\n\nI join my voice to those of Rand Paul and other prominent libertarians who are reacting to the violence in Ferguson, Mo. by calling for the demilitarization of the U.S.\u00e2\u0080\u0099s police. Beyond question, the local civil police in the U.S. are too heavily armed and in many places have developed an adversarial attitude towards the civilians they serve, one that makes police overreactions and civil violence almost inevitable.
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But also note an uncomfortable truth:
\n\n\n... a young black or \u00e2\u0080\u009cmixed\u00e2\u0080\u009d male is roughly 26 times more likely to be a homicidal threat than a random person outside that category \u00e2\u0080\u0093 older or younger blacks, whites, hispanics, females, whatever. If the young male is unambiguously black that figure goes up, about doubling.
\n26 times more likely. That\u00e2\u0080\u0099s a lot. It means that even given very forgiving assumptions about differential rates of conviction and other factors we probably still have a difference in propensity to homicide (and other violent crimes for which its rates are an index, including rape, armed robbery, and hot burglary) of around 20:1. That\u00e2\u0080\u0099s being very generous, assuming that cumulative errors have thrown my calculations are off by up to a factor of 6 in the direction unfavorable to my argument.
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via Demilitarize the police \u00e2\u0080\u0093 and stop flinging false racism charges.
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