Holly Fucking Shit.
NEVER ASK FOR HELP TO THE POLICE*.
FUCKING NEVER.
.
.
.
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*In the USA, of course.
Copologists at the front door in 3⌠2⌠1âŚ
Itâs very hard to shoot a man in the head and not kill him, thanks god those fine police officers remembered their cranial marksmanship courses or that poor man might be dead!
Who knows what the shooting cop was thinking, but this case makes me think again that a lot of cops have got to be chickenshits. Clearly they often shoot, and shoot fast, because theyâre afraid, not because theyâve taken a few extra seconds to accurately assess a potential threat.
Theyâve started believing their own press releases.
The NRA would say that he should have had a gun, then he could have returned fire.
âThe only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gunâ
Or maybe, you know, everyone could stop carrying guns and shooting each other. That might work too.
True 20 years ago and still true:
But which is more probable? All this would do is remove guns from citizens, and not the millions of cops and soldiers who are paid to take most of the lives which are lost. A better first step would be to prohibit the manufacture of guns. But guess which groups prevent this from happening?
This is tranportation-related and involves a hazard (our police) to safe travel. Have the NTSB perform an analysis with their usual thoroughness and whole-system thinking. Pay particular attention to the training and perspective that puts police officers in a place where shooting an unarmed man seems like the right thing to do.
Clearly the police need to make sure they kill everyone they interact with, to avoid these embarrassing stories.
And hereâs the chronic LEO elephant in the room:
Why were the police so concerned about the possibility of him having a gun if he wasnât doing anything unlawful anyway? By this logic, should I shoot police if I see them touch or hold their guns? They keep putting this forth as justification!
One of the reasons that cops get away with killing so many people in the U.S. is that âI thought he had a gun!â is a plausible defense because almost anyone here can get their hands on a gun.
In most developed countries that wouldnât fly because the odds of a random citizen having a gun are very low. A cop pleading âI thought he had a gun!â after shooting an unarmed citizen in the UK would be a bit like a cop saying âI thought he had a grenade!â after shooting an unarmed citizen in the U.S. Not wholly implausible, but the cop in question would certainly be expected to have a good answer to follow-up questions like âwhat in Godâs name made you think THAT?â
Indeed, you could argue about the importance of the 2nd amendment to protect yourself from trigger-happy cops.
If you have a gun, are the police allowed to make you drop it? I thought I had a right to bear arms that couldnât be infringed?
And how can âI thought he had a gunâ be a defence in a country where youâre allowed to have a gun?
Iâm gonna file that one under âworks out better in theory than actual practice.â
Not having a gun doesnât seem to help much when it comes to preventing the police from shooting you.
While the word âchickenshitâ may be applicable, I prefer the phrase âcraven cowardâ. But the advantage to being a craven coward, for the ordinary police officer, was made particularly clear by the Salt Lake City district attorney. The Salt Lake City district attorney (re the case of Dillon Taylor) allows, and encourages, every police officer to establish themselves as craven cowards so as to make the wholesale slaughter of unarmed, law-abiding citizens (men, women, children, and even household pets) a totally consequence-free exercise. âI was scaredâ is the phrase-that-pays for all police who fire their guns at ordinary people going about their daily business.
Seriously, I feel safer around the guys that take their AR-15s on dinner dates than I do the police.
If boingboing isnât careful it is going to end up in a recurring role on Law & Order as LEO.
No, it doesnât. Because theyâre still allowed to assume you have a gun, and thus are allowed to respond to all situations with lethal force. The theory that âallowing citizens to own lethal weapons will reduce the number of people killed by copsâ is ABSOLUTELY, 100% UNSUPPORTED by decades of statistical evidence.
Can anyone name a single example of an interaction with law enforcement that ended better for the citizen involved because they were exercising their right to carry a gun?
