Who do you want to have access to significantly more powerful guns and weaponry: cops or citizens?

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Who do you want to have access to significantly more powerful guns and weaponry: cops or citizens?

Equality: I want citizens to have the same access to guns as cops under the same general conditions for each (e.g. similar safety training, background checks, minimum age requirements, etc.)
8
47%
Cops Armed; Citizens Disarmed: I want cops and government agents to have access to more powerful guns than similarly trained and similarly qualified citizens.
7
41%
Cops Disarmed; Citizens Armed: I want trained citizens to have have access to more powerful guns than similarly trained cops.
2
12%
 
Total votes: 17

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LuckyR
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Re: Who do you want to have access to significantly more powerful guns and weaponry: cops or citizens?

Post by LuckyR »

Stoic Spirit wrote: December 18th, 2021, 5:38 pm
LuckyR wrote: December 18th, 2021, 4:13 pm
Stoic Spirit wrote: December 18th, 2021, 11:32 am
LuckyR wrote: December 6th, 2021, 3:12 am

Several things.

First, the majority of murders are by folks the victim knew, not strangers. Therefore the second paragraph goes up in smoke.

Second, the best way to avoid a stranger murder attempt (which do happen on occasion), isn't a weapon, or a law enforcement officer. It is living your life in such a way that you aren't on the radar of murderers, who, BTW are not average citizens.

Because of the first two, the only way a firearm is going to have a greater chance of providing protection than harm to you (since they can do both at known rates), is if you are at so high of a risk of being murdered that you have other problems you should be addressing besides firearms.
Hopefully you are lucky enough and you do not live in such an area at high risk of terror as so many people can't afford to live elsewhere. In Israel passers-by open fire on terrorists as one man. These are not normal conditions, I know, but if the same happens in Europe, well, people will have to wait for the counter-terrorist forces to arrive on the scene, but in the meantime, eighty to a hundred people will die.

I think terrorists and criminals deserve to talk to them in their own language. And the victims would deserve to be able to fight back. If predators are lurking around us we have to be armed. The solution is not to run away. We cannot escape forever.

If you live in 'normal' country the risk is enormously low to be a victim of terrorism and crime, indeed, but the same rules apply. it can happen to anyone that you are in the wrong place at the wrong time and you need to be prepared for that, because it's technically and infrastructurally possible for the reason mentioned above, and everyone has only one life.

SP
Well, you are correct that you only have one life. Thus it is odd you aren't addressing the known risks of firearms in increasing the risk of accidents and suicides. You are also correct that I personally live in a "normal" country as I suspect the vast majority of posters on this Forum do. I mentioned that if your risk of stranger murder and/or terrorism is so high to outweigh the known risk to the owner of gun possession, then (and only then) should you use safety as your reason for gun ownership. Naturally there are numerous non safety reasons, but we're not discussing those here. You are correct that regardless of where you live you "need to be prepared for" the possibility of crime, but it is an error to suppose that the only or best way to prepare is by acquiring an instrument that has a higher statistical chance of harming your family than protecting you.
I also would like to live in a world where no guns are needed, in a totally gun free world, but sadly this is not that world. I do not deny that there may be a problem with the possession of a firearm, just as a kitchen knife or car is responsible for many accidents, but I cannot understand how this could be a bigger problem than that the victims of a crime or terrorist attack do not have an effective means to defend themselves. Of course there are people who shouldn't hold gun, because they are mentally unstable or unfit. But I am not talking about them, but about responsible, innocent law-abiding citizens whose rights to effective self-defense are being violated in many countries, and who would never obtain a weapon from illegal sources like criminals and terrorists do.

SP
Uummm, okay, lots of people didn't take statistics. Most gun deaths in the US are suicides, 24,000. Gun related homicides are about 15,000, but about 2,200 are killed by their spouse. About 500 die of gun related accidents. So 26,700 gun deaths of family members of gun owners per year or about 8 per 100,000 population. Only one third of US households own guns so the risk is 24 per 100,000 in gun owning households.

So in order for a gun to have a chance of preventing your death at a higher chance than causing one in your family, you would have to live where the murder rate was higher than 24 per 100,000 assuming you were 100% effective at preventing your murder. Obviously, that would be a gross overestimation of the ability of the abilities of gun owners. Let's be generous and say 25% of murders could be prevented by owning a gun. In that case you would have to live where the murder rate was 96 per 100,000

The US has a murder rate overall of 4.9. It is higher in big cities. St Louis is the highest in the US at 69, so it doesn't even make sense there. Worldwide is different as you pointed out. Tijuana, Mexico has 138 per 100,000, others that qualify would Acapulco and Caracas, Venezuela. I assume you don't live in any of those cities.
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Re: Who do you want to have access to significantly more powerful guns and weaponry: cops or citizens?

Post by Stoic Spirit »

LuckyR wrote: December 19th, 2021, 3:48 am
Stoic Spirit wrote: December 18th, 2021, 5:38 pm
LuckyR wrote: December 18th, 2021, 4:13 pm
Stoic Spirit wrote: December 18th, 2021, 11:32 am

Hopefully you are lucky enough and you do not live in such an area at high risk of terror as so many people can't afford to live elsewhere. In Israel passers-by open fire on terrorists as one man. These are not normal conditions, I know, but if the same happens in Europe, well, people will have to wait for the counter-terrorist forces to arrive on the scene, but in the meantime, eighty to a hundred people will die.

I think terrorists and criminals deserve to talk to them in their own language. And the victims would deserve to be able to fight back. If predators are lurking around us we have to be armed. The solution is not to run away. We cannot escape forever.

If you live in 'normal' country the risk is enormously low to be a victim of terrorism and crime, indeed, but the same rules apply. it can happen to anyone that you are in the wrong place at the wrong time and you need to be prepared for that, because it's technically and infrastructurally possible for the reason mentioned above, and everyone has only one life.

SP
Well, you are correct that you only have one life. Thus it is odd you aren't addressing the known risks of firearms in increasing the risk of accidents and suicides. You are also correct that I personally live in a "normal" country as I suspect the vast majority of posters on this Forum do. I mentioned that if your risk of stranger murder and/or terrorism is so high to outweigh the known risk to the owner of gun possession, then (and only then) should you use safety as your reason for gun ownership. Naturally there are numerous non safety reasons, but we're not discussing those here. You are correct that regardless of where you live you "need to be prepared for" the possibility of crime, but it is an error to suppose that the only or best way to prepare is by acquiring an instrument that has a higher statistical chance of harming your family than protecting you.
I also would like to live in a world where no guns are needed, in a totally gun free world, but sadly this is not that world. I do not deny that there may be a problem with the possession of a firearm, just as a kitchen knife or car is responsible for many accidents, but I cannot understand how this could be a bigger problem than that the victims of a crime or terrorist attack do not have an effective means to defend themselves. Of course there are people who shouldn't hold gun, because they are mentally unstable or unfit. But I am not talking about them, but about responsible, innocent law-abiding citizens whose rights to effective self-defense are being violated in many countries, and who would never obtain a weapon from illegal sources like criminals and terrorists do.

SP
Uummm, okay, lots of people didn't take statistics. Most gun deaths in the US are suicides, 24,000. Gun related homicides are about 15,000, but about 2,200 are killed by their spouse. About 500 die of gun related accidents. So 26,700 gun deaths of family members of gun owners per year or about 8 per 100,000 population. Only one third of US households own guns so the risk is 24 per 100,000 in gun owning households.

So in order for a gun to have a chance of preventing your death at a higher chance than causing one in your family, you would have to live where the murder rate was higher than 24 per 100,000 assuming you were 100% effective at preventing your murder. Obviously, that would be a gross overestimation of the ability of the abilities of gun owners. Let's be generous and say 25% of murders could be prevented by owning a gun. In that case you would have to live where the murder rate was 96 per 100,000

The US has a murder rate overall of 4.9. It is higher in big cities. St Louis is the highest in the US at 69, so it doesn't even make sense there. Worldwide is different as you pointed out. Tijuana, Mexico has 138 per 100,000, others that qualify would Acapulco and Caracas, Venezuela. I assume you don't live in any of those cities.
Quite true, the victims whose lives are under direct threat of crime and terror, do not care about the statistics indeed. When your life at the stake you don't bother with statistic. But even if you're right about not owning firearms causes less trouble than owning gun in mass scale, you are still at error on the other hand. If you want to commit a suicide or kill your spouse it can be perfectly implemented with no gun involved, with nylon bag, knife, hammer, and with so many stuffs you can acquire legally with no permission needed, but are perfectly suitable for killing. If you really want to murder someone, having no gun won't prevent you doing so. For example the former-Soviet region is totally gun free regarding for civilians, buy the suicide and homicide rate are five times higher than anywhere in the West. In the CIS countries, in Eastern-Europe or Central-Asia the vast majority of domestic violence are committed with no firearm involved.

Switzerland and Israel on the other hand are relatively safe from legally owned guns. The gun alone don't make anyone criminal. So the gun is only one tool of many in hands of criminals for committing homicide, but for the victims the only efficient tool to protect their lives, since criminals are already advantaged by default. If the fragile woman is attacked by a three times higher and heavier male I don't see how to balance the odds without allowing the victim to be armed. And you can't answer that either.

But the fundamental issue is still untouched. Why responsible, innocent, law-abiding citizens cannot defend themselves against criminals and terrorists with firearm if it's necessary? I repeat, I'm not talking about mentally degenerated, emotionally unstable people, who shouldn't own gun indeed, and who obviously contribute to negative statistics.

So as you can see, every case is unique which must be handled individually and independently, regardless of any statistics. So many people shouldn't hold gun as I said, but this cannot be influenced by that so many people would desperately need effective self-defense. Because every case is unique without affecting each other in vast majority of cases.

Tijuana, Mexico, well, I don't know how good this example. I didn't see statistic with crime related to legally owned guns (not criminal or drug cartel owned weapons). I tend to agree with you in that so many people shouldn't hold gun even legally, but again, the best protection or even the only one effective defense against this either is letting the guns fall into proper hands, (victims, and body guards, amateurs and professionals with good intentions).

One more thing to consider, everyone has a choice to select their partner. Everyone can select people whom they want hangling with. But no one can choose their random murderer.

It was a bit philosophical, but go ahead with statistics, the collective judgement on cases which not relating each other can be informative too especially after growing up in communist country, in a totally gun free zone, where the crime, prostitustion, ethnic tension skyrocketed. But we celebrated a 0% official crime rate. Of course the USA is a whole different matter, but the firearms and crime relation might be different in Alaska and Detroit. I suppose in neither place you can afford hanging with no gun.

No problem can be solved with making potential victims even more vulnerable.

SP
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Re: Who do you want to have access to significantly more powerful guns and weaponry: cops or citizens?

Post by LuckyR »

Stoic Spirit wrote: December 19th, 2021, 8:59 am
LuckyR wrote: December 19th, 2021, 3:48 am
Stoic Spirit wrote: December 18th, 2021, 5:38 pm
LuckyR wrote: December 18th, 2021, 4:13 pm

Well, you are correct that you only have one life. Thus it is odd you aren't addressing the known risks of firearms in increasing the risk of accidents and suicides. You are also correct that I personally live in a "normal" country as I suspect the vast majority of posters on this Forum do. I mentioned that if your risk of stranger murder and/or terrorism is so high to outweigh the known risk to the owner of gun possession, then (and only then) should you use safety as your reason for gun ownership. Naturally there are numerous non safety reasons, but we're not discussing those here. You are correct that regardless of where you live you "need to be prepared for" the possibility of crime, but it is an error to suppose that the only or best way to prepare is by acquiring an instrument that has a higher statistical chance of harming your family than protecting you.
I also would like to live in a world where no guns are needed, in a totally gun free world, but sadly this is not that world. I do not deny that there may be a problem with the possession of a firearm, just as a kitchen knife or car is responsible for many accidents, but I cannot understand how this could be a bigger problem than that the victims of a crime or terrorist attack do not have an effective means to defend themselves. Of course there are people who shouldn't hold gun, because they are mentally unstable or unfit. But I am not talking about them, but about responsible, innocent law-abiding citizens whose rights to effective self-defense are being violated in many countries, and who would never obtain a weapon from illegal sources like criminals and terrorists do.

SP
Uummm, okay, lots of people didn't take statistics. Most gun deaths in the US are suicides, 24,000. Gun related homicides are about 15,000, but about 2,200 are killed by their spouse. About 500 die of gun related accidents. So 26,700 gun deaths of family members of gun owners per year or about 8 per 100,000 population. Only one third of US households own guns so the risk is 24 per 100,000 in gun owning households.

So in order for a gun to have a chance of preventing your death at a higher chance than causing one in your family, you would have to live where the murder rate was higher than 24 per 100,000 assuming you were 100% effective at preventing your murder. Obviously, that would be a gross overestimation of the ability of the abilities of gun owners. Let's be generous and say 25% of murders could be prevented by owning a gun. In that case you would have to live where the murder rate was 96 per 100,000

The US has a murder rate overall of 4.9. It is higher in big cities. St Louis is the highest in the US at 69, so it doesn't even make sense there. Worldwide is different as you pointed out. Tijuana, Mexico has 138 per 100,000, others that qualify would Acapulco and Caracas, Venezuela. I assume you don't live in any of those cities.
Quite true, the victims whose lives are under direct threat of crime and terror, do not care about the statistics indeed. When your life at the stake you don't bother with statistic. But even if you're right about not owning firearms causes less trouble than owning gun in mass scale, you are still at error on the other hand. If you want to commit a suicide or kill your spouse it can be perfectly implemented with no gun involved, with nylon bag, knife, hammer, and with so many stuffs you can acquire legally with no permission needed, but are perfectly suitable for killing. If you really want to murder someone, having no gun won't prevent you doing so. For example the former-Soviet region is totally gun free regarding for civilians, buy the suicide and homicide rate are five times higher than anywhere in the West. In the CIS countries, in Eastern-Europe or Central-Asia the vast majority of domestic violence are committed with no firearm involved.

Switzerland and Israel on the other hand are relatively safe from legally owned guns. The gun alone don't make anyone criminal. So the gun is only one tool of many in hands of criminals for committing homicide, but for the victims the only efficient tool to protect their lives, since criminals are already advantaged by default. If the fragile woman is attacked by a three times higher and heavier male I don't see how to balance the odds without allowing the victim to be armed. And you can't answer that either.

But the fundamental issue is still untouched. Why responsible, innocent, law-abiding citizens cannot defend themselves against criminals and terrorists with firearm if it's necessary? I repeat, I'm not talking about mentally degenerated, emotionally unstable people, who shouldn't own gun indeed, and who obviously contribute to negative statistics.

So as you can see, every case is unique which must be handled individually and independently, regardless of any statistics. So many people shouldn't hold gun as I said, but this cannot be influenced by that so many people would desperately need effective self-defense. Because every case is unique without affecting each other in vast majority of cases.

Tijuana, Mexico, well, I don't know how good this example. I didn't see statistic with crime related to legally owned guns (not criminal or drug cartel owned weapons). I tend to agree with you in that so many people shouldn't hold gun even legally, but again, the best protection or even the only one effective defense against this either is letting the guns fall into proper hands, (victims, and body guards, amateurs and professionals with good intentions).

One more thing to consider, everyone has a choice to select their partner. Everyone can select people whom they want hangling with. But no one can choose their random murderer.

It was a bit philosophical, but go ahead with statistics, the collective judgement on cases which not relating each other can be informative too especially after growing up in communist country, in a totally gun free zone, where the crime, prostitustion, ethnic tension skyrocketed. But we celebrated a 0% official crime rate. Of course the USA is a whole different matter, but the firearms and crime relation might be different in Alaska and Detroit. I suppose in neither place you can afford hanging with no gun.

No problem can be solved with making potential victims even more vulnerable.

SP
It seems like we understand each other pretty well. Just one thing, you can attempt suicide in many ways, but there is no denying that guns are much, much more successful than any other method, hence why guns lead to more suicide deaths.
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Re: Who do you want to have access to significantly more powerful guns and weaponry: cops or citizens?

Post by Empiricist-Bruno »

Scott wrote: April 13th, 2021, 10:37 pm Recently, Daunte Wright was added to a list of names that include, among many others, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Ronell Foster, Walter Scott, Willie McCoy, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Stephon Clark, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd.

One police officer named Ryan McMahon shot and killed two of the people on the above list, about one year apart. McMahon wasn't criminally charged with either killing, but after the second killing he was fired for "engaging in unsafe conduct and neglect for basic firearm safety" (source).

Even an unarmed pacifist can be shot to death by police, especially considered the majority of inmates in the United States are only charged with nonviolent crimes, such as marijuana possession, consensual adult prostitution, or pacifistic tax protesting.

Dr. Martin Luther King was arrested 29 times. Dr. King was a repeat criminal. One could even argue that Dr. Martin Luther King was a career criminal.

Arnold Abbott was repeatedly arrested for illegally feeding the homeless. Had Arnold Abbott not been elderly and white, or had he been more willing and able to run away when the police came to nab him for illegally feeding the homeless, perhaps he would have been shot during his arrest.

Of course, one does not need to even commit a crime to to be stopped by police and potentially shot to death. For instance, merely the alleged smell of marijuana is enough of a legal basis to forceably detain a suspect with probable cause, an altercation can quickly turn deadly for even an unarmed innocent suspect.

I absolutely don't mean to pick on police. If I have a problem with police at all, it is simply that they are human. If I even have a problem, my problem isn't with police but rather with humans. For more on the that, you can read my topic Man is Not Fit to Govern Man, or my first reply in the topic Covid and Flu highlight the difficulty of placing an economic value on human lives. The tl;dr is this: Humans are irrational. Humans also all tend to display varying degrees of selfishness and addiction. I believe no human is perfectly unselfish, and I believe every human is on the addiction spectrum. Money and power are especially enticing addictions. Some would say money and power corrupt, but I think that gives too much credit to the natural state of humans, in that a selfish power-hungry money-addicted human is not corrupted but totally normal and uncorrupted, and that's okay. As with anything, it is what it is. A government that violently robs the hard working taxpayers by the millions, billions, or trillions to sneak money into the hands of wealthy special interests is not corrupted; it is doing what governments always do, and always have done for thousands of years. It is what it is.

I have no strong opinions about gun control, for a few reasons, which include:

1. The word 'guns' is very vague. My opinion regarding someone with a functioning 18th century musket is very different than my opinion regarding someone having a rocket launcher with a mini-nuke capable of blowing up an entire football stadium. One benchmark I would recommend using to measure and contrast the danger of various kinds of guns or other weapons would be to statistically compare each to the danger of the average car, a process that could easily be delegated to private insurance companies that can nail it down so well that the color of a car might affect your liability insurance by a few dollars per month one way or the other. If I had to bet, I would bet pink guns would be statistically the safest color of guns. Humans are an interesting bunch, indeed.

2. I am much more interested in the fairness and equality of gun laws than what the laws happen to be in a given town, state, or country. For very cliché instance, when the Nazis gained power in Germany they systemically disarmed Jewish people and certain other "unreliable" groups (source) but actually loosened gun laws for Nazi party members and the military. That kind of inequality is what would concern me the most. In this way, we can look at guns like we might look at anything such as marijuana, alcohol, cyanide, automobiles, access to voting, college educations, or bank accounts. We can look at it like we might look at Wall Street getting away with market manipulation and short squeezes but retailer investors getting unequal treatment if they organize a short squeeze, which surely wouldn't be fair.

3. When it comes to my mostly impotent support or opposition to any given law, I am less interested in what the law is and more interested in whether it represents (1) localism and the freedom that is self-government or (2) big expensive national, federal, or global governments that extremely centralize power over unimaginably vast lands into the hands of very few privileged rich humans via large-scale non-defensive violence. Such centralization hinders the choice and beautiful diversity that otherwise naturally emerge. For instance, if some small town government or condo community governing board bans marijuana or alcohol, I really don't care, and I don't see it as a noteworthy infringement of anyone's political freedom. But if a few millionaires or billionaires at the UN suddenly ban alcohol or marijuana across the entire Earth at the behest of some rich lobbyists, that would be extremely disturbing to me, regardless of whether the globally banned thing is alcohol or marijuana or public nudity or any number of countless things that a small local group of people might understandably ban at a very local level. If someone hates motorcycles or small pistols or loud noises after 10pm, I am more than happy for them to have the option of moving to a town that bans those things. If someone loves motorcycles or pistols or loud noises at night, I am more than happy for them to have the option to move to a town or state that allows those things. I'd be disappointed to see either banned across the whole Earth. Self-government is the antitheses of big expensive non-defensively violent national or global governments.

With that said, I feel that whatever the gun laws happen to be at any given local, state, national, federal, or global level, I strongly prefer that those gun laws are applied equally to citizens as well as police and other government agents in that jurisdiction.

I share the view of the vast majority of the respondents to my recent totally unscientific Twitter poll about distrusting the government. Namely, I don't find humans trustworthy in general, but I have even less trust for big governments like the U.S. federal government. Humans have their problems individually, but mobs of humans are even worse.

The U.S. federal budget for the 2020 fiscal year was set at $4.79 trillion. Humans tend to be irrational and selfish even when those traits aren't being fertilized by $4.79 trillion dollars of taxpayer money taken from taxpayers at the threat of violence, but with that $4.79 trillion dollar fertilization I cannot even imagine the level of self-serving shady tyranny happening in the dealings between the various millionaires and billionaires in Washington, including not only the many millionaires in Congress but the paid lobbyists and corporate cronies. Humans are worse around money than cats around catnip.
I don't know any cop but I do believe to know some people.

I grew up in school befriending a guy who went on to become a cop and so, I don't know him anymore.

I also know about people who should not have guns. My view about guns is that I am unconcerned by them so long as they aren't pointed at me, or people I care about.

I am unfortunately uncertain about which option here is less likely to lead to a gun being pointed at me. I do know however, that the more there are guns freely roaming in a society suggests that my chances of being aimed at are likely increasing as well.

No more gun weapons please. Police, given their resources should be able to do their jobs without weapons, but that takes courage of course, so it may not be possible. I don't know. I don't know cops.
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Re: Who do you want to have access to significantly more powerful guns and weaponry: cops or citizens?

Post by ernestm »

Well frankly it seems to me the entire argument is misdirected. As to what people 'want,' there is what we 'can do' and what we 'should do.' What we can do is defined by rights in law, and is mistaken for what we should do. What we should do is avoid lethal self defense if we are able to, that is, instead of asking what we 'want,' we should be seeking nonlethal mechanisms to protect ourselves, and only people who are too incapacitated for any reason to use non-lethal self defense should consider guns and weaponry as what they 'want.' That is a proper statement of ethics with regards to the 'desire' for guns, that is, we SHOULD desire guns only if nothing else at all is a possible means of protecting ourselves.
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Re: Who do you want to have access to significantly more powerful guns and weaponry: cops or citizens?

Post by Astro Cat »

I really wish there were just a better way to weed out bad actor cops. There are so many of them that it has irrevocably stained the idea of cops as being the "good guys" to a lot of people.

Otherwise, I answered both: this is under the assumption that the citizens in question do have to go through some rigorous process to weed out bad actors there, too.
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Re: Who do you want to have access to significantly more powerful guns and weaponry: cops or citizens?

Post by LuckyR »

Astro Cat wrote: June 28th, 2022, 11:15 pm I really wish there were just a better way to weed out bad actor cops. There are so many of them that it has irrevocably stained the idea of cops as being the "good guys" to a lot of people.

Otherwise, I answered both: this is under the assumption that the citizens in question do have to go through some rigorous process to weed out bad actors there, too.
No one expects all members of any group to be above average. What makes the police different from most other groups is the denial by the above average cops that the incompetent cops are, in fact, incompetent.
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Re: Who do you want to have access to significantly more powerful guns and weaponry: cops or citizens?

Post by Astro Cat »

LuckyR wrote: June 30th, 2022, 3:16 am
Astro Cat wrote: June 28th, 2022, 11:15 pm I really wish there were just a better way to weed out bad actor cops. There are so many of them that it has irrevocably stained the idea of cops as being the "good guys" to a lot of people.

Otherwise, I answered both: this is under the assumption that the citizens in question do have to go through some rigorous process to weed out bad actors there, too.
No one expects all members of any group to be above average. What makes the police different from most other groups is the denial by the above average cops that the incompetent cops are, in fact, incompetent.
Yeah. Some accountability and some action (anything, and not as much pushing back against criticism to the point of appearing petulant or corrupt) would go a long way. If at the height of everything that's been going on we started seeing departments saying "ok you know what? There is a problem, we are going to do ________ with our training programs, we're going to retrain people, we're going to let people go beneath what our standards need to be," etc., there would be a lot less outright disillusionment with policing as an institution.
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Re: Who do you want to have access to significantly more powerful guns and weaponry: cops or citizens?

Post by LuckyR »

Astro Cat wrote: June 30th, 2022, 3:43 am
LuckyR wrote: June 30th, 2022, 3:16 am
Astro Cat wrote: June 28th, 2022, 11:15 pm I really wish there were just a better way to weed out bad actor cops. There are so many of them that it has irrevocably stained the idea of cops as being the "good guys" to a lot of people.

Otherwise, I answered both: this is under the assumption that the citizens in question do have to go through some rigorous process to weed out bad actors there, too.
No one expects all members of any group to be above average. What makes the police different from most other groups is the denial by the above average cops that the incompetent cops are, in fact, incompetent.
Yeah. Some accountability and some action (anything, and not as much pushing back against criticism to the point of appearing petulant or corrupt) would go a long way. If at the height of everything that's been going on we started seeing departments saying "ok you know what? There is a problem, we are going to do ________ with our training programs, we're going to retrain people, we're going to let people go beneath what our standards need to be," etc., there would be a lot less outright disillusionment with policing as an institution.
Well, that is happening more than in the past (never). The trend is encouraging, which would be okay if folks weren't literally dying as this process of change was winding along it's way.
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Re: Who do you want to have access to significantly more powerful guns and weaponry: cops or citizens?

Post by Baby Augustine »

Evil folks will have the best guns and weapons they can get their hands on.
at this point, your question is too detached from reality.
"Of the 393 million firearms in the U.S., only 6.06 million of them are registered."

You wanna fight what is going on? Speak out against perversion. Act to save the traditional family. show that you value all human life, IE , reject abortion's triviality and heartlessness.

What did Mother Theresa say to Bill Clinton
“I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?
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Re: Who do you want to have access to significantly more powerful guns and weaponry: cops or citizens?

Post by Mounce574 »

Baby Augustine wrote: January 14th, 2023, 5:35 pm Evil folks will have the best guns and weapons they can get their hands on.
at this point, your question is too detached from reality.
"Of the 393 million firearms in the U.S., only 6.06 million of them are registered."

You wanna fight what is going on? Speak out against perversion. Act to save the traditional family. show that you value all human life, IE , reject abortion's triviality and heartlessness.

What did Mother Theresa say to Bill Clinton
“I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?
Add on the fact it takes an average of 15 minutes or longer for police to respond to a 911 call. It took 6 minutes for the Parkland shooter to kill 17 people from start to finish. He was leaving the property when police entered the building. I know it took police 36 minutes to arrive when an ex shot at me 3 times. The gunshots are the 911 call. I was fortunate to be able to call. Some people don't get that chance; having a means of self-defense might cause criminals to realize that they are gambling with their lives.
Police should be able to have the means to end a threat by having access to weapons that are equal to what criminals are facing.
"Facts don't care about your feelings." Ben Shapiro
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." NF from Motto
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LuckyR
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Re: Who do you want to have access to significantly more powerful guns and weaponry: cops or citizens?

Post by LuckyR »

Mounce574 wrote: January 21st, 2023, 8:33 pm
Baby Augustine wrote: January 14th, 2023, 5:35 pm Evil folks will have the best guns and weapons they can get their hands on.
at this point, your question is too detached from reality.
"Of the 393 million firearms in the U.S., only 6.06 million of them are registered."

You wanna fight what is going on? Speak out against perversion. Act to save the traditional family. show that you value all human life, IE , reject abortion's triviality and heartlessness.

What did Mother Theresa say to Bill Clinton
“I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?
Add on the fact it takes an average of 15 minutes or longer for police to respond to a 911 call. It took 6 minutes for the Parkland shooter to kill 17 people from start to finish. He was leaving the property when police entered the building. I know it took police 36 minutes to arrive when an ex shot at me 3 times. The gunshots are the 911 call. I was fortunate to be able to call. Some people don't get that chance; having a means of self-defense might cause criminals to realize that they are gambling with their lives.
Police should be able to have the means to end a threat by having access to weapons that are equal to what criminals are facing.
Situations where law enforcement are so outgunned that they can't do what they want are extremely rare. I can only think of three episodes ever and two of them didn't involve the police.
"As usual... it depends."
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Mounce574
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Re: Who do you want to have access to significantly more powerful guns and weaponry: cops or citizens?

Post by Mounce574 »

LuckyR wrote: January 21st, 2023, 8:50 pm
Mounce574 wrote: January 21st, 2023, 8:33 pm
Baby Augustine wrote: January 14th, 2023, 5:35 pm Evil folks will have the best guns and weapons they can get their hands on.
at this point, your question is too detached from reality.
"Of the 393 million firearms in the U.S., only 6.06 million of them are registered."

You wanna fight what is going on? Speak out against perversion. Act to save the traditional family. show that you value all human life, IE , reject abortion's triviality and heartlessness.

What did Mother Theresa say to Bill Clinton
“I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?
Add on the fact it takes an average of 15 minutes or longer for police to respond to a 911 call. It took 6 minutes for the Parkland shooter to kill 17 people from start to finish. He was leaving the property when police entered the building. I know it took police 36 minutes to arrive when an ex shot at me 3 times. The gunshots are the 911 call. I was fortunate to be able to call. Some people don't get that chance; having a means of self-defense might cause criminals to realize that they are gambling with their lives.
Police should be able to have the means to end a threat by having access to weapons that are equal to what criminals are facing.
Situations where law enforcement are so outgunned that they can't do what they want are extremely rare. I can only think of three episodes ever and two of them didn't involve the police.
Domestic violence situations are the most dangerous calls that police face. Most police officer deaths occur during those situations. They answer those with a hand gun available (lethal wise), a taser, and CS spray. 6 years ago snipers in Dallas protest killed 5 police officers and shot 12 total. 11 months ago Phoenix police had 9 officers shot in a standoff, 1 year ago Houston Police faced a man with an autoswitch on his weapon and killed 2 officers. Then there is the nefarious Christopher Dorner in 2013 that killed several officers. In 2022 64 police officers in the United States were killed by criminals. If police are armed with weapons that are at least equal to what is on the streets, they have a chance. Also law abiding citizens having access to firearms to protect themselves would also even the odds.
"Facts don't care about your feelings." Ben Shapiro
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." NF from Motto
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LuckyR
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Re: Who do you want to have access to significantly more powerful guns and weaponry: cops or citizens?

Post by LuckyR »

Mounce574 wrote: January 21st, 2023, 10:08 pm
LuckyR wrote: January 21st, 2023, 8:50 pm
Mounce574 wrote: January 21st, 2023, 8:33 pm
Baby Augustine wrote: January 14th, 2023, 5:35 pm Evil folks will have the best guns and weapons they can get their hands on.
at this point, your question is too detached from reality.
"Of the 393 million firearms in the U.S., only 6.06 million of them are registered."

You wanna fight what is going on? Speak out against perversion. Act to save the traditional family. show that you value all human life, IE , reject abortion's triviality and heartlessness.

What did Mother Theresa say to Bill Clinton
“I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?
Add on the fact it takes an average of 15 minutes or longer for police to respond to a 911 call. It took 6 minutes for the Parkland shooter to kill 17 people from start to finish. He was leaving the property when police entered the building. I know it took police 36 minutes to arrive when an ex shot at me 3 times. The gunshots are the 911 call. I was fortunate to be able to call. Some people don't get that chance; having a means of self-defense might cause criminals to realize that they are gambling with their lives.
Police should be able to have the means to end a threat by having access to weapons that are equal to what criminals are facing.
Situations where law enforcement are so outgunned that they can't do what they want are extremely rare. I can only think of three episodes ever and two of them didn't involve the police.
Domestic violence situations are the most dangerous calls that police face. Most police officer deaths occur during those situations. They answer those with a hand gun available (lethal wise), a taser, and CS spray. 6 years ago snipers in Dallas protest killed 5 police officers and shot 12 total. 11 months ago Phoenix police had 9 officers shot in a standoff, 1 year ago Houston Police faced a man with an autoswitch on his weapon and killed 2 officers. Then there is the nefarious Christopher Dorner in 2013 that killed several officers. In 2022 64 police officers in the United States were killed by criminals. If police are armed with weapons that are at least equal to what is on the streets, they have a chance. Also law abiding citizens having access to firearms to protect themselves would also even the odds.
I'm not seeing disagreement between our posts as far as the police are concerned. All firearms have the capacity to kill, ambush situations (the majority of your citations) are particularly lethal because of the tactic, not the weapon type. Sniper situations are similar. Police forces have snipers in any case so it's not a case of weapon mismatch.

As to your law abiding citizen comment, the US should have the safest streets in the world if citizens with guns prevented crime. Yet it doesn't...
"As usual... it depends."
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Re: Who do you want to have access to significantly more powerful guns and weaponry: cops or citizens?

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

Astro Cat wrote: June 28th, 2022, 11:15 pm I really wish there were just a better way to weed out bad actor cops. There are so many of them that it has irrevocably stained the idea of cops as being the "good guys" to a lot of people.
I don't disagree. So this isn't a rhetorical question, but just one of curiosity: What defines a "bad actor cop"?

For example, were the law-abiding cops who arrested Martin Luther King bad actor cops?

If some law-abiding cops go to a pacifist's house who has some marijuana, and kick his door down with guns drawn in a totally legal no-knock raid and legally shoot his dog, are they bad actor cops?

Were the criminals who helped hide Anne Frank and her family bad actors? What about the law-abiding government agents (i.e. cops) who ultimately came and picked up Anne Frank and her family to take them to their deaths?

These aren't rhetorical questions, and I don't ask them with any significant passion or specific point. It is just a philosophical interesting question to me asked with mere philosophical curiosity: What does it mean for someone to be a 'bad actor' in this kind context, or any context really?
My entire political philosophy summed up in one tweet.

"The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master."

I believe spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace.
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