Unarmed man flags down LAPD seeking help. They shoot him in the head

I’d vote for unarmed citizens and (definitely) unarmed police. I think the second amendment needs to die in a fire.

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I like that plan. But they’re certainly not going to disarm the latter if the former can buy any ol’ weapon they like. (How could they? A cop is a citizen too, after all.)

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The proliferation of metalworking machining tools is in the way. Manual lathes and mills of yesterday are today being supplemented with low-cost CNC mills today, and with at-home laser-melting devices of tomorrow.

Then there’s the issue of the propellants, but that is not so difficult for anyone with even semi-rudimentary chemistry knowledge, at least if you don’t require insanely long shelf life.

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Second thread this makes sense in, just today!

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It is false to hold double standards here for police and non-police. All this distinction does is create a class of people with different rights and duties, which a practice that automatically creates lots of problems. You disregard one crucial option, which is that debating only whether or not citizens should have guns seems to implicitly assume that police will have them.

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Nope. Quite the opposite.

In a civil society it creates a class of people with an extra set of responsibilities, as well as all their other responsibilities.

That they currently often fail without humility at those responsibilities, and stand by their brothers when they do the same, has rightly cost them, as a self-identifying group- the respect that OUGHT TO but cannot currently be afforded them.

I’d like to respect cops more. Them first.

[typo edit]

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Not at all. I’m saying it’s inevitable that police will have (and use) guns as long as the rest of the population can have them.

There are plenty of countries where cops don’t routinely carry firearms. None of those countries are places where it is easy for ordinary citizens to obtain firearms.

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Talk about a strawman argument.

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There are many things which are legally prohibited, while obviously still easily possible to do. I don’t understand why you keep explaining this as a reason to not make guns illegal to manufacture. Why bother having speed limits when everybody knows that cars can go faster anyway?

Getting rid of the firearms industry does not prevent the odd person from making one and engaging in violence. But what it does do is work against the institution of violence in a meaningful way. It serves to reduce the scale of violence generally.

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thought you were replying to something else! HA. If I only had a brain.

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cliven bundy

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Maybe someone should remind the police of that, too.

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Possibly this one?

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Their cliche is “Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6”. And, given that their odds of seeing court at all, much less losing, are pretty damned excellent; I’m forced to put this in the ‘pragmatic evil’ pile.

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“spokesman, said the officers followed standard LAPD protocol in handcuffing the man”

And here’s a sign we’ll never be able to develop artificial intelligence.

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Hoo, boy, there are so many concepts here that you seem to be ignoring: the first being that a police officer is assumed to have training in weapons usage, but more importantly weapons safety and restraint in their usage. Second, the idea that police are under the Ben Parker rule, with great power comes great responsibility. And third, most nations agree that the state should have what is legally known as a monopoly of violence.

And that’s just off the top of my head.

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Given the number of people with concealed guns in the US I think it is understandable that police would be paranoid about being shot.

Why now, when the acturial risks of being a police officer have been steadily dropping for years? Their job is getting easier and easier, safer and safer. Why are they getting chickenshittier?

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I worked for a number of years as a hard rock miner, a job somewhat more dangerous than being a police officer. (In fact, I was a blaster, it was kinda great, being paid mucho dinero to blow things up all day-- the only downside was living in mining towns, which sucked, but I digress).

What they taught us, and what pretty quickly became self-evidently true, was that what was dangerous, was not the working with heavy and very powerful machinery in very cramped spaces, nor the danger of falls or life support failures etc etc, all those could be managed safely with well understood procedures and backups. What could get you killed, what almost certainly would get you killed, if you were killed underground, was human error/idiocy/insanity, possibly your own, more likely one of your co-workers. So we were trained to police each other and watch each other like hawks. Show up for work drunk or smelling too strongly of alcohol from the night before, your coworkers would immediately and guiltlessly rat you out and you were on desk or yard duty that day. If it was known you had been fighting with your girlfriend, you probably didn’t get the key to the explosives shed that day. Act too macho around dynamite, and nobody would partner with you. And so on.

So if cops have such a freakin’ dangerous job, maybe they oughta do the same? Police each other that is. Cuz there evidently ain’t no way they are going to let civilians police them.

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More “bad apples”?

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