Notice that while average white parents might worry about criminals before letting their kids out on the street, the black parents worry (with good reason) about the police.
(Just to spell it out: this is why so many BLM activists feel comfortable saying "abolish the police" or "defund the police", because from their point of view the police are the people most likely to assault or kill them or their children on the street, more so than random criminals)
> “Young teens or pre-teens of color were handcuffed, arrested, or held at gunpoint while participating in age-appropriate activities such as running, playing with friends, high-fiving, sitting on a stoop, or carrying a backpack.”
This is child abuse.
They are both worried about criminals. The fact that some criminals have badges and guns and a conspiracy of accomplices in positions of power shielding them from accountability for their crimes doesn't make them any less criminals.
> Just to spell it out: this is why so many BLM activists feel comfortable saying "abolish the police" or "defund the police", because from their point of view the police are the people most likely to assault or kill them or their children on the street, more so than random criminals
That's starting in the general direction of the truth, but not correct. It's not so much that Black community members (much less BLM activists, who are more likely to have detailed statistics at hand) think police are the most likely threat, but that police as currently constituted are a threat that Black communities both pay for and get poor returns from, both because of actual abuse by police and because their actual law enforcement needs (and other needs which society has shoveled into the police portfolio) are simultaneously underserved (and not just when it comes to crimes by cops; BLM, after all, didn't start in response to police violence.)
For comparison in Italy in 2019 there have been 3 people killed by the police, and people have - rightfully IMO - complained every single time.
In US more than 1k (1040 to be precise) died shot by cops
If we compare the population, there should have been at least 180 victims of police gunning in Italy
That's clearly unacceptable.
Or, from another angle, it means that criminality in US is so much worse than the average EU country that it's ok to kill so many people in the name of safety.
Edit: so, to summarize, yes, I do think that our crazy high number of people shot by police per capita is because of and strongly related to our crazy high number of people shooting each other and themselves.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm
You are comparing the number of gun deaths in 2 populations and concluding that the difference in total deaths indicates a commensurate increase in dangerous situations faced by officers. Your inclusion of gun suicides makes it extremely difficult to be charitable with your interpretation.
Greater gun suicides correlates with hopelessness and availability of guns not danger to officers and these deaths of despair are literally 60% of the gun deaths you are talking about! Half of the remaining were murdered by someone they know. Most of the remaining 20 not 100 daily murders seemingly random violent murders aren't really random they are criminals murdering other criminals.
Cops aren't overwhelmingly dealing with gang bangers they are overwhelmingly dealing with members of the general population and lots of low level offenders because that is what's out there. That is who they are murdering. They are murdering a broad swath of the population mostly not entirely focused on black people literally because they can get away with it.
Instead of pretending we can't look at the deaths in proper context we ought to analyze the deaths in their proper context. Although this is hard to do in a comment thread your reasoning is in this case worse than nothing because it gives one the false impression that you have a handle on it.
Please stop apologizing for murderers.
Edit: as such, I would remove the "because of" part of the last sentence of my previous comment, and leave the "strongly related to". My bad.