
In Wisconsin, a Decade-Old Police Shooting Leads to New Law - philip1209
http://www.npr.org/2014/12/13/370592433/in-wisconsin-a-decade-old-police-shooting-leads-to-new-law?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=2040
======
gambiting
And in UK police officers don't even carry guns anymore. It's impossible to
shoot anyone by accident(or deliberately) if you don't have a gun in the first
place. If there is a situation which requires using guns, backup force with
them can arrive within minutes. There is simply no need for a policeman who
does routine patrols to be carrying a lethal weapon on him.

Is there a statistic clearly showing that more deaths are prevented than
caused by police officers having a weapon on them at all times in the US?

~~~
jmccree
There's two things that seems to be missing here with regards to routine
patrol officers being armed in the US. First, Great Britain is smaller than
many US states. The population density of ~780/sqmi is higher than all but 3
of US states. The majority of US states are under ~200 persons/sqmi. Outside
of major cities and suburbs the nearest backup officer can routinely be 15 or
more minutes away. As well, many areas have dangerous wild animals to deal
with. Bears, coyotes, wolfs, etc. that Britain has mostly eliminated.

Secondly, in the US, we have the right to keep and bear arms, which means
every one the routine patrol officer encounters should be assumed to be
legally armed as well. It would put officers at a severe disadvantage to be
unarmed when regularly dealing with armed suspects. In many states 5-10% of
the population has a concealed carry permit, and in the majority (40+) of
states open carry of a rifle is legal without any permit. Whether you agree
with this or not, it's a fact of life in most of the US that a large percent
of the population is legally armed, so there seems no reason to arbitrarily
limit police from also being armed as any individual citizen could be.

~~~
bluedino
>> As well, many areas have dangerous wild animals to deal with. Bears,
coyotes, wolfs, etc. that Britain has mostly eliminated.

This is only true for a very small handful of remote areas where few of the US
Population live.

~~~
cafard
Let me chime in and say that there are credible reports of coyote in
Washington, DC, and that bears are spotted now and then, mostly in the close-
in suburbs, but once in the city itself. But let me also say, that I don't
think I'd care to take on a bear with a handgun.

~~~
hga
I certainly wouldn't want to take on a bear with a handgun and load that's
optimized for incapacitating humans!

And avoidance is generally the best policy, but it's not an option for the
police. So it's better than nothing, and there have been successful stops of
bear attacks with these sorts of handguns.

Hmmm, a downside of replacing the police shotgun with "patrol carbines" (AR-15
variants, generally), you could always use slugs in the former, which are
effective against bears.

------
pm90
I really like the attitude of the father of the kid who was shot. To not vent
his anger, but use it to come to a constructive solution that will hopefully
reduce the chances of such unnecessary deaths in the future... that is
amazing. And a great use of settlement money as well.

~~~
NoMoreNicksLeft
What solution?

Do we have any evidence that when another police agency investigates such
things that the conclusions are different? It already happens, some PD will
have an incident that is investigated by the Sheriff or state police. And yet,
in those cases, we see the same thing... everyone's cleared of wrong-doing,
and maybe some mandated "use of force" training.

It's bizarre and depressing.

------
larssorenson
This strikes me as something that should have been a law since day one. We
have checks and balances (and we can argue their effectiveness some other
time) between the different branches of government, yet when it comes to the
police departments (under the executive branch) there is no check or balance
when the police departments screw up like when someone in the federal
government screws up. tl;dr: We need to have this law in every state.

------
brohoolio
This should be standard in every state.

It's unfortunate that many laws have corporate origin and can get picked up by
tons of states due to lobbying but ones like this that make a difference don't
get that same sort of attention or promotion.

~~~
_delirium
Bit of an aside, but the "horizontal" propagation of laws from state to state
has some structural reasons that it favors certain kinds of laws more than
others. Mostly the large role of the Uniform Law Commission (ULC), which draws
up model laws and organizes campaigns for them to be passed:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Law_Commission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Law_Commission).
It has no formal power, but it has a well-established set of supporters,
working relationships with legislators, staff to do the actual drafting work
who are familiar with the law of all 50 states, etc.

The ULC in principle is interested in a lot of areas of harmonization of what
they consider well-written laws. But its biggest political support is from
multi-state companies that want a uniform commercial operating environment, so
it has been mostly successful there, via the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), a
set of model regulations for commerce. Businesses can get some of what they
want in this respect more directly, by lobbying the federal government to
directly pass uniform national laws, enforced via federal preemption. But it's
possible to achieve a more comprehensive degree of uniformity, avoiding
constitutional issues with federalism, by going the UCC route. It formally
preserves federalism (each state voluntarily enacts the UCC), while still
producing the desired outcome due to the heavy pressure states feel to conform
to the UCC, lest they be perceived as "bad for business" (every state has
passed it, though in a few cases with modifications).

The other area they've been somewhat successful in is family law, due to
widespread concern over problems that arise in cross-state divorce and child-
custody proceedings if the states have very different family-law regimes. So
many states are willing, absent some strong lobby in another direction, to
sign on to a "national best practice" in that area.

------
rbcgerard
The problem with many of these "structural reforms" is that they are very
susceptible to capture by police unions. Take for example civilian complaint
review boards - often appointed by the mayor. Except the mayor often relies on
police unions for votes - and they care who is on that review board - where as
the typical person (I'm including myself) doesn't even know if there is a
review board, let alone who is on it.

Definitely think it's a step in the right direction - but think more time
needs to be spent ensuring an "adversarial" relationship that is not prone to
capture.

------
tehwalrus
A Federal law along these lines would do so much more, but this is an
excellent first step. It is also an example of how a realistic solution can be
built, with the consent of officers, for the crisis of police accountability
currently happening in the US.

------
innguest
Putting billboards up and working to pass a new law is a much more sensible
course of action than rioting. I wonder what the difference here is.

~~~
happyscrappy
You are being racist.

~~~
innguest
If the shoe fits... I'm simply being curious.

~~~
innguest
Why am I being downvoted for a racist person projecting their personality onto
my remark?

