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 a

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...