Now I certainly won't argue that we don't have a problem, but I also won't overlook a misleading use of statistics. The post opens with a comparison of the number of people killed or hospitalized by cops, then compares that with the number of people killed by substances. These numbers are not measuring the same thing and thus can't be compared in any meaningful way. Extrapolating from KilledByPolice.net's data, we can safely assume the number of people killed by police in 2012 was somewhere north of 1,000, which, even though KBP's numbers are a lower bound, doesn't compare nearly as dramatically with the 14,000 deaths by substances.
It's generally difficult to determine how many people were killed by police in a given year. As the Washington Post points out, the government is more than happy to track spurious shark attacks per year, or how many domesticated pigs live in the country, but they simply can't be bothered to keep track of how many people their goons have killed [1]. This indicates that we should be talking about the issue, but publishing apples-and-oranges statistics comparisons probably won't help. It may even undermine our arguments.
We can do better than this.
Mr. @modprobe. I upvoted your comment because I respect critiques that help my content become the best it can be. I really care about the reputation of my content so thanks for calling me out. I agree with part of what you said and was fully expecting someone to raise that issue when I published the post. I was surprised more people didn't say something so congrats for catching it.
You ended your comment a little cold so I'll chalk that up as you may have had a fight with your wife. lol. Nowhere in the article do I speak of apples or oranges. Oranges are not the drug of choice for most and pigs like apples but I am not comparing fruits....lol.
I was aware I compared deaths and hospitalizations by police to deaths by narcotics. I almost explained this statistical can of worms before publishing but I didn't want to bore the reader with detailed micro-obsessive stats. I realize now I should have so I am adding parts of my rebuttal to the article. Thanks.
I fully agree with your discovery that cops killed 1307 citizens in one year and the three drugs mentioned only killed about 14,000. Despite this truth, my claim stands: "Using drugs is safer than using cops." Your argument stands numerically but not proportionately. Again, I should have explained this in the publishing. My bad.
For instance, tons and tons of cocaine are imported into the U.S. each day. We can determine millions and millions of Americans have daily used cocaine for decades and still do. In comparison, that number of humans are not daily arrested and searched by cops. This means an exponentially higher number of people use cocaine than who are arrested or searched.
The above paragraph is only considering cocaine and not the millions of daily heroin and methamphetamine users. Proportionately, it's valid to say snorting coke, shooting heroin and smoking crystal is much safer than snorting, shooting or smoking a cop. Puns not intended. lol.
I didn't title the article, "Cops kill more people than drugs," we can consider a fact I included in the article. The U.S. has incarcerated more citizens than any country in history...numerically and proportionately. China has one Billion more in population yet we have more prisoners. The U.S. has 5% of the world's population but houses 25% of the world's inmates in their prison camps. Over 40 million people have been caged for drug crimes and their are currently over 2 million in prison at this time.
Cocaine, heroin or meth have never thrown a user in a cage. I have been jailed on many occasions and can testify that sometimes, death would be better. American jails and prisons are pure torture dungeons. Along with cops killing 1307 citizens, they have also tortured millions and millions more while narcotics haven't.
I added this rebuttal to the post because I think you have a good point. Future readers of this article deserve to hear more support of my claims. I am always looking for ways to improve so I sincerely appreciate people who take their time to call me out.
Peace and big love @modprobe. I enjoy your blog and your huge support of the Steemit community. Keep it coming homie.
Barry