This is a Cop. He controls black people.

When we've had gun control debates here before, people have said that they want to own a gun to defend themselves from criminals. If your country is so dangerous that everyone needs to be tooled up to avoid becoming a crime statistic, if I was a cop I'd take no chances either and wouldn't even make eye contact with someone until they were safely restrained and the quickest way to do that is clearly for me and my cop buddies to electrocute the shit out them. The cops don't know who's packing heat so it makes sense to me for them to safely cripple people before attempting to engage them in conversation. It's essentially an arms race, more people get guns so the police become more scared of getting shot. Sure they could stick to beating people up with truncheons but you've got to get really close to someone to do that and in the time it takes to close the distance they could have whipped out their assault rifle and gunned down half the people in the street.

The police need adequate protection from what they're likely to be faced with, that's only fair both for their safety and to do their jobs. Over here they're faced with loud mouthed chavs with knives, so they wear stab vests and carry those flick out baton things and pepper spray. Over there everyone is armed to the teeth so using close combat simply isn't an option. They need to pre-emptively pacify the subject for their own safety and that of the public. The ideas of an armed populace and a peaceful police force simply aren't reconcilable.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

If I was getting arrested, I'd probably rather the first cop tazered me than the second cop shot me. Lesser of two evils and all that. Also, what's to stop me unleashing 50 rounds from my AK while you're waiting for your backup to turn up?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

I think it's cute that foreigners assume Americans are all armed 24/7.

I am working purely off of the evidence presented in this very forum last time we discussed gun control. The predominant argument put about by people in favour of gun ownership (And there were a few) was that they needed to adequately defend themselves. I don't believe it is such a leap to assume that if God fearing, law abiding citizens think they need a hand gun in each room in the house and an assault rifle in the umbrella stand in order to stop criminals from raping their family and stealing their burgers, then the overwhelming majority of people in the US who are actually breaking the law will be armed.

I have also seen people here suggest that gun control is ineffective because look at the UK, all the criminals have guns there and they have gun control. If all our criminals have guns then all your definitely have guns and half the people in the street will be carrying guns because they're scared of all the criminals with guns.

The point I was trying to make was that if you put forward self defence as an argument for allowing gun ownership amongst the populace, then you must live with an aggressive and well armed police force. The police always need to stay ahead of the criminals in terms of fire power to remain an effective deterrent to crime but in response to a better armed police force, criminals will either buy even bigger guns or use the element of surprise to take out cops, i.e. shoot before they're shot at.

Now of course I don't think three cops using tasers on an old man is a good idea but I think the overall feeling of paranoia that seems so inherent in your culture, at least as far as crime and criminals goes means that the police will inevitably resort to excessive force for their own protection.

If there are members of the public who are so scared of becoming a victim of crime that they feel the need to buy a gun to defend themselves, one can perhaps understand how a policeman, thinking that he's faced with a real criminal and believing as so many of you do here that every criminal in the US is packing heat might well er on the side of caution and use what is widely described as non-lethal weaponry to take the guy to the ground.

Obviously in the cases you highlighted, these are just a few bully-boy cops and those exist all around the world. Imagine though how many times a day across the US a policeman is faced with a potential suspect. It must be thousands and it's surely better that their innate American fear of crims with guns is manifesting itself in a few sketchy taser decisions rather than a few sketchy gun decisions, no?

Also, I would have thought that standard procedure there was the same as here and cops always keep their taser holstered on their on-side and their gun on their off-side, so if they do pull a weapon without thinking about it, it's the taser that comes out.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

I wonder why some people are afraid of the police and Skexis isn't?

It's because Skexis has half the Texas constabulary in his pocket. You don't get to shift the sort of weight he does without crossing a few palms with silver.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?