We’ve tried nothing, and we’re all out of ideas.
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If anyone hasn’t been watching W. Kamau Bell’s United Shades of America on CNN, start watching it. It’s really good. One episode recently, he looked into buying a gun. One of the most interesting segments was when he took a class specifically for African Americans legally owning a firearm. The class included information on what to do if you get stopped by the police while legally carrying. The first step of that was to immediately, proactively inform the officer that you are carrying a firearm. As Castille did that, I guess maybe that class will have to be updated. This officer panicked the instant he heard the word firearm. I don’t understand how the jury reached its verdict either, but if I had to guess, I would guess that the prosecution didn’t present its case as strongly or as aggressively as they could have. They have to work with the police every day. I have no evidence for this, but I’m guessing their hearts weren’t fully invested in getting a guilty verdict.
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It’s most likely because juries almost always side with law enforcement. And I mean when it comes to convictions too.
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Getting a portable qualification that gets you a job in the EU would be a good start. It isn’t risk free but most EU police forces get by with shooting very few people.
However, we have gun control.
At the risk of inciting the usual suspects, I have to point out that expecting the police to do their jobs in a country where guns outnumber people, without overreacting, is an awful lot. The fact that the police are very unlikely to overreact to white men and very likely to overreact to non-white men is racism. The prevalence of guns and a culture which says that they are there to defend their owners from the government - and by extension the police - is a sociological problem. But ask a UK policeman if he would want to work in the US, and every single one I have ever asked from chief superintendent down to beat constable has said “no way”.
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Exactly. The fucking fucks fucking fuck better after fucking committing fucking murder. The best fucking treatment for fucks like this is to cut their fucking fucking gear off. Publicly, with a rusty fucking blade.
No doubt the fucks on the jury all went home and also had a great fuck after acquitting a fucking murderer.
I despair.
And if I had been on that jury, the moment I heard the “he doesn’t care about his kid inhaling 2nd hand smoke so I may be at risk of being shot” defence, I’d have laughed out loud and decided he was full of bullshit and found him guilty on the spot.
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the nra must have released a fiery statement about the oppression of the rights of legal gun owners . . . they didn’t?
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What? They release all sorts of content that is factual, not in any way hypocritical, and without a policy agenda beyond the second amendment!
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What frustrates me is that, I’m fairly certain that the gun culture in the United States today is not what the founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment. Unfortunately, we’re stuck with that. The courts typically interpret the Amendments as broadly as possible these days, a practice I don’t disagree with when it comes to other Amendments (especially the First), so without another Constitutional Amendment overwriting the Second, any real, substantive, effective gun control is unlikely. We have to change the culture instead. That’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to happen quickly, but I think it’s the only realistic path.
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Meh. This is Monday-morning-quarterbacking. If he hadn’t told the officer about the gun then he wouldn’t have been shot. If he had shown the permit he wouldn’t have been shot. You might as well say “If he hadn’t been black he wouldn’t have been shot” or “If the cop hadn’t just broken up with his girlfriend then he wouldn’t have been shot.” You’re basically blaming the victim for trying to do the right thing, others will blame the victim because he smoked some pot, yet that’s legal in several states.
Police hold a special place in our society, but they should also be held to a higher code of conduct. If they are going to be given special rights then they should also be subject to more scrutiny by the public that they are supposed to protect.
(For the record I don’t think your post should have been flagged.)
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[quote=“danimagoo, post:43, topic:103149, full:true”]
If anyone hasn’t been watching W. Kamau Bell’s United Shades of America on CNN, start watching it. It’s really good. [/quote]
Also much of goodness:
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This is the same explanation offered up every time an unarmed black person is killed. You say the jury may have seen other evidence, what other evidence could there possibly be? The pretext, the act and the aftermath were all caught on film. You say this should have been avoided, well, who bears the most responsibility for avoiding a death here? How can there not be any accountability? As if the officer losing his job will stop the insanity elsewhere.
When people say stuff like this, it is to absolve themselves of any responsibility to make things better. This death is on everyone’s hands because we continue to shrug our shoulders and say, welp, maybe it makes sense.
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Don’t be so sure it was not what they had in mind as it relates to whites owning guns v. blacks owning guns and who the victims usually are. There is a decent argument made, based on writings at the time that the 2nd amendment was put in place, at least partially, to allow fugitive slave capture gangs to be armed.
I have also heard it critiqued, but the affirmative case for it seemed pretty strong when I read it.
I think Tom Hartman is the main proponent. Something like a google search for ‘racist roots of 2nd amendment’ will probably get you both sides of the argument.
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That point is moot. There should be a presumption of innocence here. Just like one shouldn’t expect EVERY driver they see to not be licensed.
Second, one typically doesn’t volunteer information for something illegal, nor would one expect harm from someone volunteering said information from a guy with a women and child with him. I don’t see anything that should have red flagged the officer.
Third, even if he wasn’t legal to carry, being illegal armed isn’t a death sentence.
No one thinks they will get shot reaching for their license. I mean, maybe we should now given that is has happened a few times. But all of this rests on the officer. If he somehow felt threatened he should have controlled the situation. But maybe we also need to train cops to not be so god damn jumpy. I realize they do face aggression and attacks from time to time, but those are far rarer than the 99999 other times where it is just a guy in a car.
I’ve been pulled over armed more than once and the one time I volunteered the information the first thing he asked was where it was (bag next to me) and then he had me step out and frisk. I am sure being white made me less threatening to a degree (FWIW the officer was black), but I don’t need an Officer McJumpy to over react to this information.
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I’ll look into it. My understanding was always that the fledgling government couldn’t afford to arm its army, so they needed a militia with their own weapons, but that could very well just be a misconception I’ve accepted without question from my primary school days.
That’s very weak sauce. I’ve read similar articles and they have little basis on fact. Other than the fact that there were armed Southerns to put down slave revolts (true), that wasn’t the reason for the 2nd Amendment.
Though yes, you can trace many gun laws to Jim Crow to keep guns out of the hands of blacks.
That was the main reasoning and why there is the line about Militias in there in the first place. They needed an armed populace, so they could draw from them when it was time for a war. This allowed a very small standing Army (they didn’t even have a real Navy for years.) This was first put to the test in the war of 1812.
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What is the problem with the courts that police officers are rarely convict? I want to know that.
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This is a product of racism, but it is also overwhelmingly the product of an authoritarian state. Anyone who comforts themselves with the notion that this won’t happen to them because of their race, religion, or status needs to understand this: you will face this soon enough if you don’t do something NOW.
Those who hold power will do anything to keep it, including instructing the people who are supposed to maintain a safe and just society “for all” to murder you without a second thought. “The thin blue line” that is so very fucking popular right now is more telling than people realize. It’s a reference to “the thin red line” which is in itself a reference to the British victory at Balaclava where a British commander thought so little of his Russian cavalry opponents that he instructed his men to stack only two deep instead of four. The Russian cavalry commander misinterpreted this as a ruse, thinking that a much larger and stronger force must be coming up from behind, and retreated. The British took this accidental victory and the “thin red line” image as being emblematic of British composure in battle.
In battle it openly admits that there is a war. Ask yourself on which particular side of that thin blue line you reside. Chances are better than not that you are now, or will very soon be, the enemy. If we don’t stop the militarization of civilian police soon, there will be no stopping it. They’re already passing state laws outlawing peaceful protests, we have politicians physically assaulting reporters, this is not a distant dystopian future, this is what the US will look like in 10-15 years if we don’t raise hell NOW. Vote. Make the lives of your politicians a living hell with mountains of emails, phone calls, letters. Attend town hall meetings, engage with them, and make it abundantly clear to them that if they have any interest in ever holding public office again, they’ll represent OUR interests. It’s not too late now, but it soon will be.
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Fairly certain? I think you can be 100% certain.
I suspect that the Founding Fathers would be horrified at the idea that ordinary people (i.e. farm labourers) could have guns. In this country there were militias which were presumably what the FFs were thinking of, and they were drawn from the aristocracy (officers) and people like their tenants and senior servants (like butlers and gamekeepers). One job of the militias was to put down riots. (Peterloo Massacre being a notorious example). The idea that the mob could bear arms would have defeated the entire purpose of militias.
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I suspect you need to read up on it, then. Most farmers were armed for at least food gathering, and those towards the frontier required it for protection and food. You’re right that officers were generally drawn from the upper class (they even often provided their militia with heavy hardware, like canons), but remember at the founding of the nation about 90% of the people in the states were involved in Agriculture.
Jefferson’s ideal world was everyone living on small, self sustaining farms, which would have included the ability to defend themselves.
What they would have been aghast about is the current size of our military. Especially the anti-Federalists who wanted the state run Militias vs a Federal army.
ETA - [quote=“Enkita, post:59, topic:103149”]
One job of the militias was to put down riots
[/quote]
The early Militias were not just an army, but a quasi-police force as well. We didn’t have a police force like we do now back then.
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ok, but he did say very clearly ‘Don’t pull it out’ So did he pull it out? Does anyone know if his hand was near the gun?
Why didn’t he stop doing what he was doing at that point? Btw, I do agree the cop should be found guilty of incompetence and suspended. Let’s say he was going for a gun. I believe all police should be trained to not fire until a gun is seen. I know that’s probably asking for a lot, but it’s part of the job. And it’s obvious in the audio you hear later in the video that he did not actually see a gun and started making up things like what he said and that it ‘seemed larger than a wallet’
