More info is being released in relation to the case of the gentleman who was tasered and then fell in the Thames this week.
According to the Times, Tasers are used 32,000 times a year in England and Wales.
I wonder what the figures are like in Scotland, France, Ireland, and Northern Ireland.
And whether that means squeezing the trigger on 32,000 occasions or on 32,000 victims.
Maybe the police PR guidelines would recommend referring to the person being tazed as the perpetrator and the policeman doing the tazing as the victim.
Such is the ubiquity of victim culture.
If you are on the receiving end of an injustice then you have a choice about whether you want to do something about it.
If you come up against a powerful institution then they likely have plenty of experience in these matters and will characterise you as the perpetrator.
This is how power works in the UK and our current Prime Minister joins a long list of people who have been perfectly well rewarded for behaving according to such principles.
This is an example of the replies to the article. Almost everyone condemns the dead man and exonerates the police. Some fixate on the policeman having black skin as a sign there was no racism here.
I am sure I have friends and family that would be just as callous in this case. The majority of people commenting are unwilling to invest any time in finding out about what the dead man’s story was or his life was like before blaming him for being tazed. I would argue that in this case they belong to the “shoot first ask questions later” category.
The trigger happy mentality that propagates through our media has a knock on effect and creates a nation of psychopaths. Citizens who are ok with violence so long as it is done in their name.
A lot of conservatives seem to be ok with gun violence when it is their side using the guns.
In yesterday’s paper I saw a quote from am unnamed Tory MP saying “it’s never too soon to change the rules” in relation to allowing another no confidence vote in Boris Johnson.
Sadly the quote has disappeared. This is as close as I can currently find.
Many of the people who are happy for the tazed gentleman to have died in the Thames are likely also ok with Rittenhouse escaping jail and Boris hanging on to power.
Whilst that’s not a scientifically well researched assertion, and may say more about me than it does about you, it’s a potential correlation that’s worth thinking about.
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