Why no violent crime in Iceland, where gun ownership is common?

Tags

guns, Iceland, RKBA, violent crime

There was a first in Iceland: “Police in Iceland have shot dead a gunman – the first time armed police have killed someone in the country.” Police there are normally NOT armed. (same link) And Icelanders are armed, 90K guns owned by 300K people (same link).

Whoa. For someone who grew up in the Bronx, follows US news, and often carries a concealed handgun because of the first two points this is remarkable. Why is this so? How do they do this? What can we Americans learn from them?

The linked article suggests very low hard drug use, and 97% identify as middle or working class which suggests they don’t have a parasitic economic elite like we do.

Could there be a different, or additional answer? Steve Sailer, one of my favorite alt-right writers, thinks the answer is that it is full of Islanders and has almost no “diversity”.

I’ll go with all of the above.

Dallas Cops Kill Suspect with a Robot Delivered Bomb

Tags

killer robot, police

In the mourning over the murders of five police officers in Dallas, and relief that the standoff had ended, one unusual detail stuck out: the manner in which police killed one suspect after negotiations failed.

“We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was,” Chief David Brown said in a press conference Friday morning. “Other options would have exposed our officers to grave danger. The suspect is deceased … He’s been deceased because of a detonation of the bomb.”

That use of a robot raises questions about the way police adopt and use new technologies. While many police forces have adopted robots—or, more accurately, remote-controlled devices—for uses like bomb detonation or delivery of non-lethal force like tear gas, using one to kill a suspect is at least highly unusual and quite possibly unprecedented.

“I’m not aware of officers using a remote-controlled device as a delivery mechanism for lethal force,” said Seth Stoughton, an assistant professor of law at the University of South Carolina who is a former police officer and expert on police methods. “This is sort of a new horizon for police technology. Robots have been around for a while, but using them to deliver lethal force raises some new issues.”

Robotics expert Peter Singer of New America also told the Associated Press he believed the use was unprecedented.

This may be the first time US police used a robot to intentionally kill a suspect. Link: http://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/07/dallas-police-robot/490478/