Rex Kerr
Dec 30, 2021

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Note: this comment refers to a previous draft that contained an inaccurate comparison. It has since been corrected, but is for now left here for historical record.

No, no, no. Check your statistics!

Lightning kills ~20 people per year in the whole U.S.: https://www.statista.com/statistics/203715/injuries-and-fatalities-caused-by-lightning-in-the-us/

That's comparable to the number of unarmed black people killed by police (source: the article you linked to!).

The total number of blacks killed by police is closer to 200 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_use_of_deadly_force_in_the_United_States, for instance, noting that the table is under-reported and correcting for the total estimated by the Washington Post).

The expected number of black people killed by lightning, assuming that lighting is race-blind, is 3.

So blacks are roughly 100x more likely to be killed by police than by lightning.

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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