alt.hn

6/12/2026 at 5:04:09 PM

Law Enforcement's "Warrior" Problem (2015)

 https://harvardlawreview.org/forum/vol-128/law-enforcements-warrior-problem/

by bookofjoe

6/12/2026 at 7:09:31 PM

Actual military officer (at the time of writing) doesn't thing much of "warrior mindset" even _in the army_: https://angrystaffofficer.com/2016/12/14/stop-calling-us-war...

Worth reading together with the OP article.

by red_admiral

6/12/2026 at 7:27:00 PM

Another article in the same vein is this one, criticizing the increasing role of former special officers people in military planning roles: https://secretaryrofdefenserock.substack.com/p/the-triumph-o..., seeing it as catalyzing a lot of destruction of US military capabilities.

by jcranmer

6/12/2026 at 9:22:15 PM

My father has commented to me about the weird warrior/war-fighter phrasing that came into vogue in the late 90’s. He remembered as a young soldier in the early 80’s not hearing those terms at all, but during a stint in the National Guard in the years before 9/11 he started hearing that sort of phrasing all the time.

It stuck him as vaguely undemocratic or even slightly barbaric. More suited to some caste in the Middle Ages than a modern all volunteer force of citizens-soldiers.

by unholythree

6/12/2026 at 10:10:21 PM

I think warfighter crept into the lexicon for somewhat understandable reasons, likely because of the increasing frequency of joint operations (i.e., operations involving more than one branch of the military working together) after Vietnam, combined with the long-standing military tradition whereby members of any given branch take great offense if you refer to them using the wrong professional label (i.e., soldier, sailor, ~crayon-eater~ marine, airman, space cadet). That is, we can't just call all of them soldiers because only members of the Army are soldiers, so if for example you call a mixed group of marines and soldiers "soldiers", the marines will make their displeasure known to you, aggressively and in no uncertain terms.

When you're talking about DoD stuff all day long and frequently need to refer generically to the mixed personnel involved in a joint operation, warfighters beats saying Soldier-Sailor-Marine-Airman-Spacecase. All the other alternative phrases for the concept of "person employed by the military in one of the five combat arms branches" are variations on "member" and tend to sound clunky or be overly verbose, like "service member" or "member of the military." Try saying "service members" 50 times per day. Trust me, it gets old fast.

And frankly I don't see the problem with warfighter. Fighting wars is quite literally what they do, and pretending otherwise does a disservice to the truth and risks papering over the deadly seriousness of their work. Warfighter is also quite distinct from "warrior," which carries connotations of a specifically aggressive and barbaric flavor of professional violence purveyor. Like you say, it sounds like some atavistic hereditary soldier caste for whom violence is a sacred vocation joyfully undertaken rather than a solemn duty carried out only with great reluctance and forbearance.

by stult

6/13/2026 at 1:32:26 PM

> And frankly I don't see the problem with warfighter

Because it implies, quite pointedly, that the United States will never send a peacekeeping force.

by xethos

6/13/2026 at 6:10:55 PM

But even that peace keeping will involve active combat, unless the mission fails or the force involved is so capable ot deters opponent. You dont want to end up like the blue helmets in lebanon and more like nordbat in kosovo.

by warumdarum

6/13/2026 at 12:21:03 AM

> When you're talking about DoD stuff all day long and frequently need to refer generically to the mixed personnel involved in a joint operation, warfighters beats saying Soldier-Sailor-Marine-Airman-Spacecase. All the other alternative phrases for the concept of "person employed by the military in one of the five combat arms branches" are variations on "member" and tend to sound clunky or be overly verbose, like "service member" or "member of the military." Try saying "service members" 50 times per day. Trust me, it gets old fast.

If only you hadn't found the perfect word in your description of the "problem": they are "personnel".

by FireBeyond

6/13/2026 at 1:14:59 PM

"personnel" is too broad though as it could include all of the civilian support staff, admin staff, contractors, etc. Sometime you do want a term to collectively include all of these people, but sometimes you want to just refer to the ones actively doing the military bits and not the support bits.

by Eddy_Viscosity2

6/13/2026 at 11:01:58 PM

Troops?

by shawn_w

6/13/2026 at 8:52:55 PM

America is a very war-forward country.

Founded by one, massive civil war, recently endless foreign wars to waste money and lives on.

Heck, I was snowboarding at a $250/day mega resort in Colorado and right there on the village was reciting for army/navy/air force.

You don’t see that in developed countries that are not war-obsessed

by testing22321

6/12/2026 at 10:58:13 PM

Its the same stuff as we see in the manosphere today and in Italy/Germany as fascism took hold.

by Hikikomori

6/12/2026 at 7:32:43 PM

People need to be bigger on efficacy. If it worked, we'd see evidence of it. No one's bringing that evidence forward and frankly its questionable if US officers are better than their international peers.

I don't think it's accidental the overlap between lack of accountability and the fact that warriors historically are a class, not a job.

by boondongle

6/12/2026 at 8:04:08 PM

Reminds me of the study that showed that you got very different types of people signing up to be police officers if your town's police recruiting brochure had pictures of a SWAT team versus pictures of a police officer doing community outreach at a school and shaking hands.

by alexpotato

6/12/2026 at 9:43:50 PM

I knew a guy who wanted to be a police officer in the LA area.

They gave him a psychological exam.

one of the questions was something along the lines of "you pull over a drunk driver, and it turns out to be your mother. what do you do?"

I asked him what he said.

He said he would call another officer and have him take her home.

I was thinking, wow.

He said if someone answers that they would arrest her, they wouldn't hire that person.

Took me a while to work through it and wrap my mind around all of it.

by m463

6/13/2026 at 1:39:25 AM

(Spoilers ahead for the first few minutes of "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse")

After I watch a movie for the first time I like to check out a few YouTube reaction channels to see their take on it. They sometimes catch interesting things I missed.

I've watched a few such reactions to "Across the Spider-Verse" and one interesting thing that stood out is when after a fight Spider-Women, who is wanted for murder, is out of webs and cannot escape when Captain Stacy, who is leading the effort to capture her, arrives. Captain Stacy does not know that Spider-Woman is his daughter. She reveals her identity to him, says she is innocent, and he is clearly conflicted, but finally starts reading her her rights.

The reactors almost uniformly condemn him for this, some quite adamantly. They think he should have let her go.

by tzs

6/12/2026 at 9:50:02 PM

I would assume that the thinking is that someone that says they would arrest (or have arrested) their own mother, is a liar.

by mothballed

6/12/2026 at 11:34:53 PM

This is very charitable assumption.

by fatbird

6/12/2026 at 8:34:35 PM

...without apparently controlling for the extent to which people _become_ "very different types of people" in agencies who advertise one way or the other.

Either way, it's beyond obvious in 2026 that SWAT teams are no longer necessary and are far, far more trouble than they're worth. Abolish them today.

by jMyles

6/12/2026 at 8:53:21 PM

And it's almost always done for some drug related crime. End the War on Drugs now!

by pstuart

6/12/2026 at 8:40:16 PM

It's probably indisputable at this point that inviting the citizen gravy seals to deal with real threats will probably result in fewer innocent victims than a professional SWAT force that professionally sometimes rescues hostages while also mostly being used to throw flashbangs at babies and terrorize people at 2am no-knocks over petty crimes.

by mothballed

6/12/2026 at 8:43:26 PM

Those who get to brand a thing rules a thing!

This quote comes to mind: "Ain't no Uzi's made in Harlem. Not one of us in here owns a poppy field. This thing is bigger than Nino Brown. This is big business. This is the American way."

by copindustrial

6/13/2026 at 12:33:20 AM

I'm so ingrained to the sampling of this song that I heard it as "This thing is bigger than Immortal Technique." before "Oh... yeah."

by FireBeyond

6/12/2026 at 9:41:41 PM

Warrior mentality creates an US vs Them framework vs We.

In Game Theory, with two parties, this equates to Win, Loose scenario. The best outcome in Game Theory is Win, Win.

Society will fall part in the long run when not focused on the best outcome for all parties.

by yndoendo

6/13/2026 at 12:14:00 AM

> it has become a point of professional pride to refer to the “police warrior.”

Conversely, in a large portion of the fire service, the movement has been to eschew the title "firefighter" for "fireman" (regardless of gender). Part tradition but also part a belief that being "a man of fire", living, breathing... understanding... it goes a long way towards being able to control and manage it safely. Backdraft was cheesy and cringy in many a way, but one thing it touched on is the predictability of fire, and how absent variables (sadly a rare thing in the real world) it is possible to understand how it moves and grows and how best to contain it.

by FireBeyond

6/12/2026 at 6:16:10 PM

(2015)

by throwaway81523

6/12/2026 at 6:17:31 PM

And more relevant with each passing year. This is a meme that seems to have infected every law enforcement organization.

by NDlurker

6/12/2026 at 5:24:08 PM

And citizens become the "enemy".

by jqpabc123

6/12/2026 at 8:54:34 PM

Hey, there is no need to anthropomorphize the targets.

by Nevermark

6/12/2026 at 7:06:38 PM

Look at some cities Animal Control officers - athletic guys, black uniform, black high boots - real Warriors-Stormtroopers protecting the defenseless community from that kitten.

by trhway

6/12/2026 at 8:40:04 PM

As an urban farm nerd I've experienced this first hand in western Canada, "the chickens smell" indeed and??? "Our bylaws are so poorly written we can fine you $10,000 a day for your 6 urban chickens subjectively having a smell" ... Plus bylaw officers can enter property without a warrant, they've got more rights then the police! And yet they don't know how to determine if animals are kept in appropriate conditions/can't tell if animals in your care are healthy etc. It's like a montey python sketch IRL!

by sellmesoap

6/12/2026 at 9:36:15 PM

Loose dogs can injure or kill random people they come across. Why would you mention kittens when approximately 0% of their time is spent dealing with kittens? I have no idea what animal control outfit you're talking about, but maybe they wear high boots because they go out into fields often for their work and it's more appropriate for than environment than wearing sneakers.

by IncreasePosts

6/12/2026 at 11:46:22 PM

> Loose dogs can injure or kill random people they come across.

Loose people injure and kill a lot more.

by rascul

6/13/2026 at 4:17:55 AM

Yes, but society(at least, western society) has generally agreed that the cost/benefit of loose people is reasonable and that of loose dogs are not.

by IncreasePosts

6/12/2026 at 9:52:52 PM

>Loose dogs can injure or kill random people they come across.

In theory - may be. On practice - typical fear mongering. The dogs in US cities are very docile, and those couple times (over 26 year here) i saw lost dogs they were pretty skittish about strangers.

>Why would you mention kittens when approximately 0% of their time is spent dealing with kittens?

you again have no idea what you're talking about.

> I have no idea what animal control outfit you're talking about

yep.

> but maybe they wear high boots because they go out into fields often for their work and it's more appropriate for than environment than wearing sneakers.

again pure theory. It was an urban AC. And neighboring ACs wear normal dark shoes. There are a lot of high boots if one needs it, yet these ones were obviously designed/chosen to complete the Stormtrooper look (tactical pants into the boots, etc.). No wonder they had these athletic youngish guys working there - in all other ACs that i've seen the mix of the people has been much more diverse.

by trhway

6/13/2026 at 2:23:50 AM

What are you even talking about?

You're vaguely referring to one city's animal control. Can you name the city? Because if you just Google "animal control uniform", there are zero results showing what you describe. Most uniforms look essentially like park ranger uniforms, or police/parking enforcement uniforms.

by IncreasePosts

6/12/2026 at 6:18:24 PM

Yes, the days of Andy Griffith is long gone, at least in the US the country is slowly turning the local police into storm troopers.

But even back then, some groups of people were treated badly by the local police in some areas. Now it seems the bad treatment is has become "DEI" instead of good treatment expanding to everyone. :(

Ref for non-US people and the very young:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andy_Griffith_Show

by jmclnx

6/12/2026 at 6:31:27 PM

Those days never existed. In real life Andy Griffith would be an alcoholic who beats his wife and lynches black people who don't get out of Mayberry before the sun sets.

Cops have always been this way.

by krapp

6/12/2026 at 7:16:57 PM

They're still beating their wives and killing black guys for no good reason only except now they're also treating everyone else like shit too.

Progress(TM)

by cucumber3732842

6/12/2026 at 7:10:56 PM

Source?

I have a close relative that’s a cop, he’s a really good person, father and husband. I’ve known several other cops and never knew a truly bad person.

by RickJWagner

6/12/2026 at 7:37:40 PM

There's an old report (like from the 1990s) on this that put the DV rates at 40%. That's probably high but it's the source for a lot of the "cops beat their wives" claims.

A fundamental problem with cops is the thin blue line is very real. The rise of cameras on cops shows pretty clearly that a decent number of cops bend over backwards to protect their own. I find it pretty easy to believe that cops won't arrest their fellow officers on a DV call.

Police unions fight HARD to stop any sort of accountability or tracking of misbehavior of cops.

by cogman10

6/12/2026 at 8:40:04 PM

That's what the ACAB sentiment is about. It's not that all cops beat their wives or make up reasons to pull over minorities. It's that the ones who don't do that still cover for the ones who do.

by wat10000

6/12/2026 at 9:43:23 PM

That study is extremely misrepresented. It looked at household conflict rates, but the internet imagined that every act of violence was perpetrated by the officer, and not the spouse. In fact, the study found that the spouses of officers reported a higher rate of aggressive acts against their spouses, than officers did against their spouses.

The researchers also didn't conduct these studies on non-officers in the same location, in order to determine a baseline rate.

You also have the fact that "violent behavior" was not defined by the researches, so it left everyone to use their own personal definition. Maybe people thought violent behavior was yelling, or slamming doors. Is that domestic violence? Maybe, but I think when most people hear domestic violence they imagine a man beating up his wife.

And then there is the issue that these studies only involved a few hundred people from a specific location, like 40 years ago.

by IncreasePosts

6/12/2026 at 10:10:20 PM

Fine, but where are the studies showing the conclusion is false?

by cwmoore

6/13/2026 at 2:21:42 AM

The conclusion is as true as the study shows. The conclusion was based on the questionnaire given to cops and their spouses in 1991 in some small town, those were the results. It's on other people who want to expand that to argue that 40% of cops beat their wives or whatever to show that it's true.

by IncreasePosts

6/12/2026 at 7:19:43 PM

While I don't disagree with the sentiment, since you have a friend who's a cop I'm compelled to ask the uncomfortable question, is an otherwise good cop who protects bad cops still a good cop?

by Lendal

6/12/2026 at 8:23:58 PM

That’s a good question.

You know how all the people taking part in a robbery get charged with murder if just one of them kills someone?

I’d view it like that. A cop that covers up corruption for a partner is guilty of corruption. A cop that covers up a DUI carries a similar amount of guilt.

A cop that exercises ‘professional courtesy’ to overlook a minor traffic violation? Same negligible amount of guilt.

I think it seems about right.

by RickJWagner

6/13/2026 at 2:05:04 AM

You aren't acknowledging an awareness of culture or systemic issues. Cops that remain on the force despite being aware of the excessive force, rampant theft, corruption, institutional racism and lack of accountability choose to accept and implicitly support that system for their own benefit. That's why people use the metaphor of "bad apples" to refer to police. You can't remain a good person in an evil system.

I'm sure Derek Chauvin was a real nice guy to his friends and neighbors, but he still murdered George Floyd in cold blood. Cops are great at compartmentalizing, it's part of the job.

by krapp

6/12/2026 at 8:40:26 PM

The problem for people like that is that they're working in a system that rewards and mandates bad behavior. You want your traffic tickets to stick so you can make quota? Ticket more black and poor people. They won't contest the tickets as much. Drug arrest and conviction quota? Find people who can't afford an attorney, they'll get an overworked PD and likely take a fast plea bargain.

Good people are responsive to the incentives we've created for them also.

by dgacmu

6/12/2026 at 6:42:58 PM

[flagged]

by TehCorwiz

6/12/2026 at 6:23:35 PM

This is a shallow piece, if ever there was one. Sure the word "warrior" and its connotations are dangerous, but that barely skims the surface of the problem. Why are police given military ranks? Corporals and sergeants and captains. Hell, some are majors and colonels too. Why are their uniforms styled to look martial at all? Has anyone considered that perhaps they shouldn't be armed like soldiers? There doesn't need to be an assault rifle in the trunk of each squad car (isn't this the point of having SWAT? why bother if everyone is SWAT?). Can we even safely call them officers? We call the command structure of the army and navy "officers", but we also use that term for those who aren't military, so maybe it's safe.

by NoMoreNicksLeft

6/12/2026 at 6:52:14 PM

There's an entire book on this topic if you want to read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_the_Warrior_Cop

by wmf

6/12/2026 at 9:12:14 PM

to me, the most interesting, actionable police-ology has been reforming two trends:

- modern 911, which rewards reactive, rather than proactive, policing

- the ever expanding mission of police officers. there's only one uniformed police officer class. experts and police all want specialization, just like in the medical field.

from a police chief:

> We’re asking cops to do too much in this country. We are. Every societal failure, we put it off on the cops to solve. Not enough mental health funding, let the cops handle it…. Here in Dallas we got a loose dog problem; let’s have the cops chase loose dogs. Schools fail, let’s give it to the cops … That’s too much to ask. Policing was never meant to solve all those problems

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/law-and-social-inqui...

warrior versus guardian isn't really actionable - what are you going to do, pass a law that says that training materials have to say guardian? versus, pass a law that appropriates funding for specialized workforces, that's par for the course in municipalities.

by doctorpangloss

6/13/2026 at 4:25:13 PM

Words indicate intentions, and framing changes mindset.

Starting by changing the names of the ranks to British-style ranks and changing the training materials to the American guardian / British Peelian mindset wouldn't suddenly fix everything, but it would at least be a start.

by lambdaone

6/12/2026 at 10:18:39 PM

>what are you going to do, pass a law that says that training materials have to say guardian?

What if you did? You don't think that would have any effect at all?

by NoMoreNicksLeft

6/12/2026 at 9:39:53 PM

I'm in a Commonwealth country, so our police ranks derive from the Metropolitan Police of London - there's still a sergeant rank, but otherwise it's constable, inspector etc.

by EdwardDiego

6/12/2026 at 9:58:41 PM

...and those rank titles were deliberately chosen at the formation of the Met to make it expressly look non-military. The Peelian principles are still a good read.

by pmyteh

6/12/2026 at 7:27:52 PM

why not? if its a professional force. plenty of other countries people use as models have military and police linked together, imo we're (USA) just missing the punishment part. Need to court martial police more :). Whole point of police is internal force application right. Can't really enforce any laws without use of force.

by Nicook

6/12/2026 at 6:48:32 PM

I think a lot of the questions you pose have some interesting psychology behind them. Other countries don't have this same level of policing, but also have different prison systems.

I think a large amount of the danger American police face is due to how easily a single arrest can ruin your productive life. One facing the loss of their home, pets, job, important documents, sentimental items might not see the difference between losing everything, and losing everything and taking the guy who's taking it from you, with you.

If we had an actual system based on reform rather than punishment, I think the danger police would be in would be greatly reduced.

You also have things like qualified immunity and general protections for police against being sued for an unlawful arrest. An officer can incorrectly arrest you and you could lose everything and be simply shit out of luck.

If there's no repercussions for bad cops, there's no justice. If there's no justice, why would one play nicely with the law, therefore police are in danger.

by MSFT_Edging

6/12/2026 at 6:58:46 PM

> I think a large amount of the danger American police face is due to how easily a single arrest can ruin your productive life. One facing the loss of their home, pets, job, important documents, sentimental items might not see the difference between losing everything, and losing everything and taking the guy who's taking it from you, with you.

I don't think it's that complicated. Rather, I think that a lot of cops think they're in more danger than they really are. The vast, vast majority of people aren't going to gun them down for a traffic stop or for providing a warning about something. The situations where they're likely to get shot are exceedingly rare. By treating policing as some tremendously dangerous job we're completely ignoring the actual statistics, which show that firefighters and construction workers are far more routinely in physical danger.

The police then get carte blanche to walk around treating everyone like some dangerous creature ready to explode at the slightest provocation when most of us are just trying to get by and are pretty accepting of the benign law enforcement interactions we get.

by throwway120385

6/12/2026 at 8:48:52 PM

Isn't it maybe because of the gun use here? in other countries is not like anybody can shoot you, even a civilians here feels like sometimes people get mad and just shoot each other

by kelvinjps10

6/12/2026 at 9:01:54 PM

If you've ever walked up to your neighbor and politely asked them to do or not do something then by that logic you're putting yourself at immense physical risk. I think the vast majority of people, even gun owners, are generally civil and don't wish other people harm.

by throwway120385

6/12/2026 at 9:17:21 PM

Given that gun owners skew conservative and the Republican party seems to currently exist to harm people conservatives don't like (e.g. trans people). I'd say that the majority of gun owners defiitely wish other people harm, if they didn't then they wouldn't have voted for the guy who ran on a platform of causing other people harm.

by harimau777

6/12/2026 at 9:57:27 PM

You're trying to apply too much reason to an environment that runs entirely on emotion.

by xboxnolifes

6/12/2026 at 9:00:22 PM

> even a civilians here feels like sometimes people get mad and just shoot each other

Outside of Florida, with its incredibly relaxed "stand your ground" laws, this isn't really an issue in most of the US. When civilians do go around shooting people like that, they usually get arrested and imprisoned. In Florida, especially if you're a retired cop, you can shoot people for talking on their phone in a movie theater, though. So maybe avoid that state if you value your life.

by Jtsummers

6/13/2026 at 12:36:40 AM

Or South Carolina where you can shoot or shoot at or wave your gun at people who are shoplifting or who you just feel like are shoplifting. Hell, shoot them in the back as they run away, having not stolen anything, after you waved your gun at them, and find yourself acquitted. Better not tell the jury that this isn't your first time doing it, though, or they might be prejudiced by thinking this is starting to become a habit!

by FireBeyond

6/12/2026 at 7:24:21 PM

The biggest danger American police are traffic accidents. Mostly because they spent a lot of time on the streets and accidents happen. They don't get shot at all that much.

What actually happens is that American police is basically unaccountable. It must be really egregious and on multiple camera for them to face any scrutiny. And even then it is easy for them to engineer situation where it is actually ok for them to kill or be violent. Meanwhile, non-cop is supposed to have perfect self control, perfect awareness of situation and be able to follow mutually exclusive instructions yelled at him from multiple cops simultaneously.

Unaccountable groups of people always end up behaving badly. Be it priests, isolated cults or cops.

by watwut

6/12/2026 at 7:30:39 PM

this right here, our issue is mostly the accountability. Accountable people are much less likely to apply force when not needed. Trying to remember some citations, but there's really interesting data out there on citizen involved shootings v police ones. and I suspect the accountability is key.

by Nicook

6/13/2026 at 12:33:10 AM

I think it is more than a bit circular, though. Police and corrections unions are some of the biggest "tough on crime" lobbyists, to the extent that the latter have never been seen to go on the record for decriminalization of marijuana, for example.

And it's asymmetrical. "You can beat the rap, can't beat the ride" does a lot of heavy lifting: Sure. You might spend a couple of days in jail, though, you might need money for an attorney. And even if charges are dropped, or not even filed, many states make arrest records public regardless. Hell, the state of Florida will send you a bill for your jail time regardless of disposition, and guess what, not paying it is a felony.

And we've gone out of our way to protect police from the consequences of actively negligent or even malicious actions, because those same unions fear monger about cops quitting in droves if they have to face consequences for their actions.

by FireBeyond

6/12/2026 at 8:55:34 PM

I think it should be pointed out that we have the police we have because enough of the population is ok with it -- because they operate with the assumption that the cops exist to harass "others" but not themselves.

If the entire citizenry said "no more!" to this nonsense we could have better policing all around.

by pstuart

6/13/2026 at 2:39:18 AM

[dead]

by theturtle

6/12/2026 at 6:30:39 PM

When a Karen calls the cops you have to hope a Proctor doesn't show up.

by Zigurd

6/12/2026 at 10:15:29 PM

Even not knowing what “a Proctor” is meant to reference, I can immediately assume they are armed and interrogatory, and “Karen” described the situation to sound much worse than it was.

by cwmoore

6/12/2026 at 11:06:59 PM

There's been a big and long running case of Massachusetts state police and the town of Canton police trying to frame a woman for the death of a policeman. Michael Proctor is a former state police detective who "investigated" the case.

At one point in the case, a large number of text messages between various cops was released. They won't make you optimistic about cop culture.

by Zigurd

6/13/2026 at 12:21:26 AM

Cop culture is our culture, but with qualified immunity.

My point is the same either way. Thanks for the explanation.

by cwmoore

6/13/2026 at 1:37:09 PM

I've really got to push back on the claim that cop culture is just part of mainstream culture. For starters, it is a self isolating subculture. It is filled with paranoia. Some cops would claim that's for good reasons and I don't disagree, though I might be thinking of different reasons.

Cops have an elevated rate of domestic violence and addiction. The self isolation and paranoia feeds into those problems. The extreme reluctance to accept oversight and accountability that every other part of government must accept is a product of that isolation and paranoia.

It's a subculture with distinctive pathologies.

by Zigurd

6/14/2026 at 12:43:43 AM

Sure, now do corrections officers, who I’d classify as just another expression of our culture with a troubled twist.

Non-LEOs are not so especially enlightened and kind to know they could ever remain that way given similar powers and societal mandate.

I hold that the entire criminal/justice system is medieval.

by cwmoore

6/12/2026 at 8:22:38 PM

the fear to lose control due to incompetence .... is that how all those former and current self-driving/self-flying/self-digging engineers and founders feel?

jeez must they be grateful to all that stupidity their ( practically ) grand- daddies established among the rest of the world!

#HerrenRasseViaSabotageForTheWin #Austria #SouthAfrica #USA #USA #USA

by tearwear

6/12/2026 at 8:15:56 PM

semantic reinterpretation on Austrian overload. knock your favorite downer down with at least 3 bottles of wine and you'll feel only slightly behind ... an IVY LEAGUE AFICIONADO got something to say. what's the shape of his intent? levels down, I mean, not the superficial that he modestly commands ...

by tearwear

6/12/2026 at 7:10:53 PM

This is a price the US pays for the right to keep and bear arms. US cops have to assume that everyone is armed. That leads to a paranoid style of policing. As gun laws have become less restrictive, cops have armed and armored up.

by Animats

6/12/2026 at 7:14:48 PM

That doesn't explain the first ~230 years of US history though, where police weren't this way and we had the same Constitution.

by Lendal

6/12/2026 at 7:27:08 PM

It’s possible it’s a bit of an “arms” race, the police are more aggro but so are the public. At least in public perception back before the 70s its was perceived that by and large there was “respect for authority” but that’s eroded over the decades for various reasons among them court cases asserting more rights for individuals where cops can’t just up and arrest willy nilly. But also movements like “sovereign citizen” leaks in places enough to affect behavior elsewhere.

Also weapons are relatively cheaper today than decades ago.

by mc32

6/12/2026 at 7:34:06 PM

There's an insane number of police shootings where it turns out the person was looking at an insanely large sentence and they "weren't going back to jail." From that perspective it's not even clear they're acting irrationally -- if the penalty for third-striking for stealing a TV and murder is the same then some criminals are going to make it worth their while.

by mothballed

6/12/2026 at 8:42:32 PM

"suicide by cop" is a narrative also used to cover up a bad police shooting.

by RajT88

6/13/2026 at 12:24:26 AM

Jail is a medieval institution with state actor technology.

by cwmoore

6/12/2026 at 11:30:59 PM

Assault rifles were banned for most of that time. Now I can go buy 10,000 rounds of green tip XM85 ammo and an AR platform at a gun show in an hour. I’m not saying that justifies militarization (that’s mostly war profiteers selling to police departments and right wing alignment with law enforcement) but OP isn’t completely wrong.

by supertroop

6/13/2026 at 12:08:00 AM

Assault rifles were banned for 10 years.

by rascul

6/13/2026 at 1:57:45 AM

They were not legal to buy until the 1980s.

by supertroop

6/13/2026 at 12:53:42 PM

That's not true, on a federal level. Colt was selling a civilian model of the ar15 to the public in the 60s

by rascul

6/12/2026 at 7:27:04 PM

If everyone is really armed, that's the single biggest reason why standard doctrine should be de-escalation first.

But US Cops always escalate instead. They want the fight, they aren't looking for safety.

by mrguyorama

6/12/2026 at 7:31:51 PM

>If everyone is really armed, that's the single biggest reason why standard doctrine should be de-escalation first.

See also: Game wardens during hunting season vs game wardens during fishing season.

by cucumber3732842

6/12/2026 at 7:48:36 PM

There’s not much to back this up, at least that you’ve included as reference.

The bigger issue that comes to mind and that you can actually look in to is the practice of teaching police departments about “Killology”. This is (or was) a kind of seminar that taught departments this mindset of “everyone that an officer interacts with is a potential threat”. Add this to the “super criminal” bs that was popular in the 80s/90s, the constant right-wing fearmongering about dangerous criminals in blue cities, and the militarization of police, and it feels more like they’ve been primed for violence from the power structure more-so than any actual threat from the public.

by phatskat

6/12/2026 at 10:22:00 PM

thats what happened to presumption of innocence absent indications of guilt.

by rolph

6/12/2026 at 7:27:39 PM

At the range nearly all casual police interactions like traffic stop happen happen at (<20ft), a knife has to be treated just as deadly as a gun. So even if you remove the guns you'll still have to treat everyone as a deadly threat under such a model.

by mothballed

6/12/2026 at 7:39:04 PM

20 feet is approximately the distance a person can rush forward, and have a decent chance of engaging in a weapon retention challenge.

its also the effective range for most people snap drawing a pistol in a use of force situation.

by rolph

6/13/2026 at 4:41:47 PM

And yet mysteriously the British police seem to be able to deal with such situations with nothing more than a Taser - and often manage to avoid even using that. And yet, in spite of all the falsehoods being spread about knife crime levels, their mortality rate is much less than that in the US.

by lambdaone

6/12/2026 at 8:37:21 PM

> As gun laws have become less restrictive...

Do you have a reliable citation for this claim? [0] I disbelieve that this has been happening in any substantial way in the US. I expect that at very best, they've stayed roughly as restrictive as they have been for quite a long time.

> US cops have to assume that everyone is armed.

Weird. In San Francisco, California (a city of roughly 800->900k), the regular CompStat reports [1] have this to say about the number of incidents of firearm violence (whether fatal or non-fatal) in the city:

* 2022 -> 185 incidents

* 2023 -> 162 incidents

* 2024 -> 132 incidents

* 2025 -> 101 incidents

For fun, you can slap this pretty fucking shitty Power BI dashboard [2] around to compare those numbers to the number of times cops have either threatened to shoot or have shot someone each year.

Weirdly, I'm having great difficulty finding the city's officer injury reports. In the absence of those reports, I'll assume that policing still doesn't crack the top ten most hazardous jobs in the US, and that it's still roughly as hazardous as being a groundskeeper or professional athlete.

[0] If your supporting evidence is "spooooky ghost guns", I'll laugh my way out the door.

[1] <https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/stay-safe/crime-data/crim...>

[2] <https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/your-sfpd/published-repor...>

by simoncion

6/12/2026 at 9:24:36 PM

It's pretty clear to me that gun laws have become less restrictive. Stand your ground laws and open carry have become more commeon and more normalized. Tactical rifles (i.e. semi-automatic variants of military rifles like the AR) are less restricted since the "assault weapons" bans expired or were overturned. Perhaps even more importantly, ARs have become a much more prominant part of gun culture. Openly carrying guns at protests has become more normalized (although it did exist before; e.g. many Black Panther demonstrations).

by harimau777

6/12/2026 at 9:53:38 PM

> Openly carrying guns at protests has become more normalized...

Yes. For hundreds of years, open carry has been legal just about everywhere. More people choosing to do things that have been legal for ages doesn't mean that the relevant regs have been loosened.

I do note that over the past couple of decades it has become illegal to openly carry in many places, [0] so that's a substantial increase in the restrictiveness of firearms regulation.

> Tactical rifles (i.e. semi-automatic variants of military rifles like the AR)....

By this you mean to say "semi-automatic variants of rifles designed in the last sixty five-ish years". [1]

> ...are less restricted since the "assault weapons" bans expired or were overturned.

You should look into the status of state regs on firearms possession and notice how many of them have been enacted within the past decade. You should also look into the regs on ammunition production, sale, and possession. While the regulation of ammo possession, sale, and production is not literally the regulation of firearms, a firearm without its ammo is no fun to operate, unless you're really into swinging around a very expensive, poorly-balanced club.

[0] ...among them, schools, hospitals, wherever a private business owner places a legally-conformant notice...

[1] Seriously, go look at when the AR-15 was designed and first manufactured.

by simoncion

6/12/2026 at 7:46:26 PM

Even if the right changed, the main actual causes of police caution would remain:

- a land border with a large continent that has a lot of guns and violence and criminality

- millions and millions of existing guns, the criminal holdings of which would not decrease following a change in the law

- subcultures that glorify violence and teach it as a path in life, particularly how to be a man and what sort of man to be attracted to

by philipallstar

6/12/2026 at 7:59:14 PM

> a land border with a large continent that has a lot of guns and violence and criminality

That's a curious perception indeed, given that guns predominantly flow from the US to Mexico and not the other way around, and guns in Mexico are of mostly US origin.

by boothby

6/12/2026 at 10:55:36 PM

Unclear which side you are talking about.

by Hikikomori

6/12/2026 at 7:33:05 PM

I suspect this fear of guns largly explains the additional risks police face.

assuming everyone has a gun and is willing to use it, raises the stakes of every encounter. so instead of a police encounter starting at a very low risk level (casual conversation), it starts a very close to deadly force risk.

This causes both sides to be a lot more tense, with a lot less room for mistakes. It also makes any encounter feel very risky.

I don't think people having a gun prevents police from starting an encounter at a casual level. But the assumption everyone is out to harm them, and has the means to do so, does.

by randoomed

6/12/2026 at 9:05:13 PM

Plausible sounding theory, but in reality what kills cops is traffic accidents. Even there it's not people running them over. Cops are seldom charged with DUI where other dangerous behavior on the roads.

by Zigurd