The CATO Institute says your 8 times more likely to be killed by a cop than terrorist

[CZroe]

Should've copy/pasted the title instead of saying they said something they did not (your/you're).

 

[Jaskalas]

Cops stop crimes? Pretty sure all they do is make drug arrests, and occasionally catch a killer. Generally speaking most homicides go unsolved.

They give great roadside tickets.

 

[werepossum]

Cops stop crimes? Pretty sure all they do is make drug arrests, and occasionally catch a killer. Generally speaking most homicides go unsolved.

I think you'll find that homicides are solved in around 60% - 80% in very large cities and often much higher in rural and small towns.

Considering how many crimes are gang-related and in black communities where no one ever sees anything, I find that amazing.

 

[woolfe9998]

At no point did anyone imply that cops even SHOULD be fighting terrorism. The comparison was between who you are more likely to be killed by.

The comparison was made to critique the point of the statistic cited in the OP. To illustrate the low risk of dying from terrorism they could have compared it to car accidents, cancer or anything else. They chose police for a particular reason. I think CATO Institute's point was that our own government is more dangerous to us than those the government claims to protect us from. It's an inference based on CATO's identity as a libertarian think tank. My point is that the statistic fails to explain the risks of the larger group of people who law enforcement is protecting us from.

So? I know people who can't stand bankers but they don't think that the entire banking industry should be done away with. Some cops are dickheads, if you are unlucky enough to only have experience with cops that are dickheads. Not that its right for them to extend that to all cops but its surely understandable.

Why is it "understandable" for people to extend the negative generalization "dickhead" or anything similar to all cops? If someone said they think black people are stupid lazy criminals because most/all of the very few they encountered have been that way, I doubt you'd identify that attitude as understandable. The fact that you find that to be an acceptable generalization in the case of cops is probably why you came into the thread in opposition to what I'm saying. It's precisely the attitude I'm addressing.

I'm reminding people who seem to have irrational and over-generalized hatred of police that the consequences of not having them is far worse than the consequence of having them. I'm sure you claim to find that point overly obvious. I do not. Not on this particular discussion board where I constantly see blanket states of contempt for law enforcement, and criticisms of particular police conduct made with limited evidence at best, which criticisms are clearly a product of personal bias.

Pretty sure they said they are piss poor at preventing crime.Cops are by their very nature reactionary, they react AFTER a crime has been committed. Granted they can sort of prevent crime by catching a criminal AFTER he commits one crime but before he commits another.

The very presence of police does more to prevent crime than any other factor in society. It does so through deterrence. But it's not only through deterrence. When they solve a crime after the fact they may be taking the perp off the streets. You'd think all these points would be obvious, but not on P&N.

First of all, I tend to not base my entire argument off of one persons stance. Secondly, without going back and double checking I believe you are grossly misrepresting the points made in this thread. Even if you are correct about MomeNt, why dwell on the outlier?

I was debating MomeNt. And no, I wasn't misinterpreting him. His posts are very short and I'm sure you already read them and know this.

One outlier who I happen to disagree with to the point that I wouldn't take the time to type a serious response. You are free to pursue debate with the outliers all you wish but I don't think its a very productive use of time.

There is a range of irrational hatred of police from those who merely hate them (in general) to those who think we shouldn't have them. Then there's what appears to be the minority position on P&N of not believing either of those things.

You mean person, right?

Not really, no. This entire board is a cesspool of moronic anti-government drivel with little more than anecdotal evidence to go on, and often even the anecdotes being willfully misinterpreted.