Posted: Jan 09, 2020 11:44 am
In addition to the 'good guy with a gun' bollocks and the 'resist government tyranny' bullshit that gets trotted out there is another aspect to 2nd amendment rights that doesn't get mentioned by the gun rights brigade. Namely, if there is widespread gun ownership, then the police have to take into account that anyone they may interact with might be armed. This gives the police the ability to turn every traffic stop/ door knock for a noise complaint/ juvenile shoplifter fleeing with a packet of Oreos into a guns out, 'Don't fucking' move. Show me your hands' type interaction.
In my trips to the US I am always surprised and often a bit unsettled by the police I see. Seeing them lounging about in diners, leaning on the hood of their cars drinking a coffee, and generally behaving in a casual way does not sit right with me. Uniformed men and women carrying firearms openly should behave in a very professional and detached way, not like a bunch of guys on a smoke break from a cubicle job.
It seems ironic to me that the 'cold dead hands' rhetoric enables a militarized and often designedly intimidating police force to place itself in the heart of civil life.
In my trips to the US I am always surprised and often a bit unsettled by the police I see. Seeing them lounging about in diners, leaning on the hood of their cars drinking a coffee, and generally behaving in a casual way does not sit right with me. Uniformed men and women carrying firearms openly should behave in a very professional and detached way, not like a bunch of guys on a smoke break from a cubicle job.
It seems ironic to me that the 'cold dead hands' rhetoric enables a militarized and often designedly intimidating police force to place itself in the heart of civil life.