It's rare even in NI.

PSNI had one single firearm discharge in the two year period covering October 2023 - September 2025.

Plus 948 uses of irritant spray, 496 uses of their baton, and 38 taser discharges in the same period. And 23,489 uses of "unarmed physical tactics".

That's for a population of around 2 million. By comparison, SFPD had 10 "officer involved shootings" in the past year for a population of 800k, a rate fifty times higher than that in NI.

▲

BobaFloutist 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The one thing I'll say in defense of American cops is that they are police a population that's vastly more likely to have their own guns, too.

Of course it's not like American cops have recognized the danger that poses and politically aligned themselves with reducing or restricting access to guns, so they lose a lot of credit there, but they are genuinely facing a better armed and therefore more dangerous population.

▲

roryirvine an hour ago | parent | next [-]

To be fair, guns aren't exactly unknown in NI, either!

There are 153k people who have legal firearms (so about 10% of the adult population, vs about three times that in the US). That's largely farmers with shotgun licenses (NI is pretty rural by European standards) plus licensed "weapons for personal protection" for people exposed to threats for whatever reason as a legacy of the Troubles.

And then there are some unknown number with illegally-held guns - the main armed groups put their weapons "beyond use" as part of the decommissioning process in the 2000s, but inevitably some will have been missed, and then there are the dissident groups who still hold significant amounts of weaponry.

Hard to put an exact figure on it, but if you guesstimate it at a weapons ownership rate at about half that of the US you probably wouldn't be too far from the truth.

So even after accounting for the differential in gun ownership, SFPD are still shooting people at ~25x the rate of the PSNI.

▲

atherton94027 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Canada has the same rates of gun ownership as America and you don't see cops come up with guns blazing like they do here

▲

EdwardDiego 20 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

If Canada is like New Zealand, which also has a similarly high rate of gun ownership - it's largely different types of guns - that is, guns for hunting, not for killing people - very hard to conceal a rifle or shotgun compared to a pistol.

▲

dogemaster2025 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Let’s bring data:

Civilian firearms per 100 people: - US = 120.5 vs Canada = 34.7

Share of adults with guns: - US = 32% vs Canada = 19%

Share who CARRY a gun: - US = 26% of handgun owners carry all the time and 32% most of the time vs Canada = almost nobody carries

Source: ChatGPT

▲

42 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

▲

ceejayoz an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Let’s bring data:

> Source: ChatGPT

Please tell me this is a joke?

	▲	dogemaster2025 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Why? Do you have different data or you just don’t like the numbers? - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/24/key-facts... - https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/guns-an... - https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2025001/article...

▲

Open-Sourcery an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

"My source is that I made it the fuck up"

	▲	dogemaster2025 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Ok let me spoon feed you too. Remember never to bring useless commentary to a data fight: - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/24/key-facts... - https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/guns-an... - https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2025001/article...

▲

Anthony-G 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

True. The PSNI have had an excellent record – particularly given the difficult context they work in.

I guess the above poster is thinking of the shoot-to-kill era of the 80s (still well within living memory): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot-to-kill_policy_in_Northe...

	▲	roryirvine 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, it was very different back then. And not just the police - we had the army on the streets with weapons drawn, routinely aiming at passersby. The political situation in the late 1960s provided plenty of kindling, but it seems clear that most of the sparks that actually caused the conflagration came from the barrel of guns held by soldiers and the police. They were directly responsible both for the death of the civil rights movement and the collapse of the government, and without the heavy-handed response it's likely that the settlement of the late 90s would've happened 25 years earlier. It's actually a great example of why the militarisation of policing should be resisted at all cost.