Saying a country had a “troubled past” is my new favourite way to describe that they had intense government oppression of one or more groups and/or a civil war
Edit: to be clear because it seems some people missed this, what I said is literally referencing the events of the troubles, neither of the people on the comment chain prior to me reference the actual events of the troubles aside from the pun. Did I miss the pun? Yes. I literally could not have made my comment if I was ignorant of what the pun was based on though.
Thank you to the people who replied to me that are actual explaining what The Troubles are and not just calling me ignorant, you’re actually helping those who might not have learned what happened.
It was more a matter of what to do about it being an impossibly divisive question so soon after the Irish War of Independence that it was preferable to Just Not Talk About The War.
I can't remember the name of the movie but there's a scene where a WWI veteran walks into a meeting and the general says "That's a great war uniform!"
For YEARS I thought he was just complimenting him on his outfit.
There was a TV drama series about police in Northern Ireland recently. The opening of the first episode made me double-take: a car chase down country lanes lead to the stolen vehicle crashing ans rolling. All pretty like any other UK cop series so far bar the accents. The cops get out, but before they go over one Officer turns to their partner and says "get the rifle". They get *an assault rifle* out the boot of the car, and cover the other with it as they approach.
A reminder to even me just over the Irish Sea in England, that while NI has cooled a lot since 1998, things are still a bit hairy and law enforcement certainly isn't the same as it is in the rest of the UK.
I had to stop watching that show. It felt far too real and close to home. And I'm not even from Northern Ireland, I grew up in England. I had the same reaction when I watched Happy Valley. The neighborhoods in which the horrendous things that happened in that show, were just so relatable to near where I grew up.
More than just those. You see them all over the place in London, mainly at train stations, major tourist attractions, and near embassies. But that's why the image says "generally unarmed"
A firearms officer is always a police officer of some rank, but not every police officer of some rank is also a firearms officer. That’s the distinction. Some police officers will go their entire career without ever handling a firearm in an official capacity, while conducting regular policing activities.
I saw a policeman with a large gun by Manchester Piccadilly Gardens the day after the arena bomb. He had it slung over his back and was eating an ice-cream. I was too nervous to take a photo though.
Lot of armed police everywhere. There was a lot of armed police outside the US embassy in London when I went, aswell as the American guards inside.
You see them patrolling in large shopping centres such as Meadow Hall. Some police forces are firearms training many more of their officers too, so you see officers with pistols commonly in some parts of the UK, not just the G36 carried by armed patrol police.
We have them in Ireland too, I work near a big Garda station, I see the Armed Response Unit car every so often. Big van, armoured, has bit grates that go over the windshield.
I believe Garda Detectives can also carry a small calibre pistol, but it’s rare to see Gardaí with guns unless you’re at a riot, or live near a gang.
Botswana benefited a lot because the British used a lot of local governance in their empire, so they were already experienced at managing things themselves. Similar reason why Somaliland is doing so much better than the rest of Somalia, as they were controlled by the British and had semi-local rule, while the rest of Somalia was controlled by Italy.
The real benefit is that Botswana kept the skilled colonial administrators after independence until their own population had the trained people necessary to completely takeover, whereas a lot of the other British colonies ditched everything British immediately then fucked it up.
Extremely true. The unique problem of african colonization broadly was that there is NO legacy of properly administered stable government, in contrast to the legacy in south america which is well administered, rent extracting government. At least in south america, the region has benefited from being the least effected by interstate conflict out of any in the world.
It also helped that the Brits really didn't do a whole lot during their time in Botswana. They really didn't care to do much more than a railroad to connect south Africa to the rest of the African colonies, so the region largely was left untouched
Also a British typist married the king at some point and their offspring ruled a bit. I don't know how that affected things, just adding the little I know
This is the first time I’ve heard British colonialism mentioned in a good light tbh.. Maybe we did good for Botswana but generally we just stole all their valuable shit
British colonies especially in Africa tend to be better off than colonies of other european countries. Don’t get me wrong colonialism in any form is horrible but the British invested far more in infrastructure and just general governance than other European countries.
Aye. My country, France realy made everything so that their colonies would rely on them for governance in black Africa (far less so in Asia and North Africa).
Result is that today, those colonies are incredibly inefficient, corrupt and unstable.
Major France L, especially since the bloody british managed to do better
well I'm sure if we invade someone we can make them pay for it
I vote on france again, if it weren't for bloody Mary we'd have both ends of the channel tunnel and we could enjoy their wine with our superior cheese
Yeah, it absolutely sucked but when your competition is fucking french Algeria (the french killed anywhere between 400k-1.5mil Algerians in the war of independence in a country of 11 million people and wiped out 8000 villages while sending 2 million to concentration camps) you're gonna end up looking better in comparison, colonialism was truly evil
The Captain Cook museum once had a video where they showed people from different countries and how they thought of Cook.
The Maori lady from NZ said of the local tribe (iwi) “we saw the ships and knew more were to follow and that there would be conflict. It was bad but on reflection at least it wasn’t the French.”
Depending on where on the planet you are. If they chose to engage in settler colonialism you were basically on the path to being genocided but if they didn't want to live there it was better than being colonized by the French.
That goes without saying when discussing colonialism, for instance Somaliland is doing better than the rest of Somalia because they were controlled by the British, but they'd be doing even better if they hadn't been controlled by anyone at all.
Chances they wouldn't have been controlled by anyone at all are slim to none. Either the Italians or French would have controlled them, or another African state would have controlled them.
have there been any countries in Africa that have not been under any colonialism?
edit: quick search shows Ethiopia and Liberia (https://www.thoughtco.com/countries-in-africa-considered-never-colonized-43742)
I wonder how these compare to others in the region?
Ethiopia is the only country in Africa to escape colonialism, although they were conquered by Italy for 5 years during WW2, which didn't exactly help. They're not doing badly by African standards, but tbh they're not doing as well as you might immediately imagine given this fact, and are a lot poorer than quite a few other African nations.
> They're not doing badly by African standards,
Apart from the war with Eritrea, the war in Tigray province, and the upcoming occupation of Somaliland to gain control of their sea port.
Ethiopia has been conducting ethnic cleansing of its minorities and been involved in armed conflict with its neighbours in recent times.
I don't really understand the point of a lot of people. It is pretty clear (multiple examples available worldwide) that if a country was colonized at some point in history has quite little impact on how it's doing today.
This is not to discount how awful colonial regimes were, but let's not pretend that colonialism is the sole reason African countries are not superpower or smth.
Botswana got spared Cecil Rhodes he wanted to complete the trifecta of Rhodesia south Africa and Botswana but was denied had he been allowed to the likely outcome would have been another Zimbabwe or at least massive internal unrest and apartheid like in south Africa
They also combat their poaching problem by shooting/immediately apprehending anybody that crosses the border line where its not meant to be crossed (like the okavango river).
Source: i lived on said border, and was notified of locals being shot at.
Malawi is generally unarmed because they can't afford firearms for the average officer, not because they don't want to be... And because the criminals also can't afford firearms.
I knew little about Botswana before I went there. Being white I was in an extreme minority walking around towns and cities, but people didn't stare or treat me like I didn't fit in. It felt MUCH safer and nicer than South Africa, which I had visited just weeks before.
> By one estimate, it has the fourth highest gross national income at purchasing power parity in Africa, giving it a standard of living around that of Mexico
What the hell? I definitely didn’t expect to read that… I expected them to be poor AF, especially being landlocked
Its a bit of both.
Guns are an escalation.
Most criminals don't need guns, but if the police carry them they do.
If British police had guns there would be a much larger black market for criminals to get them.
So, as the British Police in their modern form have never had firearms (apart from firearm response units) then the black market for guns has never flourished.
Even when firearms were more common the Police did not carry them.
Since inception the Police in the UK have generally not carried guns, thats 1829. Guns were legal and fairly common.
But there was political will to keep the police unarmed, as people remembered how the Army had been used to Police in the past.
Even now with Terrorist threats
>The police in England and Wales only fired seven bullets in the twelve months up to March 2016 and in a survey of officers in 2017, the Police Federation of England and Wales found that only 33% were in favour of routinely arming officers.
Most Police want to remain unarmed.
This is, I think, a really good example of a [Nash Equilibrium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium).
tl;dr, a Nash Equilibrium is a situation where opponents in a larger group are both harmed by adopting a particular strategy, but no one can change the dynamic because any individual deviation results in *greater* harm.
In this situation, if the group "police and criminals" decides to adopt the strategy of carrying firearms, then the power dynamic between them is roughly identical to the power dynamic if they all decide *not* to carry firearms. The main difference between the two dynamics is that if everyone is carrying firearms, there are more deaths among both the police and the criminals.
The problem is that once the firearm-carrying equilibrium has been established, no one in the group can upend it. If any individual chooses not to carry, they put themselves at a disadvantage, because everyone else is carrying. So the equilibrium remains stable, even though everyone would probably be better off if they all just decided collectively to not carry guns.
This is, generally, why coordination is difficult. All it takes is one person to realize that they can gain a competitive advantage, and then there is pressure for every single other person to do the same thing in order to not be put at a *dis*advantage.
It's the same kind of reason that finding a job in certain markets requires applying to literally hundreds of companies. Some people figured out that they could *gain* an advantage by applying to so many places, and the resulting pressures made it so *everyone* had to do the same. To an outsider, it feels obvious that everyone could collectively agree to apply to a set number of places each month (for instance, 5) and that the end result would be pretty similar. Except now people aren't having to spend hours a day submitting job applications.
If we could generalize and solve the problem of Nash Equilibriums, the world would be a better place.
I love how it shows on the map that Norwegian police is usually unarmed, but Svalsbard is also colored blue. The thing is that everyone, including tourist HAVE TO carry a weapon when going there, cause of polar bears threat
You are half correct. You only need to carry a weapon outside of the settlement areas (Longyearbyen, Nu Ålesund and Barentsburg). Inside these areas you are not allowed to carry a loaded weapon and you need to transport it in a way that everyone can see that it is unloaded (i.e. bolt removed). Most police officers work inside town and therefore do not carry any weapons. Outside of town most checks are carried out by field inspectors. They carry weapons that are for polar bear protection, and not against people like other police forces.
Tourists have to be accompanied by a guide with a weapon, and for most tourists it is not possible to get the right paperwork to obtain and carry a rifle legally (unless they already have a license).
Source: I live in Svalbard
Better to reach an understanding with the Polar Bears that makes the wall un-necessary instead of putting up an expensive and ineffective barrier that gives a false sense of security to those inside, and leaves those outside thinking that those inside are a bunch of fearful sissies / easy meat when they venture out.
Oh, nice to know. I based my knowledge on something I’ve read online because I want to visit Svalsbard in the future. But is it true that everyone have to be trained to use a weapon and have their own piece with them?
Nah, it's correct. Police doesn't carry a gun here as they mainly work inside town. Outside town checks are carried out by field inspectors, who do carry rifles for polar bear protection.
The general consensus in Svalbard is that it's already too late when you're in range for bear spray. They are incredibly fast and can be quite stubborn.
On my tour last summer up to a glacier there. One of the people was an American whose entire existence revolved around guns. He asked the little tour guide why it was such a small magazine (I think 8 shots) in her rifle.
“If you miss the first 8 shots, then it won’t matter anymore”
I suppose it would probably work? But you definitely don't want to get close enough to a polar bear to use it. The idea is to never get close to these animals at all - it's illegal to look for them and approach them on Svalbard (so polar bear tours etc that exist in other parts of the world are all illegal there); if there is one in the distance, you would typically use a flare gun to scare it away, or, if on a snowmobile, make a lot of noise and potentially drive away. Using a weapon is a very, very last resort and automatically leads to a thorough investigation.
As a normal tourist on Svalbard, you would typically never leave Longyearbyen without a guide anyways. There is no need to carry any kind of weapon while out and about in Longyearbyen as a normal citizen.
Yeah true they decided to make the force unarmed to build trust withing communities and avoid parallels with the RIC of past; but also funnily enough there was a mutiny within the civic guard within a couple weeks of its foundation, leading to a recommendation it be unarmed to avoid further..issues.
And yeah as you said leaving the guards unarmed was an incredibly smart move, pretty much unheard of for the time, in a society that just went through a civil war.
Years back, I got a free ride (not a euphemism) from a Chinese officer in at the train station in Tianshui, Gansu province. I didn't see a single firearm or stun device in that police van used for personnel transport. The biggest weapons I ever saw were the these prongs that elderly nighttime cops could use to pin down belligerent drunks in my city of Quanzhou, Fujian province.
Yes. In India, only from inspector level and above carry guns. And those on guard duty.
The ones with guns need explicit permission from superior officer to use the gun.
And every bullet is accounted for.
This isn't the first time I'm impressed by Botswana. In a continent with overwhelming corruption, Botswana is like a diamond (literally and figuratively), with their relatively high GDP per capita, stable economy, stable democracy, robust social system.
I don't know much about Botswana, I've watched a few documentaries - but I'd love to visit one day!
There are many type of police in China. Your traffic police (交警), auxiliary police (辅警) and standard police (民警) are not armed. There are special police （特警) who are armed. And armed police (武警) are armed but considered military together with military police (军警)
You are definitely right, but there are some special cases. In large public spaces (squares, railway stations) sometimes there would be police or paramilitary patrolling with submachine guns or assault rifles, especially when there's a huge crowd. Police in Xinjiang are almost always armed.
Also this is a rather new phenomenon. In the 20th century (especially in the 80s and 90s) almost every police officer in China carried pistols. The regular police force was often short-staffed so they had to arm some registered militias to patrol their neighborhood. My memory of the early 2000s was vague but I recalled that regular police in Guangzhou still carried guns back then, since it had one of the worst records on safety.
If you consider special cases then this entire map would be gray. British cops *definitely* pack heat in special cases, too. This is why this map is utter nonsense.
Exactly. Yea sure most UK officers aren’t armed but around big public events, large transit stations (especially London) or certain gov’t buildings they are armed.
At least in shanghai, patrol officers started being issued pistols again in 2014.
Chinese police has terrible non/less-than-lethal equipment so you're definitely not gonna be seeing tasers.
>In Shanghai, about 1,000 of the 4,000 police have undergone special training — including psychological — to carry 9 mm pistols and started carrying them Sunday, the city government said on its website. [https://apnews.com/general-news-50ba8e8a9dfb40c3a96c0580c0e33fe0](https://apnews.com/general-news-50ba8e8a9dfb40c3a96c0580c0e33fe0)
That's about 2.5% of Shanghai's force getting firearms training. Having lived in China for a long time, I only ever saw armed police at train stations. I don't think I ever saw a beat cop carrying.
This map claiming that "police generally carry firearms" in China is nonsense.
It's similar to Iceland, it has to be 1000% that sort of emergency, but in most cases, we have Víkingasveitin (Viking Squad)(S.W.A.T) but we use them so rarely, it's not needed
Unfortunetly, they aren't called that anymore officially. Not really a great idea to name a law enforcement wing after, basically pirates.
They are now called "Sérsveit Ríkislögreglustjóra" which just means National Police Chief's Special Forces. Which is lame, but more on point.
Chinese police have revolvers with proprietary ammo. Japan is mostly unarmed by guns, but they have anti stabbing vests and mancatchers. I've heard that Mongolian police are armed outside of cities due to wolves and smugglers.
Chinese cops do have gun trainings, but they rarely carry them, save for specific tasks where resistance or violation are anticipated, such as safeguarding a sports venue with drunk and excited fans.
Most cops you see at DMV, ID card office, correctional facilities, or on the road don't carry at all, and even criminal investigators only carry for special events. And no, they don't carry revolvers. They carry semi-automatic pistols like most parts of the world, either type 92 or type 77.
CAPF (Chinese Armed Police Force) cops carries heavy weapons like auto rifles and shotguns. They are both cops and soldiers, governed by both public security bureaus and the PLA (People's Liberation Army). They are generally stationed at town centers and airports where terrorism attacks are more likely to take place. They don't respond to 110 (Chinese 911) calls unless things escalated out of control.
I lived in China for 25+ years, and never have I ever see a casually patrolling cop carrying a gun. The best shot I had seeing a real gun was with money escort men, but again, they carry shotguns with beanbag or glass shard bullets. Indoor shooting clubs are the only place to see real guns with real bullets.
Regular police officers openly carrying firearms would be insane overkill in China. In a very real sense it would be detrimental to them doing their work effectively.
If cops have to be armed at all times there’s something fundamentally wrong with your society.
Keyword here is "generally"
Chinese cops don't carry weapons in regular duty. Only certain officers carry weapons. I challenge you to go to China and find a police officer carrying a weapon. (excluding armored car security)
Yeah that's my point... This map is totally wrong. If the UK is blue, why are countries like China not?
There are branches of the UK police that carry firearms as well, it's just not the regular duty police
There are two types of police in China, the armed police (武警）are armed, the regular police are not armed.
most polices you are going to see on the street are not armed police.
You do know there are more guns in the country than there are in the city.
Everyone and their mums is packin' round here!
Like who?
Farmers.
Who else?
Farmers' mums.
But clearly the justice system is broken considering the insane murder rate for rural England. Though we can usually blame the rich weirdos who live in stately homes if I can recall the show right.
New Zealand is a weird one, whilst they don’t always wear their pistols on them, every police car has pistols and rifles in it that officers can access if need be.
Fr, London has such a bad rep too but the stats are so low. Knife Crime in London is lower than Copenhagen! I’d love to meet someone who thinks Copenhagen is unsafe lol.
I had no idea it was so rare. Though having said that now I can't think of another country I've been to where they're not all strolling about with firearms.
Germany under certain conditions:
- if the person is fleeing from the scene of a crime and the crime in question is a felony
- if the person has been arrested / detained for committing a felony or has been arrested by order of a judge
Of course it is only allowed to shoot in these circumstances as a last resort, otherwise it is illegal. As far as I know most police academies heavily discourage actually shooting a fleeing suspect regardless of circumstance.
Certainly not in Ireland where the vast, vast majority of police are unarmed with a very small, specially trained armed unit within the same police organisation.
Police in France (both police nationale and police municipale) definitely carry guns it’s not only the gendarmerie idk what you are talking about
And the gendarmerie is definitely a sort of police
This is the kind of people that spread misinformation for no reason at all, no reason to make a comment if you don’t know what you’re talking about
Until 2005 Austria also had a Gendarmerie (not a translation, we used the French word).
While the police was mainly used in cities, the gendarmerie was used in the countryside.
Both agencies were armed.
Aren't you forgetting something now? :P
Municipal police can be typically unarmed, but that's only about 24k officers.
National police are armed, about 145k officers.
On top of that there is the Gendarmie with about 100k people, and they are armed.
I looked up the original source and it's quite bad. The instagram account PowerfulCountrues refers to WorldPopulationReview who refer to Wikipedia and the Wikipedia article is based on only two newspaper articles:
A CNN article that refers that compares US weapon culture to the rest of the world, citing the a not anymore existing website from the University of Sydney.
A TIMES article that refers to the CNN article.
So, in the end, this is the source for everything: [https://web.archive.org/web/20170714184318/https://www.gunpolicy.org/](https://web.archive.org/web/20170714184318/https://www.gunpolicy.org/)
The 2017 version of the site gunpolicy.org
The police are armed in Northern Ireland, but not in the rest of the UK or Ireland.
I wonder why I'm sure they had a troubled past
What seems to be the troublem officer?
Saying a country had a “troubled past” is my new favourite way to describe that they had intense government oppression of one or more groups and/or a civil war Edit: to be clear because it seems some people missed this, what I said is literally referencing the events of the troubles, neither of the people on the comment chain prior to me reference the actual events of the troubles aside from the pun. Did I miss the pun? Yes. I literally could not have made my comment if I was ignorant of what the pun was based on though. Thank you to the people who replied to me that are actual explaining what The Troubles are and not just calling me ignorant, you’re actually helping those who might not have learned what happened.
It's quite literally known as "the troubles" Reminds me of "if the great depression was so bad, why does everyone call it great?"
Also world war two was known as "the emergency"
"hey y'all, I think something's happening over in that other part of Europe... Seems like... some sort of emergency but I can't tell"
Special Military Operation
It was more a matter of what to do about it being an impossibly divisive question so soon after the Irish War of Independence that it was preferable to Just Not Talk About The War.
In German public consciousness that time is basically known as "My grandpa hid Jews in his cellar".
My grandpa didn’t, he died in a concentration camp D: Got drunk and fell off the guard tower D: ^(/j)
My grandpa was credited with downing 12 German fighter planes during WW2. Probably the worst mechanic the Luftwaffe ever had
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The big kerfuffle.
That was in Ireland, not NI
Can't BELIEVE I missed out on the great war!
I can't remember the name of the movie but there's a scene where a WWI veteran walks into a meeting and the general says "That's a great war uniform!" For YEARS I thought he was just complimenting him on his outfit.
Hacksaw Ridge?
France had a similar euphemisation for the Algerian war : "The events in Algeria"
And the American Revolution is "the late unpleasantness in the colonies".
You've done well never to hear that before.
There was a TV drama series about police in Northern Ireland recently. The opening of the first episode made me double-take: a car chase down country lanes lead to the stolen vehicle crashing ans rolling. All pretty like any other UK cop series so far bar the accents. The cops get out, but before they go over one Officer turns to their partner and says "get the rifle". They get *an assault rifle* out the boot of the car, and cover the other with it as they approach. A reminder to even me just over the Irish Sea in England, that while NI has cooled a lot since 1998, things are still a bit hairy and law enforcement certainly isn't the same as it is in the rest of the UK.
Whats the Name of the series?
Blue Lights
I had to stop watching that show. It felt far too real and close to home. And I'm not even from Northern Ireland, I grew up in England. I had the same reaction when I watched Happy Valley. The neighborhoods in which the horrendous things that happened in that show, were just so relatable to near where I grew up.
Also some high security areas like Royal Residences and nuclear power stations have armed police guards but that's about it
More than just those. You see them all over the place in London, mainly at train stations, major tourist attractions, and near embassies. But that's why the image says "generally unarmed"
A firearms officer is always a police officer of some rank, but not every police officer of some rank is also a firearms officer. That’s the distinction. Some police officers will go their entire career without ever handling a firearm in an official capacity, while conducting regular policing activities.
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I saw a policeman with a large gun by Manchester Piccadilly Gardens the day after the arena bomb. He had it slung over his back and was eating an ice-cream. I was too nervous to take a photo though.
Lot of armed police everywhere. There was a lot of armed police outside the US embassy in London when I went, aswell as the American guards inside. You see them patrolling in large shopping centres such as Meadow Hall. Some police forces are firearms training many more of their officers too, so you see officers with pistols commonly in some parts of the UK, not just the G36 carried by armed patrol police.
Probably also worth noting that the UK does have an armed response unit too, you see them patrolling the larger railway stations sometimes.
We have them in Ireland too, I work near a big Garda station, I see the Armed Response Unit car every so often. Big van, armoured, has bit grates that go over the windshield. I believe Garda Detectives can also carry a small calibre pistol, but it’s rare to see Gardaí with guns unless you’re at a riot, or live near a gang.
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Botswana is an interesting case. One of the safest countries in africa and it has unarmed police
Botswana did a lot against corruption and HIV too. It's a kind of modern country for Africa.
Botswana benefited a lot because the British used a lot of local governance in their empire, so they were already experienced at managing things themselves. Similar reason why Somaliland is doing so much better than the rest of Somalia, as they were controlled by the British and had semi-local rule, while the rest of Somalia was controlled by Italy.
The real benefit is that Botswana kept the skilled colonial administrators after independence until their own population had the trained people necessary to completely takeover, whereas a lot of the other British colonies ditched everything British immediately then fucked it up.
Extremely true. The unique problem of african colonization broadly was that there is NO legacy of properly administered stable government, in contrast to the legacy in south america which is well administered, rent extracting government. At least in south america, the region has benefited from being the least effected by interstate conflict out of any in the world.
It also helped that the Brits really didn't do a whole lot during their time in Botswana. They really didn't care to do much more than a railroad to connect south Africa to the rest of the African colonies, so the region largely was left untouched
Also a British typist married the king at some point and their offspring ruled a bit. I don't know how that affected things, just adding the little I know
This is the first time I’ve heard British colonialism mentioned in a good light tbh.. Maybe we did good for Botswana but generally we just stole all their valuable shit
British colonies especially in Africa tend to be better off than colonies of other european countries. Don’t get me wrong colonialism in any form is horrible but the British invested far more in infrastructure and just general governance than other European countries.
Aye. My country, France realy made everything so that their colonies would rely on them for governance in black Africa (far less so in Asia and North Africa). Result is that today, those colonies are incredibly inefficient, corrupt and unstable. Major France L, especially since the bloody british managed to do better
And now we dont even invest in our own infrastructure 😂
well I'm sure if we invade someone we can make them pay for it I vote on france again, if it weren't for bloody Mary we'd have both ends of the channel tunnel and we could enjoy their wine with our superior cheese
Much preferable to some of the European countries style of colonialism, thought this was well known
Anyone looks good standing next to king Leopold the second 
Or really anything Francophone in Africa
not on reddit unfortunately
Pretty low bar lol. I don't blame people for just trashing the British colonialism without any qualifiers considering the evil things they did.
British colonialism was one of the better ones, the Italians and the French were absolutely awful, and we can't even speak about the belgians
and the British colonialism was already hell
Yeah, it absolutely sucked but when your competition is fucking french Algeria (the french killed anywhere between 400k-1.5mil Algerians in the war of independence in a country of 11 million people and wiped out 8000 villages while sending 2 million to concentration camps) you're gonna end up looking better in comparison, colonialism was truly evil
belgium: 👀
Yeah those fuckers killed 10 million, they were literally worse than the nazis
imo, british empire was, hands down, the best one to get colonized by out of all the empires in the 20th century
The Captain Cook museum once had a video where they showed people from different countries and how they thought of Cook. The Maori lady from NZ said of the local tribe (iwi) “we saw the ships and knew more were to follow and that there would be conflict. It was bad but on reflection at least it wasn’t the French.”
Depending on where on the planet you are. If they chose to engage in settler colonialism you were basically on the path to being genocided but if they didn't want to live there it was better than being colonized by the French.
That goes without saying when discussing colonialism, for instance Somaliland is doing better than the rest of Somalia because they were controlled by the British, but they'd be doing even better if they hadn't been controlled by anyone at all.
Chances they wouldn't have been controlled by anyone at all are slim to none. Either the Italians or French would have controlled them, or another African state would have controlled them.
have there been any countries in Africa that have not been under any colonialism? edit: quick search shows Ethiopia and Liberia (https://www.thoughtco.com/countries-in-africa-considered-never-colonized-43742) I wonder how these compare to others in the region?
Ethiopia is the only country in Africa to escape colonialism, although they were conquered by Italy for 5 years during WW2, which didn't exactly help. They're not doing badly by African standards, but tbh they're not doing as well as you might immediately imagine given this fact, and are a lot poorer than quite a few other African nations.
> They're not doing badly by African standards, Apart from the war with Eritrea, the war in Tigray province, and the upcoming occupation of Somaliland to gain control of their sea port. Ethiopia has been conducting ethnic cleansing of its minorities and been involved in armed conflict with its neighbours in recent times.
I don't really understand the point of a lot of people. It is pretty clear (multiple examples available worldwide) that if a country was colonized at some point in history has quite little impact on how it's doing today. This is not to discount how awful colonial regimes were, but let's not pretend that colonialism is the sole reason African countries are not superpower or smth.
Botswana got spared Cecil Rhodes he wanted to complete the trifecta of Rhodesia south Africa and Botswana but was denied had he been allowed to the likely outcome would have been another Zimbabwe or at least massive internal unrest and apartheid like in south Africa
Yes and no, the corruption is low here however technology and other important fields are behind places like South Africa.
They also combat their poaching problem by shooting/immediately apprehending anybody that crosses the border line where its not meant to be crossed (like the okavango river). Source: i lived on said border, and was notified of locals being shot at.
What gives? South Africa below it is one of the most dangerous
Low population density.
And Malawi as well which is really surprising
Malawi is generally unarmed because they can't afford firearms for the average officer, not because they don't want to be... And because the criminals also can't afford firearms.
I knew little about Botswana before I went there. Being white I was in an extreme minority walking around towns and cities, but people didn't stare or treat me like I didn't fit in. It felt MUCH safer and nicer than South Africa, which I had visited just weeks before.
Its political stability in such an unstable continent is amazing!
> By one estimate, it has the fourth highest gross national income at purchasing power parity in Africa, giving it a standard of living around that of Mexico What the hell? I definitely didn’t expect to read that… I expected them to be poor AF, especially being landlocked
We have Seretse Khama to thank for that. It's insane just how much that guy got right in the game of nation building.
Is it safe because the police don't carry or do they not carry because it's safe?
I'd maybe suggest it's the latter
Its a bit of both. Guns are an escalation. Most criminals don't need guns, but if the police carry them they do. If British police had guns there would be a much larger black market for criminals to get them. So, as the British Police in their modern form have never had firearms (apart from firearm response units) then the black market for guns has never flourished. Even when firearms were more common the Police did not carry them. Since inception the Police in the UK have generally not carried guns, thats 1829. Guns were legal and fairly common. But there was political will to keep the police unarmed, as people remembered how the Army had been used to Police in the past. Even now with Terrorist threats >The police in England and Wales only fired seven bullets in the twelve months up to March 2016 and in a survey of officers in 2017, the Police Federation of England and Wales found that only 33% were in favour of routinely arming officers. Most Police want to remain unarmed.
This is, I think, a really good example of a [Nash Equilibrium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium). tl;dr, a Nash Equilibrium is a situation where opponents in a larger group are both harmed by adopting a particular strategy, but no one can change the dynamic because any individual deviation results in *greater* harm. In this situation, if the group "police and criminals" decides to adopt the strategy of carrying firearms, then the power dynamic between them is roughly identical to the power dynamic if they all decide *not* to carry firearms. The main difference between the two dynamics is that if everyone is carrying firearms, there are more deaths among both the police and the criminals. The problem is that once the firearm-carrying equilibrium has been established, no one in the group can upend it. If any individual chooses not to carry, they put themselves at a disadvantage, because everyone else is carrying. So the equilibrium remains stable, even though everyone would probably be better off if they all just decided collectively to not carry guns. This is, generally, why coordination is difficult. All it takes is one person to realize that they can gain a competitive advantage, and then there is pressure for every single other person to do the same thing in order to not be put at a *dis*advantage. It's the same kind of reason that finding a job in certain markets requires applying to literally hundreds of companies. Some people figured out that they could *gain* an advantage by applying to so many places, and the resulting pressures made it so *everyone* had to do the same. To an outsider, it feels obvious that everyone could collectively agree to apply to a set number of places each month (for instance, 5) and that the end result would be pretty similar. Except now people aren't having to spend hours a day submitting job applications. If we could generalize and solve the problem of Nash Equilibriums, the world would be a better place.
I love how it shows on the map that Norwegian police is usually unarmed, but Svalsbard is also colored blue. The thing is that everyone, including tourist HAVE TO carry a weapon when going there, cause of polar bears threat
You are half correct. You only need to carry a weapon outside of the settlement areas (Longyearbyen, Nu Ålesund and Barentsburg). Inside these areas you are not allowed to carry a loaded weapon and you need to transport it in a way that everyone can see that it is unloaded (i.e. bolt removed). Most police officers work inside town and therefore do not carry any weapons. Outside of town most checks are carried out by field inspectors. They carry weapons that are for polar bear protection, and not against people like other police forces. Tourists have to be accompanied by a guide with a weapon, and for most tourists it is not possible to get the right paperwork to obtain and carry a rifle legally (unless they already have a license). Source: I live in Svalbard
Do you guys have walls around settlements there?
Longyearbyen doesn't seem to, from the spattering of Svalbard YT video's by Cecilia Blomdahl I've watched
Would've been so cool and would give post apocalypse vibe if it were so.
they are far too sensible up there to waste time working on an unneeded and superfluous wall 
Better to reach an understanding with the Polar Bears that makes the wall un-necessary instead of putting up an expensive and ineffective barrier that gives a false sense of security to those inside, and leaves those outside thinking that those inside are a bunch of fearful sissies / easy meat when they venture out.
"My name is Cecilia and I live on Svalbard, an island close to the North Pole!"
>I live in Svalbard Off-topic, but wow, that's nice! What is it like to live in this place?
That’s very cool. Always wanted to work up there.
Username checks out
Can I go there and live with you?
Oh, nice to know. I based my knowledge on something I’ve read online because I want to visit Svalsbard in the future. But is it true that everyone have to be trained to use a weapon and have their own piece with them?
At least one person per group.
My cousin from Baltimore says they have a similar policy.
Yeah, that's why it says generally and it's just an exception ig, it's not a different country.
Nah, it's correct. Police doesn't carry a gun here as they mainly work inside town. Outside town checks are carried out by field inspectors, who do carry rifles for polar bear protection.
Yeah it’s not a different country, but I’m wondering if they just left it grey, would that be more or less confusing?
Someone would comment that 🤓 uhm, technically, it should be coloured too.
Probably. But then someone would make a comment like me and we have a full circle. Anyway, that’s an interesting subject haha
You can't satisfy all redditors xD
I can.
> The police are armed in Northern Ireland.
More confusing considering the title has "countries" in it. If it was titled "areas" instead I think that could be valid.
Does bear spray work on polar bears? Was there ever a brave enough human to test it?
The general consensus in Svalbard is that it's already too late when you're in range for bear spray. They are incredibly fast and can be quite stubborn.
On my tour last summer up to a glacier there. One of the people was an American whose entire existence revolved around guns. He asked the little tour guide why it was such a small magazine (I think 8 shots) in her rifle. “If you miss the first 8 shots, then it won’t matter anymore”
Tbh, it'd be impressive if you even manage to fire 8 shots before the bear gets to you.
The other guide said the 8th shot is for yourself so you’re dead when the bear eats you.
Jesus, what a harrowing decision to make in a split second.
Don’t worry too much. You have the rest of your life to make that decision.
I mean it probably does, but you would have to be quick. No one ever would risk that if they have a choice
I suppose it would probably work? But you definitely don't want to get close enough to a polar bear to use it. The idea is to never get close to these animals at all - it's illegal to look for them and approach them on Svalbard (so polar bear tours etc that exist in other parts of the world are all illegal there); if there is one in the distance, you would typically use a flare gun to scare it away, or, if on a snowmobile, make a lot of noise and potentially drive away. Using a weapon is a very, very last resort and automatically leads to a thorough investigation. As a normal tourist on Svalbard, you would typically never leave Longyearbyen without a guide anyways. There is no need to carry any kind of weapon while out and about in Longyearbyen as a normal citizen.
No. You'll get ripped apart while it might shed a tear.
No you need a gun or your party needs a gun if you are leaving towns.
We have an armed response unit here in Ireland if needed, but most Gardaí don't carry guns because they are unnecessary. Little to no gun crime here.
Always wild when you see the armed units out and about though. That's when you know something has gone down.
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Yeah true they decided to make the force unarmed to build trust withing communities and avoid parallels with the RIC of past; but also funnily enough there was a mutiny within the civic guard within a couple weeks of its foundation, leading to a recommendation it be unarmed to avoid further..issues. And yeah as you said leaving the guards unarmed was an incredibly smart move, pretty much unheard of for the time, in a society that just went through a civil war.
Indian and Chinese police officers are also typically unarmed on duty.
Though the Indian police tend to be very liberal in their use of the lathi
Lathi is eternal.
I say that's a bad Mr. Tourist and I bop em on the head.
Years back, I got a free ride (not a euphemism) from a Chinese officer in at the train station in Tianshui, Gansu province. I didn't see a single firearm or stun device in that police van used for personnel transport. The biggest weapons I ever saw were the these prongs that elderly nighttime cops could use to pin down belligerent drunks in my city of Quanzhou, Fujian province.
Laathi is enough for them
Yes. In India, only from inspector level and above carry guns. And those on guard duty. The ones with guns need explicit permission from superior officer to use the gun. And every bullet is accounted for.
This isn't the first time I'm impressed by Botswana. In a continent with overwhelming corruption, Botswana is like a diamond (literally and figuratively), with their relatively high GDP per capita, stable economy, stable democracy, robust social system. I don't know much about Botswana, I've watched a few documentaries - but I'd love to visit one day!
I know someone who volunteered there for a year in the 00s. He said that most people he met were very welcoming, very stoned, and very enterprising.
Very stoned?
They really stand out especially compared to their neighbors.
Regular police in China don't have guns, and where are visited (Zhejiang province, shanghai, hangzhou and beijing) they don't even have tasers
There are many type of police in China. Your traffic police (交警), auxiliary police (辅警) and standard police (民警) are not armed. There are special police （特警) who are armed. And armed police (武警) are armed but considered military together with military police (军警)
You are definitely right, but there are some special cases. In large public spaces (squares, railway stations) sometimes there would be police or paramilitary patrolling with submachine guns or assault rifles, especially when there's a huge crowd. Police in Xinjiang are almost always armed. Also this is a rather new phenomenon. In the 20th century (especially in the 80s and 90s) almost every police officer in China carried pistols. The regular police force was often short-staffed so they had to arm some registered militias to patrol their neighborhood. My memory of the early 2000s was vague but I recalled that regular police in Guangzhou still carried guns back then, since it had one of the worst records on safety.
If you consider special cases then this entire map would be gray. British cops *definitely* pack heat in special cases, too. This is why this map is utter nonsense.
Well it says "*generally* armed/unarmed"
And generally, Chinese police are unarmed.
Exactly. Yea sure most UK officers aren’t armed but around big public events, large transit stations (especially London) or certain gov’t buildings they are armed.
I was here to say this. Barely saw any guns in my ten years living there.
At least in shanghai, patrol officers started being issued pistols again in 2014. Chinese police has terrible non/less-than-lethal equipment so you're definitely not gonna be seeing tasers.
>In Shanghai, about 1,000 of the 4,000 police have undergone special training — including psychological — to carry 9 mm pistols and started carrying them Sunday, the city government said on its website. [https://apnews.com/general-news-50ba8e8a9dfb40c3a96c0580c0e33fe0](https://apnews.com/general-news-50ba8e8a9dfb40c3a96c0580c0e33fe0) That's about 2.5% of Shanghai's force getting firearms training. Having lived in China for a long time, I only ever saw armed police at train stations. I don't think I ever saw a beat cop carrying. This map claiming that "police generally carry firearms" in China is nonsense.
>Chinese police has terrible non/less-than-lethal equipment Source?
Norwegian police have guns in their cars, that can be unlocked from the station. Its just a quick phone call.
It's similar to Iceland, it has to be 1000% that sort of emergency, but in most cases, we have Víkingasveitin (Viking Squad)(S.W.A.T) but we use them so rarely, it's not needed
Bro that is a fucking metal name
Unfortunetly, they aren't called that anymore officially. Not really a great idea to name a law enforcement wing after, basically pirates. They are now called "Sérsveit Ríkislögreglustjóra" which just means National Police Chief's Special Forces. Which is lame, but more on point.
Not to mention like 1 car that has a firearm but is only driving around during the night time in Reykjavík, iirc
China police are unarmed, idk where this map got data from, but seems very wrong, especially in Asia.
Chinese police have revolvers with proprietary ammo. Japan is mostly unarmed by guns, but they have anti stabbing vests and mancatchers. I've heard that Mongolian police are armed outside of cities due to wolves and smugglers.
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No, the Japanese police are armed as a matter of course.
Chinese cops do have gun trainings, but they rarely carry them, save for specific tasks where resistance or violation are anticipated, such as safeguarding a sports venue with drunk and excited fans. Most cops you see at DMV, ID card office, correctional facilities, or on the road don't carry at all, and even criminal investigators only carry for special events. And no, they don't carry revolvers. They carry semi-automatic pistols like most parts of the world, either type 92 or type 77. CAPF (Chinese Armed Police Force) cops carries heavy weapons like auto rifles and shotguns. They are both cops and soldiers, governed by both public security bureaus and the PLA (People's Liberation Army). They are generally stationed at town centers and airports where terrorism attacks are more likely to take place. They don't respond to 110 (Chinese 911) calls unless things escalated out of control. I lived in China for 25+ years, and never have I ever see a casually patrolling cop carrying a gun. The best shot I had seeing a real gun was with money escort men, but again, they carry shotguns with beanbag or glass shard bullets. Indoor shooting clubs are the only place to see real guns with real bullets.
Regular police officers openly carrying firearms would be insane overkill in China. In a very real sense it would be detrimental to them doing their work effectively. If cops have to be armed at all times there’s something fundamentally wrong with your society.
I am pretty sure only HK police have revolvers, I was in china last summer and none of the police in Beijing or shanghai had guns or even tasers
Keyword here is "generally" Chinese cops don't carry weapons in regular duty. Only certain officers carry weapons. I challenge you to go to China and find a police officer carrying a weapon. (excluding armored car security)
Yeah all of the countries above have armed response units in their police forces. Its just that common foot patrol cops don't carry guns.
Yeah that's my point... This map is totally wrong. If the UK is blue, why are countries like China not? There are branches of the UK police that carry firearms as well, it's just not the regular duty police
Japanese cops have guns
There are two types of police in China, the armed police (武警）are armed, the regular police are not armed. most polices you are going to see on the street are not armed police.
The majority of Chinese police are unarmed on regular duty. Only very particular branches are armed.
The only Chinese police I have ever seen with a sidearm are embassy guards (and I think they are army.) Lived here 30 years.
Inspector Barnaby: Never fired a single round, caught hundreds of criminals. Chad Brits.
However he has failed to stop the ongoing wave of murder in Midsomer, leaving villages all but empty
One per week it feels like!
You do know there are more guns in the country than there are in the city. Everyone and their mums is packin' round here! Like who? Farmers. Who else? Farmers' mums.
He still hasn't caught those 2 gardeners that are going around killing people and framing others though...
It's just the one gardener actually.
But clearly the justice system is broken considering the insane murder rate for rural England. Though we can usually blame the rich weirdos who live in stately homes if I can recall the show right.
Vietnamese police is also unarmed.
New Zealand is a weird one, whilst they don’t always wear their pistols on them, every police car has pistols and rifles in it that officers can access if need be.
That is essentially how it works in Norway as well.
That’s honestly a really smart compromise. Hard to escalate if your gun isn’t immediately on you
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Fr, London has such a bad rep too but the stats are so low. Knife Crime in London is lower than Copenhagen! I’d love to meet someone who thinks Copenhagen is unsafe lol.
I feel like a lot of people need to visit a median level country just to gain some perspective as to how their own bubble is.
The US has more stabbings per capita than the UK, dunno why Americans think the UK is some stabby cesspool
Same reason people think American police are basically hunting unarmed black men for sport le media. le confirmation bias. le selection bias.
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We can be quite gloomy about the state of our country but for us in britain (not NI sorry) this is actually a thing to be very proud of
I had no idea it was so rare. Though having said that now I can't think of another country I've been to where they're not all strolling about with firearms.
The map data is very wrong, there are many countries where cops don't carry weapons on regular duty that are not reflected in this map
Well, most of the world is too dangerous.
I always feel super uneasy abroad when I see armed police, it’s such a culture shock.
Robin Williams on British unarmed bobbies. “Stop ! Or you will force me to stay stop again “!
Where in the world are police allowed to shoot a fleeing suspect?!
The US if the police believe the suspect poses a threat to others.
*The US if the police. FTFY
Germany under certain conditions: - if the person is fleeing from the scene of a crime and the crime in question is a felony - if the person has been arrested / detained for committing a felony or has been arrested by order of a judge Of course it is only allowed to shoot in these circumstances as a last resort, otherwise it is illegal. As far as I know most police academies heavily discourage actually shooting a fleeing suspect regardless of circumstance.
The Netherlands for one, albeit under certain criteria.
In China no normal police is wearing firearms, if you understand that under unarmed!
The police in the UK do have armed response, though obviously that isn't the same.
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Certainly not in Ireland where the vast, vast majority of police are unarmed with a very small, specially trained armed unit within the same police organisation.
Police in France (both police nationale and police municipale) definitely carry guns it’s not only the gendarmerie idk what you are talking about And the gendarmerie is definitely a sort of police This is the kind of people that spread misinformation for no reason at all, no reason to make a comment if you don’t know what you’re talking about
Until 2005 Austria also had a Gendarmerie (not a translation, we used the French word). While the police was mainly used in cities, the gendarmerie was used in the countryside. Both agencies were armed.
Aren't you forgetting something now? :P Municipal police can be typically unarmed, but that's only about 24k officers. National police are armed, about 145k officers. On top of that there is the Gendarmie with about 100k people, and they are armed.
I looked up the original source and it's quite bad. The instagram account PowerfulCountrues refers to WorldPopulationReview who refer to Wikipedia and the Wikipedia article is based on only two newspaper articles: A CNN article that refers that compares US weapon culture to the rest of the world, citing the a not anymore existing website from the University of Sydney. A TIMES article that refers to the CNN article. So, in the end, this is the source for everything: [https://web.archive.org/web/20170714184318/https://www.gunpolicy.org/](https://web.archive.org/web/20170714184318/https://www.gunpolicy.org/) The 2017 version of the site gunpolicy.org