How to end police shootings in one easy step.

[The Grand Nudger]

Look at some of the examples of shootings in that article. Shooting people while surrendering, shooting people who are running away. That's not a situation that would make me shoot someone, armed or not. I'm from the country, I know plenty of people who carry concealed guns on them and I don't know a single one who has drawn one. Why? Because there are consequences to them doing so.

If the only thing keeping people from doing something is the threat of consequence, that person is probably a piece of shit and I wouldn't be so sure they wouldn't pull that gun, if I were you.  That said, I have no interest in defending people who shoot people in the back, personally.  I;m commenting more on the lowest common denominator, those instances where it wasn't blatant.    

You can't tell me that you think the police knowing they won't go to prison, doesn't affect their decisions to fire? Of course it does. Also as people have pointed out in other threads, it's a very small percentage of police who are involved in deadly incidents and most of them have tract records of police brutality. All the psychological screening isn't going to keep all racists or people who want to shoot someone off the police force. Them going to spend time in prison might keep those people from pulling the trigger.

I don't think they're thinking about much of anything when they pull the trigger.  It;s a singular and consuming thing...to shoot at a person. Maybe, among those people who think about shooting people, or who join the force in some part to play out racist or sadist fantasies would be deterred....but, if they were all gone, you'd still have the scared cop who pulls that trigger...and in my opinion, it would still happen too often.

I understand where you're coming from..but I don;t think of cops (even the ones who have a history of brutality) as "bad men" and "good men" who need to be, or even -can be- scared straight.