Yes, of course! a heavily armed society with no police is TOTALLY what we want! What could go wrong?
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I donât want to derail this into a thread about gun control, but I donât think you can wholly separate gun ownership in the USA with accountability for police violence.
One of the key excuses that cops routinely use to justify lethal force is âI thought he had a gun.â Courts would be less likely to let accept this justification if it wasnât so plausible. Unlike most developed countries, it is relatively common for American criminals to carry handguns.
If a cop in the UK shoots someone and claims âI thought he had a gunâ then theyâll likely face follow-up questions, like âwhat made you think they had a gun?â Thatâs because even though itâs still possible for a suspect to get a handgun in the UK itâs not really very common. It would be like an American cop saying âI shot him because I thought he was holding a grenade.â
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Ever hung out in one? Try it, you might like it.
As I keep saying Iâm advocating police reform. I stated my personal preference for no police at all in response to Jeffâs question. Iâm fully aware that many other people simply canât conceive of a non-authoritarian culture or society.
Thank you, I am not either kind of gun obsessive (pro- or anti-) so I find such threads tedious and counterproductive. But Iâm sure weâll both have many other opportunities to visit the subject <g> whether we want them or not.
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I would like to reiterate my claim that âwhite people with âideasâ (and likely guns, which is implied)â are infinitely more threatening to me than police.
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No, I havenât. Can you give an example of a nice one? My knowledge of American History has many examples of high arms and low or biased policing resulting in many people losing rights and/or their lives, from white racist riots in the South to bloody range wars in the west.
Your examples are of times and places where there were very active police forces. Racism and race riots in the South (and also in my own home state) were very much provoked and sustained by racist police and policing. Iâm told western range wars were often due to economic predators attempting to use law enforcement to disenfranchise poorer ranchers. Those are the direct opposite of heavily armed societies with no police.
If you want a small taste of what itâs like, backwoods bars in Appalachia where everyone else is packing heat and thereâs no cops are not real hard to find. I have spent pleasant evenings in such places listening to good music! I find itâs important to be unpretentious and respectful, though, especially to any women present.
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I did say âbiased policingâ in the case of the Race Riots, but it was often them standing aside rather than participating while armed citizens murdered.
Read more about range wars, your assumption is not very accurate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_war
"The Pleasant Valley War had the highest number of fatalities of such range conflicts in United States history, with an estimated total of 35 to 50 deaths, and the near annihilation of the males of the two feuding families. "
A backwoods bar is hardly a major society, itâs more of a tribe within Dunbarâs Number, where everyone has a personal relationship. And no doubt get them loaded enough there are incidents, you just werenât there for it.
Well, OK, youâve made it clear that you wonât change your mind.
From my point of view, you have more fear of the unknown neighbor than of omnipresent gangs of armed thugs with ever-increasing power and a history of violence.
Personally, I am more afraid of the imminent extinction of the human species; my own life and death arenât very significant, and guns arenât important to me.
@Urbanacus, youâre moving the goalposts all over the place. I canât keep up. Let us agree to disagree, as I have other duties to pursue. I would prefer to join our voices together in support of reform of Americaâs police instead of arguing over what flavor of fear is the most legitimate. As Tim said,
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First, Iâm not sure anyone has actually argued that⌠maybe some of our happy anarchist mutants, but I donât think thatâs anywhere near the consensus view of the police around here.
Second, keep in mind police forces, as we understand them, are a generally new thing in history. Civilization didnât begin with the modern nation-state and how it functions. We lived for eons under very different structures (generally different structures across human civilizations).
I say this, not to argue for an end to the structures we have, but to argue that we can find a way to have these things in a way that doesnât contribute to the murder of our fellow human beings. We can certainly reform to a great degree and find better structures to live within. Itâs not either or, and I think itâs a bit disingenuous to say that it is.
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And when cops arenât working, people often build alternatives - itâs part of the reason the Black Panthers were formed - community policing, in itâs most democratic form.
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Wrong thread my friend.
The fuck�
Bloody hell.
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No, they work above it. Thatâs the problem.
You should rethink that. As someone who has found himself looking down the wrong end of gun held by a âcrazy-ass white personâ more than once, consider this anecdata.
In one instance the guy actually fired shots. He was arrested and convicted. That would never have happened if he was a cop. There was only one minor injury, so if heâd been a cop, heâd have been out shooting at other people the next day.
In another case, I talked to the guy, de-escalated the situation, and took control. Zero shots fired. That would never have happened if he was a cop. Cops are trained to escalate the situation as much as they need to take and retain control, and if they go too far, oh well, accidents happen.
I donât like crazy guys with guns, Iâve had enough bad experiences with them, they are a threat, but theyâre far less of a threat than cops nowadays.
Why donât they bother to follow up here? Is it because it doesnât really matter? Standard excuse provided, rubber-stamp it, ok, done.
Back on topic, I donât think that police as an institution should be eliminated. I do think that they should be trained properly and anyone who doesnât make the cut should be laid off. Training should be toward de-escalating (instead of escalating) dangerous situations, and avoiding (instead of instigating) riots. And I also think that they should get extra punishment when they abuse their authority or use their badge to commit crimes, instead of getting a free pass. Theyâre in a position of trust, they should be held to higher standards. They should be trained to know the law and uphold it instead of being trained and encouraged to violate it with the knowledge that they wonât be held responsible for their crimes.
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These two are the same thing from my perspective. Your neighbors are the armed thugs you need to watch out for. Except with zero training and operating under zero rules and no oversight or accountability.
also, we need more stats on fatalities involving the police. Without data, we donât have any idea whatâs working.
The main way to do that, is to not have the police carry guns. Then their inevitable human mistakes are no longer fatal mistakes.
Since gun control in the US is a fantasy, perhaps âlots more trainingâ is the only answer, but Iâm skeptical. We should bring training levels in line with other first world police forces, certainly couldnât hurt.
Yup. And cops wonder why people are afraid of them, distrust them, and sometimes go out and kill them.
Itâs because itâs a gang. A legal one.
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I think that would certainly help. But itâs a cultural problem too. As long as the police imagine themselves as a force outside of the rest of our society, with the power of life and death over their fellow citizens, weâll keep having these kinds of problems. Additionally, making police accountable for their actions, not to some IA, but to us, as American citizens would also help. Cops should serve time for murder, and all too often, they get off.
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Youâve said before that nobody you talk to online ever changes their minds about anything. I donât have that experience online, myself. Do you think it might be your approach? Iâm just asking if youâve considered this.
Your comments regarding training, extensively monitoring and perhaps disarming the police seem like the most intelligent path forward for us as a society. Ten thumbs up!
Is that what I said? No, I donât think it is. You might try re-reading what I actually did say.
Any connection between the above statements, and online changing-of-the-minds, I leave as an exercise for the ⌠cough ⌠reader.
It would be nice if the world wasnât full of avatars aggressively pointing guns at people, too. Might that color your interaction with other people online? Iâm just asking if youâve considered this.
