If we separate homicides by police into two groups:
- Police who were genuinely afraid
- Police who use fear as an excuse after the fact
In the case of (1) @brainspore has it: Are fearful people more or less likely to be violent?
In the case of (2), I think the question is: Are they more likely to get away with killing people when they can reasonably say that their target may have had a gun?
I think in both cases more guns in the public encourages the killing: either by triggering a fight/flight response that goes to fight or by giving a willful killer more reason to believe they’ll get away with it.
I agree with your general sentiment in the thread: there is a problem that goes a lot deeper than people having guns. Police are trained to think of themselves as being at war with the public. At the same time, that kind of police training infected Canada as well, but we don’t see nearly the rate of police homicides here.
Problems like this are always multi-dimensional, and they are always self-reinforcing. Right now there is a generation of young people in the US who know exactly how little their government cares about their lives and they are saying, “You can show us that you give a shit about whether we live or die by banning some guns.” Because of NRA lobbying and the perception that politicians are bought by the NRA, guns are a symbol of government corruption and willingness to ban them is a symbol of willingness to take on corruption. Because of the second amendment, guns are a symbol of individualism run amok - of a society where people aren’t willing to lift a finger to save another person’s life.
I think taking a concrete step to demonstrate to the youngest generation of Americans that their parents and grandparents care if they live or die is itself a step towards healing the soul-sickness of America. I think that making NRA lobbying politically toxic is a step towards healing the soul-sickness of America. I think that saying, “We need to balance individual rights against the public good” would be a step towards healing the soul-sickness of America.
