leadaddict
Member
Holding a Gun Increases Perception of Threat
I don't want this to be a discussion of the Trayvon/Zimmerman incident. I'm curious what your thoughts are this concept brought out by this study.
We talk a lot about situational awareness and being able to perceive threats and respond / prevent / avoid appropriately. This study suggests that carrying a gun causes you to over asses the threat. Perhaps see a threat where none exists.
My opinion: Being ‘alert’ and paying attention to surrounding can generate ‘false positives’ or ‘false alarms’. This is seen clearly in cases I’ve seen with law enforcement, like shooting at someone holding a cell phone or reaching for a wallet. These are understandable mistakes in most cases given the situations the officers were in. The fallacy of the article is that a simple false identification of a gun is going to cause someone to shoot another person. There must be more to the equation, like context! If the officer is responding to a ‘shots fired’ call and sees you walking quickly through a dark area with something in your hands, which you then reach out towards them, you can expect to be shot at (actual local happening). Context, context, context.
The tone of the article seem to imply that carrying a gun makes you a hallucinating psychopath, just waiting to kill anyone who pulls out a ‘gun-like’ cellphone near you.
I don't want this to be a discussion of the Trayvon/Zimmerman incident. I'm curious what your thoughts are this concept brought out by this study.
We talk a lot about situational awareness and being able to perceive threats and respond / prevent / avoid appropriately. This study suggests that carrying a gun causes you to over asses the threat. Perhaps see a threat where none exists.
My opinion: Being ‘alert’ and paying attention to surrounding can generate ‘false positives’ or ‘false alarms’. This is seen clearly in cases I’ve seen with law enforcement, like shooting at someone holding a cell phone or reaching for a wallet. These are understandable mistakes in most cases given the situations the officers were in. The fallacy of the article is that a simple false identification of a gun is going to cause someone to shoot another person. There must be more to the equation, like context! If the officer is responding to a ‘shots fired’ call and sees you walking quickly through a dark area with something in your hands, which you then reach out towards them, you can expect to be shot at (actual local happening). Context, context, context.
The tone of the article seem to imply that carrying a gun makes you a hallucinating psychopath, just waiting to kill anyone who pulls out a ‘gun-like’ cellphone near you.
