1,173 people were shot dead by "law enforcement" in the USA last year.

In the UK, it was 2.

The US population is 6x that of the UK, so go ahead and multiply the second figure by 6.

Then explain to me why this massively disproportionate rate of killing is so.

January 25, 2026 - 23:55 UTC

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UK police focus on de-escalation with lethal force as a last resort.

In the US, the focus is on compliance with escalation to lethal force more likely.

Of course the presence or absence of firearms probably contributes significantly to these different approaches.
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It is a terrible number of people.

The watchdog charity that tracks deaths in England and Wales says that

“since 1990, 1948 people have died in and following police contact in England and Wales”

which is still a horrific loss of life
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I don’t think the US tracks this sort of thing centrally in any great detail, and they should

People dying in police chases or after being restrained happens much more often than people being shot in the UK
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I'm sure it's Obama's fault.
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Has a look on line Wiki FR says between 1977 and 2022, so 45 years, France saw 864 deaths due to interactions with the police or gendarmerie. Similar pop to the UK but armed police.

Fewer deaths in 45 years than in one year? Wow
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Otto, I firmly believe that US society has an illness, which is largely caused by the cult of the individual. In this, values are measured against the benefit to the individual. Freedom is calibrated against that of the individual. Hence, individualism is the most impotent objective.
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I think this makes a lot of sense. This individualism also make societies in general more "right-wing", and it's notable that even the left in the USA is to the right of our left in the UK, if you see what I mean!
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The UK Police just couldn't get away with killing more?
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How many of the 1173 were non-white?
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Why does that matter, are you of the opinion skin colour dictates how valuable your life is? Abhorrent
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is the answer freedom?
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That might sadly change if Farage gets in.

Remember the documentary when the Farage aide was complaining about police and said they would have paramilitary instead? Believe it.
Farage may seem simply ridiculous and he is but he is also very dangerous.
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There are more than a few, including my veteran eldest son, who want UK police armed.
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I'm guessing it isnt because the UK cops are relaly bad shots
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Think it was the film Bowling for Columbine which looked at two cities of roughly equal size, reasonably close on either side of the border. In the US, hundreds of gun related deaths each year. On the Canadian side, 0. None. And gun ownership per person was higher on the Canadian side.
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Just checked and it was Bowling for Columbine (2002). The two cities compared were Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario.
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I've always struggled with the concept of the US being the land of the free and home of the brave when many of their people seem too afraid to leave their homes unless they are armed. Not much of a society if you are living with that kind of fear.
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It's usually the paranoid ones who go around outside with a gun
And everyone else knows not to go near them or to wind them up because they'll probably overreact. There are many middle-of-road Americans who, like most of us this side of the Atlantic, don't want to touch a firearm.
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It's really not the land of the free unless you're extremely wealthy. Normal people are restricted in some crazy ways. The disparity in how they control alcohol and guns never fails to bemuse me, the speed limits on some public roads are brutal, and they tax the hell out of everything.
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And no doubt many in the States would think I was a reckless loon when I set off on my 30 minute walk to the station at 5.30am. But then that's true freedom and bravery 😃. Being able to walk around without the need to pack heat.
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I spoke with a friend who lives in America some time ago. He was telling me how this is the only land when you can be really free. Then changed a subject and started a rant about his HOA he is at war with because his garage door colour is slightly different than that of the neighbours and his...
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Guns and immaturity if the Facebook comments sections on Pretti's shooting are anything to go by.

It's like primary school.
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Unlike UK police , French police are armed . Even so the 2022-25 .. 15 fatal shootings occurred . The French police are not known for being friendly
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They prefer shooting protestors with water canons.
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We all know why. We, the People of the US will endure, and these demented criminals will fail!
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The USA isn't so much a country as a giant suicide pact. Look at who they put in charge of public health for pitys sake. Look at how they will keep waiving through lethal products - over 40 people burnt to death inside Teslas.
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Do UK police have guns?
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Units within each force are trained and armed but are not routinely deployed. They are generally kept as a last resort.
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Agreed 💯
And we have the same question about Gaza
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Is this a trick question?
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It’s never really occurred to me before that US citizens have a staggering amount of confidence in themselves and a frightening lack of confidence in anyone else they might meet.
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You wouldn't know some of America has schools if it wasn't for the shootings in them.
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Might I possibly suggest a society awash with guns because ‘freedom’ tends to lead to guns being more frequently used. 🤷‍♂️
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Gun laws favourising fetishism.
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They have guns, we don’t.
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Serious political party? Reform U.K.
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It’s very simple
Gun culture is so prolific it’s impossible to control.
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And a cultural disregard for human life - otherwise Canada, Switzerland, Finland etc, which are pretty heavily armed, would be similar.
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Because enough people believe that anyone who got shot must have been a bad person doing something wrong?
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Mainly routine arming of police and easy public access to firearms.
Being angry and acting impulsively, with and without one to hand, are very different situations.
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Few guns around in the first place on all sides, not so much of a prison-industrial complex, but the big one is policing by consent. A police officer in the UK is just some guy with some extra powers. Still bastards, but at least there's a limit to what they can get away with.
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If police have access to guns they don’t do their jobs properly because they don’t need people skills to deal with people. Shoot first ask questions later is their motto.
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Also important figure 45 American law enforcers killed by guns but zero in the UK so not as if guns are saving their lives either.
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Suicide by cop is a big issue in the US. Not good, but needs to be taken into consideration.
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98:1
Truly horrific numbers
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Paranoia.

For one thing, the notion in the U.S. that you can own firearms for self-defense. Just checked and it is illegal in the U.K. Same thing in Canada, and we have more guns per capita than you do, but nowhere near the gun violence rates as the U.S.
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Any country that shrugs off the mass murder of children, celebrates thug and gang culture has little value for an individual.
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Wasn’t sure if you were being serious or not. Having watched numerous videos of police shootings (there is a whole YouTube channel devoted to one), it’s a mix of training and that even single person they interact with could be armed.
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Because every single person could present a threat, then every move, every action that looks suspicious is seen as such. It’s a horrible circle. The training looks sub par and the I’ve seen videos where they shot a suspect who was fleeing.
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Yet Trump and Vance claim London is a crime ridden hellhole because the mayor is brown and a Muslim.
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Racist 🐂 💩
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'cos freedumb
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It's the guns
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Maybe the solution to all the gun use in the USA is simply to arm more people? You know - teachers, firefighters, nuns, children etc
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Many think they can still prevent it but actually they have a civil war going on for several decades already
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The civil Cold War…
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Since the end to The civil war was so gloriously screwed up.
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Access to military grade firearms, perhaps?
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Racism and militarized police departments are a dangerous combination.
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Never been afraid for my life during a traffic stop in the UK...
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The DNC hasn’t give us anything but David Camerons since FDR ?
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On related tangent

Well worth a read, an explainer on Trump's Brown Shirts - ICE and CBP

Poorly trained, lower education levels, everyone's a criminal mindset and have committed more crimes than undocumented immigrants in the US in the last decade

From journalist and historian Garrett M. Graff
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A MUST READ from Garrett Graff.
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Guns
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Over armed police dealing with an over armed populace in a country that ultimately still draws its attitudes from John Wayne movies.
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American TV programmes such as Yellowstone (and its spin offs) & Joe Pickett certainly support this view!
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My experience of those in uniform when I was in the US was that they revelled too much in wearing that uniform and appeared to think that it gave them the right to treat others like shit. As a tourist, doing nothing wrong, I felt threatened by them. This was in the 90s. Put me off going back.
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Interesting that you use a western movie analogy. If you take it further wasn’t there certain towns where you had to leave your guns with the sheriff to be allowed in that town? “We don’t want no shootin ‘round here”.
Might be an idea.
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It's because Americans continue to support the right to bear arms, despite the fact those arms make the country less safe... even to the point were kids get killed at school and those who are supposed to protect you are a danger to you.

Guns make people "shoot first, ask questions later" jumpy.
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Er… availability of guns 🤔
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120 guns per 100 people in the US = much more fatal violence en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country
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The US "police forces" have become heavily militarised with APC's and heavy personal weapons.

However when in Uvalde there was one gunmen in a school the Police were afraid to approach him, instead stopping the unarmed parents from entering the school.
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Because none of the kids in that school were rich tech grifters.
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And the reason they have that military equipment is that they are cast-offs from the US military's misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq.

There is basically a military-to-police pipeline in the USA.
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Also the British Police are trained to de-escalate situations using non-lethal measures and only lethal force as a last resort.

Whereas the US Police & others seem to choose lethal measures much earlier in any interaction.

Notice ICE shouting a lot and giving contradictory orders.
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Perhaps it`s all in the psyche.
British used guns primarily for hunting animals.
Americans had guns for protection against other humans.
It`s a very different concept and thinking.
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It's a consequence of the gun culture...which affects the culture in general

And unfortunately that gun culture contributed to Pretti's murder; if he hadn't (legally) had a gun (properly holstered) would they have shot him?

Most likely not (this is in no way excusing them, it was murder)
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Gun-ho.
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This January 2026 alone, 2 observers were shot dead by ICE in Minneapolis…
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The Constitution.
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My 2nd generation"Christian" US cousin is currently arguing with my brother on Facebook, and it would be funny if the consequences hadn't been so awful. He's seriously defending ICE. My cousin even brought up people being jailed for tweets. I DMed you about them on Twitter at the time.
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Just chucking this out there....

Gun control ?
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Guns and the other problem.
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Excellent point.
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Liberal feminist wokery, with its consequent many no-go zones under sharia law obviously😉
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Why? We’re a nation of immigrants. Each immigrant group grew to hate the other immigrant groups. Each immigrant group looked after their own. And all hated black people. We were never a “melting pot”. Add to that the libertarian/cowboy individualism myth so many bought into- The Republican Party.
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This is far too difficult for our ‘friends’ across the pond! Math this early on a Monday, what are you thinking?
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The only reason people carry weapons is to harm other people. People can "claim" it is to protect them but it rarely does.
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The US is a country that values wealth above the safety of its citizens. I bet at the time the ‘Right to bear arms’ was written it meant slow to reload weapons (the old muskets) and not the modern guns that can spew hundreds of bullets in a minute.
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Homicidal cops, drugged out muggers, school shootings, mass shootings, robberies, home invasions, etc.
And the person most likely to kill you with a gun in the USA is yourself. Around 1/2 of all firearms deaths are self inflicted.
Yet they need guns to feel safe.
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A friend of mine trained to be a cop in the US. She ultimately failed the course because she said she wouldn’t use fatal force if she was facing a nine year old wielding a knife.
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Gun ownership

Americas cause of deaths '23

Heart disease: 680,981
Cancer: 613,352
Accidents: 222,698
Stroke: 162,639
Chronic lower respiratory: 145,357
Alzheimer: 114,034
Diabetes: 95,190
Nephritis: 55,253
Chronic liver & cirrhosis: 52,222
COVID-19: 49,932

www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm

Guns 46,728
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It's a specific American disease, thought of as freedom but ultimately a poison.

I'd hope if any country saw 11th leading cause of death as an object that could just be removed.

Especially as the rational that it would keep them safe has been shown demonstrably a lie it makes a person a target.
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Ownership and attitude: An American colleague told me that if he caught his wife, the mother of his 6 kids, including one with disabilities, with another man, he would need two bullets, one for him, one for her. (So I guess he would ratger see his kids grew up with no mother AND a father in jail!)
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The absolute irony/stupidity that similar numbers are killed by guns as covid, given the venn diagram crossover between gun owners and anti vaxxers/refuse to wear a mask people.
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The gun lobby influence in the US.
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No wonder why JD Vance is desperate to have Americans make more babies. He wants to continue his target practice.
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The difference is obviously that the UK police are not armed routinely. What are the figures for countries like France and Germany where the police carry guns?
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I looked it up. The USA is 33 deaths per ten million . France is 5 per ten million and Germany is 1.3 per ten million. The UK is 0.5 per ten million. The US figure is comparable to what Trump calls "shithole" countries.
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France averages about ten, but comparing police stats is notoriously difficult.
France and the UK have national policing standards. Apart from guns that is the relevant factor in answering this question.
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MAGA says "uuuuhhh.....1,200?
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Because 'freedom', apparently.

Go figure.
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Horrific isn’t it?
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Truly yes.
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Wow
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This only strengthens your argument, but it’s just under 5x
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2 too many although I appreciate there are some bad people out there that have to be dealt with
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The last policeman killed by a gunman in Derby was in the late 1890's and the last person killed by Derbyshire armed police was some 50 years ago. That's in a country of about 1 million people
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Just for accuracy, US population is about 5 times the UK.

345 million to 69 million.
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Seen numerous videos where US police put themselves in a vulnerable position, then shoot a person claiming, "I thought he had a gun".
Poor training, arrogance, too many movies, who knows?
If the cops are so scared of people having guns, maybe it's a good idea to get rid of them?
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Yes, we should get rid of the cops!
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Ive read somewhere American cops training is like half of the time the Polish cops are trained. And the Polish cops are actually sent to cop school, where they live for 6 months. Then given some very basic duties and work up from there. Not sent to run around with guns.
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Firstly, guns. But other police forces carry guns.
Secondly, we operate "policing by consent" with a police service, rather than enforcement by a police force.
And we don't differentiate between state and federal.

But I think it goes deeper than that; cultural, "wild west" differences.
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Because many Americans don`t value others lives, look at thier healthcare, care for me, not for thee, that is in every aspect of life both thier and here post Reagan/Thatcher, as Carney said The strong will do as they will, and the poor suffer as they must, the UK`s been going that way since 1979
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Our cops carry guns and are trained to mag-dump if they are startled.
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I blame the second amendment.

An armed population results in overly paranoid policing
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cops protect and serve only themselves, add a massive gun obsession and the power fantasies that the US is built upon and you get the pigs in blue. :') never had an interaction with a cop where they were actually helpful, and I never will considering the system that spits em out at us.
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firefighters on the other hand are great lol. gentle and kind souls, they fear nothing. they're the ones protecting and serving, and they have a cool giant red truck to boot. of course there are some bad ones, but it isn't so systemic with them.
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www.gunviolencearchive.org/
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Numbers may be better now but most European countries have histories of govt sanctioned murder

Since British bobbies don't carry guns the likelihood of them shooting someone is reduced

But cops don't need guns to do harm to citizens

They use their authority

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/20/former-met-officer-david-carrick-sentenced-for-and-molesting-child
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