
Facebook ‘glitch’ that deleted the Castile shooting video: It was the police - jgome
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/08/castile_shooting_police_deletion/
======
tajen
It seems it's communicated with a "black life matters" background. Isn't there
a general problem of the police being overly brutal and using its authority in
a malevolent way in USA, whether augmented by racism or not?

I live in France, where we've just had terrorist attacks, and I'm afraid we'll
meet the same pattern, 15 years later than USA:

\- People want the police to do its job (securing the streets, which goes from
checking car insurances to being detectives on terrorism),

\- So they vote for more police,

\- The police doesn't do much more than assaulting easy targets, picking up
girls who come to lodge a charge (true story), and walk on cyclist lanes (not
much traffic enforcement because it's unpopular and not much detective work
because it's risky),

\- So people vote even more right-wing,

\- Police has more powers, but still doesn't do its job much, and assaults
even more weak people,

\- Then we get people who kill police (like in Dallas) or burn police cars
(like in Paris) because they're abusing their power.

Already, President Hollande made the same talk and took the same path on 13th
Nov 2015 as Bush on 11th Sept 2001, so I'm a little afraid there's a trend
were.

Now what societal changes could happen that would disrupt a race to the bottom
of police brutality, like in USA?

~~~
pjc50
The social and racial divide becomes a problem in itself, which makes it
_much_ easier for the police to rationalise the use of excessive force.

The UK had this problem with the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and more generally
the policing of Northern Ireland with troops. The only way out of it was the
restructuring, renaming, and re-populating with affirmative action of the
force as the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Another key part of the solution is a willingness to actually prosecute
unlawful shootings. The key case here is Lee Clegg, a paratrooper on a
roadside checkpoint who shot at a car driven by teenage joyriders that failed
to stop. It was ruled that shooting _after_ the car had passed was no longer
justified.

The US has got to this point because it is not willing to effectively
prosecute the use of lethal force against black men where it is not absolutely
required. The US also has a _very_ flexible and expansive idea of "required".

(PSNI _are_ routinely armed, unlike most of the rest of the UK, except anti-
terrorist patrols at airports and high security locations.)

~~~
tonylemesmer
Single data point: I was slightly shocked to see in Gloucester, a Policeman in
Tesco supermarket with a pistol in a holster on his belt. Wonder if this was a
one off - I hope so.

~~~
junto
In general, only Armed Response Units (ARUs) in the UK are actually armed.
There are a small number of ARU's in each police constabulary, but it depends
on the size of the area covered and the perceived threat from assumed
criminals.

Most ARU's are rarely called on to use their weapons, and every time they use
their weapon it is seized as part of the investigation. Every bullet has to be
accounted for.

Each officer receives an extremely intensive training, and only the best, with
a secure psychological profile make it through. They have to follow a rigid
set out protocols before they can engage a threat.

I find the British police protocols and training to be an excellent example of
how to approach armed policing. That being said it sometimes goes wrong. In
those cases the actions of the officers need to be reviewed, and any
negligence or deliberate acts of harm need to be punished within the law.

These officers don't have an easy job. On the most cases they've had to make a
split second decision based on their training and their immediate situation.

I'll exclude Charles de Menezes from that, since I still believe that he was
shot by armed SAS soldiers operating in public on British streets, authorised
by the home office, which they'll never admit to, as it would cause a public
outcry:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menez...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes)

~~~
multjoy
Strictly speaking, the only requirement a police officer need meet to be armed
is to be authorised by a substantive Superintendent or higher. Hence the term
'Authorised Firearms Officer'.

All ARVs are AFOs, but not all AFOs are ARV. The difference is about 4 weeks
(9 weeks vs 5 weeks), and the majority of that is the additional tactics
around search and 'call outs' which an AFO (usually being entirely reactive)
would not deal with.

The training is intensive, but there's no specific psychological screening
beyond the instructors (and colleagues) realising that an individual officer
ought not be trusted with a pen, let alone a firearm. There's more screening
to become a sexual offences/CSE investigator than there is to become an AFO.

There are more AFOs than you'd imagine, and the majority of them will be only
carrying a sidearm.

>They have to follow a rigid set out protocols before they can engage a
threat.

No, the protocols are far from rigid. The training means that an AFO is fluent
in the 'National Decision Model', which means that they can make dynamic
assessments of risk without being hamstrung by a rigid "if this, then that"
set of behaviours.

>I'll exclude Charles de Menezes from that, since I still believe that he was
shot by armed SAS soldiers operating in public on British streets, authorised
by the home office

Then you've been reading too many conspiracy stories. The whole thing was a
fuck up from start to finish, but there's nothing in it that needs the SAS to
be involved. If they had been, they would have had their own tactical command
and De Menzes would probably still be alive.

~~~
junto
The comment about the SAS came from an active AFO, who worked in London at the
time. I don't want to give any more information than that. I'm probably
risking too much by just saying that.

The comment was quite specifically, "we aren't trained to do that (execute
suspect by putting the gun to his head and pulling the trigger), but they are
at Hereford".

It's hearsay, but far from your usual conspiracy theory.

~~~
multjoy
>"we aren't trained to do that

Most AFO's weren't. Some were, as part of Op Kratos. That was the problem -
there was a massive disconnect in training between two sides of the business
(the CT side and the ARV side) which meant that when commands such as "stop
him", were given, the expectations of both parties were _very_ different.

Don't forget that a common-or-garden AFO on an armed OCU would have had his
five weeks training, with bi-monthly top-ups, whilst the AFOs offering armed
support to surveillance teams will have been massively upskilled.

Had an SAS team been deployed on a surveillance job (and I literally cannot
imagine the circumstances that would require that), then tactical command
would have been taken by soldiers who would (generally) have been clear and
explicit about the task ahead. As it's been held that De Menzes was mistakenly
identified and that there was only implication that he might have been a
bomber rather than any explicit statement that he was, it is unlikely that
there would have been the massive cock up in communications that resulted in
him being shot.

------
rdlecler1
I assume that police officers don't go into an encounter intending to shoot
someone so it's important to get at the root cause. Whether real or perceived,
the police seem to be much more fearful of black males than other racial
groups. If perceived, then I might expect black officers to have a lower
incident rate as they may be less likely to feel threatened in a situation. If
there is a real statistical threat (also very difficult to tease out and to
avoid confounding variables) then this could be more difficult to address and
ultimately this would come back to a cycle of institutionalized poverty and
incarceration that breaks up families and sends people who have been hardened
by jail back into the black community thereby introducing a culture of
violence. Either way you cut it a history of racism is to blame.

Officers clearly are fearing for their lives and view potential encounters
with black males through a lense of negative intent, which is causing them to
react more aggressively. Greater accountability and training will be critical
but only if the culture of the police force changes. This could be very
difficult as a lot of police officers may take these jobs exactly because
they're attracted to the danger and violence (In Canada many of the bouncers I
knew were on steroids only had high school educations and many wanted to be
cops...).

~~~
junto
While that threat maybe real, a man in his car with his partner and 4 year old
child, is not likely to be a threat on the same scale.

What is a threat is gun ownership. British police do not expect to be
threatened with a firearm, or shot on a routine traffic stop. In the US, the
police have to expect that as normality.

Now I know there are a lot of US citizens who believe in the right to bear
arms, and many more militant NRA members believe that is more about defending
themselves from the state, but if you take a step back, they've already lost
that fight long ago. The state already tramples over their rights, and there
are no armed militias matching on Washington to overthrow the corrupt and over
controlling state. I truly don't understand that argument.

~~~
konschubert
Exactly. In most parts of the world, law enforcement has a power leverage
because officers are armed, and the public is not.

(Yes, even criminals are usually unarmed unless they are intending to commit a
crime. This is because wearing a weapon outs them as criminals, which they
naturally try to avoid.)

If you want to deescalate the war between law enforcement and the public, you
must not only change the way the law enforcement interprets its duty, you must
also disarm the public.

~~~
a_humean
In the UK the vast majority (don't know the hard figure, but guessing
something like 95%) of police are unarmed with the exception of maybe pepper
spray or the occasional blunt stick (I think even that is less common now).
Only a small minority of police in the UK are even trained in firearms, and
they are meant to be the elite (physically, psychologically, and morally) with
years of experience and countless hours of recurring training. UK police, in
principle, try to operate via a community policing and policing by consent
principle that assumes cooperation and negotiation as the norm of police work
with coercive force as only a very last resort. UK police don't use the threat
of force as leverage as explicitly as you are suggesting, and they very very
rarely have guns.

Our police force isn't perfect, and is far from having a spotless record with
minority groups, but they do represent an alternative model of policing that
doesn't have to be about the threat or show of force. Police are meant to be
about enabling civilian self-policing; not military occupation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles)

~~~
throwaway049
UK police almost always carry a collapsible metal baton and pepper spray.

------
LeoPanthera
For those who didn't read the article: This is not a story about NSA-style
backdoors to Facebook. They took her phone, which was already logged in, and
manually deleted it.

~~~
Cenk
They killed him and then deleted the evidence before calling an ambulance?!

~~~
tajen
And detained the girlfriend.

~~~
Esau
That's actually the thing that gets me the most. There was no need to handcuff
her.

~~~
jacquesm
There was no need to shoot the guy either.

------
maglavaitss
I really hate to state the obvious, but this shouldn't have happened in 2016
in a civilized country. The shooting that is. If the police took the phone,
logged on FB, deleted the video, well ... that shouldn't happen in any year in
any country. It's mind-boggling honestly.

~~~
ionforce
Why is it mind-boggling? The guilty will always want to cover their tracks.

~~~
maglavaitss
I know, and I don't want to sound naive, but weren't they supposed to protect
us? (not an US citizen)

~~~
15charlimit
In a perfect world? Sure. In the real world? Ahahaha!

Law Enforcement (in the USA at least) has no requirement to act to prevent or
interfere in an actively occurring crime. Their role, strictly speaking, is
cleaning up the mess after a crime has happened. They investigate, and,
ideally, capture those responsible, after the fact.

A cop has no legal requirement to help you if you are actively being attacked.
Let that sink in for a minute.

This is one reason that many law-abiding citizens make the (rational) choice
to conceal-carry a firearm for personal protection.

But you won't hear about that from the mass media because it's not the agenda
they want to push.

------
jacquesm
Unbelievable.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BugWAiIHTOw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BugWAiIHTOw)

Not for the faint of heart or those that can't deal with blood.

Deleting evidence in a situation like this should be in a special category all
by itself.

Note that the couple's four year old daughter was also present.

~~~
madaxe_again
Destroying evidence is indeed a crime, and a severe one at that - but if they
just withdrew it, unpublished it without deleting it, then it's a grey area at
best. It's unlikely that anyone will face anything for this - just as unlikely
that the officer who shot him will face any charges.

~~~
Cenk
Isn’t even accessing her phone without a search warrant illegal? Surely it had
nothing to do with the crime being committed (obviously, since the only crime
that took place is the murder of an innocent man by the police)

~~~
coldpie
Police in the US are above the law. As evidenced by recent unjustified police
killings, they are allowed to execute people in the street with no
repercussions. So I don't think accessing a phone without a warrant and
deleting evidence is even going to register.

~~~
cmdrfred
Anyone is isn't poor or works toward a corporate interest is above the law.
The for profit prisons don't want to see community policing. That will cut
into their bottom line.

------
sickbeard
Cops are not racist, they just have poor training. They are simply trained to
shoot once they feel threatened; rather than making quick on the spot
judgement on whether to shoot. The poor training removes any thought and makes
it automatic. Black man + gun = shoot.

There are many videos of this, including one where a cop at a gas station
asked a black man to show his license and then proceeded to shoot him because
he thought he had a gun.

On the other hand shooting police officers only reinforces this kind of
training. It's an explosive situation of mistrust, emotion and idiocy.

Anger is such a useless emotion.

~~~
sangnoir
> Cops are not racist...Black man + gun = shoot

Your statements are contradictory.

~~~
sickbeard
That's not what racism means. I'm saying they are trained to be that way, not
because they hate or think they are superior to black people.

~~~
sangnoir
If coming to conclusion that a man is dangerous merely on the basis of their
_race_ isn't racism, then what exactly then do you think racism is? Do you
presume racism is something that cannot be learned?

------
RickS
From a technical/operations perspective:

That the police used her phone to delete it via vanilla facebook app is 100%
plausible, but what's far more implausible is whatever mechanism was used to
restore it.

What are the options?

Facebook allows you to undelete a video an hour later? Not to my knowledge.

Is there another automated/normal way for a video to undelete an hour later,
especially with a modified content setting?

Is there an option that means something other than "someone on facebook staff
saw that it was deleted and explicitly restored it without instruction from
the user"?

~~~
DougWebb
To handle the huge amount of media it handles, Facebook has a content
distribution network that stores many copies of the media in many places. When
you upload it goes to an initial storage location, and when you view it the
server you're talking to will fetch a copy if it doesn't already have it. (I
don't work at Facebook, but this is a typical large-scale caching system.)

When you delete a posting, nothing actually gets deleted, at least not right
away. A flag is set which tells the system not to display the post anymore.
The caches of the media files eventually expire and they get deleted. The
initial storage location will probably stay until the posting is really
deleted. That could be forever, not for any nefarious reasons but because of
cross-referencing between database records.

Your posting has a unique id, and when someone likes it, or adds a comment to
it, or shares it, the id is used to cross-reference their action/content with
yours. If your post is deleted there would be dangling cross-refefences, and
database systems usually don't like that. It's often better to leave the
record in the database but flag it as "deleted" so it won't be displayed to
anyone (except maybe admins and you.)

~~~
RickS
Right - that's a good explanation, but I'm clear on the persistence of the
media after deletion.

What I'm wondering about is how it explicitly became genuinely available (as
opposed to a lingering cached copy here and there) after it was (allegedly)
marked for deletion, in the absence of that functionality on facebook's front
end.

~~~
ceejayoz
Facebook's deletions are surely soft-deletions, at least initially. You and I
can't undo it, but Facebook undoubtedly can. Maybe it's purged for real after
90 days or something, but I'm sure they can provide deleted death threats
against the President to the Secret Service and whatnot.

------
jacquesm
11 police officers shot during protest march about this shooting and another
one:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-
mix/wp/2016/07/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-
mix/wp/2016/07/08/like-a-little-war-snipers-shoot-11-police-officers-during-
dallas-protest-march-killing-five/)

This is really getting out of hand.

~~~
Kristine1975
It has been getting out of hand for quite a while now:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/GunsAreCool/comments/4qyfsx/here_ar...](https://www.reddit.com/r/GunsAreCool/comments/4qyfsx/here_are_your_june_2016_mass_shooting_figures/)

    
    
      MASS SHOOTING CASUALTIES IN THE U.S. - JUNE 2016
    
        52 verified mass shootings
        104 people killed
        226 people wounded
    
      These people were victims strictly of mass shootings. Not included
      are victims of shootings where three or fewer people were shot. On
      average, 91 Americans are killed and more than 200 injured with guns
      every day.

~~~
jacquesm
Yes, but this goes way beyond that. So, first we have the police shooting two
people, now (during a protest against police violence triggered by those
shootings) we have 11 police officers shot by snipers. It doesn't take a whole
lot of imagination to see this spiral out of control into full scale riots.

I don't recall anything like the killings of those police officers happening
at a demonstration, we're talking organized targeted response here.

~~~
Kristine1975
Note that "snipers" doesn't mean people with a sniper rifle like in the
movies. Apparently one of the shooters walked around with an assault rifle,
but nobody said/did/could do anything because Texas is an open carry state.

~~~
Chris2048
You can carry around assault weapons?

~~~
douche
Yes, because "assault weapons" is a made up term that includes large numbers
of perfectly legal semi-automatic firearms. The same rifle can have two
different configurations, depending on cosmetic variations which do not affect
its underlying capabilities, one of which is "scary" looking enough to trigger
the "assault weapon" label, while the other appears to be an innocuous hunting
or target-shooting rifle.

~~~
Chris2048
Well, US law has a legal definition, but I think people used the term before
congress decided to make that up.

In this case, was it a large weapon? Did the "snipers" carry around their guns
openly?

~~~
pc86
If by "US law" you mean "federal law," no it does not. It has a legal
definition in some US states but they all differ[0] and in every case rely in
part of cosmetic features of the weapon.

And I'm not sure what the physical size of a weapon has to do with anything.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapon#Differing_state...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapon#Differing_state_law_definitions)

------
sea2
Look at the consequences in Dallas!

Humanity has not dealt with bad information reaching this many of its lunatics
at this kind of speed.

IMHO this is and should be the highest priority bug on the issue list.

Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page have no idea what to do about it and by keeping
quiet about it or being defensive about it isn't helping.

Just try talking about slowing the speed of unprocessed information reaching
the mentally ill, the ignorant or misguided and you will be taken out like the
communist party is running the show. I expect better from the smart people of
silicon valley.

I expect them to work out a fix. No one else has the capability.

~~~
cel1ne
It's not just the mentally ill, the ignorant or misguided, it's the general
public that has to deal with so many negative emotions and information at an
accelerating pace.

The world didn't got worse, but everybody started to feel that way. Because
people now know what they didn't know before.

Two hundred years ago, when your beloved aunt died, you realised that after a
week when the letter informing you arrived. During that week you could be
happy, because you didn't know.

Now the death, misery, violence and unfairness that happens so regularly in
our world is just a fingertip away.

Resulting in fear and anger. Those emotions are good for evading and hunting
animals, but not for dealing with complex rules in a globalised society.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Now the death, misery, violence and unfairness that happens so regularly in
> our world is just a fingertip away._

And since they're always a kind of "emergency", an overriding situation for
our brains to which we instinctively pay attention, that's the ultimate topic
for news. Now with unlimited supply - if there's nothing bad happening in your
city, local media will borrow something from elsewhere in the country. And if
the whole nation had just a peaceful and happy week, they'll borrow something
from abroad.

I do believe that as a society we need to reconsider the "freedom of press" in
mainstream media. To be clear - the idea is based on the most honorable of
principles. But with few decades of instant electronic communication behind
us, we know few relevant things to be experimentally confirmed as facts:

\- publishers have every reason to pick up most extreme examples for anything,
and with lightspeed access to global information, they'll happily do this
every day

\- media plays havoc with our brains; in particular, with availability
heuristic[0] - that makes us instinctively feel that everyone around us is
rich hand happy (since our real neighbors, in terms of what we know about
them, are media celebrities) and the world is a dangerous and brutal place
(since we keep hearing about some crime or attack every single day - and the
distance doesn't matter for availability heuristic)

\- most people seem to be unaware that brains are not well adapted to our
current technological environment, and in particular that if you don't
constantly downplay or ignore most of the news, you're being lead to believe
extremely wrong things - by the very virtue of availability heuristic

\- those people vote

Something needs to be done about at least some of those points there. Trying
to just educate people is too slow and too unreliable. I'm not saying "censor
press" or something - but we need to _somehow_ take into the account the
standard failure mode media triggers in majority of population.

[0] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic)

~~~
cel1ne
I fully agree.

------
sodafountan
There's so many things that need to change in the United States for real
change to be seen.

We need to pay our officers more and have fewer of them, If you start to pay
the good ones a respectable salary you'll get more accountability.

We need to train our officers better, we should have an apprenticeship program
that lasts at least five years where the apprentice officer rides around with
a veteran UNARMED until he picks up every skill necessary to do a good job in
real time, two years of community college and then a year as park police isn't
cutting it.

We need to reduce conflict on the streets, Philando Castile knew that his
taillight was out, the problem is that in an impoverished and racially
oppressed culture these small fixes become tough to handle when you have other
bills to pay. The officer was either going to ticket him or give him a
warning, neither of which would have done any good long term, and so you had
unnecessary conflict. We need to change the laws so that cops aren't allowed
to harass people over minor things like taillights/inspection stickers/small
amounts of marijuana/jaywalking you name it.

Black culture needs to change, stop selling CD's on the corner with a gun in
your pocket and get a job that supports your kids, this "gangster" lifestyle
is a result of rap music.

The media needs to fined by the federal government for disproportionately
reporting on content that is intended to get ratings and thus adds to the
chaos and race baiting. How many people were killed in Chicago last week? Can
you name them? The media outlets need to be fined to take away the incentive
to over report on sensational news. We need something along the lines of a
"Fair Media Coverage Act" that will completely destroy the financial incentive
of media outlets that over report on sensational news, this would hopefully
have the dual effect of (over the long term) slowing down the mass shootings
that appear to be happening every other month. These rioters/mass shooters/cop
killers are doing it for the 24/7 CNN news reel and the people tune in because
the chaos is interesting and exciting, like a war movie with real life
ramifications. Destroy the incentive.

Just some ideas for real changes.

~~~
pc86
I was with you until you implied that racial oppression makes it more
difficult for someone to fix a tail light or that police officers shouldn't be
"allowed" to give a ticket for it? And nothing said after brought me back.

~~~
sodafountan
Racial oppression and poverty make everything more difficult, you're a highly
paid developer so you don't have to experience it. It's quite possible that
Philando Castile didn't have enough gas to get to the store to buy a new bulb,
or the extra money for a spare one, or an internet connection to figure out
how to do it in the first place, or access to a friend or family member with
the resources to get it done. Hell, maybe he was on his way to the store to
fix it when he was shot. Either way we don't need the confrontation, people
with a broken taillight know that it's broken, don't confront them! It seems
small, but maybe you don't quite comprehend paycheck to paycheck poverty. I'm
talking real American poverty which is a stark reality for far too many
minorities in this country, an issue of which is also contributing to the
violence and the riots plaguing the US as of late.

~~~
pc86
> _people with a broken taillight know that it 's broken_

Unless they don't. How often do you stand behind your car while someone else
presses the brake? I never know my tail light is out unless I see a reflection
or someone tells me.

If you don't think that a broken tail light should be a crime, that's one
thing. But it sounds like you're saying "don't bother poor people if they're
breaking _this_ law, just bother people with money."

------
_98fj
Aren't these events statistically likely in a way?

1\. Some white people are afraid of black people. (the other way probably too)

2\. Most people are very afraid of other people carrying guns.

3\. Most people are afraid of some form of resistance when they
challenge/approach somebody.

Add it up. It's likely that somewhere a white policeman approaches a black
person who has, or could have a gun, and experiences fear.

Before this is read as an excuse for the policeman, which it is not:

Keep in mind that fear and anger, fight and flight are intertwined. Hatred can
come from fear. Fear can come after hatred. One brain-areal is responsible for
both emotions.

The only efficient response to defuse these situations is to eliminate the
"very afraid" above and disarm the population.

~~~
JanezStupar
Here are some basic facts:

Half of people killed by police are white. Blacks are 25%.

Blacks are also disproportionally represented amongst violent offenders.

One more interesting trivia - black and hispanic cops are more likely to shoot
a black suspect than white cops.

Black people are 13% of US population, yet black men (6% of US population)
commit 50% of homicides in the US.

Thus your assumptions are incorrect and thus your conclusions may also be
incorrect. It appears that white people are more afraid of being called racist
than being assaulted by a person of color.

[http://www.dailywire.com/news/7264/5-statistics-you-need-
kno...](http://www.dailywire.com/news/7264/5-statistics-you-need-know-about-
cops-killing-aaron-bandler) [http://www.amren.com/news/2015/07/new-doj-
statistics-on-race...](http://www.amren.com/news/2015/07/new-doj-statistics-
on-race-and-violent-crime/) [http://www.breitbart.com/big-
government/2015/11/28/5-devasta...](http://www.breitbart.com/big-
government/2015/11/28/5-devastating-facts-black-black-crime/)

~~~
_98fj
I don't know what assumptions you think are incorrect: that people are afraid
of getting killed?

What I said was that situations involving guns tend to scare/alarm all
involved parties.

And that getting rid of the guns is easier and will likely have a larger
effect than curing people of their racism.

~~~
douche
Getting rid of the guns is not a realistic option. The U.S. is too big, and
too diverse for blanket intrusive policies to work well. A firearms policy
that makes sense in Baltimore is complete overkill in Montana.

~~~
cel1ne
In 1996 Australia bought back more than a million firearms from people and
destroyed them subsequently.

Brazil did the same.

~~~
vacri
Australia was never a gun culture in the first place. Apart from security
forces, civilian guns were things farmers used for stock control, or
occasionally hunting. It used to be the same in the US as well, until the
weekend warrior/home security people went berserk.

The real problem in the US is the cultural trope that 'problems are solved by
a man with a gun'. From domestic police to foreign policy, the US psyche
approves of an armed response early. Until that's sorted (which is a
generational problem, with no 'quick fix before the next election'), the US is
going to keep having this issue, again and again.

~~~
soundwave106
Yes, unfortunately (and a bit ironically given current events, oddly enough) I
feel that much of the whole current "2nd Amendment culture" is directly tied
to the same sort of dynamics that have lead to the rise of Donald Trump here
(and things like Brexit etc).

------
daveloyall
It's always painful to watch HN discuss race.

The majority of us will consider crossing the street to avoid an oncoming
$category_of_person. Maybe it's black men, maybe it's police, maybe it's
beggars, maybe it's missionaries, maybe it is visibly agitated men of any
color, etc.

Maybe you feel like you've failed a bit every time it happens. Maybe your
personality changes over time and at some point you taught yourself to abstain
from such behavior. But, feelings are harder to change than behavior...

When I pass my own problematic $category_of_person on the street (on the same
side, now!), I spend a few seconds with no other topic on my mind than that
person.

It is because deep down, some part of me still sees that person as a threat,
like a cliff or a fire or a bear.

This is terrible, I know. Look, I'm trying to explain racism. Gimmie a
minute...

My mother taught me, before I was old enough to know better, to avoid some
categories of people. To fear them, for my safety.

I can, do, and will continue to overcome those crappy cards I was dealt.

But don't put a badge on my chest and a gun on my hip and tell me to go talk
to various categories of people in inherently heated situations and expect
that evil that has been a part of me since before I can remember to never
manifest itself in a statistically significant fashion. That's stupid. Police
officer is not the job for me. Duh! See above!

What I'm getting at is that my own combination of upbringing and later
enlightenment is not uncommon. (Said differently: it's not uncommon for a
person to be less racist than their parents were, right?) And therefor some
meaningful percentage of good cops who don't consider themselves racist are,
in fact, racist in a statistically significant way. Stress = gunfire.

...So... can we be done resisting the Black Lives Matter meme? Please? Y'all
look ignorant when you do that. :)

p.s. the fear when walking thing dissipates immediately if a conversation
happens, etc. It's not that big of a deal, right? We'll all have a good laugh
about it one day when I am caught off guard and mugged by a white girl...
Anyway, I'm sorry. I try.

------
Ftuuky
I bet nothing is going to happen to the policemen involved in this scandal.

~~~
rasz_pl
If he walks free he might get killed by another gunman like those officers
today in Dallas.

~~~
LeonM
Context: [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-
canada-36742835](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36742835)

------
boot82050
I think usa is going for civil war like this. Violence spiral that will get
worse. Remember what the last civil war was about? Also media censorship will
contribute to the distrust. BBC yesterday had much better coverage of the
situation than fox and cnn combined.

~~~
venomsnake
Civil War will be possible only if low boiling. Lots and lots of domestic
terrorism.

There are no groups even united that could stand up to the Federal government.
And the USG is strong enough to subdue any two groups that decide to war with
each other.

~~~
boot82050
Well i think it will look a bit different in modern times, more like a peer to
peer structure, without one point of failure Like you see with terrorist
groups, small autonomous groups. A war that you cannot win as a government
(irak, afganistan etc..)because there is no single fronline, the war is all
over the place.

~~~
eru
Terrorist groups are not very effective.

See
[https://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror](https://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror)
and
[https://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20Effective](https://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20Effective)

~~~
boot82050
Thanks for the link, interesting read. After reading this i don't get how
these wars could be lost...

~~~
eru
Insurgents are different than terrorist groups, I think?

------
boot82050
I have been watching this thread today, and i am amazed by the speed this
thread made it off the first page. It has the most reactions of any topic
today 188 so far. Yet it is now on page 2....with topics still on the front
page with way less comments.

~~~
pc86
AFAIK comments play no role in the rank determination of an article. Not only
that but this is older than every other article on the front page.

------
saurik
Were this true, for what reason would Facebook (and specifically Mark
Zuckerberg) lie about the reason? To avoid people thinking they have this
capability?

------
JanezStupar
I have mixed feelings about the topic.

Where I live, police are reasonable and populace is unarmed.

On the other hand US is on of a few modern republics that hasn't produced a
tyranny yet. And perhaps 2nd amendment may have something to do with that.
Along with rest of the constitution.

~~~
cmdrfred
And as the government gets more tyrannical, with homicide rates at historic
lows[0], they seek to remove that right for our 'safety'. I smell bullshit.

[0][http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/04/us/gun-violence-
graphics/](http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/04/us/gun-violence-graphics/)

~~~
vacri
The reduction in homicides since 1990 is due to the j-curve in incarceration
rates, not the various forms of carry (that for the most part across the US,
didn't start in the early 90s).

Washington state also went concealed carry in 1961, and it's crime rate rose
and fell with the rest of the country over time. Seriously, it's not an armed
population, but an incarcerated one that reduces crime. It is, after all, the
point of incarceration.

~~~
JanezStupar
> an incarcerated one that reduces crime. It is, after all, the point of
> incarceration.

Do you have any sources on that? The causality is not obvious.

~~~
ZoeZoeBee
Here's a pretty good paper titled "Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 90s:
Four Factors That Explain the Decline and Six Factors That do Not" it's
written by Steven Levitt the author of Freakonomics.

[http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUndersta...](http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUnderstandingWhyCrime2004.pdf)

>Four factors appear to explain the drop in crime: increased incarceration,
more police, the decline of crack and legalized abortion.

Other factors often cited as important factors driving the decline do not
appear to have played an important role: the strong economy, changing
demographics, innovative policing strategies, gun laws and increased use of
capital punishment. In stark contrast, the crime experience between 1973 and
1991 is not well explained by the factors identified in this paper. The real
puzzle in my opinion, therefore, is not why crime fell in the 1990s, but why
it did not start falling sooner.

