the shooter or one of the victims?
I suspect that Dallas is in for a long, hot summer.
Oh you were inside his head? Do tellā¦
And from what Iām hearing he wasnāt a lone gunman. Iām hearing that four snipers did the shooting and other suspects are in custody.
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Must we invite the murderously violent to our revolution? I agree with most of what you have said, but I donāt think we need to let that camel into the tent.
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No, I say it in light of the fact that several people a day are killed or injured by police officers, and the fact that over 99% of the time someone dies because of what a cop does, the cop is never even indicted.
Makes people feel like thereās no justice or recourse when a cop takes the life of their child or parent or friend for no apparent reason.
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We need to get the execute out of the executive branch.
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Excellent article in The Atlantic covers a little of this:
In response [to the Black Codes, created by southern states to keep African-Americans from owning guns], General Dan Sickles, who was in charge of Reconstruction in South Carolina, decreed that blacks could own guns. State officials ignored him, so Congress passed a law stating that ex-slaves possessed āfull and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty ā¦ including the constitutional right to bear arms.ā In the words of the Yale constitutional-law scholar Akhil Reed Amar, āBetween 1775 and 1866 the poster boy of arms morphed from the Concord minuteman to the Carolina freedman.ā
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What started this whole thing is several things.
First - the militarization of the police. Arming them with tanks, machine guns, flack jackets, etc just fuels the feeling the police are at war. In a wartime situation - anyone not wearing the same uniform as you is the enemy and every encounter is a potential threat to your life.
Second, the whole mantra police have of āI just want to make it home alive each night.ā This has been pushed more frequently as justification for the excessive violence dealt out by police. Again, when any comment, weird look or disobeying of command becomes an actionable issue (since it is a perceived threat), more violence is going to happen. Even if there is absolutely no threat (like a fleeing suspect) newer more powerful weapons makes it easier and simpler to simply shoot a fleeing suspect even when they are half a field away.
Third, draconian police policies. In the wake of the two police shootings, these will be investigated. It will be determined that the police acted within the acceptable policies. Think about that. If your policy allows for 1/2 dozen POINT BLANK shots into a suspect because āyou donāt know what may happen nextā and the policy is OK with thatā¦you need to change that policy.
While I hate violence against ANY group, Iām honestly not surprised this hasnāt happened much sooner. When the cops in Freguson rolled out on tanks with snipers ready to kill protesters, I wondered why no one took up an elevated position and put a laser dot on each police sniper as an insurance policy to keep them in checkā¦
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I disagree. I am not one of those people, but I know enough of them to have a decent idea what their mindset is. I think that they are thinking about the collapse of constitutional protections, or some sort of issue that leads to unrest in the cities, like disruption of food supplies or gas. That would possibly lead to city people turning on each other, then turning on the rural people. But pretty universally, it is about protection of oneās home and family. And not about any sort of offensive action. I donāt think there is very much specific planning, because realistically, when bad things happen, they come from an unexpected direction.
In my family, we have always used the āzombie apocalypseā as a euphemism for being generally prepared. But we are thinking about being snowed-in long term with the power off,a forest fire, or something like that.
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@SteampunkBanana - I donāt think any of the people you are talking about would give the civil war or civil rights movements as areas where they fear the govt use of force. Those are your two examples of govt use of force, but they arenāt the ones that gun owners worry about (well maybe racists are still bent bout the civil rights movement but not all gun advocates are racist). The threat of govt violence is very real and carried out every day. Our rule of law is backed by the threat of violence and imprisonment. No, things like knock raids & Randy Weaver are much more likely to come to mind. Aaron Swartzās death is an example of the violence of the govt.
This whole meme for ā2nd amendment only applies to whitesā is also telling. This whole idea of trying to frame the 2nd Amendment as racist is almost as bad/laughable as the ābig money from gun companies/NRA buying our politiciansā. Look at the history of gun control, far more of it was enacted to keep guns in the hands of racists and out of the hands of civil rights activists.
@glassturner - Yes, this is the right to arms functioning as the ultimate safety valve. IMO, in cases like this where the vast majority of the population will judge the shooters to have been misguided and not wielding that power for legitimate use, people will refuse to identify it as such, but I think given the hysteria and pressure that is building up along with the poverty and desperation of certain sectors of people in the US who are being systematically oppressed and live under constant threat of violence, to them they have reached that breaking point. No one wants to identify it as such because if it is legitimate it means we have failed as a society and are about to see major widespread violence and disorder, the wheels have come off, our seams have burst, etc. I donāt believe this is true. For the most part NOTHING has changed in America in the last week. Outside of the small pockets of the most disenfranchised things are going to continue to be generally orderly and prosperous. But in those pockets, as you can see from statements by the oppressors and oppressed, there is a very real mini-war going on. And that war is our nationās shame and undeniably intertwined with our American govt approved and enforced racist past of slavery, Law Enforcement culture, Black American Culture, and deeper roots of manās inhumanity to man, and tribal warfare. And it is a horrific thing.
I agree with this:
Hopefully the current incident is someone opportunistic who has a bent like Lee Malvo (MD sniper)
@AcerPlatanoides The rest of us can play politics and continue to try and work it out, but for some of these folks who are being crushed by the weight of it every day, I can see why they may feel as if they have no other choice but desperate violence 
These are sad days.
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as you said
That would possibly lead to city people turning on each other, then turning on the rural people.
What is the difference between city people and rural people again?
This sounds a bit like Real Americaā¢ seen above. I think your friends are looking for enemies.
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Yeahā¦ I think Iāve stopped caring about those white people and their āopinionsā a while ago. Their lack of empathy just makes me angryā¦
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Taking the fact that slavery existed and was institutionally recognized and use that to confirm some sort of founderās intent that black people never be armed is backwards. If you look at the writing and actions of the founderās through that lens there is NOTHING legitimate that they have done and our whole govt is bogus, from top to bottom.
The principles of individual liberty should clearly apply to all people.
Freedom of speech, Freedom of arms, Freedom of thought/religion.
Support Personal Freedom
end the war on:
drugs
personal computing
arms
privacy
Damnit, I keep scanning BLM as the Bureau of Land Management.
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This may sound cynical, but I do wonder: how did the shooters figure to fire automatic weapons at the Dallas police without killing black people?
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And itās exactly the sort of paranoid fantasising that leads to racism-driven atrocities like this:
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Not funny.
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Can we stop derailing to once again talk about gun rights in these threads? If you and @glassturner are interested in the subject, please split it off. Thanks!
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If the officers were posted around the outskirts of the protesters, it may not have been hard to select shots that had low risk to bystanders and protestors.
The closer the shooters were to the area, the easier to shots are to make cleanly.
Or they were fairly well trained/disciplined.
Iām surprised as well, you would think that after the first 1-2 shots and everything went to hell and chaos that it would be hard to get hits on the officers without hitting more protesters. Also, Iāve seen at least one video that seems to indicate some of the officers were being hunted at fairly close range (less than 50 ft.) and there were no bystanders nearby (probably skirting the edge of the protest). But it is so fuzzy and even though it has a news agency splash on it I canāt tell if it is legit.
