So I don’t quite understand the sentiment that states that only the government should have guns while at the same time saying that cops randomly gun down citizens due to racism or some other factor.
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Can you elaborate? I don’t quite understand what you don’t quite understand.
Do you think that taking guns out of the hands of private citizens would make it more or less likely that cops would “randomly gun down citizens”?
I don’t go as far as saying only the government should have guns, but I do think some people should not have guns, some kinds of guns should not be available to private citizens, and some private citizens should not be allowed to own the number of guns they do.
I also think that cops should not use their guns in situations where deadly force was not necessary. And I think racism is an issue with cops and private citizens, and I think there are other factors.
So I too am baffled by the connection you see among these and why you think these are inconsistent views. Is there some contradiction in what I’ve stated above?
Few make the claim that people are being shot because they are a minority. They are, however, making the claim that minorities have more interactions with police, and every interaction with police has a chance of escalating to where someone gets hurt.
Now, cops tend to shoot people because they are in fear for their life, and they are in fear for their life because they think that there is a good chance that the person they are interacting with has a gun.
If fewer people have guns, then the cop has less reason to fear for his life, and has less reason to react inappropriately and fatally to an innocent, yet perceived to be threatening, movement.
You’re puzzled by the contradiction between “only the government can be trusted with guns” and “agents of the government randomly gun down citizens for bad reasons” (thus showing they can’t be trusted with guns), correct?
I’m not a follower of that sentiment, but I’m familiar with the arguments. Generally, people want gun control laws to prevent:
- criminals from getting ANY gun or other deadly weapon
- ordinary people (who sometimes go crazy) from having weapons that can kill large amounts of people in a short amount of time, and are hard to detect and/or stop.
In situation 2, “hard to detect” includes obvious weapons that can kill at a long range, making you undetectable by the simple tactic of being (relatively) far away. Panicky people tend to only look nearby for obvious threats (as they’re trying to figure out which way to run).
Not really, I can walk by my sheriff with a gun in my holster carrying a AR-15 and he would smile and wave at me. Because guns are a common sight in my area they don’t cause panic.
You must live near me, or at least in a ruralized area. Same story in my area.
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In countries were the citizens have few or no guns, the cops mostly do not routinely gun people down, presumably because they themselves are less trigger-happy, not expecting to be shot at. Where guns are rare, police shootings are rare.
People in the US who call for more gun control and fewer police shootings are simply imagining that the US could be like that too.
On the way to the tanning salon, you’ll be fine. On the way home from the tanning salon, you might want to rethink your route.
Are you white? Ever seen a black guy walk by your sheriff with a gun in his holster carrying an AR-15?
I’ve seen them walk by with a gun in the holster.
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But that’s not the point. What I’m saying is that cops shooting people without justification is tyranny, having tyrants disarm the innocent rarely leads to fewer tyrants.
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Do you think people are using their guns to stop tyranny from the police? Do you think it would be appropriate to shoot a cop after witnessing him shoot an unarmed man laying in the street with his hands up? People don’t have guns to “stop tyranny” Having less guns will not increase tyranny, because guns are not being used to keep tyranny in check now.
That’s a damn good question. If the claim is that the 2nd Amendment allows you to own your weapon to combat tyranny, then police terrorizing someone should certainly count as tyranny, shouldn’t it?
I think the OP is trying to find a connection between two unconnected issues.
People who support gun control aren’t doing so because they feel the police are armed. They support gun control because of criminals who use guns when committing crime. (Which is, ironically, the same problem that people who oppose gun control are trying to address.)
People who oppose what they see as the excessive use of force by the police don’t see this as a gun control issue. They feel that it’s a procedural issue. Police officers need to be trained to use less force and show greater restraint. And police officers who do use unnecessary force need to face consequences for doing so.
The only way these two issues would be connected would be if somebody argued that the solution to excessive use of force by the police was shooting the police and therefore gun control worked against that solution. But I haven’t heard anyone make this suggestion. And even if some individuals out there have said it, they don’t represent the mainstream. Nobody who has any credibility wants to solve the problem of police violence by shooting police officers.
New discussion about this aspect of tyranny and the 2nd amendment here.
Thanks for the inspiration.
Have you ever had an interaction with said sheriff, where the sheriff was in a position that he may be taking you into custody?
If so, did he ask to hold onto your guns while he determined if he was going to arrest you?
If not, then your story has zero to do with the interactions where a cop has initiated contact with a person because they have a reason to believe that that person is breaking the law. That situation is entirely different.
I do feel that they are also connected in that, as there are more guns on the street, there is a higher chance that the person that the cop is looking at possibly arresting in the near future has a gun, and therefore have a higher fear for their life, so a higher chance of shooting when there was no real reason to shoot.
We’ve seen situations in which people have been shot by the police because they had something out of sight which the police officer thought might be a gun. But in some cases, the object was a cell phone, a wallet, a toy truck, or just an empty hand. So I don’t see that reducing the number of guns people are carrying would necessarily reduce the number of people getting shot by the police. If anything, it might make some police officers more likely to shoot, in the belief that if guns are generally illegal than anybody who appears to be carrying one is more likely to be a threat.
The solution to me seems to be retraining the police so they don’t shoot people so readily not trying to change the behavior of people the police are shooting.
OP strikes me as a textbook example of strawmen racing down the slippery slope.
In my humble opinion, you should provide a more complete manifesto if you want a debate. What I infer from reading your posts is that Philando Castile should have quit his job and moved to your area where sheriffs smile at gun toters. But that’s not what your saying, is it?
Philando Castile was shot without justification by a tyrant? Since he was innocent he should have kept the gun secret until he had a chance to use it first on the tyrant?
The way I see it, if even the Government misuses guns on occasion, how do you expect untrained civilians to use them responsibly??