this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
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THE POLICE PROBLEM
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The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.
99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.
When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.
When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."
When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.
Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.
The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.
All this is a path to a police state.
In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.
Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.
That's the solution.
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Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.
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• r/ACAB
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• A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions
• Cops aren't supposed to be smart
• Killings by law enforcement in Canada
• Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom
• Killings by law enforcement in the United States
• Know your rights: Filming the police
• Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)
• Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.
• Police lie under oath, a lot
• Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak
• Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street
• Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States
• When the police knock on your door
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Do you have "naturally dangerous" areas in your country? I'm a gun-control-but-not-ban Progressive, and my reasoning is that most of the towns I've lived have had wildlife issues that are only reasonable resolved by firearms. Our coyote breeds attack large pets, small children, and (rarely) adults. We are a free-range-chicken state (chickens must be allowed to run free). My last road, coyotes ran rampant hospitalizing my next door neighbors 100lb+ lab (he was huge). It's not safe to be out alone or in your woods at certain times of year. Not to mention the occasional black bear who usually runs away but sometimes charges... A coyote charged my wife once and her german shepherd fortunately scared it off without bloodshed.
In the last town I lived, we didn't have police, only mutual aid contracts. The mutual-aid department didn't have animal control. Their standard answer to a dangerous predator running amok was "shoot it".
Now... I firmly believe our police is way over-financed, and think the last thing we need is MORE police officers. ACAB and all that jazz. Being honest, I have little respect for police in general, if marginally more than some on my side. So assuming you have areas likes that, how do you resolve it? The last answer I was given was "everyone should move to cities". Needless to say, I was not amused.
I'd love to be convinced that zero-guns-allowed-for-nonhunters at the national level is physically possible in the US, but I just can't.
How about zero guns in populated areas? How about getting serious about consequences for harm caused by unsecured weapons? How about limited gun types to what is useful for expected scenarios? How about requiring a reason to own? How about fewer places to get them? How about more expensive ammo? How about just an order of magnitude less?
And yes, for the love of god, require the cops in your area to have training, skills, mental health.
I've argued for that before, differentiation of regions. It went over like a fart in church with literally everyone. The gun control crowd seem to think "rednecks will figure it out or should move to the city", and the gun rights crowd thinks "cities are more dangerous than the country". I've seen knife restrictions in big cities, so firearm restrictions seem more reasonable. Many countries require guns to be locked in cases instead of worn on the person. In cities, that seems pretty reasonable.
I've always fought for that. But this isn't "no guns at all", which is what I was asking about. Most of your suggestions are not "no guns at all" and seem worthy of discussion.
For me, this is a nonstarter. If someone is at their house and dealing with a coyote attacking family or pets, a semiautomatic rifle is the best tool. If they are using their firearm preventatively, that would be a shotgun. If they need a firearm while travelling and not hunting or anything, semi-automatic pistol. I just named basically every kind of gun somebody wants to ban. Well, that and guns that look especially scary, which I think is stupid. We already limit the guns types to what is useful, and I'll be the first to fight for keeping machineguns out of civilian hands.
I'm also all about banning things like bump stocks, of course. But being honest, many safety accessories people suggest banning aren't contributors to gun violence.
Are you suggesting the Federal government step in? In my state, they're fairly difficult to get. Should the Fed try to mimic our laws and policies? That doesn't really seem to be the problem to me, though. If people want firearms and they're legal to purchase, they'll get them whether there's 1 store in their county or Walmart sells them.
That seems worth discussing. I have some concerns; unless there's a firing range exception, it means gun owners will have less experience and comfort with their firearm. A person with a gun and no regular practice/training is like a dull knife. It sounds less dangerous for all of 5 seconds before it leads to some accidental tragedy. I'm actually a believer in requiring con-ed including target-shooting for someone who wants to own a gun. A gun that shoots its target can be horrible. A gun that misses its target IS horrible.
An order of magnitude less what? Less ammo? How does that reduce gun violence? A magnitude fewer guns? How do you intend to execute on that? I do think there's way too many guns in the US. And I think a lot of people own guns that shouldn't, regardless of the gun. I'm a strong believer in background check and psych check to own a gun.
We don't have many of those (cops in our area). And unlike the conservatives out there, I kinda like to keep it that way. My not liking cops is why I do like access to firearms. They're simply not qualified or trustworthy in many real-world cases where a firearm solves a problem without ever being pointed at a human being.
Maybe we focus too much on the concerns of relatively few gun owners and too little on the victims. Bringing a weapon into a city creates more risk for more innocent victims, and that’s not ok. Even for people who believe they’re a “good guy with a gun”, the reality is they’re making things worse
This has to be part of it. Anti-regulation people will always claim gun control can’t work because of the huge number of guns already there, legal or not. But you can make things better than before, you can make more serious consequences even for illegal weapons
But a lot of those accessories make mass shootings easier. While one innocent victim getting shot is a tragedy, it’s not as bad as 4 or 20, or any larger number. A bump stock makes it easier to shoot faster, a larger magazine makes it easier to shoot more. Both make it harder for a potential additional victim to find an escape.
It has to. In my state guns are also harder to get and that’s reflected in much lower gun ownership. However there’s only so much you can do at a state level when someone can visit a Walmart over the border. My state also has regulations on alcohol, where they limit the number of store that can sell. Why is alcohol more regulated than deadly weapons?
True, but there’s a vast quantity of illegal guns already out there, and you can’t control illegal sales. You can make those more expensive to use, and maybe some won’t
That’s a damn good question, but you can’t give up without trying. This really turns into a long term issue: are current controls increasing the number out there or decreasing them? iF we make new guns harder to get in fewer places more expensive to use and with more serious consequences for recklessly endangering people, maybe that reduces the number of weapons continually added. Maybe that will make a difference over time
I understand the urge and there are certainly good reasons, yet I don’t think the statistics really bear that out. For all the news about police shootings, the vast majority never do. For all the news about police brutality and racism, almost all are normal people trying to do their best. At least some police environments seem to bring out the worst in people rather than the best. That’s what needs to change.
Of the people I know who are cops, I would definitely trust them to help. We can change things to encourage those people, encourage professionalism, ensure they can use tools other than their weapon , ensure they are mentally healthy enough to handle the responsibility. Yes, I definitely blame unions but maybe differently than some: I do actually like that police unions stand up for the rights of accused officers, if justice is upheld. But where’s the outrage for the damage a bad cop does to the entire profession? But I never hear about a focus on professionalism and safety like other unions do. Where is the police union on encouraging training, professional development, workshops on judgement and de escalation? Where is the focus on better serving your “customers”? Police can become a trusted authority that improve public safety, and that will help more people than “every one for themselves”
I tend to agree with this. I really wonder what kind of regulations could be put into place and enforced without abuse by police (who ignore guns on their friends' hips but use it as an opportunity to take out minorities accused of being in gangs)
"Nobody in the entire country having any gun for any reason" is a necessary part of any form of gun control? I don't think I agree with that as it seems a bit hyperbolic. Or am I misunderstanding your context?
Heat compensators make mass-shootings easiers? Recoil compensators? What they do is make collateral (or self-) damage harder. I DON'T understand the bills that come after heat compensators one bit, but I also struggle to see how recoil compensators are problem-contributors. If someone were shooting up my building, as terrible as that would be, I'd prefer they had a recoil compensator. They would be less likely to hit more people, while not actually being more likely to hit their target.
When I'm in a "police abuse of power" group and see people looking to drastically increase police power (and/or federal police power, since I live in a fairly left-leaning state as it is) I get scared regardless of the topic. You also point to alcohol - but I think that analogy fails because there's somewhat limited federal regulation on sale of alcohol as long as you're not selling to minors. My (again, "liberal") state lets towns assign liquor licenses basically as they see fit, and you can buy alcohol on almost every street corner.
For efficacy, you bring up "when someone can visit a Walmart over the border". This doesn't seem workable to me. It's not that there's a Walmart in the next state, it's that you can buy a gun in the next state without training, a background check, or any other validation. I'd actually use this as an example of the "throw paint at the wall and hope" form of legislating my side does on gun control that we will not do on any other topic. We KNOW what will work. We can't get what will work to pass, so we spend months talking about other things that both won't pass and won't be effective. What will work is to stop the wrong people from buying guns by making them show they're not the wrong person before they do.
How much more expensive? Are we talking $20/bullet? That won't stop violent crimes or most mass-shootings. Are you talking $200/bullet? That's going to prevent legal gun owners from actually knowing how to use their gun. Remember, far more people die from gun accidents and suicides than homicides. Raising the price of the bullet is unlikely to decrease homicides, will not affect suicides, and is likely to increase gun accidents drastically.
A homicide takes just one bullet. Practice and training takes thousands. The increase of price will disproportionally affect the desire to be a responsible gun owner over the reduction of gun violence altogether. If anything, increase the price of guns while offering waivers for a first gun of someone who has been background-checked and lives in certain "right to farm"-style communities.
Side 2 of this. A lot of people make their own ammo. Not exactly hard. It's currently more expensive than buying ammo, but home-made bullets are not unlikely if that changes. They ARE more likely to do spectacularly bad things in general. And then you could try to regulate the powder (only ammo-specific ingredient), but any criminal and many DIYers could make their own powder with readily available ingredients.
I'll leave police accountability questions to everyone else in this group that I am sure will come running to my aid. That said, how do you suggest small towns without a police force budget for police? Let's say you live in a town that has had zero gun violence in the last decade and has not found the need for a police force (I did for several years!). Now you seem to be suggesting they budget out salaries for enough officers to replace all the people who use firearms to protect their farms from wildlife. What would be a reasonable response time for those police if an animal starts wreaking havok and killing pets/livestock? When I lived in that town, the Fire (only local service) response time was still 15 minutes.
Not a "gun rights" point, but I'll make it. Police are a hammer. They do a few things VERY well. But no matter their training, they will always be inferior at everything else. In the US (and many other countries), we use police for those other things anyway. With all due respect, in no reality is an armed man with a gun the right first person to de-escalate a verbal domestic dispute. Paramedics deal with situations that start and/or become more volitile than police on a regular basis, and most refuse to carry a firearm even if they are allowed.
I do understand this is reasonably doable, but it also seems like a niche skill for someone really into their hobby. Gun nerds are less likely to be careless or to hurt anyone. Aside from preppers, I very much doubt this is common among problematic gun owners
Police don’t need to be a hammer. They don’t need to focus on hammering skills above all else. While they sometimes do need to be, they need the judgement to correctly find those times, they need to understand better options when it’s not those times, and they do need to understand when compassion/caring is the answer. Police also need the pride in ther role to hold each other to the Hodges’s standards, otherwise they’re a hooligan with a badge. Police forces should focus on “public safety”, not “law enforcement”. I understand that’s a lot of “should”
Sure, but we're discussing a world where ammo is made artificially scarce. At the height of "wtf is going on with weed", 1/3 of all pot-smokers I knew were growers, and some were hardcore at it. It's far easier to make ammo than grow decent weed. And unlike weed, we're talking serious logistics problems trying to ban DIY ammo.
I agree it's not common now.
The most effective police forces in the world are in countries where they generally go unarmed... but I daresay that movements like "defund the police" are looking for that same thing - a force of social workers with at least some logical separation from the guys-with-guns.
But that's not just about skills and the right employees, it's about the right list of responsibilities. And frankly, I think they've got enough on their plate they can't do to add animal control in areas where they currently don't do that anyway. If you look at other emergency services, they do one thing INCREDIBLY well. Then you have police that do a dozen things terribly. And often times when they are called to do one of the peaceful things, they escalate the situation due to their training in others of the things. I am not so jaded to think that the world doesn't need SWAT teams occasionally. But I don't think the training that leads to SWAT teams and the training to deescalate a loud drunk are remotely the same.
Do you think a cop is any more a "good guy with a gun"?
Maybe I’m an optimist because I think they can be a good guy. I’ve met several idealistic candidates start their career and believe they did start as good guys. My variation is more that it’s a screwed up system with contradicting requirements, an us vs them environmen t and a large population of disillusioned officers reinforcing their own worst habits. It seems difficult to remain a good guy.
But I’m an optimist who thinks even the current system could be fixed.
Even look at the hierarchy of professionalism: we read stories about local sheriffs with little standards and background, but state troopers have higher standards, higher training, pride that they’re a cut above. Then you have the FBI with yet higher standards, higher pride in their professionalism, and fewer stories of corruption. We have examples right here that there can be well trained officers. Every characteristic that has gone wrong has a potentially positive variation.
NZ has strict gun controls but guns are allowed for pest control and hunting. There's a lot of room between that kind of control and "everyone has an AR15 and a concealed firearm without a licence".
The person I was responding to was talking about 100% total gun bans. Just want to make sure you realize this. Nothing you said disagrees with my take on gun control. If you intended to agree, that's cool (but rare online ;) )
Looking at this wiki page, NZ seems to have the same kind of gun laws my home state has, with a fairly similar ownership rate (and it looks like NZ averages 5 guns per owner?). As a general rule, I wouldn't use the term "strict gun controls" if a country's laws match any US state. We get a little crazy here with our Second Amendment.
100%, except I'm not sure why everyone is so obsessed with AR-15s. People keep trying to ban them in the US while deadlier weapons get a pass. And concealed carry is sorta funny. In my state, all carry is concealed carry because open carry scares non-gun-owners. You can basically have your gun license challenged in my state if you open carry because it can be used to argue you're not in the right mind to own a gun if you carry openly knowing it'll scare people.
Sorry, just assumed you were arguing a stricter line on gun control. My fault for not being more careful. I agree with you about