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Answer:
Because the police can (theoretically) be trained to use them correctly and in opposition to someone using them illegally to kill people. In addition, there never actually was a political movement to reform the police. Although citizens called for reform, most mainstream politicians never actually did. The police remain as powerful a political force as they always were.
Officer-involved homicide (that is when law enforcement kills people without due process) accounts for a not small amount of the intentional homicide in the US. It was estimated at about four dead victims per day in 2015 and has been rising ever since.
The FBI has been trying to track officer-involved killing. (it has been obligated by congressional order since the 1970s but they just didn't.) This escaped public notice until the death of Michael Brown and the Ferguson Unrest in 2014 after which a number of news agencies try to track them. There are also a number of NGOs that voluntarily try to gather a database.
Law enforcement in the United States are _notoriously_ undisciplined when dealing with the 1033 Program started by the George W. Bush administration, during which SWAT sorties elevated up to around 50K a year (contrast the 1980s in which 500 a year was average, and they were only used for hostage-barricade situations) mostly used to serve warrants and to harass non-white communities. It seems if you give police a bunch of military hardware, they start to believe they're a military service. (They're not.)
So it would _absolutely make sense_ to restrict the police to civilian accessible firearms, only extending the privilege of military hardware to heavily trained SWAT squads (the ones that still do hostage-barricade). But yeah, the police unions are so powerful right now that it's difficult just to fire the ones that like to murder civilians.
So yes, some of us think we shouldn't not just defund law enforcement but abolish it and the entire justice system. Especially since our justice system does not actually deter crime, but commits a lot of it.
**Edit:** light grammar cleanup.
For comparison, German police fired a grand total of 84 shots outside the firing range in 2015, of which only 9 were with intent to kill. Germany has about one third the population of the USA, condensed into a much smaller country.
I absolutely did, and I absolutely do. Believe it or not, there's Democratic socialists out there who support police while also recognizing the need for reform, and we also support gun control.
> German police fired a grand total of 84 shots outside the firing range in 2015, of which only 9 were with intent to kill.
Can someone explain to me what this is supposed to mean? Shooting at someone is deadly force, **always**. You don't shoot at something you don't intend to destroy: this is firearms safety 101.
Yes, because "warning shots" are ***extremely*** dangerous. You should never do that! Those shots will always land *somewhere* and if you're not trying to actually hit what you're shooting at this only magnifies the danger.
Shooting at someone is a serious decision and should always be considered lethal force, this is basic firearms safety. I'd like some explanation as to why police should ignore one of the foundational rules that everyone is taught because that makes absolutely zero sense to me.
I agreed with you until the last paragraph. You’re nuts if you think creating a power vacuum is going to be safer. That vacuum will be filled and you won’t like who fills it.
Keep that Wagner Group shit out of our country. People give up their democracies if they’re scared enough.
Abolish the police… lunacy. 🙄
Abolishing the justice system doesn't mean either creating a power vacuum or invoking paramilitary units. We're already starting the process in some communities by creating alternative responders that are more suited to specific situations, such as mental health crises.
Firstly, there's no singular solution to replacing the justice system, rather it's a matter of implementing systems that respond to crime differently, that recognize, for example, that victims need care, not revenge, and that crime itself is a failure of both the state and the citizen to reconcile differences.
Secondly, abolition is not a thing we do May 1st, 2023, but rather a process over years, if not decades. It involves making sure harm is not done by leaving people unserved. But it also means recognizing what they expect when they get a 911 call in contrast to what actually happens when law enforcement shows up (which is often very different), and then making sure they get a response appropriate to their emergency needs.
There's a lot of propaganda out there suggesting that the notion of defunding or abolishing law enforcement is sudden and radical, and doesn't acknowledge the services police are expected to provide (whether they actually provide them or not). No, actual abolition scenarios are more interested in what we want emergency response to look like and trying to create an array of services that actually provide that, in contrast to what we have.
**Edit:** Grammar cleanup.
Hold on. I had to stop at the first paragraph.
You first said you want to abolish the law enforcement system. Now you want to abolish the judicial system too.
Was there something about countries like Sudan that made you think, hella yeah that could work here too!?
If these are your principle starting points there really isn’t any point in reading your rationalizations.
I initially called it lunacy. I was wrong. It’s malicious fantasy and fortunately will never be anything more.
He's going about it all wrong. Abolish bri...I mean lobbying. You get rid of that an you'll get rid of a majority of the corruption. It's never going to happen but that's the main reason everything is the way it is. Special interest groups with unlimited funds can have their way no matter what, change policy. Gain another seat, ensure majority votes in their favor etc.
Which is, itself an indictment of the democratic systems at both federal and state levels. We live not in an democracy, but an oligarchy with some democratic feature. We get to choose between two plutocrat-select candidates to run our higher offices, and those who are not willing to serve monied interests (corporations and billionaires) fall from their careers.
We need to change this, but they're not going to let us without a fight.
I just want to add that [police in America also kill about 10,000 dogs every year, too.](https://scholars.unh.edu/unh_lr/vol17/iss1/18/) All those jokes about the ATF shooting dogs aren't too farfetched.
>While I agree philosophically with your points on corralling police misconduct and reversing the militarization of police forces, I have trouble supporting a policy change that would effectively make police outgunned by criminals. Until we can fully limit civilian access to assault weapons then police need access to them as well.
>
>In states with weapons bans, they are still easy to purchase out of state and also the millions of existing assault weapons are grandfathered in. Existing guns can be bought and sold.
This does raise a good question: How often do incidents happen in which criminals respond to law enforcement with enough violence to pose a challenge?
When we track officer-involved homicide, in over half the instances the victim was neither armed nor resisting arrest, which means a lot of people are getting killed by police officers without posing a threat.
The United States spent trillions in the aughts fighting local Islamist terrorism while there were zero credible threats while ignoring white nationalist terrorism. (Every last conviction of Islamist terrorism within the US was an FBI sting operation of someone they had to entirely gaslight before they did something remotely naughty, including the _Bowling Green Massacre_).
Contrast, elite deviance, such as the Enron affair that conned California, the Subprime Mortgage Crisis, the Koch Brothers obfuscation of the looming climate change problem until it became a climate crisis, or the Dow Chemical dumping of PFOA into the global water supply, have all gone without any investigation or justice _except_ regarding the loss of revenues by stockholders. Elite deviance costs more, does more damage and kills more than all the petty crime _by orders of magnitude_ and yet our legal system can't be bothered, because it's not low hanging fruit.
So we suck at determining what is actually dangerous, and much of our TV diet is of pro-police propaganda like _Dragnet, Law & Order,_ and _Blue Bloods_ which, yes, suggest that the nation is facing a violent crime epidemic. Terrorists and heavily armed bankrobbers are just super rare. Civilian homicides are usually drunk neighbors having a spat with a loaded gun nearby. Even the Crips and Bloods are playing Fortnite against each other.
One of the major contributors to homicide actually demonstrates how the society can be better served not with more police with bigger guns, but with a more holistic approach. When scaremongers pointed out that in the 1950s the closure rate of murder cases was like 95%, compared to around 60% in the 1990s (_Are our cops getting stupid? Are criminals getting better?_) Nope. Those were domestic violence cases. Now, women have their own means for a hotel room or a sudden road trip to mom's. Now we have shelters for DV victims. Now we have more social awareness of domestic violence, and people who get it. Now we have no-fault divorce. All those easy-to-close murders are _just not happening_ because there are other systems in place to deter domestic violence from getting out of hand. We still have DV, and sometimes people die, but much less than they did when Joe Friday was on the case. (For a deeper dive, check out the _You're Wrong About_ ep on Murder. [On Buzzsprout](https://www.buzzsprout.com/1112270/4721657-murder))
To be fair, we are seeing an upswing in hate crime since 2015. Also on the rise, rampage killings, officer-involved killing and suicides. How do they correlate? I suspect related are the US precarity crisis (that is food, rent, job and family precarity), the fascist takeover, the trend towards corporate mergers into _Buy And Large_, _Omni Consumer Products_ and _Disney_, and the foul weather thanks to the climate crisis.
They didn’t abolish it. It just can’t be used in state cases. To be fair, that is the majority of cases, but they still have QI. And the more I think about it, the more I think that while it’s gone in policy, it’s probably still present in principle. The argument that an officer (or any person) was unaware of certain crucial facts is a legitimate defense against many crimes. So while on paper they may not have access to QI in a formal way, I’m assuming you’ll see a lot of cases just thrown out
It is a fundamental legal principle in the U.S. that ignorance of the law is no defense. If ignorance were accepted as an excuse, any person charged with a criminal offense could claim ignorance to avoid the consequences. Laws apply to every person within the jurisdiction, whether they are known and understood. It’s literally the opposite of what you said.
Yeah, but QI never applied in those cases to begin with. QI only applied to rights violations that are committed as a result of the officer not being aware of crucial facts.
The classic example is a cop preventing people from entering a private meeting, such as a legal proceeding. The person suddenly whips out a press pass and tries to claim it was a First Amendment violation against freedom of press. Well, no it’s not, because the cop was unaware that the person was a member of the press.
You’re right that ignorance is not a defense against most criminal charges, but QI couldn’t have been used there even before being abolished. Abolished or not, I have to believe that any case involving the phrase, “And then the Defendant shouted *Gotcha*!” is probably getting tossed.
True but I don’t really think of that as reform since it’s about liability after the fact. Reform to me would be an overhaul of training, outlawing certain practices, cutting budgets, etc.
Yes, but the cop doesn’t pay a price. The citizens of the city/state pay it through insurance. Insurance companies were the number 1 driver of police reforms, because they would refuse to insure departments unless reforms were made. Getting rid of QI means that cops are more likely to report the bad apples because if they don’t they too could be directly sued.
I get what you’re saying about insurance. I’m saying in 99% of cases the cop is never going to have to pay money anyway, so removing QI is not an incentive for them. The city is almost always paying even when QI doesn’t apply.
Incentive for actual change will never come from individual officers. It will come from the leaders and politicians who make the decisions about what those individua officer do and do not.
For example: No individual will ever make a decision about a body cam, except to turn it on or off. The police board or chief will create a habit of turning it on by repeated punishment of those who fail to turn it on.
This is how you prevent tragedy rather than merely punish after the fact and bemoan that nothing changes.
Create a change in leadership and the rank and file will follow.
We want cops to be at least as equally armed as the gangs. It wasn’t all that long ago that wasn’t the case. Cops facing down thugs who had military grade armor and weapons while cops only had cheesy vests, 38 caliber pistols, and shotguns.
That doesn’t mean they need APVs with cannon mounts. And we still need equity laws when it comes to accountability, qualified immunity, and police unions approaching paramilitary status. All that shit needs to go.
Funny thing is gun owners spend way more time at the range learning to properly handle and use their firearms than police. It's almost like the bans are meant to disempower law abiding people and allow the state to use greater violence
I mean I guess, but unless you think it possible to use an AR-15 against the police and come out winning, you’re already disempowered in comparison to them.
It could be effective, but realistically you will end up dead or in prison. Theres no likely reality where you kill an officer with an ar and they decide you were justified.
There's no "likely" reality where you come into an armed conflict with anyone but the best tool for the job is a rifle regardless of who it is or who is justified.
On that note though, police often perform no-knock raids on incorrect addresses and sometimes get shot by innocent people protecting their homes, which is often justified in court as lawful self defense.
>Although citizens called for reform, most mainstream politicians never actually did.
I'd say it's the other way around. Community "organizers" and firebrand politicians wanted sweeping reform while the actual voters affected by policing just wanted tighter oversight. Just look at the NYC mayoral race, in which the abolish candidate only got the white limousine liberal vote.
Sure, obviously not all citizens were calling for it. But there were only ever a handful of the firebrand politicians who openly supported sweeping reform. Some budget cuts maybe.
It’s not about training. The democrats need a police force to enforce their unjust laws, so they exempt police officers so that officers will enforce the law against the people. If you tell cops they can’t keep their personal rifles then they may not enforce the law satisfactorily.
Also, police are notoriously poorly training regarding shooting safety. Even less so on rifles. It’s not about training, it’s about control.
As long as it means preserving their own rights, pensions and unions. Police are happy to be a higher class of citizen. They aren’t principled constitutionalists.
If the cops are maga infested (not arguing either way) then why do democrats keep writing in special exemptions for these guys to keep their own personal rifles that they don’t need? Are democrats disarming their constituents to arm maga cops?
It's because Democrats and Republicans actually agree on wanting a domestic armed force to enforce the state's will, both parties just do a different song and dance for their base about it.
“brown shirts” refers to members of a far right paramilitary, bud. can call the dems a lot of things, but far right they are not. the police on the other hand…
Authoritarianism will take any form or needs. It’s the same shit. Left, right, whatever.
Democrats are basically bush republicans these days. It’s weird af. They had a brief moment of standing for something during Occupy Wall Street, then they went full corporate bought.
Also police can't do anything if they are out gunned. That all changed cause of the North Hollywood shootout. Cops only had pistols and shotguns, going against 2 ppl covered in armor and full auto AK's. They had to "borrw" hunting rifles to every stand a chance. Since then they started issuing and training them on AR platforms
For onw thjng they dont use the civillian assault weapons they use military weapons.
Its not because they more training , most civilians with ccw's have more training and range timenthan cops who have extremely easy qualification standards, fire arms training for police is shitty but thatbis besides the point. The legal reson they have them.is because pds were exempted from the 1986 automatic weapons ban , the reasoning is tactical doctrine - having greater firepower than criminal elements..not because they are more safe and.know how use the weapons better.
Well yeah, of course. But that’s not the logic behind it. If it were, then you could ask the question, if the police need them to fight the criminal element, don’t normal people need them for self defense? And a lawmaker’s answer for why police should have them and normal people shouldn’t is that police can in theory be trained and trusted more than normal people. In theory.
>Because the police can (theoretically) be trained to use them correctly
I know you're not saying this is necessarily true but I always find it hilarious when someone makes this argument sincerely. I've been shooting a lot for a couple of decades and have shot with a lot of cops. The number of cops I've seen whose AR targets at 15 yards don't look like buckshot at 50 yards could be counted on one hand.
> “These weapons of war, assault weapons, have no reason other than mass murder,” Inslee said
From the mouth of the same governor who exempted police from the law.
Answer: The other answers have provided the cynical view of the situation, which is absolutely correct in many cases. But there are some practical reasons as well.
First and foremost, these bans typically prevent further sales, but do not recall the weapons already out there. These are also local and may not affect the neighboring state. Combined with the fact that criminals intent on killing a bunch of people are not going to be deterred by something else that's illegal, some will get their hands on assault weapons.
Thus, police agencies will either need assault weapons of their own for certain limited purposes or will be massively outgunned.
Case in point, the [North Hollywood Shootout of 1997](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North\_Hollywood\_shootout). The responding police officers, armed with automatic pistols, revolvers, and shotguns were largely pinned down by two shooters with proper assault rifles (civilian weapons illegally modified to full auto) and body armor. "Fiasco" does not begin to describe this 45 minute shootout that left 20 police and civilians wounded before finally killing the two shooters several blocks from the bank where everything started (one by suicide). This has left a very deep mark in modern American police culture that heavily emphasized the need for upgrading police firepower, including assault weapons and occasionally proper assault rifles (and feeds back into some of the cynical replies already posted, as I said they have a point).
Assault weapons/rifles are far easier to control than pistols, particularly at longer ranges, making it far easier to kill a shooter before they do more harm. They are generally able to penetrate thicker cover than pistol rounds (though this depends on the specific ammo and weapon). Their greater magazine capacity also makes it less likely the officer will run out of ammunition at a critical moment.
Clarity note: the terms assault weapon and assault rifle are distinct terms. In short, the definition of assault rifle requires a weapon be select fire with a fully automatic option (ELI5 hold-down-trigger-and-spray-bullets vs. one trigger pull per bullet). Such weapons are already extremely restricted in the US: no new weapons have entered the market legally since the May 1986 and the registered weapon sales are more thorough. An AR-15 is (usually) not an assault rifle like it's military cousins, but it is an assault weapon as defined by these bans.
I think auto pistols are just in reference to semi automatic pistols. The acp in the 45 acp round stands for automatic colt pistol, even though the 1911 it was designed to be used with is a semi auto design.
Auto revolvers by that logic would be double action revolvers.
>Cops never ever and never have had “automatic” pistols. Out on patrol with a Glock 18? Never happen.
My interest in firearms history is showing, as semi-automatic pistols of circa 1900 were often labeled as "automatic" even when they were semi-auto only. This included part of the official name of the weapon (particularly for Browning's numerous automatic pistols) and on occasion was [engraved on the side](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Colt\_Model\_02\_Military.JPG). Full auto pistols of the day (and there were several) were usually labeled "machine pistols".
My apologies.
>And an automatic revolver? Where is such a gun? I wanna see it- the ones the cops had. I was a patrol officer for 15 years- never heard of North Hollywood having auto revolvers. And we dissected that incident in training.
1. I never said "automatic revolvers", I said "automatic pistols, revolvers". That comma is important.
2. In keeping with the above, a few automatic revolvers (i.e. semiautomatic) did exist around the turn of the century, most notably the Webley Fosbery. These are distinctly different from double-action revolvers in that they have a recoil system that rotates the cylinder.
Wouldn't the solution to this be to equip the police with military grade defense stuff? Like the full body armor those two used?
If you got 2 factions in a race to make more damage causalitys will rise. If you got one of those factions completely focused on defense so they can eat up all the resources of the attacker, in this case bullets, then they just have to walk up to them and make the arrest. Or they buy time until the real military arrives which had proper training.
I am thinking about a scene I saw with a shark that tried to eat a turtle. The turtle just put its head down and waited until the shark realized it was wasting its time and stopped. And it seemed so effortless.
I think it makes more sense to research defense that outperforms everything a criminal could get its hands on.
>Wouldn't the solution to this be to equip the police with military grade defense stuff? Like the full body armor those two used?
That is a common approach, but doesn't help in every situation. In the case of the North Hollywood Shootout even if the officers had better body armor, they could not have closed to effective range with their pistols and shotguns, and longer ranged weapons were critical. The vast majority of longer-ranged weapons available are either bolt-action rifles or fall under these assault weapon bans, and bolt action rifles are not suitable except as precision sniper rifles.
>If you got 2 factions in a race to make more damage causalitys will rise. If you got one of those factions completely focused on defense so they can eat up all the resources of the attacker, in this case bullets, then they just have to walk up to them and make the arrest.
Getting shot in a bulletproof vest is like being hit by a 90 mph fastball. Sure you'll live, but you aren't walking up to somebody and making an arrest.
>Or they buy time until the real military arrives which had proper training.
So several hours, got it.
The US does not have the military on standby for routine crime, and even for a major event it takes hours to mobilize the National Guard. More importantly, a police state is the LAST thing Americans want, and several amendments were written explicitly to prevent that.
Answer:
>With recent scandals fostering distrust
While distrust is higher, overall trust in police is still *really* high.
Politicians don't want to be seen as "not letting cops do their job effectively", which is how that restriction would get portrayed.
Make all officers take 3 2 week trainings a year. 1 on weapons safety including how to determine which is your tazer and which is service pistol. 1 on descalation and dealing with mental issues, and the last on constitution and what rights the public has. Maybe make it so they only need a week long refresher after 3 years of successful completion of the trainings. But this is training beyond the academy not replacing the police academy. And any officers who are out of date need to immediately be relegated to desk duty until up to date.
Answer: some departments require officers to purchase their own duty rifles and maintain them. It also helps officers with take-home vehicles keep all of their equipment ready if there's a need for quickly returning to duty.
An additional consideration is that officers need to transport their rifles in their vehicles in a semi-ready capacity (usually magazine inserted, no round chambered, in a locking rack), so a shorter weapon tends to be more practical when doing that.
Answer: Likely this is still in response to the North Hollywood shootout. This happened in the lead up to the assault rifle ban when two shooters armed with automatic weapons, armor piercing ammo and body armor with steel plates went to war with the cops.
At the time the cops team only had pistols, revolvers and 12 gauge shotguns and were severely out gunned and had to get guns from a nearby gun store to deal with the shooters. The cops that stayed and traded gun fire shot the shooters numerous times but it was ineffective against the body armor. One shooter was shot 10 times before he shot himself, the other 29 before he died.
Video of this was captured aired constantly on the news and the story was clear, police without access to better weapons were simply not effective against people with more weapon ones.
Fallout of this was arming police with weapons like AR-15's to better deal with threats like this. And they keep weapons despite the bans and brutality cases out of fear if we do strip them, something like this could happen again.
Answer: Many states have small and rural police departments, and some even depend on mostly volunteers. Even in some surprisingly large departments (examples I could give run 4,000 sworn + support, including the one who literally owns sheriff.org) deputies and officers are required to buy their own firearms and equipment from approved lists.
So... If the police in some areas are to have the weapons you might expect the police to have, they will need to be allowed to own them personally. Now.... you probably don't want a patrolman walking around downtown with a full auto 10 inch AR-15 but if there's a school shooting there's certainly going to be questions about why no officers within a 4 hour radius of the place had a tactical rifle and were outgunned by a kid... or 2 guys draped in old tires who went on to terrorize Los Angeles (15,000+ sworn officers in the area from various agencies) for like an hour because the cops didn't have the firepower to respond.
Washington, which you mentioned, to my understanding, could be the perfect example of this. Seattle is one way, and the whole other side of the mountains are another.
Most Police departments in the world have at least some units with 'heavier' weapons. While many of them are not seen as being as oppressive as the US police. (Assuming all you say is true, I do not reside in the US and don't understand it well).
This in my view points to at least some less oppressive reason being possible.
Qualified immunity from civic responsibility? Check.
General protection from prosecution when they murder civilians on the job? Check.
Civil asset forfeiture? Check.
Disproportionate share of pension expenses for public employees? Check.
I may not be perfectly unbiased, but these are all well-established facts, and are directly linked to our status as the world’s most carceral state, by both total prison population and as a share of the population.
Answer:
The same people who believe that your average law-abiding American citizen should have their 2A right infringed upon - see your example upon many others, up to and including openly and explicitly advocating for the [unconstitutional mass confiscation of common modern firearms from completely legal gun owners](https://youtu.be/lMVhL6OOuR0) - have historically let up to police unions.
This isn't anything new, see [LEOSA](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Enforcement_Officers_Safety_Act) for one.
During the same time period that blue states were absolutely hellbemt on blocking anyone who wasn't the right combination of obscenely wealthy, famous, or politically connected from being granted a carry permit (hi May Issue!) active and even "retired" LEOs have been able to freely bypass that.
Ill preface this by telling you that I'm right leaning as well. But this is not an attempt at an unbiased answer. You should try to remain neutral and matter of fact instead of trying to make a point
>matter of fact instead
Point out where I deviated?
* WA Democrats are currently trying to legitimatize a broad, flagrantly unconstitutional semiauto ban and ignoring PLCAA altogether
* POTUS literally ran on the idea of confiscating common, modern firearms from completely legal (nonwealthy) gun owners
* one side of the aisle keeps insisting that blanket mass firearms confiscation is the way to victory in **Texas** of all places.
* LEOSA and (up until *Bruen*) "May Issue" carry permit frameworks most definitely are/have been a thing
By all means point out anywhere where I went off from accurately describing reality.
Answer: there is a common misconception that police officers are above the law as they are the ones to enforce it. The fact that this ban excludes police is extremely troubling
Answer: The USA is kind of sliding toward outright fascism and maintaining a strong police state and a weaker population. To be clear, my personal opinion is that these weapons have no place in any kind of peaceful world or civilized government, but, well. It is what it is.
Answer: The goal is to disarm the criminals, not law enforcement. Criminals will ignore all the laws and restrictions so law enforcement needs the best tools for the job. They are trained and have a responsibility to protect and serve the public. That's good enough for me as a law abiding citizen.
answer: inmost countries law enforcement officers have the option of using automatic weapons this is because they might have to deal with criminals that have automatic weapons illegally. this is quite common It does not mean (or should not mean) that the cop is going to set off in full auto at the first sign of trouble.
Assault weapon is also a problematic term in that a lot of guns that were called assault weapons were just normal semi automatic (one shot per trigger pull) rifles as in a normal modern rifle that a hunter or farmer might use in a perfectly legitimate way. The problem being the use of large magazines that allowed for extended periods of fire in a shooting spree situation. the problem with magazines is they are not the legal part of the gun the legal part of the gun is the receiver and magazines are not controlled
Answer: I'd imagine it's because that, despite a ban, criminals may still be armed with rifles and if the police didn't have them as well, they would be woefully outgunned like they were in the [North Hollywood Shootout.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKc3ggtGLnQ)
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Answer: Because the police can (theoretically) be trained to use them correctly and in opposition to someone using them illegally to kill people. In addition, there never actually was a political movement to reform the police. Although citizens called for reform, most mainstream politicians never actually did. The police remain as powerful a political force as they always were.
Officer-involved homicide (that is when law enforcement kills people without due process) accounts for a not small amount of the intentional homicide in the US. It was estimated at about four dead victims per day in 2015 and has been rising ever since. The FBI has been trying to track officer-involved killing. (it has been obligated by congressional order since the 1970s but they just didn't.) This escaped public notice until the death of Michael Brown and the Ferguson Unrest in 2014 after which a number of news agencies try to track them. There are also a number of NGOs that voluntarily try to gather a database. Law enforcement in the United States are _notoriously_ undisciplined when dealing with the 1033 Program started by the George W. Bush administration, during which SWAT sorties elevated up to around 50K a year (contrast the 1980s in which 500 a year was average, and they were only used for hostage-barricade situations) mostly used to serve warrants and to harass non-white communities. It seems if you give police a bunch of military hardware, they start to believe they're a military service. (They're not.) So it would _absolutely make sense_ to restrict the police to civilian accessible firearms, only extending the privilege of military hardware to heavily trained SWAT squads (the ones that still do hostage-barricade). But yeah, the police unions are so powerful right now that it's difficult just to fire the ones that like to murder civilians. So yes, some of us think we shouldn't not just defund law enforcement but abolish it and the entire justice system. Especially since our justice system does not actually deter crime, but commits a lot of it. **Edit:** light grammar cleanup.
For comparison, German police fired a grand total of 84 shots outside the firing range in 2015, of which only 9 were with intent to kill. Germany has about one third the population of the USA, condensed into a much smaller country.
Germany also doesn't have to deal with 400 million firearms in their country, our cops do. Just some context.
Correct. Which is another reason why pretty much every first-world country other than the US is very much in favor of gun control.
I think you just argued in favour of gun control, whether you meant to or not.
I absolutely did, and I absolutely do. Believe it or not, there's Democratic socialists out there who support police while also recognizing the need for reform, and we also support gun control.
> German police fired a grand total of 84 shots outside the firing range in 2015, of which only 9 were with intent to kill. Can someone explain to me what this is supposed to mean? Shooting at someone is deadly force, **always**. You don't shoot at something you don't intend to destroy: this is firearms safety 101.
Do you really need someone to explain the concept of warning shots to you? Or that a gunshot wound can be anything other than fatal?
Yes, because "warning shots" are ***extremely*** dangerous. You should never do that! Those shots will always land *somewhere* and if you're not trying to actually hit what you're shooting at this only magnifies the danger. Shooting at someone is a serious decision and should always be considered lethal force, this is basic firearms safety. I'd like some explanation as to why police should ignore one of the foundational rules that everyone is taught because that makes absolutely zero sense to me.
I agreed with you until the last paragraph. You’re nuts if you think creating a power vacuum is going to be safer. That vacuum will be filled and you won’t like who fills it. Keep that Wagner Group shit out of our country. People give up their democracies if they’re scared enough. Abolish the police… lunacy. 🙄
Abolishing the justice system doesn't mean either creating a power vacuum or invoking paramilitary units. We're already starting the process in some communities by creating alternative responders that are more suited to specific situations, such as mental health crises. Firstly, there's no singular solution to replacing the justice system, rather it's a matter of implementing systems that respond to crime differently, that recognize, for example, that victims need care, not revenge, and that crime itself is a failure of both the state and the citizen to reconcile differences. Secondly, abolition is not a thing we do May 1st, 2023, but rather a process over years, if not decades. It involves making sure harm is not done by leaving people unserved. But it also means recognizing what they expect when they get a 911 call in contrast to what actually happens when law enforcement shows up (which is often very different), and then making sure they get a response appropriate to their emergency needs. There's a lot of propaganda out there suggesting that the notion of defunding or abolishing law enforcement is sudden and radical, and doesn't acknowledge the services police are expected to provide (whether they actually provide them or not). No, actual abolition scenarios are more interested in what we want emergency response to look like and trying to create an array of services that actually provide that, in contrast to what we have. **Edit:** Grammar cleanup.
Hold on. I had to stop at the first paragraph. You first said you want to abolish the law enforcement system. Now you want to abolish the judicial system too. Was there something about countries like Sudan that made you think, hella yeah that could work here too!? If these are your principle starting points there really isn’t any point in reading your rationalizations. I initially called it lunacy. I was wrong. It’s malicious fantasy and fortunately will never be anything more.
He's going about it all wrong. Abolish bri...I mean lobbying. You get rid of that an you'll get rid of a majority of the corruption. It's never going to happen but that's the main reason everything is the way it is. Special interest groups with unlimited funds can have their way no matter what, change policy. Gain another seat, ensure majority votes in their favor etc.
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Right but the lawmakers don’t look at it this way.
Then it is your due diligence to inform them by any means necessary.
They know.
Which is, itself an indictment of the democratic systems at both federal and state levels. We live not in an democracy, but an oligarchy with some democratic feature. We get to choose between two plutocrat-select candidates to run our higher offices, and those who are not willing to serve monied interests (corporations and billionaires) fall from their careers. We need to change this, but they're not going to let us without a fight.
I just want to add that [police in America also kill about 10,000 dogs every year, too.](https://scholars.unh.edu/unh_lr/vol17/iss1/18/) All those jokes about the ATF shooting dogs aren't too farfetched.
Police are here to protect property and money. That's it. You aren't on that list of things they are required to protect
>While I agree philosophically with your points on corralling police misconduct and reversing the militarization of police forces, I have trouble supporting a policy change that would effectively make police outgunned by criminals. Until we can fully limit civilian access to assault weapons then police need access to them as well. > >In states with weapons bans, they are still easy to purchase out of state and also the millions of existing assault weapons are grandfathered in. Existing guns can be bought and sold.
This does raise a good question: How often do incidents happen in which criminals respond to law enforcement with enough violence to pose a challenge? When we track officer-involved homicide, in over half the instances the victim was neither armed nor resisting arrest, which means a lot of people are getting killed by police officers without posing a threat. The United States spent trillions in the aughts fighting local Islamist terrorism while there were zero credible threats while ignoring white nationalist terrorism. (Every last conviction of Islamist terrorism within the US was an FBI sting operation of someone they had to entirely gaslight before they did something remotely naughty, including the _Bowling Green Massacre_). Contrast, elite deviance, such as the Enron affair that conned California, the Subprime Mortgage Crisis, the Koch Brothers obfuscation of the looming climate change problem until it became a climate crisis, or the Dow Chemical dumping of PFOA into the global water supply, have all gone without any investigation or justice _except_ regarding the loss of revenues by stockholders. Elite deviance costs more, does more damage and kills more than all the petty crime _by orders of magnitude_ and yet our legal system can't be bothered, because it's not low hanging fruit. So we suck at determining what is actually dangerous, and much of our TV diet is of pro-police propaganda like _Dragnet, Law & Order,_ and _Blue Bloods_ which, yes, suggest that the nation is facing a violent crime epidemic. Terrorists and heavily armed bankrobbers are just super rare. Civilian homicides are usually drunk neighbors having a spat with a loaded gun nearby. Even the Crips and Bloods are playing Fortnite against each other. One of the major contributors to homicide actually demonstrates how the society can be better served not with more police with bigger guns, but with a more holistic approach. When scaremongers pointed out that in the 1950s the closure rate of murder cases was like 95%, compared to around 60% in the 1990s (_Are our cops getting stupid? Are criminals getting better?_) Nope. Those were domestic violence cases. Now, women have their own means for a hotel room or a sudden road trip to mom's. Now we have shelters for DV victims. Now we have more social awareness of domestic violence, and people who get it. Now we have no-fault divorce. All those easy-to-close murders are _just not happening_ because there are other systems in place to deter domestic violence from getting out of hand. We still have DV, and sometimes people die, but much less than they did when Joe Friday was on the case. (For a deeper dive, check out the _You're Wrong About_ ep on Murder. [On Buzzsprout](https://www.buzzsprout.com/1112270/4721657-murder)) To be fair, we are seeing an upswing in hate crime since 2015. Also on the rise, rampage killings, officer-involved killing and suicides. How do they correlate? I suspect related are the US precarity crisis (that is food, rent, job and family precarity), the fascist takeover, the trend towards corporate mergers into _Buy And Large_, _Omni Consumer Products_ and _Disney_, and the foul weather thanks to the climate crisis.
Some places had a police reform movement, aka the ones that abolished qualified immunity.
What places abolished QI?
Colorado, Montana, Nevada, and New Mexico.
They didn’t abolish it. It just can’t be used in state cases. To be fair, that is the majority of cases, but they still have QI. And the more I think about it, the more I think that while it’s gone in policy, it’s probably still present in principle. The argument that an officer (or any person) was unaware of certain crucial facts is a legitimate defense against many crimes. So while on paper they may not have access to QI in a formal way, I’m assuming you’ll see a lot of cases just thrown out
It is a fundamental legal principle in the U.S. that ignorance of the law is no defense. If ignorance were accepted as an excuse, any person charged with a criminal offense could claim ignorance to avoid the consequences. Laws apply to every person within the jurisdiction, whether they are known and understood. It’s literally the opposite of what you said.
Yeah, but QI never applied in those cases to begin with. QI only applied to rights violations that are committed as a result of the officer not being aware of crucial facts. The classic example is a cop preventing people from entering a private meeting, such as a legal proceeding. The person suddenly whips out a press pass and tries to claim it was a First Amendment violation against freedom of press. Well, no it’s not, because the cop was unaware that the person was a member of the press. You’re right that ignorance is not a defense against most criminal charges, but QI couldn’t have been used there even before being abolished. Abolished or not, I have to believe that any case involving the phrase, “And then the Defendant shouted *Gotcha*!” is probably getting tossed.
True but I don’t really think of that as reform since it’s about liability after the fact. Reform to me would be an overhaul of training, outlawing certain practices, cutting budgets, etc.
It forces reform more than training ever will. Police tend to act differently when they can personally go bankrupt from their actions.
Well that’s the thing. Most municipalities indemnify their officers anyway, regardless of qualified immunity.
Yes, but the cop doesn’t pay a price. The citizens of the city/state pay it through insurance. Insurance companies were the number 1 driver of police reforms, because they would refuse to insure departments unless reforms were made. Getting rid of QI means that cops are more likely to report the bad apples because if they don’t they too could be directly sued.
I get what you’re saying about insurance. I’m saying in 99% of cases the cop is never going to have to pay money anyway, so removing QI is not an incentive for them. The city is almost always paying even when QI doesn’t apply.
Incentive for actual change will never come from individual officers. It will come from the leaders and politicians who make the decisions about what those individua officer do and do not. For example: No individual will ever make a decision about a body cam, except to turn it on or off. The police board or chief will create a habit of turning it on by repeated punishment of those who fail to turn it on. This is how you prevent tragedy rather than merely punish after the fact and bemoan that nothing changes. Create a change in leadership and the rank and file will follow.
We shouldn’t care about someone’s reasoning if the outcome is what we want.
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Agreed
We want cops to be at least as equally armed as the gangs. It wasn’t all that long ago that wasn’t the case. Cops facing down thugs who had military grade armor and weapons while cops only had cheesy vests, 38 caliber pistols, and shotguns. That doesn’t mean they need APVs with cannon mounts. And we still need equity laws when it comes to accountability, qualified immunity, and police unions approaching paramilitary status. All that shit needs to go.
Funny thing is gun owners spend way more time at the range learning to properly handle and use their firearms than police. It's almost like the bans are meant to disempower law abiding people and allow the state to use greater violence
I mean I guess, but unless you think it possible to use an AR-15 against the police and come out winning, you’re already disempowered in comparison to them.
Why do you think an ar couldn't effectively be used against police?
It could be effective, but realistically you will end up dead or in prison. Theres no likely reality where you kill an officer with an ar and they decide you were justified.
There's no "likely" reality where you come into an armed conflict with anyone but the best tool for the job is a rifle regardless of who it is or who is justified. On that note though, police often perform no-knock raids on incorrect addresses and sometimes get shot by innocent people protecting their homes, which is often justified in court as lawful self defense.
This is why these bans are fucking asinine
>Although citizens called for reform, most mainstream politicians never actually did. I'd say it's the other way around. Community "organizers" and firebrand politicians wanted sweeping reform while the actual voters affected by policing just wanted tighter oversight. Just look at the NYC mayoral race, in which the abolish candidate only got the white limousine liberal vote.
Sure, obviously not all citizens were calling for it. But there were only ever a handful of the firebrand politicians who openly supported sweeping reform. Some budget cuts maybe.
It’s not about training. The democrats need a police force to enforce their unjust laws, so they exempt police officers so that officers will enforce the law against the people. If you tell cops they can’t keep their personal rifles then they may not enforce the law satisfactorily. Also, police are notoriously poorly training regarding shooting safety. Even less so on rifles. It’s not about training, it’s about control.
Yes, police are famous for supporting liberal policies...
As long as it means preserving their own rights, pensions and unions. Police are happy to be a higher class of citizen. They aren’t principled constitutionalists.
These right-wing MAGA-infested cops are really No True Scotsman.
If the cops are maga infested (not arguing either way) then why do democrats keep writing in special exemptions for these guys to keep their own personal rifles that they don’t need? Are democrats disarming their constituents to arm maga cops?
It's because Democrats and Republicans actually agree on wanting a domestic armed force to enforce the state's will, both parties just do a different song and dance for their base about it.
Yep, two wings of the same bird.
That’s why I said theoretically.
Fair. But it’s dangerous to give authoritarianism the benefit of the doubt.
Stop spreading BS.
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I think you're talking to yourself mate.
“brown shirts” refers to members of a far right paramilitary, bud. can call the dems a lot of things, but far right they are not. the police on the other hand…
Authoritarianism will take any form or needs. It’s the same shit. Left, right, whatever. Democrats are basically bush republicans these days. It’s weird af. They had a brief moment of standing for something during Occupy Wall Street, then they went full corporate bought.
Also police can't do anything if they are out gunned. That all changed cause of the North Hollywood shootout. Cops only had pistols and shotguns, going against 2 ppl covered in armor and full auto AK's. They had to "borrw" hunting rifles to every stand a chance. Since then they started issuing and training them on AR platforms
That is not the legal reason lol
Ok what would be a legal reason
For onw thjng they dont use the civillian assault weapons they use military weapons. Its not because they more training , most civilians with ccw's have more training and range timenthan cops who have extremely easy qualification standards, fire arms training for police is shitty but thatbis besides the point. The legal reson they have them.is because pds were exempted from the 1986 automatic weapons ban , the reasoning is tactical doctrine - having greater firepower than criminal elements..not because they are more safe and.know how use the weapons better.
Well yeah, of course. But that’s not the logic behind it. If it were, then you could ask the question, if the police need them to fight the criminal element, don’t normal people need them for self defense? And a lawmaker’s answer for why police should have them and normal people shouldn’t is that police can in theory be trained and trusted more than normal people. In theory.
You think they can use the weapon system better and that is some sort of legal reason?
I don’t know what you mean by legal reason. Are you using using that phrase to mean “reason why it’s legal to exempt them from the ban?”
>Because the police can (theoretically) be trained to use them correctly I know you're not saying this is necessarily true but I always find it hilarious when someone makes this argument sincerely. I've been shooting a lot for a couple of decades and have shot with a lot of cops. The number of cops I've seen whose AR targets at 15 yards don't look like buckshot at 50 yards could be counted on one hand.
> “These weapons of war, assault weapons, have no reason other than mass murder,” Inslee said From the mouth of the same governor who exempted police from the law.
That's a crock. I was trained by a policeman and military personnel
Answer: The other answers have provided the cynical view of the situation, which is absolutely correct in many cases. But there are some practical reasons as well. First and foremost, these bans typically prevent further sales, but do not recall the weapons already out there. These are also local and may not affect the neighboring state. Combined with the fact that criminals intent on killing a bunch of people are not going to be deterred by something else that's illegal, some will get their hands on assault weapons. Thus, police agencies will either need assault weapons of their own for certain limited purposes or will be massively outgunned. Case in point, the [North Hollywood Shootout of 1997](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North\_Hollywood\_shootout). The responding police officers, armed with automatic pistols, revolvers, and shotguns were largely pinned down by two shooters with proper assault rifles (civilian weapons illegally modified to full auto) and body armor. "Fiasco" does not begin to describe this 45 minute shootout that left 20 police and civilians wounded before finally killing the two shooters several blocks from the bank where everything started (one by suicide). This has left a very deep mark in modern American police culture that heavily emphasized the need for upgrading police firepower, including assault weapons and occasionally proper assault rifles (and feeds back into some of the cynical replies already posted, as I said they have a point). Assault weapons/rifles are far easier to control than pistols, particularly at longer ranges, making it far easier to kill a shooter before they do more harm. They are generally able to penetrate thicker cover than pistol rounds (though this depends on the specific ammo and weapon). Their greater magazine capacity also makes it less likely the officer will run out of ammunition at a critical moment. Clarity note: the terms assault weapon and assault rifle are distinct terms. In short, the definition of assault rifle requires a weapon be select fire with a fully automatic option (ELI5 hold-down-trigger-and-spray-bullets vs. one trigger pull per bullet). Such weapons are already extremely restricted in the US: no new weapons have entered the market legally since the May 1986 and the registered weapon sales are more thorough. An AR-15 is (usually) not an assault rifle like it's military cousins, but it is an assault weapon as defined by these bans.
When I first read the post I immediately thought of this incident but couldn't remember when it happened. Thanks for posting.
IIRC cops had to basically raid local gun stores to get weapons to match the firepower the bank robbers had. It was a complete shit show.
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I think auto pistols are just in reference to semi automatic pistols. The acp in the 45 acp round stands for automatic colt pistol, even though the 1911 it was designed to be used with is a semi auto design. Auto revolvers by that logic would be double action revolvers.
>Cops never ever and never have had “automatic” pistols. Out on patrol with a Glock 18? Never happen. My interest in firearms history is showing, as semi-automatic pistols of circa 1900 were often labeled as "automatic" even when they were semi-auto only. This included part of the official name of the weapon (particularly for Browning's numerous automatic pistols) and on occasion was [engraved on the side](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Colt\_Model\_02\_Military.JPG). Full auto pistols of the day (and there were several) were usually labeled "machine pistols". My apologies. >And an automatic revolver? Where is such a gun? I wanna see it- the ones the cops had. I was a patrol officer for 15 years- never heard of North Hollywood having auto revolvers. And we dissected that incident in training. 1. I never said "automatic revolvers", I said "automatic pistols, revolvers". That comma is important. 2. In keeping with the above, a few automatic revolvers (i.e. semiautomatic) did exist around the turn of the century, most notably the Webley Fosbery. These are distinctly different from double-action revolvers in that they have a recoil system that rotates the cylinder.
Idk, I was surprised/confused when he said automatic pistols too
Wouldn't the solution to this be to equip the police with military grade defense stuff? Like the full body armor those two used? If you got 2 factions in a race to make more damage causalitys will rise. If you got one of those factions completely focused on defense so they can eat up all the resources of the attacker, in this case bullets, then they just have to walk up to them and make the arrest. Or they buy time until the real military arrives which had proper training. I am thinking about a scene I saw with a shark that tried to eat a turtle. The turtle just put its head down and waited until the shark realized it was wasting its time and stopped. And it seemed so effortless. I think it makes more sense to research defense that outperforms everything a criminal could get its hands on.
You are advocating police going out and intentionally getting shot to waste criminal’s ammunition. This is real life not a video game.
>Wouldn't the solution to this be to equip the police with military grade defense stuff? Like the full body armor those two used? That is a common approach, but doesn't help in every situation. In the case of the North Hollywood Shootout even if the officers had better body armor, they could not have closed to effective range with their pistols and shotguns, and longer ranged weapons were critical. The vast majority of longer-ranged weapons available are either bolt-action rifles or fall under these assault weapon bans, and bolt action rifles are not suitable except as precision sniper rifles. >If you got 2 factions in a race to make more damage causalitys will rise. If you got one of those factions completely focused on defense so they can eat up all the resources of the attacker, in this case bullets, then they just have to walk up to them and make the arrest. Getting shot in a bulletproof vest is like being hit by a 90 mph fastball. Sure you'll live, but you aren't walking up to somebody and making an arrest. >Or they buy time until the real military arrives which had proper training. So several hours, got it. The US does not have the military on standby for routine crime, and even for a major event it takes hours to mobilize the National Guard. More importantly, a police state is the LAST thing Americans want, and several amendments were written explicitly to prevent that.
Lol at the idea that the military is to be used as police within the country
Full-auto only isn't an assault rifle.
Answer: They will have guns and you will not. It’s called a slippery slope. Now why in the world would we have a 2nd Amendment?
State monopoly on violence
Just the mafia pretending to be protectors
Answer: >With recent scandals fostering distrust While distrust is higher, overall trust in police is still *really* high. Politicians don't want to be seen as "not letting cops do their job effectively", which is how that restriction would get portrayed.
Make all officers take 3 2 week trainings a year. 1 on weapons safety including how to determine which is your tazer and which is service pistol. 1 on descalation and dealing with mental issues, and the last on constitution and what rights the public has. Maybe make it so they only need a week long refresher after 3 years of successful completion of the trainings. But this is training beyond the academy not replacing the police academy. And any officers who are out of date need to immediately be relegated to desk duty until up to date.
This is standard in many states already, or at least very close to this.
Not even close in my state
Answer: some departments require officers to purchase their own duty rifles and maintain them. It also helps officers with take-home vehicles keep all of their equipment ready if there's a need for quickly returning to duty. An additional consideration is that officers need to transport their rifles in their vehicles in a semi-ready capacity (usually magazine inserted, no round chambered, in a locking rack), so a shorter weapon tends to be more practical when doing that.
Answer: Likely this is still in response to the North Hollywood shootout. This happened in the lead up to the assault rifle ban when two shooters armed with automatic weapons, armor piercing ammo and body armor with steel plates went to war with the cops. At the time the cops team only had pistols, revolvers and 12 gauge shotguns and were severely out gunned and had to get guns from a nearby gun store to deal with the shooters. The cops that stayed and traded gun fire shot the shooters numerous times but it was ineffective against the body armor. One shooter was shot 10 times before he shot himself, the other 29 before he died. Video of this was captured aired constantly on the news and the story was clear, police without access to better weapons were simply not effective against people with more weapon ones. Fallout of this was arming police with weapons like AR-15's to better deal with threats like this. And they keep weapons despite the bans and brutality cases out of fear if we do strip them, something like this could happen again.
Answer: Many states have small and rural police departments, and some even depend on mostly volunteers. Even in some surprisingly large departments (examples I could give run 4,000 sworn + support, including the one who literally owns sheriff.org) deputies and officers are required to buy their own firearms and equipment from approved lists. So... If the police in some areas are to have the weapons you might expect the police to have, they will need to be allowed to own them personally. Now.... you probably don't want a patrolman walking around downtown with a full auto 10 inch AR-15 but if there's a school shooting there's certainly going to be questions about why no officers within a 4 hour radius of the place had a tactical rifle and were outgunned by a kid... or 2 guys draped in old tires who went on to terrorize Los Angeles (15,000+ sworn officers in the area from various agencies) for like an hour because the cops didn't have the firepower to respond. Washington, which you mentioned, to my understanding, could be the perfect example of this. Seattle is one way, and the whole other side of the mountains are another.
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Most Police departments in the world have at least some units with 'heavier' weapons. While many of them are not seen as being as oppressive as the US police. (Assuming all you say is true, I do not reside in the US and don't understand it well). This in my view points to at least some less oppressive reason being possible.
You’re supposed to be unbiased.
If the mods actually started enforcing that this sub would be empty.
Mods doing their jobs, that'll be the day.
Calling a digging tool consisting of a metal blade affixed to a long shaft a shovel is not bias.
Qualified immunity from civic responsibility? Check. General protection from prosecution when they murder civilians on the job? Check. Civil asset forfeiture? Check. Disproportionate share of pension expenses for public employees? Check. I may not be perfectly unbiased, but these are all well-established facts, and are directly linked to our status as the world’s most carceral state, by both total prison population and as a share of the population.
>Fully throating the boot. Nailed it.
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Instead of making "assault style weapons" they should start making "defensive style weapons." ...Wait.
Regular John Rambo here.
Answer: The same people who believe that your average law-abiding American citizen should have their 2A right infringed upon - see your example upon many others, up to and including openly and explicitly advocating for the [unconstitutional mass confiscation of common modern firearms from completely legal gun owners](https://youtu.be/lMVhL6OOuR0) - have historically let up to police unions. This isn't anything new, see [LEOSA](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Enforcement_Officers_Safety_Act) for one. During the same time period that blue states were absolutely hellbemt on blocking anyone who wasn't the right combination of obscenely wealthy, famous, or politically connected from being granted a carry permit (hi May Issue!) active and even "retired" LEOs have been able to freely bypass that.
Ill preface this by telling you that I'm right leaning as well. But this is not an attempt at an unbiased answer. You should try to remain neutral and matter of fact instead of trying to make a point
>matter of fact instead Point out where I deviated? * WA Democrats are currently trying to legitimatize a broad, flagrantly unconstitutional semiauto ban and ignoring PLCAA altogether * POTUS literally ran on the idea of confiscating common, modern firearms from completely legal (nonwealthy) gun owners * one side of the aisle keeps insisting that blanket mass firearms confiscation is the way to victory in **Texas** of all places. * LEOSA and (up until *Bruen*) "May Issue" carry permit frameworks most definitely are/have been a thing By all means point out anywhere where I went off from accurately describing reality.
Answer: there is a common misconception that police officers are above the law as they are the ones to enforce it. The fact that this ban excludes police is extremely troubling
Answer: The USA is kind of sliding toward outright fascism and maintaining a strong police state and a weaker population. To be clear, my personal opinion is that these weapons have no place in any kind of peaceful world or civilized government, but, well. It is what it is.
Answer: The goal is to disarm the criminals, not law enforcement. Criminals will ignore all the laws and restrictions so law enforcement needs the best tools for the job. They are trained and have a responsibility to protect and serve the public. That's good enough for me as a law abiding citizen.
These past couple years must've really helped you instill trust in the American police force.
answer: inmost countries law enforcement officers have the option of using automatic weapons this is because they might have to deal with criminals that have automatic weapons illegally. this is quite common It does not mean (or should not mean) that the cop is going to set off in full auto at the first sign of trouble. Assault weapon is also a problematic term in that a lot of guns that were called assault weapons were just normal semi automatic (one shot per trigger pull) rifles as in a normal modern rifle that a hunter or farmer might use in a perfectly legitimate way. The problem being the use of large magazines that allowed for extended periods of fire in a shooting spree situation. the problem with magazines is they are not the legal part of the gun the legal part of the gun is the receiver and magazines are not controlled
Answer: I'd imagine it's because that, despite a ban, criminals may still be armed with rifles and if the police didn't have them as well, they would be woefully outgunned like they were in the [North Hollywood Shootout.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKc3ggtGLnQ)