old Smith and Wesson 4072 model .40 caliber with a 12 pound trigger pull. I was so close to shooting some asshole on pcp that was threatening to smash in an old man’s head on the street: he had a brick in his hand and kept raising the brick above his head. His family was up the street and were screaming at him and yelling at us that he was going to see if he had insects in his head. He raised it back and put a good bit of pressure on my trigger and out of the 12 pounds needed to squeeze the trigger and take r thr dhjtnddd

 

[kflo]

Holy fragaroli, this mofo is gonna get in trouble because he was spending time inside his own house.

What's next? A mofo is gonna get in trouble because he puts parmesan cheese on fries?

Nice trolling

 

[nhbbear]

btw regarding self-defence in the UK there was a pretty extreme case that was in the news relatively recently that is very relevant here

6 intruders broke into a guys home armed with crowbars etc (good old UK, they didn't have guns), reading between the lines my guess is they thought/knew the guy had drugs or drug money in the house and they were doing an Omar on him. or at least, trying to, or beating him for a drug debt, or whatever. I'd bet he is no citizen anyway.

anyway in the struggle having been beaten in front of his wife and kids (i think at least, they were certainly in the house), the guy ended up taking a knife and stabbing one of them, who ultimately died, the other 5 pussies ran off.

the guy (apparently) tried to save the life of the stabbed intruder and called the police

this guy was NOT charged

The funny thing about how self-defence is perceived in the UK, even in this story where the dude wasn't charged, you had people commenting on the story that they 'bet he was going to be charged, can't protect yourself, criminals paradise, your home should be your castle'.... even on a story that explicitly said the guy wasn't charged. i mention that to indicate the general levels of ignorance and emotional over-reaction, on this issue

anyway the 5 living scumbags ('criminals paradise can't protect your own home etc etc') got i think 70 years between them and the homeowner *despite likely having some kind of criminal reason that 6 dudes were raiding his house* was not charged.

absolutely no mention of warning/no warning in this case, because he didn't have to give one legally, nor did he have time to give one as he was fighting for his life, his life was under threat he used reasonable force in the context of that threat, no charges.

and still you see people commenting on the story that he would probably be charged 'because you can't even protect your own home'.

Like I say, there is a lot of misunderstanding and an over-perception of criminals rights vs rights of self-defence. generally in cases where the defender is charged the force is judged not to be reasonable but ask yourself, if under UK law a dude can stab another man to death and *not* be charged, does it sound like self-defence is illegal?

 

[mozfonky]

First, my original response wasn’t that long and you could have skimmed it, or ignored it for all I care. I use my education and experience to try to inform others in this room and even if you didn’t read it, maybe someone else did.

As for the rest of that….I can’t tell if you think you’re insulting me-and if you are in fact trying to insult me or get a rise out of me-boy, did you fucking miss the mark. I am more likely to send chauvin’s cellmate something sharp and pointy and I sure as fuck wouldn’t send him lube-I want that pounding to happen 100% dry with zero moisture. Eventually, blood can act like a lubricant. But and one thing you did say that made me chuckle because it something I often say is that when I see a story about some piece of shit that kills a cop and gets into a shootout-I always hope the bad guy gets shot in the gut and spine. Ideally, they would be paralyzed and have to shit in a bag their whole life.

great, i read your post, cool.

 

[mozfonky]

Disturbing... Home invasions are the stuff of nightmares. In the one place where you and your kids should feel safe.

Shattering that illusion would change your life for the worse.

When I first moved to Houston from Colorado, I was blown away about many home invasions were reported in the news. Fortunately I had moved to a suburb on the far edge of Harris County that has one of the lowest crime rates in the state. But it was fucking scary how many home invasions occur inside the loop in the actual city of Houston.

Houston has a lot of immigrants, do you think that factors or not? Just wondering.

We have lots of immigrants too and if I had to guess, most of them are not the ones busting into homes. We did have a bizarre case where people were coming up from somewhere in south america and doing what sounded like paramilitary like robberies but they were caught. If I remember right, they targetted asians or asian business owners as they have been targetted because they have this weird thing with keeping real cash on hand. It used to be lots of asian businesses would not even take a card of any kind, it must have been difficult for them to get over their weird fetish, the only asian I know who still demands cash only is a mechanic, a tow driver too but those kinda make sense as they want to avoid taxes.

 

[nhbbear]

btw regarding self-defence in the UK there was a pretty extreme case that was in the news relatively recently that is very relevant here

6 intruders broke into a guys home armed with crowbars etc (good old UK, they didn't have guns), reading between the lines my guess is they thought/knew the guy had drugs or drug money in the house and they were doing an Omar on him. or at least, trying to, or beating him for a drug debt, or whatever. I'd bet he is no citizen anyway.

anyway in the struggle having been beaten in front of his wife and kids (i think at least, they were certainly in the house), the guy ended up taking a knife and stabbing one of them, who ultimately died, the other 5 pussies ran off.

the guy (apparently) tried to save the life of the stabbed intruder and called the police

this guy was NOT charged

The funny thing about how self-defence is perceived in the UK, even in this story where the dude wasn't charged, you had people commenting on the story that they 'bet he was going to be charged, can't protect yourself, criminals paradise, your home should be your castle'.... even on a story that explicitly said the guy wasn't charged. i mention that to indicate the general levels of ignorance and emotional over-reaction, on this issue

anyway the 5 living scumbags ('criminals paradise can't protect your own home etc etc') got i think 70 years between them and the homeowner *despite likely having some kind of criminal reason that 6 dudes were raiding his house* was not charged.

absolutely no mention of warning/no warning in this case, because he didn't have to give one legally, nor did he have time to give one as he was fighting for his life, his life was under threat he used reasonable force in the context of that threat, no charges.

and still you see people commenting on the story that he would probably be charged 'because you can't even protect your own home'.

Like I say, there is a lot of misunderstanding and an over-perception of criminals rights vs rights of self-defence. generally in cases where the defender is charged the force is judged not to be reasonable but ask yourself, if under UK law a dude can stab another man to death and *not* be charged, does it sound like self-defence is illegal?

We were literally just finished this section in my intro to criminal justice course last week. I could not have stressed the what is “reasonable” to them and then I defined what that meant and what reasonable meeas to a civilian vs law enforcement shooting out of self defense.


In general, the public is given more grace in the subject. YThis means that law enforcement are expected to be better equioed and better trained in when you can use force, how much force you can use based upon Graham v Connor and TN v Garner and how a police officer is judged on his actions if a Reasonable officer would do given the same scenario with all the same information-and only that information, that the officer had at the time of the use of force where as a citizenwill be judgeon what is reasonable during the court process/ a civilian’s goal in these scenarios is to it incapacitate the attacker and then flee to get help. If you continue to beat or strike an unconscious person, that is not going to be considered reasonahdble even though Jorge Masvidal would argue they were “super necessary.”


.

And one more thing when it comes to law enforcement and the reasonable nature of the forced used and that there are certain factors that the “reasonable officers” that help to flesh out the narrative and hopefully, you are able to elicit responses to better understand the incident/
These are sometimes called the graham factors-these aren’t in order of importance. Depending on who you ask, the number of factors usually run between 4-8.

1 The first is size of the offender vs size of suspect
2 The nsecond one is the number of officers vs number of offenders
3 What is the crime the suspect allegedly committed? A serious violent crime allows and officer to use higher levels of force when trying to affect an arrest .
4 Is the suspect actively fighting or fleeing from the officer?
5. Is the subject armed with a weapon?
6. Does the officer have special knowledge about the suspect such as they are known to always carry guns or knives, are they known to fight with police or flee; does this person have special skills such being a known mma fighter/high school-collegiate wrestler, boxer,
7. Are there environmental factors at play? Is it extremely dark with no light; is the ground slippery due to ice, are you fighting on a steep slope
8. And this one is a biggie-but is the officer injured, seriously hurt, or extreme exhaustion perhaps after an extended foot chase and then a fight breaks out while trying to arrest the suspect-an injury or exhaustion ramps up the allowable level of force you can use before either condition gets the better of you and you end up losing the fight and possibly suspect goes for your gun.

Now; how do you apply these? I will explb ain a couple and depending on the answers given for the situation, an officer will be able to use higher levels of force; however, some instances would lead to the expectation that lower levels of force should be used. I will give a couple examples

8. If an officer is hurt or extremely exhausted, they may bump up their level of force so that they do not succumb and are no longer able continue to fight backğssus

2. If you have five officers and one suspect, unless that suspect is a certified badass, 5 police officers should be able to get one subject handcuffed quick and easy without using higher levels levels of force. If you have two officers and there are a group of unfriendlys surrounded you as you try to arrest a person, you can ramp up your force a little bit so as to not expose yourself to being outnumbered.

1. Size. If you have a 250 lb male officer trying to arrest an 85 lb female-you should be able to take this one into custody without using very much force. The opposite being that you have a 300 lb suspect and a 165 lb male officer, if the big guy starts fighting, the officer can use a much higher level of force.

3. Let’s say you have a suspect that is wanted for a crime and you see them and they refuse to let you handcuff them for a warrant you have in your possession. The first scenario, the suspect is wanted for stealing something minor-this person is not a danger to society and if you absolutely have to disengage and the suspect gets away, you get another warrant for resisting arrest and kick them up some other day: the flip side of that is you see a guy in a store that is wanted for attempted murder-the second that guy bucks, it’s on in my book.

And one more-and I like this one because I have had a lot of experience here.
6. I have a warrant for jon smith and I know that John is a recently retired cage fighter-just a local organization, but he is known to be a good and ferocious fighter. He is also known to fight with police. I am going to go in expecting trouble and I will be prepared for it. So I am already coming in at a higher level because my thought process is that this is

 

[IanEdwards]

Thanks for the info, mate. Either way, it’s a pretty good show. I plan to pick it back up in a week or two-I ran out of episodes and started watching game of thrones all the way through for about fifth time.

But again, it is still a culture shock to me to see unarmed police. I rarely thought about my gun once I got used to it-before that point, I was terrified someone would come up behind me and try to grab it because it happened a few years before I came on the department. Some fuckhead snuck up behind one of our officers and pulled his gun out of the holster and held it to the officers head. Homeboy didn’t realize that there was a second officer in the 7-eleven store that went to the bathroom. That second officer walks up behind the guy who telling the clerk to empty the register or he will shoot the cop. Second officer pops the top of his head off and everyone in the five foot radius got splattered. The next day, the store clerk quit…..then she joined our department and many years later, it briefly my sergeant until k was also promoted to sergeant in 2010. The officer that had the gun pulled on him went on to be one of my mentors and one of my all time favorite supervisors. Really nice guy, extremely intelligent and he might seem timid, if he looks like a gorilla wearing glasses


Again, I think Bobbie’s do a good job dealing with knives and I tried to take some of their methods and put them into our self-defense training for officers but the department wouldn’t equip us with the tools I requested-riot shields; oversized batons.

I have gone hands on with at least three individuals knife armed suspects that I had to wrestle with to get control of the blade. I didn’t even have my gun out of any of those calls .

The flip side is that I have had my gun out dozens of times including my first week in uniform we were chasing a semi that ran several other vehicles of the road. We finally get home stopped, drag him out of the cab and the sergeant tells me to point my gun at him until the cab could be checked. He was begging me I’m a thick African accent to lower the gun because he had never had a gun pointed at him-so I just smiled at him and told him it was the first time ever pointing a gun at anyone: his eyes damn near popped out of his skull.

The very next day; we get a call to the super 8 where the cleaning lady gets slipped a note that says “call the police-help me.” So we head out there, stack up outside the door and all the guns come out: my partner kicks the door in, I go to the right and it’s a bathroom and homeboy is taking a piss and I yell at him to put his hands up and don’t reach for his pants. Dumbass quickly turns to see me and is still pissing and some goes on my boots.

Later that day, we had a foot pursuit that ended up on a highway with a bridge over the river. We tackle him and are fighting to get him handcuffed while cars are speeding by. It was an insane first week.

I got distracted, but real short-I have had my gun out dozens of times and came close to pulling the trigger. We had old Smith and Wesson 4072 model .40 caliber with a 12 pound trigger pull. I was so close to shooting some asshole on pcp that was threatening to smash in an old man’s head on the street: he had a brick in his hand and kept raising the brick above his head. His family was up the street and were screaming at him and yelling at us that he was going to see if he had insects in his head. He raised it back and put a good bit of pressure on my trigger and out of the 12 pounds needed to squeeze the trigger and take r thr dhjtnddd

om armed vs unarmed police i have just two comments

firstly, it seems to me that having a weapon and the responsibility of using it, is not something that just everyone is suited for, or up to the task of.

as with combat infantrymen there is a certain breed IMO and some people simply aren't fit to take the life or death decisions that having a firearm can automatically add into the situation. I don't even mean against criminals armed with a gun or even with a knife or a bloody stick. The gun being there, means in a struggle the criminal could get it, which changes the whole dynamic around any potentially violent interaction with a criminal and means more likely escalation just from the cops part, same applies to the criminal i guess

obviously you know that the UK have specialist armed units- i am pretty sure the pass-rate on their training is only about 50% which would tend to substantiate my point that (again UK context where guns are not the default) not everyone is suited for the role and the responsibility


second, in the UK, when they survey cops, they very overwhelmingly say they *do not want* to be armed (i believe its a 75% or more proportion who are against it). obviously this is UK context and I would not expect the poll to be the same in the US- big big LOL there.

but its interesting that *the people doing the policing* are very definitely against being armed- i feel like there is probably a perception in the US that UK police are desperate for firearms and the evil gov't sends them out there without guns.

Obviously, UK context, crims mostly don't have guns so it couldn't be more different than the US

 

[IanEdwards]

We were literally just finished this section in my intro to criminal justice course last week. I could not have stressed the what is “reasonable” to them and then I defined what that meant and what reasonable meeas to a civilian vs law enforcement shooting out of self defense.


In general, the public is given more grace in the subject. YThis means that law enforcement are expected to be better equioed and better trained in when you can use force, how much force you can use based upon Graham v Connor and TN v Garner and how a police officer is judged on his actions if a Reasonable officer would do given the same scenario with all the same information-and only that information, that the officer had at the time of the use of force where as a citizenwill be judgeon what is reasonable during the court process/ a civilian’s goal in these scenarios is to it incapacitate the attacker and then flee to get help. If you continue to beat or strike an unconscious person, that is not going to be considered reasonahdble even though Jorge Masvidal would argue they were “super necessary.”


.

And one more thing when it comes to law enforcement and the reasonable nature of the forced used and that there are certain factors that the “reasonable officers” that help to flesh out the narrative and hopefully, you are able to elicit responses to better understand the incident/
These are sometimes called the graham factors-these aren’t in order of importance. Depending on who you ask, the number of factors usually run between 4-8. Dddd

1 The first is size of the offender vs size of suspect
2 The nsecond one is the number of officers vs number of offenders
3 What is the crime the suspect allegedly committed? A serious violent crime allows and officer to use higher levels of force when trying to affect an arrest .
4 Is the suspect actively fighting or fleeing from the officer?
5. Is the subject armed with a weapon?
6. Does the officer have special knowledge about the suspect such as they are known to always carry guns or knives, are they known to fight with police or flee; does this person have special skills such being a known mma fighter/high school-collegiate wrestler, boxer,
7. Are there environmental factors at play? Is it extremely dark with no light; is the ground slippery due to ice, are you fighting on a steep slope it bhg
8. And this one is a biggie-but is the officer injured, seriously hurt, or extreme exhaustion perhaps after an extended foot chase and then a fight breaks out while trying to arrest the suspect-an injury or exhaustion ramps up the allowable level of force you can use before either condition gets the better of you and you end up losing the fight and possibly suspect goes for your gun.

Now; how do you apply these? I will explb ain a couple and depending on the answers given for the situation, an officer will be able to use higher levels of force; however, some instances would lead to the expectation that lower levels of force should be used. I will give a couple examples

8. If an officer is hurt or extremely exhausted, they may bump up their level of force so that they do not succumb and are no longer able continue to fight backğssus

2. If you have five officers and one suspect, unless that suspect is a certified badass, 5 police officers should be able to get one subject handcuffed quick and easy without using higher levels levels of force. If you have two officers and there are a group of unfriendlys surrounded you as you try to arrest a person, you can ramp up your force a little bit so as to not expose yourself to being outnumbered.

1. Size. If you have a 250 lb male officer trying to arrest an 85 lb female-you should be able to take this one into custody without using very much force. The opposite being that you have a 300 lb suspect and a 165 lb male officer, if the big guy starts fighting, the officer can use a much higher level of force.

3. Let’s say you have a suspect that is wanted for a crime and you see them and they refuse to let you handcuff them for a warrant you have in your possession. The first scenario, the suspect is wanted for stealing something minor-this person is not a danger to society and if you absolutely have to disengage and the suspect gets away, you get another warrant for resisting arrest and kick them up some other day: the flip side of that is you see a guy in a store that is wanted for attempted murder-the second that guy bucks, it’s on in my book.

And one more-and I like this one because I have had a lot of experience here.
6. I have a warrant for jon smith and I know that John is a recently retired cage fighter-just a local organization, but he is known to be a good and ferocious fighter. He is also known to fight with police. I am going to go in expecting trouble and I will be prepared for it. So I am already coming in at a higher level because my thought process is that this is b bb

always enjoy your insights thanks mate

 

[IanEdwards]

Again, I think Bobbie’s do a good job dealing with knives and I tried to take some of their methods and put them into our self-defense training for officers but the department wouldn’t equip us with the tools I requested-riot shields; oversized batons.

couple of interested reflections here, firstly that i don't suppose its a surprise that some kinda best-practise for defence/apprehension of knife-wielders w/ like minimal force, would come from the dudes who don't have guns to default to, i mean, naturally they are going to have more experience wrestling/subduing knife-wielders physically cos they don't have the option to terrify the knts GTFO the floor or we'll blow you away' which i imagine takes care of a decent %.

second, you'd think these like helpless unarmed cops would be getting killed all the time, and AFAIK UK Police deaths in service are very low

don't take my word for this as it is a very shallow dive into the stats but it seems to me, police officers dying on duty in the UK is incredibly rare. like, none i can see in the whole of 2024, and the last 2 to die on duty (2025 and 2020, but this is according to wiki and i'm not sure i trust it, it sounds too low even to me) the last two UK police officers who died on duty got hit by cars not guns or knives.

i would need to spend more time confirming that but my impression was always, when a police officer dies, its like a national news story (imagine that), like if they die in any way at all never mind a criminal kills them.

Edit, again taking wiki at its word, of the last 10 PO's who died on duty, 1 was shot, 1 more stabbed (terror attack), and the other 8 all died in some kind of vehicular contact, one being hit by a train when trying to get a suicide risk on railway tracks, a bunch more hit by suspect vehicles or died crashing their own vehicles in chases ( i know you have mentioned how dangerous these situations are). again, i'm very surprised but i guess not shocked that the numbers killed by weapons is so incredibly low

i mean, man, that suggests they are doing something right (or indeed that the UK gun laws kinda work)

 

[nhbbear]

First, my original response wasn’t that long and you could have skimmed it, or ignored it for all I care. I use my education and experience to try to inform others in this room and even if you didn’t read it, maybe someone else did.

As for the rest of that….I can’t tell if you think you’re insulting me-and if you are in fact trying to insult me or get a rise out of me-boy, did you fucking miss the mark. I am more likely to send chauvin’s cellmate something sharp and pointy and I sure as fuck wouldn’t send him lube-I want that pounding to happen 100% dry with zero moisture. Eventually, blood can act like a lubricant. But and one thing you did say that made me chuckle because it something I often say is that when I see a story about some piece of shit that kills a cop and gets into a shootout-I always hope the bad guy gets shot in the gut and spine. Ideally, they would be paralyzed and have to shit in a bag their whole life.

 

[nhbbear]

om armed vs unarmed police i have just two comments

firstly, it seems to me that having a weapon and the responsibility of using it, is not something that just everyone is suited for, or up to the task of.

as with combat infantrymen there is a certain breed IMO and some people simply aren't fit to take the life or death decisions that having a firearm can automatically add into the situation. I don't even mean against criminals armed with a gun or even with a knife or a bloody stick. The gun being there, means in a struggle the criminal could get it, which changes the whole dynamic around any potentially violent interaction with a criminal and means more likely escalation just from the cops part, same applies to the criminal i guess

obviously you know that the UK have specialist armed units- i am pretty sure the pass-rate on their training is only about 50% which would tend to substantiate my point that (again UK context where guns are not the default) not everyone is suited for the role and the responsibility


second, in the UK, when they survey cops, they very overwhelmingly say they *do not want* to be armed (i believe its a 75% or more proportion who are against it). obviously this is UK context and I would not expect the poll to be the same in the US- big big LOL there.

but its interesting that *the people doing the policing* are very definitely against being armed- i feel like there is probably a perception in the US that UK police are desperate for firearms and the evil gov't sends them out there without guns.

Obviously, UK context, crims mostly don't have guns so it couldn't be more different than the US

Interesting about the Bobbies not wanting to be armed. I didn’t know that. Yes, I know about their armed division as well. One of them moved here and got a job with our sheriff’s department. He and I had a lot of interesting conversations about the difference between policing in the two nations. And I have worked with officers that probably shouldn’t have been armed. We had one idiot at the range that actually used his gun hand with gun in it to swat at a bee while I was standing next to him. I yelled “asshole, could you try not pointing your gun at me while loaded with live ammo-you dumb fuck!”

I am 100% against disarming US police. Some progressives want to have unarmed police especially doing traffic enforcement and there’s no fucking way that would work. Traffic stops are where most cops come into contact with armed individuals-most of them legal and not doing anything g criminal with their guns-but far too many run ins with armed criminals for that to be safe imo. Brooklyn park outside of Minneapolis where duante wright was shot and killed by kim potter when she mistook her gun for a taser is one area that has tried to do that. They also tried to outlaw-and to some extent did outlaw police from stopping people for expired plates and several other traffic offenses. VA has done similar things. But we have far too many guns and criminals with guns in this country for unarmed police to be safe or effective

 

[nhbbear]

couple of interested reflections here, firstly that i don't suppose its a surprise that some kinda best-practise for defence/apprehension of knife-wielders w/ like minimal force, would come from the dudes who don't have guns to default to, i mean, naturally they are going to have more experience wrestling/subduing knife-wielders physically cos they don't have the option to terrify the knts GTFO the floor or we'll blow you away' which i imagine takes care of a decent %.

second, you'd think these like helpless unarmed cops would be getting killed all the time, and AFAIK UK Police deaths in service are very low

don't take my word for this as it is a very shallow dive into the stats but it seems to me, police officers dying on duty in the UK is incredibly rare. like, none i can see in the whole of 2024, and the last 2 to die on duty (2025 and 2020, but this is according to wiki and i'm not sure i trust it, it sounds too low even to me) the last two UK police officers who died on duty got hit by cars not guns or knives.

i would need to spend more time confirming that but my impression was always, when a police officer dies, its like a national news story (imagine that), like if they die in any way at all never mind a criminal kills them.

Edit, again taking wiki at its word, of the last 10 PO's who died on duty, 1 was shot, 1 more stabbed (terror attack), and the other 8 all died in some kind of vehicular contact, one being hit by a train when trying to get a suicide risk on railway tracks, a bunch more hit by suspect vehicles or died crashing their own vehicles in chases ( i know you have mentioned how dangerous these situations are). again, i'm very surprised but i guess not shocked that the numbers killed by weapons is so incredibly low

i mean, man, that suggests they are doing something right (or indeed that the UK gun laws kinda work)

Well, a big part of that is being 99% certain that the individual with the knife also doesn’t have a gun. There is no such guarantees in the US. So that helps to just have to worry about the knife. Like I said, they swarm the knife suspect with multiple officers coming from all directions with shields, tasers, pepper spray, and batons.

 

[deadshot138]

 

[tenniswhiz]

Tried to search and see if this was posted, couldn't find it, soooo...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...g-wrong-house-said-tore-everything-rcna242624

A cleaning woman, who accidentally went to the wrong house, was shot dead by the home owner. The murderer didn't say anything, didn't try to announce his presence or try to stop her or ask what was going on, just pulled a Frank Reynolds and started blasting.

Not only is the murder not in prison, they aren't even arrested, and their name hasn't even been released. It's hard to not feel like because this woman spoke broken English and is Hispanic that no one cares, especially with all the ICE bullshit going on lately. If it was a Sydney Sweeny looking white woman that was randomly killed, the feds and Trump himself would be there.

The cops have said the murderer isn't a cop or former cop or anyone worth protecting their identity over, but it's bizarre as fuck that this dude just killed someone, and nothing is happening.

There's been mostly sane opinions, but still a lot of 2A people that act like this guy did nothing wrong and was justified in murdering someone for going to the wrong house. Imagine being so mentally fucked, and such a scared little bitch, that you see a woman with cleaning supplies and her husband and your first thought is, "OMG IT'S A SETUP THEY'RE GOING TO KILL ME I NEED TO KILL THEM FIRST." Insane mental delusions, or just convenient excuses.

These are people who should never own guns and why there's a gun problem in the first place. These people are either mentally ill, insanely paranoid, or hateful racists, all owning guns and looking for any reason to kill someone and then try claiming self defense and that they were scared for their livelihood. Going by their logic, you can murder anyone you deem a "threat", and that's as broad of strokes as you can use. Literally anyone you don't like, any random person coming up to your door your your car window, just blast him, scared for your life.

Agree with everything you said.
But this horrible incident has nothing to do with Trump, ICE, or Sydney Sweeney.
This has happened many times in the USA; I remember another similar incident a few years ago where a group of girls got lost while driving, pulled into a remote driveway to ask for directions, and one of the girls was shot and killed. White girl, just like Sydney Sweeney.

 

[mozfonky]

Agree with everything you said.
But this horrible incident has nothing to do with Trump, ICE, or Sydney Sweeney.
This has happened many times in the USA; I remember another similar incident a few years ago where a group of girls got lost while driving, pulled into a remote driveway to ask for directions, and one of the girls was shot and killed. White girl, just like Sydney Sweeney.

yup, we have a macho problem like I said. A wannabe tough guy or cop, can't change that. I've seen a million of those type. I guarantee all the people that shoot these folks have some silly rationale, just like the cops who get approached with a pot of water or get their taser stolen. When males are looking for reasons to act violent and aggressive, and they think they have a rationale, and they think they are, "the good guys" which they're not, it's gonna keep happening.

Do we have pieces of shit out there that will approach you meaning deadly harm? Sure, it happens, absolutely but the mentality that is all over the place is just totally over the top and it's a waste of life for the people that get killed over it.

 

[Stoic1]

Ever been the recipient of a hone invasion?

I have. Your perspective might change.

I think I've told the story here before so not gonna repeat it. Summary: at a relatives house in the middle of the night. Wake up to the sounds of glass breaking and then the front door kicked in. I had no firearms, phone, or weapon available.

I would have emptied a magazine through the door if I had my weapon. I understand that is not the scenario here exactly, I'm just saying when real fear hits you aren't going to be thinking rationally.