You are more likely to get killed by a toaster than a cop
Until there is an investigation and probably an eventual trial with actual witnesses, we won’t really know what actually happened between the white cop and the black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, and even then we won’t hear the teenager’s version of the events.
But to hear a lot of the media tell it, and the opportunists like Al Sharpton spin it, you’ve got about a 50-50 chance of being gunned down by a cop every time you step out the door of your house. And if you are black, those odds double, so you might as well just shoot yourself, because it’s only a matter of time until some white cop draws a bead on you.
In reality, a black kid in America is much, much more likely to be killed by another black kid in his own neighborhood than by any other cause. That’s a crime statistic that we should be out protesting about, and the poverty that’s the root cause of a lot of inner-city crime is something we should also be marching against.
So, how many people do local American cops shoot in a year?
According to a seven-year FBI study, police officers from about 177,000 community police agencies fatally (and justifiably) shoot about 410 people per year.
In comparison, there are about 16,200 homicides in the U.S. per year, and about 11,600 of those are by citizens using guns to shoot each other. We are a violent society.
Which means that you are far more likely, despite what Al Sharpton says, to get shot by a fellow citizen than you are by a rogue cop, even if you’re black.
In fact, you are almost twice as likely to get fatally electrocuted by a faulty toaster (791 people last year) than you are to be shot by a cop.
And ask yourself this: is that toaster going to put himself between you and a car full of gang-bangers that want to carjack you, rob you, or shoot you for a gang initiation ritual?
And despite the fact that the cops are always armed and members of the general public allegedly aren’t, about 160 cops are killed each year in the line of duty.
So, why is no one ever setting fires to their neighborhood stores and stealing big-screen TVs to protest the shooting of a cop?
These cops literally put their life on the line every single day that they go to work just to protect us from a nation full of well-armed predators who see law-abiding citizens as prey.
So, where’s Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson making speeches when any cop, including many black cops, gets shot and killed? Why isn’t the president sending aides to attend the funerals on his behalf, of any cops, black or white, shot in the line of duty?
Is there still racism in this country? Of course there is. But it is a two-way street. Jumping to conclusions about the white cop’s motivation of racism without ever hearing a word of explanation of his side of the story shows an extreme anti-white bias on the part of the rioters. If the same exact scenario had occurred, with the only exception being that the arresting officer had been black, would the outcome of this shooting have been any different?
Despite the fact that we’ve made great progress in bridging the racial divide that unfortunately still exists in this country, we’ve obviously still got a long way to go. And hopefully, some day we’ll finally get past it.
But in the meantime, let’s not make all cops the collective scapegoat for those people who still harbor racial prejudice, whether it be anti-black or anti-white.
Cops already have a nearly impossible job to do. “To protect and serve” is sometimes hard to do at the same time, especially when someone wants to get away from a cop so badly that he’s willing to injure or kill him in the process.
Let’s not put any more cops’ lives in danger by hamstringing their ability to defend themselves in dangerous situations.
There are safeguards in place to investigate and prosecute rogue or racist cops, and in the long run, that may (or may not) be what is necessary for the case in Ferguson.
But the looting and burning of businesses owned by innocent store owners, many of whom are black, solves nothing.
We can only hope that the looters stole a lot of toasters.
