Do Police have a right to Murder?

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by ElectricFetus, Feb 8, 2017.

  1. akoreamerican Registered Senior Member

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    We just need to step up the process of who get to be a police. Weed out those that fear death.
    Too many cowards who fear the community are patrolling the streets.
     
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  3. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    People who don't fear death (when confronted with it in the course of their jobs) are either fools or insane. I'd prefer fewer insane cops, not more.
     
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  5. akoreamerican Registered Senior Member

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    People who are not afraid of death are level headed under all situations, you might be confusing those who only pretend to be fearless with those who actually are. People who wants others to think they are fearless are the reason why innocent people get shot
     
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  7. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    . . . and often use that levelheadedness to commit suicide.

    I will reiterate. People are not afraid of injury or death are either fools are insane. A great many people CLAIM they are not afraid to make themselves appear more macho; that's a common self-deception. Such people make poor police officers since they start out by lying to themselves about how they feel, and that just gets worse with time.
     
  8. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    That question is worded awfully tendentiously.

    Murder would seem to be wrong (legally and presumably morally) simply by definition.

    But justifiable homicide isn't murder. It is legal by definition and in my personal opinion isn't immoral.

    Of course disagreements can occur when trying to determine whether a particular homicide was justifiable or not. That's why they have courts and a huge body of court precedent that students learn about in law schools.

    Here in California, justifiable homicide is defined in sections 196-199 of the Penal Code. (Scroll down to the bottom.)

    https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/...ivision=&title=8.&part=1.&chapter=1.&article=

    Interestingly, there's a third category in the law called excusable homicide. This includes accidental killing when there was no criminal intent and where reasonable care was taken.
     
  9. akoreamerican Registered Senior Member

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    I don't think you've met a person who is honestly not afraid of death. They are not gung-ho, looking for a excuse to pull the trigger. They are at peace with themselves and others and see death as an inevitability, not something to desire.
     
  10. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    I've met two of them. They are both dead now.
     
  11. akoreamerican Registered Senior Member

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    It sounds like they were just pretenders
     
  12. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    They weren't afraid of death, and they acted on it. They are likely the only non-pretenders I've ever met.
     
  13. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    Police protect a community, not the nation. Nor do police have the benefit of knowing they are walking into a war zone.
    Repeating a bare assertion doesn't lend it credibility.
    It is very relevant that protests over whites getting killed never (?) escalate to riot. Your point was that cops should be more careful because it could lead to crime and harm. Riots generally include legal activity, protests do not. So it seems you just made a faulty comparison.
    And? If only the first angle of that incident were available, many people would have assumed he was unarmed (since it wasn't clear from that angle).
    Who's arguing against body cams on cops?
    Who argued otherwise? The point was that even knowing he was a criminal wasn't enough to deter the "gentle giant" narrative that certainly contributed to riots.
    Somalia has more violent crime than the US, and the US is better armed.
    But you seem to be misrepresenting what I said. I didn't just say "well armed", I said "armed and well-trained". The criminals that outnumber legal gun owners in Chicago are not well-trained. Criminals use guns as a force multiplier that allows them to commit crime with relatively less risk to themselves. If you up that risk with more citizens trained to kill what they shoot at, the criminal's gun is no longer the safety blanket it is otherwise. This is why illegal guns are a order of magnitude greater problem under strict gun control laws.
     
  14. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Are they, or are they protecting themselves first and foremost? Imagine firefighters that refuse to go into a burning building as people scream from in it for help because they "fear for their lives".

    Well do the numbers: how many cop killers get away and kill again, take hostages, etc?

    This is nitpicking on your part, sometime it leads to riots sometimes not, for whites or blacks, irrelevant. Do you not think that when police kill citizens and the community think they were unjustified that leads to reduce trust in the police? At the very least these lead to wrongful death lawsuits which cost millions of dollars to the city, would it not be more cost effective if the officer took greater risk?

    No one, I would think that would be a good compromise, that we have cameras on all cops recording all encounters, thus when a pig fucks up the administration can punish him harshly and show the people that the police are not above justice. And when a police officer does good in a complicate situation there won't be riots.

    Even if he was a criminal that does not give the police the right to kill him, they need enough evidence that he was a deadly threat to get away with that, and people simply aren't taking the police's word anymore. So again had their been video of him being a thug trying to take the gun, there would be no riots. Then again Ferguson was a pile of matches waiting to burst into to flames, decades of regressive taxation via police fines had made the community livid.

     
  15. akoreamerican Registered Senior Member

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    If they felt the need to prove that they didn't fear death, they were pretenders
     
  16. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Do Police have a right to Murder?

    The police are the militant arm of the State's government. The government does in fact have one (and only one) special and legal right: That being the legal right to initiate coercion and violence against morally innocent 'Citizens' trapped within it's geopolitical domain. For example, it's 'legal' and the governments' right, to murder a North Korean Citizen and harvest their kidneys. You know, "For the Good of the Nation". It's legal and the governments' right, to murder gays and atheists in KSA. You know, "For the Good of the Nation". It's legal to and the governments' right, to murder Citizens of the USA, should they attempt to smoke a weed (a weed some of the Founders of said "Free Nation" cultivated, ironically enough) IF said weed-smoker resists their incarceration by the State.

    So. yes, of course, as the militant arm of the State, the police MUST do so. That's their sole role: Enforce the Law (and asinine Regulations... and asinine Rent-Seeking... and all the other weaselly ways special interest groups use the government's special 'right' against the people for financial gain).

    WIKI: Monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force
     
  17. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    They didn't "need to prove it." They simply accepted it.

    But by all means, keep digging that hole.
     
  18. akoreamerican Registered Senior Member

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    then why do you believe that they were fools or insane?
     
  19. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    Show me where the firefighter is obligated to do so if they perceive an immediately deadly situation. Are firefighters obligated to go into structures deemed in immediate threat of collapse? Are you so callous that you assume no one who accepts an inherently dangerous job has ANY right to avoid or mitigate the threats they face?
    If you think anyone knowingly walks into danger like a lamb to slaughter, you don't understand human psychology.
    No, you're right. Police do tend to stop criminals as soon as possible. But you seemed to prefer them let suspects escape rather than employ the force necessary to do so. If no cop is willing to take the shot, more cops die and the criminal remains a threat at large.
    So now you want to put a price tag on life? Again, callous...and/or grossly utilitarian. And if race is irrelevant, please, show us something that demonstrates parity. Instead, it seems you've just backpedaled to legal lawsuits, when you began with criminal activity and potential harm to others.
    You can't claim nitpicking to justify moving your own goalposts.
    Where have there been instances of a bad shoot not being prosecuted? Just like the "gentle giant" narrative, some people will take advantage of any lack of information to assume the worst. That's not the cops' fault, and yes, body cams would bear that out.
    And all the evidence justified the shoot, including by Eric Holder's DOJ.
    So the riots were the cops' fault, huh? No blame whatsoever to the liars, whose news interviews and agitation obviously instigated it. Riots occurred because narrative trumped facts. A narrative that appealed to the worst of their emotions precluded any sense of proportion or patience for the facts. A perfect storm of instant gratification and pandering.
    Legal carry licenses require training.
    What, pray tell, would prompt criminals to get proper training? Are there an overwhelming number of ex-military that turn to crime? Do you think criminals kill primarily in self-defense?
    That's an inconsistent comparison. Not only do we have many more police than we once did, they will arrest vigilantes. Police do not stop crime, they respond to it. If you face an imminent threat, you will likely die before police respond.
    And another benefit of firearm training is knowing your legal liability and deescalating conflicts with that in mind.
     
  20. Oystein Registered Senior Member

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    I just wish the cops would shoot to wound sometimes. It's always shoot to kill. I know, I know, that's how they are taught and the teaching is not to be questioned by us mortals. It's just that I don't believe that. Sorry.
     
  21. Oystein Registered Senior Member

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    Hopefully, what you are trying to say is that we need LEO who realize the risks of their profession. We realize you might get killed out there. We respect you for taking that risk to protect us. But if you don't want to accept the risks of being a LEO, then don't do it. Become engineers, programmers, accountants, etc.. We are behind you but we don't want you shooting (to kill) unarmed or very lightly armed civilians. LEO is a risky business. We know that. We respect you and are behind you.
     
  22. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    "Shoot to wound" is a TV/film myth. More times than not, attempting to shoot to wound either results in an injury that doesn't stop the threat (or worse, escalates the threat) or misses altogether. But by all means, if you ever find yourself defending your life will a gun, try shooting to wound. They teach aiming for center mass because even trained shooters may not hit exactly what they aim at in high pressure situations, but I'm sure you, without any training at all, would fair much better.

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  23. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Well, more that it's not to be questioned by people with no experience in active shooting situations. The concept of a steely-eyed cop whipping his gun out and putting a round in the elbow of an assailant with a hostage, causing him to drop his gun and howl in pain while the cops apprehend him, is pure Hollywood. (If you doubt this, go to a range and check your own accuracy - and then consider that you are in the best possible situation, with time to consider what you are doing, choose your target and take a deep breath first.)

    Cops are trained to use deadly force last - and then when they use it, make sure it works. There are periodic outrages over "the cops shot him 8 times!" as if that demonstrates excessive force. To me, that's not an outrage - that's a cop following his training, and making sure the assailant won't get up.

    The mistake made most often by cops is escalating to deadly force too soon. And sometimes those decisions are so bad that they're criminal, and the cop is prosecuted for them. Most of the time, though, they get it right. With ~12 million arrests a year and about 1000 people shot and killed by police, they _don't_ escalate 99.99% of the time.
     

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