Today's Mass Shooting

Status
Not open for further replies.
Steve said:
And might you ever consider that point to be made?
Click to expand...


It is possible, but considering the amount of attention given to threads that focus on people who only commit a small fraction of violent crimes in the US, I'm not even close.
 
bluesjnr said:
I think you are over simplifying things; with an added touch of ponderingturtle.
Click to expand...

Ouch, I can't say I enjoy that comparison! :(

Let's just say that there are so many laws, procedures and events that seem to disproportionally affect black people that it's hard for me to reach a different conclusion.
 
Ron Obvious said:
And how does that compare to the difference in the number of police encounters between the two population groups? Considering the crime rates, and especially the violent crime rates, show that black people commit MORE than twice the number of violent crimes than white people do, you could argue that they are actually underrepresented in police shootings.

I'm not arguing that police violence isn't out of control in the US, but I'm arguing that the numbers show it's not racial.
Click to expand...

People really, really want to believe it's racial. But if you look at police encounters between two groups, you'll get quite a range of numbers:

- Asians versus White
- Hispanic versus White
- Black versus Asian
- Male versus female

You can even slice people up into age ranges or income brackets, or rural/suburban/urban, or you could list neighborhoods by murder rate and then compare police encounters between them, or you can combine any of the above (ex. White women in their 50s versus Asian men in their 20s). But no-one seems to be interested in any of them except for Black versus White.

People also seldom realize that all sorts of other things will be different between the various populations. For example, the percentage of people falling within specific age brackets between black or white or asian.

But we're supposed to just see the difference between police encounters and believe it's all and only based on racism. Why isn't the difference between Asians and Whites or the differences between men and women based on racism/sexism?

We're also supposed to believe apparently, that black people are being "hunted down like animals" according to Spike Lee. But even on the most charitable interpretation of that comment, it's waayy off the mark. Imagine what the world would look like if that were true. It looks nothing like that.
 
Re: statistics on crimes committed by ethnicity.

One has to assume those stats are collected in an unbiased way.

If POC

have the police called on them more often for the same behaviors

Those calling inflate (or invent) the danger they are in

They are charged with more serious versions of those crimes

Cannot access financial resources to present competent defense at trial

Etc

Then there is sampling bias.

Added to that is that socioeconomic distress has massive correlation (and causes too numerous to list) with substance abuse and criminal behavior. Change countries and you'll find the same paradigm with different ethnic groups in different positions.

This becomes a feedback loop because having a record makes it harder to secure a stable and sufficient income, which creates distress, which leads to maladaptive behavior, rinse, repeat.

It is a bit more acute in the U.S. because of the prevailing attitude around mental health issues being seen as personal moral failures. The terrible recidivism rates of our very punitive "corrections" system has also been a part of the discussion for decades now.
 
Federal regulations setting a minimum age of 21 years old for purchasing handguns from licensed dealers violate the Second Amendment, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The restrictions were deemed unconstitutional by a divided three-judge panel of the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals. The majority opinion, written by Donald Trump-appointee Judge Julius N. Richardson, said the laws relegated "either the Second Amendment or 18- to 20-year-olds to a second-class status."
"Looking through this historical lens to the text and structure of the Constitution reveals that 18- to 20-year-olds have Second Amendment rights," he wrote. "Virtually every other constitutional right applies whatever the age. And the Second Amendment is no different."

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/13/politics/handgun-appeals-court/index.html
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
People really, really want to believe it's racial. But if you look at police encounters between two groups, you'll get quite a range of numbers:

- Asians versus White
- Hispanic versus White
- Black versus Asian
- Male versus female

You can even slice people up into age ranges or income brackets, or rural/suburban/urban, or you could list neighborhoods by murder rate and then compare police encounters between them, or you can combine any of the above (ex. White women in their 50s versus Asian men in their 20s). But no-one seems to be interested in any of them except for Black versus White.

People also seldom realize that all sorts of other things will be different between the various populations. For example, the percentage of people falling within specific age brackets between black or white or asian.

But we're supposed to just see the difference between police encounters and believe it's all and only based on racism. Why isn't the difference between Asians and Whites or the differences between men and women based on racism/sexism?

We're also supposed to believe apparently, that black people are being "hunted down like animals" according to Spike Lee. But even on the most charitable interpretation of that comment, it's waayy off the mark. Imagine what the world would look like if that were true. It looks nothing like that.
Click to expand...

"hunted down like animals" is *probably* an exaggeration for *most* police officers. However systemic and systematic victimisation is not.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01846-z

“We have enough evidence that tells us that action needs to be taken,” says Justin Nix, a criminologist at the University of Nebraska Omaha. “One thousand deaths a year does not have to be normal.” Since Nature reported last September on what the data say about racial bias and police killings, new evidence has continued to support a link. Data from California show that police stopped and used force against Black people disproportionately, compared with other racial groups, in 2018 (see go.nature.com/2bgfrah). A December 2019 paper reported that bias in police administrative records results in many studies underestimating levels of racial bias in policing, or even masking discrimination entirely3.
Click to expand...

This is in addition to the not-very difficult points that Delphic Oracle made.

They're not complex, but obviously do need to be stated.
Delphic Oracle said:
Re: statistics on crimes committed by ethnicity.

One has to assume those stats are collected in an unbiased way.

If POC

have the police called on them more often for the same behaviors

Those calling inflate (or invent) the danger they are in

They are charged with more serious versions of those crimes

Cannot access financial resources to present competent defense at trial

Etc

Then there is sampling bias.

Added to that is that socioeconomic distress has massive correlation (and causes too numerous to list) with substance abuse and criminal behavior. Change countries and you'll find the same paradigm with different ethnic groups in different positions.

This becomes a feedback loop because having a record makes it harder to secure a stable and sufficient income, which creates distress, which leads to maladaptive behavior, rinse, repeat.

It is a bit more acute in the U.S. because of the prevailing attitude around mental health issues being seen as personal moral failures. The terrible recidivism rates of our very punitive "corrections" system has also been a part of the discussion for decades now.
Click to expand...
 
And why this seeming digression is not off topic:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02601-9
Recognizing that ‘lethal force’ does not always involve a gun and doesn’t always result in death, two other media organizations expanded on this approach. In 2015 and 2016, UK newspaper The Guardian combined its original reporting with crowdsourced information to record all fatal encounters with the police in the United States, and found around 1,100 civilian deaths per year. Online news site VICE News obtained data on both fatal and non-fatal shootings from the country’s 50 largest local police departments, finding that for every person shot and killed between 2010 and 2016, officers shot at two more people who survived. Extrapolating from that, the actual number of civilians shot by the police each year is likely to be upwards of 3,000.
Click to expand...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3868476/
This is particularly troublesome because of the observed race differences in police contacts. Here we have seen that African American juveniles are more likely to have had police contacts and these cannot be explained by differential criminal involvement, at least not as measured by self-reported delinquent behavior. Nor do they appear to be the result of differential income, single parents, family conflict, delinquent peers, or overall neighborhood quality. There exists a dominant narrative in the Black community that police, and the criminal justice system more broadly, discriminate against African Americans. Even those who believe that early intervention will sometimes “nip problems in the bud” should recognize that racial differences in criminal justice contacts that are not justified by criminal behavior will seem to confirm the accuracy of that narrative. Additional research is needed to explore the consequences for individual juveniles of the differential police contacts that we have observed, but it is now safe to say that it is very likely that the race differences that we do see, in confirming the discrimination narrative, are not good for the relationship between African American communities and law enforcement.
Click to expand...

There's plenty more
 
bluesjnr said:
I think you are over simplifying things; with an added touch of ponderingturtle. I don't see how boiling things down to an exaggerated and unsupported sound bite helps move the conversation in any way.
Click to expand...

Because it is literally true. People have been indoctrinated to see black people doing the same thing as more threatening than white people. But of course that would be racist and you can't accept that racism exists so we have to go with some other answer.
 
Ian Osborne said:
At what age can you buy a gun in the USA? I presume it varies from state to state?
Click to expand...

Federally its 18 for a long gun (rifle or shotgun), 21 for a handgun. However thats only to buy from a licensed dealer. Someone, like a friend or relative, can purchase for you. You must be 18 to possess a handgun, there is no age restriction for a long gun. Some states have higher age limits though.
 
Ian Osborne said:
At what age can you buy a gun in the USA? I presume it varies from state to state?
Click to expand...

Federal law says 18 for long guns, 21 for handguns. Been that way for decades. But apparently two right wing judges believe that 18 year olds need to pack heat.
 
Kestrel said:
Federal law says 18 for long guns, 21 for handguns. Been that way for decades. But apparently two right wing judges believe that 18 year olds need to pack heat.
Click to expand...

They kinda have a point, in that 18 year olds don't have full rights but they can be drafted. Sorta the same thing with the drinking age. My solution would be to up the selective service age to 21.
 
lobosrul5 said:
They kinda have a point, in that 18 year olds don't have full rights but they can be drafted. Sorta the same thing with the drinking age. My solution would be to up the selective service age to 21.
Click to expand...

A better solution is to eliminate the Selective Service.

ETA: The Selective Service is a pointless relic of a bygone era. The list kept by the Selective Service of eligible young men could be generated in a few days from other public records. And even if we did decide to reinstate the draft, the armed forces don't have the staff, equipment of facilities to train a massive number of new draftees.
 
Last edited:
But Chicago

5 wounded.

Just after midnight, the group was standing in the 4600-block of West Monroe Street, when a male approached them and opened fire, Chicago police said.
Click to expand...




Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania

2 killed, 3 wounded.

Several individuals got in a shootout in a housing complex, over 30 shots fired and surveillance video to capture the oppression.

“This was one of the worst shootings we had down here with people getting hurt,” said one resident who wanted to remain anonymous.
Click to expand...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom