Guns and Statistics

It's an odd statistic that came out this week.

In 2011...German cops fired a grand total of 85 bullets in relationship to their job (not training).  Of that 85 bullets....forty-nine were simply warning shots.  The rest?  Six folks were killed and fifteen were wounded.

We won't go into comparison about the American side of the statistics....because we can typically fire fifty or more rounds at just one guy....at one crime scene....and that's on just a good day.

Germans will quickly pick up on a story like this and chat on how America is so terribly wrong.  We fire too many rounds.  We react too quickly.  We drive around with machine guns in police cruisers.  We might fire off six hundred rounds of ammo at a pretty hostile situation.

Having lived in Germany.....I can offer these observations.

Typically, you don't have "death by cop" attitudes in Germany.  You don't openly invite the cops to your front yard and entice them to kill you with their guns.

Typically, you don't have gangs around Mainz, or Munich, or Trier.....who openly carry weapons in public.

Typically, you don't have El Salvadorian gangs operating out of Wiesbaden and shooting up rival gangs on the street.

Typically, you don't three guys showing up at your front door and showing off weapons to get you to open up your wall safe where you keep your big collection of gold coins.

But there's something else you can take from this story.  German cops are more likely to fire a warning shot....which I wouldn't argue against.  It's also pretty likely after he's fired that one warning shot....if he has to fire one more round....he's going to hit you.  Statistically, I'm only guessing here....but that's probably ten times better than you could get with any US cop.

I know Germans will twist this around and hint strongly that we just have too many guns in America....but the other side of this story is that we've also got alot of characters who just aren't friendly.....far more statistically than what any German community ever has to deal with.  We could invite a thousand ways to retrieve or take away weapons.....but it's just going to be one group affected.  These odd characters?  They aren't about to play games and they'd retain their weapons.

Germans can talk all they want on this.....but at the end of the day....they should just be thankful they live in Germany and feel that safe.  And they should be thankful that German cops don't waste ammo and always offer up a warning shot.