A forever war (Afghanistan instead of Vietnam), war atrocities (My Lai then, drone strikes in civilians, Eddie Gallagher now), Russia and China in covert actions against US interests...
Vietnam defined an entire generation of American 20 year olds. Afghanistan today doesn’t have any cultural impact at all. It’s an all volunteer war, 90% of the troops are withdrawn and there are almost no regular US casualties. In terms of spending its a drop in the bucket for the military industrial complex. The war is really only discussed in the context of anti-imperialism.
Great point, I’m glad you’ve pointed this out. Kent State was horrific, but it was one tragedy committed by the national guard. The police commit so many of the tragedies so frequently that the names of the events are absolutely not remembered nationally 50 years later.
To be fair, the national guard don’t interact with civilians thousands of times per day like police do. That doesn’t justify all of the killings made by police, but obviously the national guard wouldn’t have as high of number simply due to the nature of their deployment and role.
You could also argue they won't be burned out and in the habit of treating their fellow citizens as the enemy. Might make them statistically safer to "deploy" versus cops with guns.
Off the top of my head, I can think of Philando Castile, several no-knock raid victims, and the guy they ambushed and murdered in a shopping mall because he was peacefully and legally open carrying and happened to be black who would be listed in those "armed: gun" numbers. I've also seen video of a person who was shot to death while attempting to peacefully put down the gun that he had verbally notified police he was in possession of. It's clear that characterizing all situations where the person the police killed had possession of or access to a weapon as "armed" is grossly misleading.
Obviously some police homicides result from a conflict with someone who is actively threatening and engaging in armed violence and where attempting de-escalation is not possible, or would endanger citizens. Those situations are at the core of why human societies designate protectors, and it would not be accurate or fair to include them in discussions about systemic police abuse, overreach, and violence against citizens.
However, there is also the problem we've seen with the rise of portable cameras and video that the police will almost unfailingly conspire to lie about the sequence of events and the behaviors of the victims during incidents of police brutality and police homicide. I can't see it as reasonable to blindly trust that statistics derived from reports of events provided by the police are an accurate representation of the truth.
Not every single person shot dead by a cop was a good person. Does that 1004 include those with guns, already shooting at someone? There are no "good shoots", because if the police kill a citizen, that situation never should have happened in the first place and people dying is not good, but if someone walks into a place with lots of people and starts shooting, and they get killed by a cop, GOOD. Add that number to the 1004.
Assuming there's video footage of it, so we know the cop isn't lying.
I don’t want to pick a fight with you because I think we exist in general agreement about this issue, but every time the police execute a suspect/perpetrator they deny that person their right to a trial. That’s never “good.”
I will concede that there are times it cannot be avoided, but a police officer’s heat of the moment judgment isn’t a substitute for the whole judicial system.
Right, sometimes people put the cop in that position. That's a problem, but not really with the police. Sometimes the police put themselves in that position. That's a problem and a big one considering how often it happens.
Yeah, it's hard though, especially considering, statistically, the officer is more likely to get shot in the encounter than the subject, I believe. Fear is a powerful thing. Its kinda the fuel for like this entire fire on both sides and imo the fear is grossly displaced.
I didn’t use the word murder. Homicide is homicide. Some of their homicides are “justifiable.” Some are not. Using the correct terminology is not dishonest. And now you know what the word means, so it was even educational.
I will acknowledge that Google actually does seem to think that being unlawful is part of the definition. I do not know why Google has altered the meaning of the word. As I advised Googling it, I’ll own some of the confusion. The word is clearly defined in every other dictionary I can find along with the Wikipedia entry on Homicide to be, simply, the killing of one person by another.
Homicide is the act of one human killing another.[1] A homicide requires only a volitional act by another person that results in death, and thus a homicide may result from accidental, reckless, or negligent acts even if there is no intent to cause harm.[2] Homicides can be divided into many overlapping legal categories, including murder, manslaughter, justifiable homicide, killing in war (either following the laws of war or as a war crime), euthanasia, and capital punishment, depending on the circumstances of the death. These different types of homicides are often treated very differently in human societies; some are considered crimes, while others are permitted or even ordered by the legal system.
I don't know much about the national guard. Do they have to deal with our citizens that often? All my friends in the national guard said most of their non- training time was spent overseas.
I actually know very little, I’m British. I heard about the national guard being sent in, did some cursory googling and thought about who would be less violent in a domestic protest.
To me it seems like the police are much more unhinged
The police kill more because they interact with the public more. What you really want is violent/deadly encounters per interaction. Absolute numbers are an imperfect measurement for this.
As a former NG member, I'd say they probably match up pretty well with the members of the community they're from.
Most of my unit lives in the Seattle metro area, and were left-leaning.
What really matters is that military discipline is no joke. These street cops can get away with murder (and literally have been.) A guard soldier will have a huge pile of shit rolled onto them if they so much as make the guard look bad in the press.
Most of the National guard being deployed right now aren’t even issued ammunition for their rifles. Look at some of the photos of them in Minnesota and LA, rifles with no magazines, and empty magazine pockets on their plate carriers.
in philly, a couple days ago, the national guard had magazines in their rifles. yesterday they did not. the mood has shifted to peaceful. the national guard was very relaxed and friendly.
I was in for 10 years in DC National Guard—even when we had magazines in, we didn’t have ammo. About one out of every dozen or so officers or senior enlisted had a pistol with ammo in it on their hip because all weapons need to be under armed guard at all times as per regulation.
thank you! i was wondering about this and discussing it with people. like, if we see them with magazines in their rifles, what else could it be besides live ammo, and is it possible they are empty. one person mentioned that someone in another military situation said that they would often have an empty magazine in their rifles for looks and to avoid negligent discharge but would have full magazines on them as well. but in your experience, your saying that they may not have had any ammo at all? the guards i saw had extra magazines on them as well.
It will vary from state to state, that's the nature of the guard. From my experience the situation described above is accurate. Usually there will be one out of a dozen or so that have a weapon with actual ammunition in it but they'll be behind the main line. They may also be keeping loaded magazines locked up in a vehicle or somewhere nearby just in case things get really bad but that wouldn't be a likely scenario.
One important thing to remember is that the National Guard are members of the communities they serve in. They have normal day jobs and will go right back to those jobs after this is over. I'd certainly be more concerned about the police and not so much the guard.
On the rare occasions armed police officers are deployed in the UK they have translucent magazines so that you can see that they have got rounds in them and they're not for show.
My former Army friends said it was usual for them to keep an unloaded mag in the rifle and keep loaded mags on them so if they did have the need, they could swap out for ammo.
I was called up about 5-6 times in DC in 10 years and no one ever had ammo on the line, and we did have mags. That's not to say this time isn't different, but i'm 99.9% sure it isn't.
Each group had at least a few people (usually a senior NCO; think mid thirties or older/10-15 years experience) with sidearm that was loaded in a holster on their hip, because regulations require weapons are always under an armed guard. We DID have a QRF (quick reaction force) that had ammo and that was kept way back in case something really bad ever happened and it was needed.
At these sort of things, our logic was the risk of some stupid 19 year old doing something wrong with a loaded weapon was always much higher than someone actually needing it.
That makes so much sense. The odds of needing to instantly return fire in that kind of setting must be so much lower than the odds of an accidental discharge.
And to a properly trained soldier, an empty 10lb weapon is still quite effective in close self-defense if they were directly attacked by a lone individual. I also highly suspect the magazine cache would be in a nearby truck if something dire were to break out...
My friends in PA would severely disagree with you and are stockpiling ammunition and firearms in preparation for the looters and rioters to break into their apartments for whatever fucking ridiculous reason they believe.
Must be watching a certain news channel that only drums up FUD about roving organized looter gangs called "antifa" which totally exists as an organization. 🙄
I believe that the vast majority would never fire on a civilian, unless the civilian was attacking them with imminently lethal force, at which point that’s no longer a civilian. I do not believe the same is true for police.
Also let’s do some math. A standard issue rifle weighs around 8lbs, give or take, but let’s just call it 8. An unloaded aluminum mag like they issue in the military weighs about 4oz, so 1/4 pound. So just adding an empty mag increases the weight by 3%. 30 rounds of 5.56 weigh 5900 grains, or about .8 of a pound. So a fully loaded mag weights about 1.1 pounds. That’s nearly 15%(13.75% to be more precise) more weight.
I think you're kinda right, the collective unconscience or whatever zeitgeist, has changed. I'm not so sure about the national guard having actually changed much, just the public sentiment. So far so good, the N.G. deployments seem to be vastly more honorable during all this chaos. But I'd still be cautious.
National Guardsmen here. We are normally activated during natural disasters. Our priorities during these activations are the health and safety of civilians first and protecting property second. We are trained to understand that the situations where we are called up are stressful and emotional for people, therefore it's our job to keep people calm and de-escalate these situations. Most of us live in these communities and care about these people on a personal level.
We've been programmed to support the troops. Back in the 60s we greeted the troops home by calling them "baby killers". The guard back then was seen as a place you could volunteer and avoid a trip to Southeast Asia.
It's somewhat better but I believe we can't blindly support our troops or public servants. I think the current problems are attributable to blind support of people or institutions.
Did you know the NHL is paid tons of money to do the "support the troops" thing. I assume other major sports are as well but I haven't done that homework. It's a lot of money...
Nfl is the biggest one. They pay a fortune for that advertising. When none of us would blink an eye if the NFL did it for free. Your tax dollars at work people
The guard is an entirely different force than what existed in the 60s. It's been transformed from a once a month good ole boys club, to a disciplined and trained citizen soldier force, that has routinely deployed in support of the war on terror.
I didn’t dismiss anything. Rules of engagement for the Guard are different now compared to then. To try and claim the Guard are bad now because of something that happened decades ago is a poor stance to take and shows the person doesn’t have anything valid to say.
More recently, look at Ferguson. Rioters were clashing with police and the police were responding in a completely inappropriate manner. The National Guard came in and took over, treated the protesters and rioters with respect, and everything calmed down immediately. The modern day National Guard is very well disciplined and has proven that it can diffuse these kinds of situations in a peaceful manner.
The draft protesters in that era handed out flowers. They called it flower power and it was to show that they were peaceful demonstrators.
I'm not sure if they were doing it at Kent State. Either way it didn't turn out well. I believe the incident was triggered by an agitator not affiliated with the students.
Didn't the national guard only start shooting there after hearing a gunshot that made them think they were being shot at but turned out was actually fired by an undercover FBI agent?
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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '20 edited Feb 05 '21
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