4 ms·

This is a controversial position, and I recognize that it isn't perfect. I don't think that regular cops should have weapons. They should be primarily involve

by blhack 13y ago

This is a controversial position, and I recognize that it isn't perfect. I don't think that regular cops should have weapons. They should be primarily involved in conflict resolution only. If somebody wants to overpower a cop because they own a gun and the cop doesn't, then that person should be charged with a crime, but the cop should ALWAYS be the weaker party. And I mean no weapons. No pepper spray, no tasers. Nothing. Police departments should also take an active role in making sure that their uniforms, as well as their vehicles, are as non-aggressive looking as possible. Cops should be the people that stop to help you change a tire when you have a flat, help you get home if you're drunk, or mediate between you and the scary homeless dude that won't get off your porch. Police work should be a dangerous job, and the only people who should even be capable of doing it are people who are experts at conflict resolution, not escalation. I recognize that weapons are sometimes necessary, but I think that a cop showing up with a gun should be an extremely rare thing to see. I know there is the argument that cops are there to protect us...but from who? Unless it is a hostage scenario, when is a time that a cop is going to directly intervene in a bad guy doing something bad to me, and a is going to need their gun to do so? -- Police are protected by something called "qualified immunity", which is to say that, while in the pursuit of their job as a police officer, are not subject to the same laws with regards to assault as most civilians. I think that this should go away. If a cop assaults somebody, it should go to court, and the cop should have to prove that it was self defense. If they shoot somebody, they better be able to prove that they had a direct threat to their own life. Cops should be burdened with additional responsibilities but offered no additional rights.

kilroy123 13y ago
Some law enforcement officers have no choice but to operate like this. My dad was a Sheriff in a really remote area of California when I was a kid. He would often tell me how his closest backup was sometimes 30-45 minutes away. When he pulled someone over, or responded to a domestic dispute, he had no choice but to try to resolve any conflicts by talking. He once even told me, his number one weapon of choice was talking. I don't think he ever even had to pull out his gun once, during his career. Sadly, if you know another cop can roll onto the sene in under 30 seconds, there isn't much incentive to resolve problems without a huge show of force.
msandford 13y ago
I couldn't agree more with your edit. You've nailed it.
lkrubner 13y ago
We should all remember that regular police in Britain don't carry guns. The guns are carried by special units that get called in when a suspect is thought to have a weapon. I was in London in May when 2 men attacked a British solider and beheaded him on a public street, on the south side of London. One of the men was seen to have a gun, so the regular police called for the armed police. The armed police showed up 15 minutes later. What was amazing to me (I'm a USA citizen) given the brutality of the attack, was the absolute calm with which everyone dealt with it. The public, the commentators in the media, the police, they all talked about the incident in a reasonable way, noting that tragedy can not be banned from human life. There were no calls for suspending civil liberties so as to keep the public safe. It was one of those moments when I realized how far my own country had wandered from its supposed commitment to freedom. Also worth noting, the 2 attackers spoke to various bystanders, before the police arrived. Several bystanders captured the scene on their cell phone videos. The attackers repeated rhetoric that was Islamist in nature, and they used rhetorical flourishes that, I later read, had similarities to some Al Qaeda propaganda. Despite that, the media was restrained in its treatment of the religious/terrorist angle. There may, at some point in the future, be a similar attack in the USA, where some men espousing a radical Islamist view kill an American soldier. I doubt the political reaction will be as calm in the USA as it was in Britain.
- swombat 13y ago
  There were no calls for suspending civil liberties so as to keep the public safe. Actually, the incident gave rise to a lot of noise from some politicians about how they needed to introduce the "Snooper's charter" which was previously rejected, so that they could stop these kinds of crimes before they happened, etc. This only got drowned out when Snowden started releasing the stuff that shows that they didn't wait for any Snooper's charter anyway.
- res0nat0r 13y ago
  >There were no calls for suspending civil liberties so as to keep the public safe. It was one of those moments when I realized how far my own country had wandered from its supposed commitment to freedom. There has been a rash of 7 shootings in the last 5 days in my town. Nine people were shot and 5 killed. I haven't heard anything calling for any suspension of civil liberties... The quote above sounds like misunderstanding and repetition of the false info that during the Boston neighborhood manhunt martial law was declared, which is actually incorrect.
Anechoic 13y ago
And I mean no weapons. No pepper spray, no tasers. Nothing. I would wager that I've been on the ass-end of police interactions more than the typical US HNer and while I sympathize with this position (and like you wrote, it's "controversial"), I can't agree with it. Police officers in high-crime areas do come across legitimately dangerous people and may be greatly outnumbered. I can think of several police interactions where I suspect the perps would have tried to fight it out if the cops weren't armed. You put cops in situations where they are unarmed and undermanned, you just get a situation where police officers will probably refuse to do their jobs. Remember don't have to protect us. [1] The only way to make unarmed policing work in the USA would be to significantly increase the number of cops on the street, and I don't like that trade-off, especially is recruitment stays the same as it is now. I do agree that "people who should even be capable of doing it are people who are experts" - in some (at least, possible many/most/all) states the requirement to become a local or state police officer is a high school diploma, a background check (many times past criminal activities are fine, as long as all cased are "disposed") and a 20-week police academy. Oh, and police departments are allowed to reject applicants who may be too high-achieving[2]. You dump Joebob McStripsearch on the job with a gun and no idea when/how to use it, combined with a BS war on drugs, and of course shooting dogs in the name of officer "safety" becomes commonplace. Police departments should be recruiting the smartest people in the country and then training the fuck out of them. Four years+ of coursework in community relations, constitutional law, civil rights, psychology, armed and unarmed self defense, plus time spent during training interacting with the community, etc. Putting bad officers on the street with no weapons might stop dogs from getting shot, but won't stop testilying and profiling. Get great people, who are trained experts at how to deal with situations, and they will deal with situations expertly. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia [2] http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836#.Ud3i9OAoLe4 http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/sto...
- coldtea 13y ago
  >Police officers in high-crime areas do come across legitimately dangerous people and may be greatly outnumbered. That's not a society then. That's a ruined place. Fix it. Sure, meanwhile, you can use the special "armed unit" there. That doesn't mean you have to have them on actual civilised places too. But that won't fly in a country that people think owning a gun is some kind of special right.

by blhack 13y ago

kilroy123 13y ago

Some law enforcement officers have no choice but to operate like this. My dad was a Sheriff in a really remote area of California when I was a kid. He would often tell me how his closest backup was sometimes 30-45 minutes away. When he pulled someone over, or responded to a domestic dispute, he had no choice but to try to resolve any conflicts by talking. He once even told me, his number one weapon of choice was talking. I don't think he ever even had to pull out his gun once, during his career. Sadly, if you know another cop can roll onto the sene in under 30 seconds, there isn't much incentive to resolve problems without a huge show of force.

msandford 13y ago

I couldn't agree more with your edit. You've nailed it.

lkrubner 13y ago

We should all remember that regular police in Britain don't carry guns. The guns are carried by special units that get called in when a suspect is thought to have a weapon. I was in London in May when 2 men attacked a British solider and beheaded him on a public street, on the south side of London. One of the men was seen to have a gun, so the regular police called for the armed police. The armed police showed up 15 minutes later. What was amazing to me (I'm a USA citizen) given the brutality of the attack, was the absolute calm with which everyone dealt with it. The public, the commentators in the media, the police, they all talked about the incident in a reasonable way, noting that tragedy can not be banned from human life. There were no calls for suspending civil liberties so as to keep the public safe. It was one of those moments when I realized how far my own country had wandered from its supposed commitment to freedom. Also worth noting, the 2 attackers spoke to various bystanders, before the police arrived. Several bystanders captured the scene on their cell phone videos. The attackers repeated rhetoric that was Islamist in nature, and they used rhetorical flourishes that, I later read, had similarities to some Al Qaeda propaganda. Despite that, the media was restrained in its treatment of the religious/terrorist angle. There may, at some point in the future, be a similar attack in the USA, where some men espousing a radical Islamist view kill an American soldier. I doubt the political reaction will be as calm in the USA as it was in Britain.

swombat 13y ago
There were no calls for suspending civil liberties so as to keep the public safe. Actually, the incident gave rise to a lot of noise from some politicians about how they needed to introduce the "Snooper's charter" which was previously rejected, so that they could stop these kinds of crimes before they happened, etc. This only got drowned out when Snowden started releasing the stuff that shows that they didn't wait for any Snooper's charter anyway.
res0nat0r 13y ago
>There were no calls for suspending civil liberties so as to keep the public safe. It was one of those moments when I realized how far my own country had wandered from its supposed commitment to freedom. There has been a rash of 7 shootings in the last 5 days in my town. Nine people were shot and 5 killed. I haven't heard anything calling for any suspension of civil liberties... The quote above sounds like misunderstanding and repetition of the false info that during the Boston neighborhood manhunt martial law was declared, which is actually incorrect.

Anechoic 13y ago

And I mean no weapons. No pepper spray, no tasers. Nothing. I would wager that I've been on the ass-end of police interactions more than the typical US HNer and while I sympathize with this position (and like you wrote, it's "controversial"), I can't agree with it. Police officers in high-crime areas do come across legitimately dangerous people and may be greatly outnumbered. I can think of several police interactions where I suspect the perps would have tried to fight it out if the cops weren't armed. You put cops in situations where they are unarmed and undermanned, you just get a situation where police officers will probably refuse to do their jobs. Remember don't have to protect us. [1] The only way to make unarmed policing work in the USA would be to significantly increase the number of cops on the street, and I don't like that trade-off, especially is recruitment stays the same as it is now. I do agree that "people who should even be capable of doing it are people who are experts" - in some (at least, possible many/most/all) states the requirement to become a local or state police officer is a high school diploma, a background check (many times past criminal activities are fine, as long as all cased are "disposed") and a 20-week police academy. Oh, and police departments are allowed to reject applicants who may be too high-achieving[2]. You dump Joebob McStripsearch on the job with a gun and no idea when/how to use it, combined with a BS war on drugs, and of course shooting dogs in the name of officer "safety" becomes commonplace. Police departments should be recruiting the smartest people in the country and then training the fuck out of them. Four years+ of coursework in community relations, constitutional law, civil rights, psychology, armed and unarmed self defense, plus time spent during training interacting with the community, etc. Putting bad officers on the street with no weapons might stop dogs from getting shot, but won't stop testilying and profiling. Get great people, who are trained experts at how to deal with situations, and they will deal with situations expertly. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia [2] http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836#.Ud3i9OAoLe4 http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/sto...

coldtea 13y ago
>Police officers in high-crime areas do come across legitimately dangerous people and may be greatly outnumbered. That's not a society then. That's a ruined place. Fix it. Sure, meanwhile, you can use the special "armed unit" there. That doesn't mean you have to have them on actual civilised places too. But that won't fly in a country that people think owning a gun is some kind of special right.