Bad Boys II

[GMDino]

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/atlanta-cops-charged-student-violence

Quote:Six Atlanta Cops Are Being Charged After Using Tasers To Violently Detain Two College Students During Protests
Two of the police officers were fired from the Atlanta Police Department the day after the violent encounter.


Six Atlanta police officers have been charged with assault and battery for allegedly using excessive force to detain two college students in the middle of protests on Saturday, at one point tasing the students and violently pulling them out of their car.


"It was a vicious act," Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said at a news conference Tuesday.


Officers used Tasers to force Taniyah Pilgrim and Messiah Young, both students at historically black colleges, out of their car, and then threw them onto the ground to detain them, Howard said.

The encounter was caught on video by police body cameras, leading to officers Ivory Streeter and Mark Gardner being fired the following day.


An investigation of the incident and review of footage from body cameras and the officers' reports led to charges against the officers, including four who were charged with aggravated assault, and another who was charged with aggravated battery.


Video from the incident also showed some of the officers had lied about the encounter, including one officer who falsely claimed the students had pointed a gun at police, and another who falsely claimed Young had tried to put the car in reverse and run him over.

"The conduct involving this incident is not indicative of the way we treat people here in the city of Atlanta," Howard said.


The officers and the charges they face were identified as:
- Ivory Streeter: aggravated assault, pointing or aiming a gun
- Mark Gardner: aggravated assault
- Lonnie Hood: two counts of aggravated assault, one count of simple battery
- Willie Sauls: aggravated assault, criminal damage to property
- Armond Jones: aggravated battery, pointing or aiming a gun
- Roland Claud: criminal damage to property


The arrests come as the country braces for another night of possible unrest and protests over the killing of unarmed black people by police.


Protests have turned violent in several cities, and anger over violence against peaceful protesters by police has fueled more demonstrations.

In Atlanta, Howard said the evidence and video helped investigators file charges against the six police officers.


"It's very difficult to watch that tape and not be affected by this," he said.

Quote:
[/url]Justin Wilfon

@JustinWilfonWSB




Video from one of the APD body cameras that led to the firing of two Atlanta police officers. Police tried repeatedly to stop a car during Saturday’s protests, before ultimately using a taser to remove two college students from the vehicle. @wsbtv⁩




362
11:13 PM - May 31, 2020
Twitter Ads info and privacy

[url=https://twitter.com/JustinWilfonWSB/status/1267293100977852417]
Pilgrim and Young were driving through a protest area when an officer can be heard telling them to leave or go to jail, Howard said.



The two leave down the street, but the officers then catch up with the students and try to force the doors open.


One officer broke a window, Howard said, and video shows officers using their Tasers to force Pilgrim out of the car.


"It went on for some time while she was shaking and screaming in pain," Howard said. "After the tasing took place, she was then taken out of the car and thrown to a paved street."


Young can be seen trying to protect Pilgrim and to pull the Taser wires away. An officer eventually pulled him out of the car and threw him onto the pavement, causing him to fracture his wrist and leaving a gash that required 24 stitches.


The body camera footage also refutes the claim made by an officer that he saw Young put the car in reverse and that another officer “had to pull him out of the way so he would save his life.”


"As you can see, when Young was in the car, he spent most of the time trying to repel the Tasers that were shot into his body," Howard said. "You cannot see an instance where any attempt was made to run over an officer."


Another officer, after the incident was over, said "they pulled a gun on us," but Howard points out no weapon was ever found in the car or in the possession of Pilgrim and Young.


"They were both extremely innocent," Howard said. "They were so innocent to the point of being naive."

The six officers have been told they can turn themselves in by June 5, Howard said. They are facing a $10,000 bond.

[Dill]

(06-02-2020, 06:10 PM)hollodero Wrote: I didn't say that. My point would be that there are also parts of racism and culture of violence that are not inherently connected at all. I don't think it's safe to assume overboarding racial hatred led to that deed. I think it's safe to say that inhumanity, overwhelming hatred and affinity to violence led to that deed. Which might be in context to racial history, or not, or just partly. I see the culture of violence as beyond race.

Just a quick note on this one, Hollo.

Terms like "inhumanity," "overboarding [sic?] hatred," and "affinity to violence" can have some specificity and a minimal usefulness to describe social effects, but they are really useless for causal analysis.

They don't explain phenomena; they are the phenomena in need of explanation.

[Dill]

(06-02-2020, 06:10 PM)hollodero Wrote: Your constitution is outdated nonsense, your political dialogue is horrific, your willingness to go with disingenuous talking points is unmatched, your democracy is a bit of a joke. What you do with Puerto Rico is flat-out undemocratic colonialism. Your fame, riches and consumption culture, coupled with a deeply rooted mixture of fearing your neighbor and violence glorification, is a recipe for danger. Your american dream, where anyone can make it, but sure not nearly everyone, creates much desperation. You're also starting to become the least reliable political partner on the world stage, and you lose so unbelievably much respect right now around the globe. Well, as far as I can tell at least.
I hope this was articulate enough. For on the racial topic, there the outsider can not quite share an unique perspective, but also a lot of ignorance. I reached that point.

LOL well some of us can see all that without help, or most of it.

Not sure the Constitution is all that bad, outdated, or whatever. More specification appreciated there. Maybe you are still puzzled by the electoral college? 

In 250 years we have gone from an openly white supremacist nation to one in which that politics is a minority interest group. So no doubt there is outdated nonsense still embedded in our politics, economy and culture, but some updated sense too--enough to recognize, publicly challenge and potentially change that. The current protests and rights are battling for that recognition now against those who still refuse it. They need to win that battle to effect change.

Your ignorance on the race topic is shared by many Americans. But you are a fairly clear thinker, not embedded in our local interests, and could probably drop some insights on us if you stuck it out.  Wait a day or two. Absorb some more riot news and Trump responses. Then reconsider some of my previous points: riots have produced progressive change--yes or no? One can acknowledge this empirical and historical fact without "justifying" riots or "excusing" rioters--perhaps? Answering both questions "yes" would precede any realistic effort to understand where and how the justice which produces riots is blocked, wouldn't it?  

[hollodero]

(06-03-2020, 12:12 AM)Dill Wrote: Just a quick note on this one, Hollo.

Terms like "inhumanity," "overboarding [sic?] hatred," and "affinity to violence" can have some specificity and a minimal usefulness to describe social effects, but they are really useless for causal analysis.

They don't explain phenomena; they are they are phenomena in need of explanation.

OK, so I used useless terms. Yeah, you're right. I messed that paragraph up badly.

- I don't think racism, or the history of racism, is the sole explanation for what's happening in instances like those. Eg. our own police has some racists within their ranks, that state so openly and hate immigrants with a passion. Open problem. Still they never kill an immigrant on open street.
Also, we do have almost no instances of school shootings or shootings in general. Also, way less violent crimes. There's a certain american readiness to violence that is unmatched in other western countries, that is uniquely US, but not necessarily uniquely racist in nature. As with this cop(s), that were willing to go over the tipping point and just follow those impulses of, yeah whatever, hatred and inhumanity or whatever you want to call it. Why are so many willing to go over that tipping point.

This is just kind of a question/observation though. I have no real explanation. I just think racism isn't the sole explanation. Many would blame guns, but I think that's short-sighted too. As is blaming Trump. Which is why I start using useless terms, for I don't know the answer to that. "Culture of violence", yeah that don't mean much either. I just find no better way to put it.

[hollodero]

(06-03-2020, 12:30 AM)Dill Wrote: LOL well some of us can see all that without help, or most of it.

Not sure the Constitution is all that bad, outdated, or whatever. More specification appreciated there. Maybe you are still puzzled by the electoral college?

Sure the electoral college is one glaring example. But for me it starts that you have 18th century terms in there that no one quite understands in the first place. Eg. "high crimes and misdemeanors", you try impeachment and then have to argue what the founders possibly had in mind when creating those terms. That is not a code of law, that is mostly a code that can get interpreted however the political wind blows. You invite some professors and then distort their takes, that's the constitutional input. Plus the formalities.

It doesn't really safeguard you against much, your safeguard is the decency and moral compass of people in power. To restate one of my favorite slams, it did not prevent a civil war and hasn't really changed much from back then until today. Also, Nixon would have gotten away in the current political climate, the constitution didn't nail him. In the end, so many questions are unresolved, or based on some opinion of some DOJ member that was given in the year whatever. Like when confronted with the question if a president can be indicted or can pardon himself. You really don't know these things. This is bad. And right now, to me it seems the constitution would not necessarily stop authoritarianism. It leaves the question to the courts, they might decide they have to stay out of it and then one branch can dominate the other and your president can become a quasi-absolute leader, like Trump tries to become. Just to add a current example, Trump invokes an act of 18hundredsomething to possibly deploy the military to, in his view, uncooperative states and folks really don't know if that is constitutional or not.

Sure I could go on with how "forming a militia" is in there too and how weird and outdated that is, but I don't want to make a diploma thesis out of that. I did find it very odd that Trump specifically mentioned second amendment rights in his spooky speech though.

(06-03-2020, 12:30 AM)Dill Wrote: Your ignorance on the race topic is shared by many Americans. But you are a fairly clear thinker, not embedded in our local interests, and could probably drop some insights on us if you stuck it out.  Wait a day or two. Absorb some more riot news and Trump responses. Then reconsider some of my previous points: riots have produced progressive change--yes or no? One can acknowledge this empirical and historical fact without "justifying" riots or "excusing" rioters--perhaps? Answering both questions "yes" would precede any realistic effort to understand where and how the justice which produces riots is blocked, wouldn't it?  

Riots to me are a form of this "culture of violence" as well. I don't know if they work now, but in general, they sure have at times worked in one way or another. As already stated, I do acknowledge that the forming of your nation is connected to justifiable rioting against authority, so hard to dismiss that point. So yes to the first question, the second yes is inevitable then.
Specifically with black people rioting, I have a hard time evaluating what change they brought in the past. And at quick glance, this often seems like a disputed question. Many say the LA riots changed police force there, others claim that Ferguson did not change anything; for the current situation, I don't know if riots can turn things for the better, and I have a hard time evaluating how much justification for violence there is in possible change achievable. Or if it's fair to say "we tried the non-violent way", for which Kaepernick is the poster boy. My hunch would be that these current riots and destructions don't make anything better though, given the current climate with Trumpism/Breitbartism, the upcoming election and sure also the still ongoing pandemic.

I do know Floyd's brother empathically called for ending the violence, and I feel like going with his take there.

[GMDino]

1️⃣5️⃣0️⃣ Philadelphia, PA: cop pulls down a protestor's mask to pepper-spray her in the face as she's kneeling with her hands up, then the cop sprays another one, then he pushes over a third to make sure he can pepper-spray them in the face too

pic.twitter.com/Ca3liTraTH

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) June 2, 2020

[GMDino]

8️⃣9️⃣ Seattle, WA: same technique as 8️⃣8️⃣ above – bike cop deliberately tries to "pass" where there's clearly not enough room, so he can then make contact and put a protestor into a headlock

pic.twitter.com/hRX8rl1QPv

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) June 1, 2020

[GMDino]

1️⃣ Houston TX: trampling a peaceful protestor with a horse

(If you can't control it in a crowd, you shouldn't be riding it; if you *can* control it, then the trampling was deliberate)https://t.co/9QRscHGQKR

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) May 30, 2020

 

[hollodero]

@Dino... it is only a coupe days now and you already posted about 10.000 articles, tweets and links, all perpetuating variations of the "noble protester vs. bad police"-narrative. I guess nothing is made up, so sure in a sense it's fair enough. But it's also a quite selective and lopsided take, isn't it.

[GMDino]

(06-03-2020, 10:20 AM)hollodero Wrote: @Dino... it is only a coupe days now and you already posted about 10.000 articles, tweets and links, all perpetuating variations of the "noble protester vs. bad police"-narrative. I guess nothing is made up, so sure in a sense it's fair enough. But it's also a quite selective and lopsided take, isn't it.

This thread was to highlight the "few bad apples".  There just seems to be more "bad apples" being video taped in the past week.  (Except for the ones who "forget to turn their cameras on" and get fired.)

I would welcome a thread about innocent police ("good apples").  I'm sure there are plenty of stories like that. 

This thread also got sidetracked with the Floyd case and everything around it.  

I'd remind people that no one has been charged or arrested for killing an innocent woman when they opened fire after breaking into a man's house and he fired a gun to protect himself.  They even dropped the charges against that man.

Plenty of OTHER stories out there.

On the other hand there are plenty of people in this thread willing to try and find a way to defend the "bad apples" so the thread continues.

[*bfine32*]

(06-02-2020, 08:43 AM)Dill Wrote: Finally a little accountability somewhere.

Yeah, this one is not helping anyone. Surveillance cameras indicates McAfee shot at cops and Guardsmen as they were trying to control a rowdy crowd. But I agree firing the Chief gave folks their pound of flesh. 

[GMDino]

(06-03-2020, 10:34 AM)GMDino Wrote: This thread was to highlight the "few bad apples".  There just seems to be more "bad apples" being video taped in the past week.  (Except for the ones who "forget to turn their cameras on" and get fired.)

Plenty of OTHER stories out there.  

On the other hand there are plenty of people in this thread willing to try and find a way to defend the "bad apples" so the thread continues.

(06-03-2020, 10:36 AM)bfine32 Wrote: Yeah, this one is not helping anyone. Surveillance cameras indicates McAfee shot at cops and Guardsmen as they were trying to control a rowdy crowd. But I agree firing the Chief gave folks their pound of flesh. 

[hollodero]

(06-03-2020, 10:34 AM)GMDino Wrote: This thread was to highlight the "few bad apples".  There just seems to be more "bad apples" being video taped in the past week.  (Except for the ones who "forget to turn their cameras on" and get fired.)

I would welcome a thread about innocent police ("good apples").  I'm sure there are plenty of stories like that. 

Maybe there's still space to also show things like those:

  

....not to diminish the bad stuff, but just to have a better rounded overall picture of what's going on. I see the danger of defining police just by their "bad apples", and that is, imho, not the sole message to go for.

[GMDino]

(06-03-2020, 11:16 AM)hollodero Wrote: Maybe there's still space to also show things like those:

  

....not to diminish the bad stuff, but just to have a better rounded overall picture of what's going on. I see the danger of defining police just by their "bad apples", and that is, imho, not the sole message to go for.

Absolutely.  Personally I'd rather a separate thread but if people want to highlight the good cops I'm all for it.  Most don't.  They choose to defend the others in this thread instead.

[Dill]

(06-03-2020, 10:36 AM)bfine32 Wrote: Yeah, this one is not helping anyone. Surveillance cameras indicates McAfee shot at cops and Guardsmen as they were trying to control a rowdy crowd. But I agree firing the Chief gave folks their pound of flesh. 

Surveillance cameras don't actually show Mcatee shooting at anyone.  They do show what looks like a squad of police concentrating fire on what looks the doorway of his little BBQ hut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmA31VwxeIY

Do you agree that the police body cams were turned off?  That was the disciplinary point of the chief's firing.

[Dill]

(06-03-2020, 08:18 AM)hollodero Wrote: - I don't think racism, or the history of racism, is the sole explanation for what's happening in instances like those. Eg. our own police has some racists within their ranks, that state so openly and hate immigrants with a passion. Open problem. Still they never kill an immigrant on open street.
Also, we do have almost no instances of school shootings or shootings in general. Also, way less violent crimes. There's a certain american readiness to violence that is unmatched in other western countries, that is uniquely US, but not necessarily uniquely racist in nature. As with this cop(s), that were willing to go over the tipping point and just follow those impulses of, yeah whatever, hatred and inhumanity or whatever you want to call it. Why are so many willing to go over that tipping point.

This is just kind of a question/observation though. I have no real explanation. I just think racism isn't the sole explanation. Many would blame guns, but I think that's short-sighted too. As is blaming Trump. Which is why I start using useless terms, for I don't know the answer to that. "Culture of violence", yeah that don't mean much either. I just find no better way to put it.

I don't think anyone, certainly not me, treats racism as the "sole explanation" for U.S. violence. However, it has primacy when we are analyzing police violence in U.S. cities. Images of dead black men and women incite protests, largely from citizens of the same color. Those who don't see an enforcement problem are not evenly distributed between white and black citizens.

I agree that we have a readiness to violence unmatched by all other 1st-world countries, though still a long ways form Afghanistan and Somalia. Though we are hardly a monolith in this regard.  Millions of our city folk would be fine with outlawing weapons altogether. And we are beginning to challenge the long-held presumptive right to shoot and kill trespassers.

U.S. citizens defined their relationship to guns and gun violence rather differently than European states. We had a "frontier" until the 1880s, two centuries of continual westward (then from the West, eastward) settlement by people who carried weapons for hunting and self defense. And then a large rural population continued to hold guns like common tools such as shovels and rakes (that's the "culture" I grew up in). But in the South, slave states enforcing servitude--a job of the white community as well as law enforcement--became in my view the primary driver of what you call the "culture of violence" in the U.S. Extra-legal enforcement of racial boundaries continued into the 1960s through the battles over segregation--coupled with extreme versions of classical liberal ideology (right to defend one's property--including against "big government"-- etc.). I think that history resurfaces often where police departments of mostly white officers are tasked with policing mostly black urban areas. Absence that kind of history, your police don't have the precedent of " inhumane impulses" to follow. 

Your current territory hasn't been a true "frontier" since the 7th century A.D., and for the millenium after that your population was largely disarmed under feudal lordship; and you finally abolished serfdom in 1781 (within the Empire), so historically your population is much more distant from self-armed, self-defending pioneers and state/community-enforced mass servitude.  We Americans--and maybe you too--all grew up watching movies of American cowboys solving problems with guns--outlaws, Indians, cattlemen rich enough to buy the sheriff. People who left enforcement to the sheriff, like in High Noon, were cowards. But there are few films of 19th-century Austrians all rushing into town in Tyrolean hats, Lederhosen and squirrel guns to posse up with the Stadtwacher (or whatever your sheriff equivalent would be) to chase the bank robbers, or back him when the Stitzelberger brothers get out of jail and come back to town for revenge.

[fredtoast]

(06-03-2020, 02:27 PM)Dill Wrote: Surveillance cameras don't actually show Mcatee shooting at anyone.

I smell a 5 page argument over the definitions of "indicate" and "show".

[*bfine32*]

(06-03-2020, 02:27 PM)Dill Wrote: Surveillance cameras don't actually show Mcatee shooting at anyone.  They do show what looks like a squad of police concentrating fire on what looks the doorway of his little BBQ hut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmA31VwxeIY

Do you agree that the police body cams were turned off?  That was the disciplinary point of the chief's firing.

Of course the cameras were shutoff. The investigation is still ongoing; so my answers to what happened are not going to be as definitive as yours.. The Chief should have been fired after the death from the "no knock" warrants. 

fredtoast Wrote:I smell a 5 page argument over the definitions of "indicate" and "show".


Lalala

You could have just said "that's not really what bfine said", but no, we have to have bfine do that and then mock him for supporting exactly what he said. 

Do you think show or indicate is the best word to use at this point in the investigation? 

[Dill]

(06-03-2020, 09:11 AM)hollodero Wrote: Riots to me are a form of this "culture of violence" as well. I don't know if they work now, but in general, they sure have at times worked in one way or another. As already stated, I do acknowledge that the forming of your nation is connected to justifiable rioting against authority, so hard to dismiss that point. So yes to the first question, the second yes is inevitable then.
Specifically with black people rioting, I have a hard time evaluating what change they brought in the past. And at quick glance, this often seems like a disputed question. Many say the LA riots changed police force there, others claim that Ferguson did not change anything; for the current situation, I don't know if riots can turn things for the better, and I have a hard time evaluating how much justification for violence there is in possible change achievable. Or if it's fair to say "we tried the non-violent way", for which Kaepernick is the poster boy. My hunch would be that these current riots and destructions don't make anything better though, given the current climate with Trumpism/Breitbartism, the upcoming election and sure also the still ongoing pandemic.

I do know Floyd's brother empathically called for ending the violence, and I feel like going with his take there.

Some riots are a part of my above-mentioned and racially inflected "culture of violence"--e.g., lynch mobs and the Tulsa race massacre. But not all.

I'll skip the rather obvious causal relations between 60s protests/rioting and the end of segregation, and leap to the 21st century. Evaluating what change riots have brought can be partly answered by data connected with Control Decrees. That's much better than throwing up newspaper reports of "bad apples."

Take the LAPD for example. When they couldn't seem to clean up their own dept. after the Rodney King riots, complaints of "nothing changes" led the DOJ to force a Control decree on them in 2001.  Over twelve years, they successfully met it targets and the decree was lifted in 2013. https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/05/16/civil-rights-consent-decree-over-lapd-lifted-after-almost-12-years/
“In these last 12 years, the Los Angeles Police Department did not just comply with consent decree, they took it to heart,” [Mayor] Villaraigosa said. “They used it as a guide to change their culture.”  If one bad cop slips through the system and beats someone to death for jaywalking, it won't mean "nothing has changed."

Sometimes, though, the timing is problematic. The DOJ investigation into Ferguson after the 2014 slaying of Brown and subsequent rioting led to finding that, among other things, the police used the black residential areas of Ferguson as a source of funding. I.e., they used tickets to "harvest" money from black residents. https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/doj-finds-ferguson-targeted-african-americans-used-courts-mainly-to/article_d561d303-1fe5-56b7-b4ca-3a5cc9a75c82.html

That resulted in, in 2016, in a Consent Decree between the DOJ and the city of Ferguson, which set targets for training and other requirements to be monitored by the DOJ to create community involvement and accountability, and to change the police culture there (no more circulating departmental emails with pictures of Obama as a chimpanzee).  https://fergusonmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Consent-Decree.pdf

Initially there was great progress, even into 2018, according to the federal judge monitoring the agreement; then Sessions put the Decrees "under review" (and on hold), and by July 2019 Ferguson had fallen way behind on meeting these targets. https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/ferguson-needs-to-make-more-progress-on-consent-decree-federal/article_047fa0e7-ca28-5734-8555-ef4366448400.html

One could plausibly say now that "riots changed nothing" in Ferguson, but a Dem DOJ might get reform back on track.

People have to see how these reforms, and their maintenance, are connected to the leaders we choose. Stop saying "nothing changes" and "nothing can be done."  I've lived long enough to witness a tremendous transformation of our national culture on race issues. I've also lived long enough to know this only means that the battle is not over, for that transformation also produced a tremendous whitelash.

Final point--you are still giving too much power to Trump/Breitbart. Just as the civil rights struggle generated Whitelash, it has likely reached its high water mark and is now receding before  a broad coalition of opponents.

[hollodero]

(06-03-2020, 05:47 PM)Dill Wrote: I don't think anyone, certainly not me, treats racism as the "sole explanation" for U.S. violence. However, it has primacy when we are analyzing police violence in U.S. cities. Images of dead black men and women incite protests, largely from citizens of the same color.

Granted. I'm just saying, a racial sensitivity program won't cut it, or an infomercial campaign.

The propensity to violence is inherently a different problem, sure intertwined with racism, sure often intertwined because a black person is percieved as easiest victim for snapping policemen and others. I might be wrong, but I feel that gets addressed too seldomly.

(06-03-2020, 05:47 PM)Dill Wrote: I agree that we have a readiness to violence unmatched by all other 1st-world countries, though still a long ways form Afghanistan and Somalia. Though we are hardly a monolith in this regard.  Millions of our city folk would be fine with outlawing weapons altogether. And we are beginning to challenge the long-held presumptive right to shoot and kill trespassers.

Yeah you're better than Afghanistan. This is actually a sad statement.

(06-03-2020, 05:47 PM)Dill Wrote: U.S. citizens defined their relationship to guns and gun violence rather differently than European states. We had a "frontier" until the 1880s

Yeah you define it differently, as you are romanticizing guns. It is a symbol of pride, of self-reliance, of enpowerment and at times (I guess LeonardLeap told me that once) also a fond childhood memory. And I get that, I don't slam those feelings at all, I can understand it. I still see it as a problem for sure, for many the childhoods are not that rosy and the gun is still a part of it and the mindset developed.

I disagree though a bit when it comes to your historical analysis. Yeah you had that whole cowboy and settler history that was gun-affine and violent for sure. But we Europeans had enough frontiers. We used to lead war against each other all the time, big ones and smaller ones. Eg. around 1800 Napoleon came along. Tyroleans, which you mentioned as an example of peaceful idyll, became proud self-defending partisans in that time and feel that history until this day, eg. 65.000 guns are registered in that part of our country alone. We have enough history of violence and death and destruction, it wasn't all peaceful and placid easy living here either. In the end, say 1945, we stood at the ruins of our civilizations after two world wars that braught the most severe inhumanity in human history and devastated the continent once again.

We did not make an everyday experience out of guns though, we never made it a symbol like you did, we also were not taught to be aware of murderous intruders all the time. Michael Moore (who I generally do not like) mentioned TV series like "cops", and I think that might be a fair point, we don't have this kind of indoctrination that death awaits us and our families on every corner and in our homes and only a gun can protect good people. We sure have a whole different attitude towards them and a few things are more puzzling tzhan seeing those right-wing gun nuts that take to the streets like this was Falludja.

(06-03-2020, 05:47 PM)Dill Wrote: But there are few films of 19th-century Austrians all rushing into town in Tyrolean hats, Lederhosen and squirrel guns to posse up with the Stadtwacher (or whatever your sheriff equivalent would be) to chase the bank robbers, or back him when the Stitzelberger brothers get out of jail and come back to town for revenge.

Oh we do have quite a lot of hunter vs. poacher stories though, and they usually end bloody. (Of course we also have all the western films you mentioned and know all those; some are even Italian.)
Also, "Gendarm" would be the word probably.