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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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I wonder if black people ever think "If I act weirdly and get killed by police here, hundreds of people could lose their livelihoods dozens could die in the consequent rioting."?

They shouldn't, really. Riots don't follow deaths, but media coverage. Media coverage doesn't follow deaths, but political expediency.

US police killed 245 black people in 2023, near enough to one per workday, at least according to the Washington Post's data. The vast majority, we never hear anything about. The media does not need 4-5 such stories a week. A couple a year is more than enough.

Now, cops are always going to be people, so no matter how good the hiring and training are, some of them will fuck up every once in a while. Even if, by magic, we would lower police violence by 9/10ths without screwing up anything else in the process — at which point the US would have by far the nicest police in the world — still two black people would be killed per month. And the media does not need two stories a month. There aren't two a month now. If this 9/10ths reduction were achieved somehow, nothing would change.

This is not the fault of the woman who got shot, and it isn't really the fault of the cop either. Though the individual cop is at best as dangerously incompetent as the Secret Service, and should be tried for manslaughter, you can't blame him, let alone cops in general, for the fallout. That is, dare I say it, systemic.

Even if, by magic, we would lower police violence by 9/10ths without screwing up anything else in the process — at which point the US would have by far the nicest police in the world

No, it wouldn't. 33.1 / 10 = 3.31, which is still nearly twice that of Finland. And in case you're going to say "but firearms", Finland is #10 in number or firearms per capita.

Yeah, that ranking is deceptive. Finland has 32.4 guns per 100 civilians. The U.S. has 120.

The US has double the number of guns as the #2 most heavily armed country in the world. It's an extreme outlier on guns per person.

Of course, guns per person isn't the right measure here- that would be percentage of households who own a gun(on which the US is the clear leader but not an outlier- it's ahead of places like Canada and Serbia, but not by double or triple).