zlacker

When considering a use-of-force continuum, I'd sure rather have a family member or myself be tear-gassed than shot. If you take an intermediate level away, sure you get fewer people tear-gassed, but I think you replace some of them with people being shot.

>>sokolo+(OP)
But that is based on the assumption that force is the correct choice in the first place. Having more options on how to apply force avoids the fact that the correct choice is to de-escalate.

>>MereIn+U3
It's almost always to de-escalate. But only almost.

I'm willing to grant the police the power to appropriately use force and give them the broadest spectrum of options to match to the need. That's not dependent on them showing for a whole year with no force that they've thought about what they did wrong so far.

>>MereIn+U3
I started this subthread. I didn't want to discuss that. I wanted to discuss other options if one has to use force.

I actually want to learn.

>>sokolo+(OP)
It seems you went from tear gas to live fire without considering other options like firing over the head of a crowd, or using riot shields and batons to push people, or any of many other options. It seems to me that quite a few people just want to endorse whatever the police are doing and just attach some half-baked rationalization to it like 'do you prefer to be murdered.'

>>anigbr+hF
Just to be clear, I was responding to content which said "If an officer wouldn't fire a gun, I think he shouldn't use tear gas."

>>sokolo+qH
Yes, but you brought the option of being shot back in after it had been excluded, which makes no sense to me.

>>anigbr+KJ
It wasn't excluded. "If an officer wouldn't fire a gun, they shouldn't use tear gas." I was examining the case where a cop could fire their gun, but instead chooses a less-lethal means first because we've given them a continuum of force.

Imagine a scenario where a small group of cops is watching a peaceful rally. You and your family are part of the rally. Now, a subgroup of the people near the rally start to pelt the cops with bricks and rocks. The cops are surrounded and wildly outnumbered. If de-escalation does not immediately work and the cops have a less-lethal means of response, they should use that initially. If you deny them all the less-lethal means, they're going to use lethal means to defend themselves. You and your family are now in the area where copper bullets are flying because you didn't want the cops to have tear gas.

I'm sure being tased sucks. I know tear gas sucks. I'm also pretty sure both suck a lot less than being shot and that the Taser company and police use of tear gas have saved lives.

>>sokolo+g21
Now, a subgroup of the people near the rally start to pelt the cops with bricks and rocks. The cops are surrounded and wildly outnumbered.

Why, and where did they come from? I'm not here for this scarifying nonsense, which is little better than pro-cop propaganda. The police are a heavy militarized force and the police's use of less lethal weapons in the current conflict is being done to escalate and injure; for example, rubber bullets are meant to be fired from 40-70 feet away and bounced off the ground to deter approach while minimizing injury, but cops have been firing directly at people and causing serious injuries, including the loss of eyes. Yesterday evening cops in armored vehicles in Walnut Creek CA were telling unarmed protesters with their hands ups to 'get out of the way or you will be dead'. There are Tiananmen square moments happening all over this country right now so you can take your imaginary wild subgroup and stuff it back into the collection of worn out authoritarian tropes that it came from.

If cops find themselves in your fantasy situation it's because they have earned such ire. I advise them to put their hands up and allow themselves to be disarmed and taken prisoner.

>>anigbr+Ru3
You can advise them to do all that you want, but I don't expect them to comply, nor would I comply if I were in their position.

>>sokolo+744
Well, what does that say about you?

>>anigbr+Dy5
That I'm a rational actor.