/.../ Cops in other nations are capable of dealing with similar situations without even carrying a firearm depending on the country in question. There is no reason that, if they're not being shot at, our officers should not be as capable and as skilled in the same tactics. A need for modification to the approach is NOT an excuse to not even try.
Indeed, there's a world of difference between a policeman or woman drifting over and saying "what's all this then?" and instantly whipping out a pistol and screaming "get down on the ground!". Or, on one hand, knocking on your door demanding that you open up, before breaking it in if you don't, and on the other hand taking it down with a controlled explosion with no warning, coming in with body armor, rifles, dogs, gas grenades, with armored vehicles outside and stuff, because bitter retiree/laid off blue collar neighbors who have not grasped the concept of freelance work and believe if you sit at home all the time but can afford stuff you must be a drug kingpin and made this clear in a phone tip off.
One can't help thinking that the Old World approach really is about keeping the peace and resolving situations between free citizens, while the New World is about overwhelming and cowing a subjugated populace. If one wants to examine the difference between "systematic approach" and "rotten apples within the force", it pays to take a look at the European incidents of
police brutality. There you have racism (against immigrants mainly in the western half, against the local Roma mainly in the eastern half), in the hands of the bad apples people are beaten, humiliated, or they even die, but this happens within the context of an "what's all this then" approach, not within the context of "he shot himself in the back ten times even as I begged him to stop".
Crazy people with knives (or baseball bats or what have you), who are not on a killing rampage, with a trail of bodies on the street behind them, are generally either talked down or overpowered, as opposed to instantly riddled with bullets.
The boundaries are different within the mass psyche of society, cops included. If they are sadistic freaks who see an opportunity to indulge in their psychopathy because the victims looks like he or she has no powerful connections and there are no immediate witnesses, the cops may slap the victim around, demand a blowjob, take a demeaning photo, or go deeper into the hole and chain the victim and break a few bones, or even be careless enough to cause death through accident, but their first thought isn't going to be to empty a pistol into the victim.
In this sense (anti-establishment activism aside), the average Jo or Jane has a vastly higher chance of survival when encountering Russian or Chinese cops. Sure, money may change hands, or maybe some roughing up will happen, but simply shooting someone down--only inside some currently designated "martial law anti-terror" area. In "normal" areas, it won't happen that way.
Then again, evil Russia and China have
considerably lower incarceration rates that the US. It appears, political talk aside, that the US establishment believes, and has believed for decades, that the US can maintain its existence only through being the most prison-oriented society on Earth, and through "shock and awe" tactics by law enforcement even in situations in which in any other more or less civilized country a cop would lazily stroll over and at most ask to see one's papers and then a pat-down if something fishy is in the air.
Overwhelming police violence and incredible incarceration rates--does this really equal the survival of the US in its current form? The institutions obviously seem to think so. Perhaps, if one was ever to have an honest conversation with Institution Ike about this, Ike would point southward and say something like: "We're a wild and new continent. Blood runs hot here. If we stop the insane clamping down on our population even for a bit, shit will erupt and overwhelm us and we'll turn into
Brazil or even Honduras before you can say where's my revolver."
One would then point out Canada to Institution Ike, who would counter that the US is the buffer between Canada and the rest of this turbo-violent continent, and that were it not for the US paying a terrible price for absorbing and harnessing the crazy energy of the continent, Canada would have to do the same.
And then one would say that Russia and China also have enormous borders with* insanely violent places, for example Central Asia with all the Afghanistans and Pakistans, and the Caucasus Mountains with them Chechynas and Dagestans, and Institution Ike would say "Exactly, and what do they do? They have militarized buffer zones there, to not let the crazy in, and only become touchy feely about policing outside those zones. We, the US, cannot politically afford to have militarized policing zones in dangerous places, so in a sense we must turn the whole country into the middle ground between a militarized zone and normal policing."
One would then point out that Europe is hemmed in by a) Russia, b) the Middle East, and c) Africa, and yet still functions in a "what's all this then" instead of "he made me shoot him" mode of policing. To which Institution Ike would undoubtedly give a sly grin and say "let's wait and see, shall we?"
___
* And huge swaths
within the borders, containing populations that tend to live by their neolithic codes of honor...
