We are in violent agreement.
I think I get what you are saying. But why should police need to do anything special about guns when guns are legal? That’s already a conspicuous double-standard. Anybody using a car or rat poison could be using it illegally, but without any evidence to that effect, it’s irrelevant. So how/why should guns be any different? FWIW my argument is neither for nor against guns, it just amazes me that those in both for and against camps are often inconsistent here. If people can legally have guns, then seeing people with them should not be considered unusual, and police should definitely know better.
And what does it have do with them (cops) personally? Wouldn’t it be paranoid to assume that if I were driving without an automobile license, that I was doing so specifically to run them over? Or that if I practiced medicine without a license, that it was to malpractice against cops personally? Yet cops (as well as some others) often employ this reasoning, that witnessing a person with a gun is somehow a threat to themselves even when the person is minding their own business.
My basic benchmark for justice is that laws are applied consistently. Based upon what the law is, not upon who we guess the people to be. But having the same laws for everybody also means that cops do not get any special treatment.
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I’ve had something similar happen to me. Pulled over for “not using my turn signal to change lanes” (in fact I had, specifically because I noticed the police car and the fact that no one else was using their turn signals) only to have the LEO say “and don’t try to claim that your bulb must have just burned out, because I saw it, so I know it works”.
This is reality. They are above the law, so they get to do anything they want.
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I am so afraid for my life that I’m not willing to admit that I’m in full adherence of the law.
Great.
If 90-100% of the people being pulled over for having illegally tinted windows are minorities – which is how it works around here – then your claim that there’s no prejudice involved doesn’t pass the smell test.
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Out of likes, but geez, wasn’t that the exactly correct response?!
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Sadly so.
Thanks.
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And he posted that BEFORE the Falcon Heights murder.
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I got pulled over for no front plate. I had a front plate. (And 5 ammo cans and all my guns in the back of my station wagon, under a card table - but he didn’t check that.)
The thing is, they can pull probable cause out of their ass on anything. “Oops, guess I was mistaken about that plate.” In some places a SMELL for weed can be probably cause. How do you prove a smell?
I don’t know what the numbers are here. I said something like, “Doesn’t your tint make you a target?”
“It hasn’t been a problem. I have been pulled over once in my life for tint. On the other hand if they can’t see who is driving, they can’t target me for that either.”
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Publicly liking Nickleback?
Hey, I’ve got an idea! What if there was some sort of a penalty for shooting black people?
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Sounds like a euphemism.
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Are we caught in a loop? Nevermind, all looks normal now.
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words fail. just wtf. can’t understand… how long has this shit been happening? are we just finding out about it now thanks to the ubiquity of phones+camera? I mean that’s a positive I guess but it’s still just heartbreaking.
Why does it seem those people in the law enforcement who should be held to the highest standards are always held to the lowest standards?
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Depends on who that “we” is. For many people in America, this shit is nothing new. Nothing new at all.
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Not sure how, but police have convinced their citizens to trade them "held to the highest possible standard" for "protected at all costs."
— Just Another Salieri (@AnotherSalieri) 7 July 2016
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I’m sorry, but I do not follow what you’re saying at all. Evidently the police in MN have absolutely no required procedures for dealing with people who are legally carrying a gun.
That is a dagger that goes straight to the heart of the matter.
It’s every shade of awful and then some more.
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What a fucking disgrace.
One observation from the video was that I found it amazing how calm and composed the woman was throughout while the cop was appearing to be freaking out.
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People keep trying to compare the USA to other countries, and it just does not work. Germany does not have a New Orleans. Brazil does not have vast middle class neighborhoods and small towns. Australia does not have 2000 miles of border with a country like Mexico. So it is hard to come up with a solution that works elsewhere that would apply here, and with the same expected success.
And I am not entirely sure that excessive use of force by police is primarily about race. The Washington Post database seems to be about a day behind, but it shows 509 people shot by police up to yesterday. 238 White, 123 Black, 79 Hispanic. Of course that puts the police shootings of Black people at a higher number as percentage of population. But the numbers would indicate that there are other factors besides race. I have been looking at those shooting numbers regularly, and those racial proportions seem to hold fairly steady, even when filtered by other factors. Like the 35 shootings of unarmed persons, 18 White, 12 black, 5 Hispanic. Shot while armed with toy guns- 11 White, 9 Black, 1 Hispanic.
And I am not arguing that today’s shootings, or yesterdays, are any less horrible, or that race was not a factor. It is clear that something is terribly wrong. They are shooting people of all descriptions, and they are also shooting people’s pets very casually. People are not the same as animals, but people who are cruel to animals often move on to human cruelty. They are related pathologies.
I hope that we can find a cross section of the population to address this issue before it gets hijacked to be about something besides police violence.
