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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ALLIES
• r/ACAB
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INFO
• 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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ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
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The NRA didn't invent physics, you give them too much credit.
You are seriously overestimating the "good guy with a gun" storyline. Yes, it does happen, but it's extremely rare. And even if there is a "good guy with a gun" standing around when the shooting starts, they still have to react faster and more accurately than the "bad guy".
Of course, maybe we should consider why there are so many shootings that the "good guy with a gun" storyline is even a thing. Even if it did happen more often, it's solving the wrong problem.
There are so many shootings in the US these days that it's not really even making national news any more, unless it's particularly bad (i.e., body count > some number). There were two yesterday alone, for example.
I'm not talking about "the good guy with a gun," I'm talking about "the person who gets anatomically significant hits on target first almost always wins the gun fight." You can disbelieve this fairly self evident concept all you wish, but it is the case.
But since you mentioned it, defensive gun uses are estimated (at the lowest) by Harvard at 100k/yr, and that is based solely off of verifiable police reports and completely discounting defensive display mind you. Meanwhile all yearly gun deaths including suicide and accidents are at 60k, intentional firearm homicide is at about 12k, and murders done with rifles are under 500/year.
Now, if 100k is "extremely rare," what then would 60k, 12k, or 500 be? If it's that rare why do dumb stuff like try to ban a rifle responsible for 0.83333333333333% of the deaths? Statistically, more than 2 people defended themselves with a firearm yesterday, by a lot, which rarely makes national news either.
I know I'm not going to convince you, I wanted the info out there for others. Just keep stroking your precious, precious guns and pretending that more guns will solve all of the problems. I mean, I guess it will, if we're all deceased.
Good thing I had the info, rather than your baseless assumptions that are factually inaccurate. I too am glad I was able to share it, thanks for creating the opportunity for me to say it by being reactionary to my comment that didn't even say what you thought it said.
You used to be able to purchase brand new military machine guns right off the wall until 1986, yet I struggle to prove that more than 3 people have died to civilian-owned machine guns. Semi-automatic rifles were widely available for decades before anything really happened. Here is the question: what changed between then and now that started the trend of mass/school shootings?
Rush Limbaugh had only been on the air for a little over 10 years when the Columbine shooting happened. For News started that year I think. Other news agencies also did 24 hour coverage of the various big shootings and blasted the killer's identities everywhere, just like the media used to do for serial killers before they were blamed for causing more serial killings.
I think the media is certainly complicit but I think people need look deeper, back to when gang violence, poverty, and the ruining of the American worker began to come back. Neoliberalism has been a cancer infecting the Western nations for decades now, governing over the decline of our industries and the rapid growth of wealth inequality. You can track all the increases in gun violence and mass killings right back to it and its consequences.