General

The entitlement of saying that it doesn't happen to me so therefore the problem doesn't exist..

theJaw wrote:

What percentage of gun crimes are committed by legally registered gun owners? With all the guns we have in this county if you banned guns today and made them illegal it wouldn’t do anything to prevent the black market/underworld from providing firearms to criminals with bad intentions. So the idea of banning guns is actually the strawman. I don’t own a gun. I have never fired a gun and have no desire to own or fire one. But there’s a good reason the second amendment came second immediately following the first. So when free people gathered to express and disseminate information against the people in power- and the powers that be showed up and told them to stop with their gun, the proletariat could pull theirs out and be able to tell them to fudge off. Now on some level that is almost irrelevant because the government with all their technology and firepower could probably send out 1000 teams of 10 men, highly trained units and neutralize just about any country wide uprising. So in some ways the second amendment has become the obsolete. The same way we have to register for certain things and qualify for certain things. Prove competency, responsibility etc could be applied to gun. Limiting what weapons are allowed to be used for personal use while going against the spirit of the 2nd amendment at its conception could also be put in place. Mandatory classes just like driving a car could be implemented. But the underworld will always supply those who wish to do bad with a way to carry out those wishes. It’s both impractical and impossible to be in full favor of either side of the gun issue. Ban all the guns and unlimited guns with no oversight are both unreasonable positions. But you name a time in the last 50 years we have used pragmatism, logic, and common sense middle ground to solve a country wide problem and I’ll do the chicken dance live on you tube.

benstylus wrote:

As well as the steady paycheck, benefits etc. as opposed to years ago when there was a desire to be apart of the community or do real police work. But country wide we haven’t practiced community policing in decades. Cops don’t walk a beat anymore.

Prime wrote:

That's the wrong question to ask because only 8 states require gun registration. The federal government doesn't require registration at all.

https://armsdirectory.com/gun-registration-require...

If you change the question to what percentage of gun violence involves guns that were legally purchased, it's still complicated for the same reasons. Some states have far more restrictions than others.

But the answer to that question is anywhere from 60% to 35% depending on the state. The easier it is to legally get a gun, the higher the percentage of gun violence involving a legally owned gun. (Which 100% makes sense)

https://wiod.iheart.com/content/2019-08-23-qa-how-...

Ok so that makes sense but digging deeper into the question people really want to know... does having tougher gun laws reduce gun violence?

It's definitely a significant factor. But not the only factor.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/apr/11/...

KCPenguins wrote:

Ask your black friends if they have the same experience. Because I have been told some stories. And my friends aren't trying to be Gangsta, they are nerds like me.

benstylus wrote:


When I lived in Minneapolis during a time of unrest I listened to a talk show where people called in and talked about how they were racially profiled by the police. One by one they called in, the host shocked and apalled by what he heard. 30 minutes went by, call after call. I realized literally every scenario they were detailing has happened to me, and I've only been pulled over 6 times. My black friends/coworkers have had no more issues with the police than I have, but then again they had no reason to. This would be in KC and St. Louis.

I'm not saying it doesn't exist, only that it's not as common as the media leads you to believe, and at times it's overblown just to get viewership.

@Prime nobody said “ban guns.” This is such an oversimplification, it’s a shame it even needs to be acknowledged. I own a gun, legally. Your take misrepresents the constitution. The second amendment doesn’t say “everyone should have guns,” and suggesting better protocol be established to limit access to the mentally incapable does not “go against the spirit” of the amendment. In fact, it’s very much IN the spirit of the amendment.

The second amendment states that in the event a well regulated militia becomes necessary to protect the free state, the right of the people (within said militia) to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed. Again — within a well regulated militia in a very well-defined specific scenario. The second amendment does not grant every American a gun simply for being American. If anybody’s going against the spirit of the amendment, it’s the folks misrepresenting our constitution in order to justify the inexcusably lazy approach to gun control solely because they like shooting things.

KCPenguins wrote:

I’ve seen — with my own eyes — a black friend patted down for walking down the street in Boston (right near where Ghostbsuters was shot). My pals have shared several stories where they were accosted for no reason — pals who are better people than me. They’re not saying these things to garner viewership for the broad blanket term “media,” they’re telling me in private over a poker game. I think it’s unfair to downplay this sort of thing as just a tool of the media when the evidence to suggest otherwise is so wildly available. It’s probably different dependent on the area (Boston is historically a racist cesspool), but it for sure isn’t just a ploy of “the media” for Nielsen ratings (though it’d be naive to pretend certain outlets don’t occasionally take advantage of civil unrest for this reason specifically.)

Yep, that's why I stated "at times". I've seen some videos with gross negligence by the police, and others where the suspect put themselves in harms way by doing something incredibly stupid. I've also seen videos of police officers being shot with no warning or provocation. They don't typically show those in the media.

I had another friend who is a police officer. He was trained that a police officer is allowed to use one level of force above a suspect due to the dangers of the job. That always resonated with me. It's why when interacting with police I keep my hands visible at all times, my movements are methodical, I ask permission for any movement that may be suspicious (like reaching towards my waist), I answer the questions asked in a calm manner, I don't get defensive or aggressive regardless of whether I agree with the interaction, I'm polite, I have all paperwork ready before they get to the window, etc. I haven't run into any power hungry cops. Doesn't mean they don't exist, but the few dozen ones I know or have interacted with were just doing a job.

From a cop family, I’ve met almost exclusively power hungry cops. Some to fairly unsettling degrees. Caught up with my uncle. But we all have our different life experiences.

I'm just not a fan of singling out a group of people as a certain way when my experiences have not corroborated that connotation. I've learned in life to give everyone the benefit of a doubt until they give me a reason not to.

Of course experience forms opinion, but it’s important to listen to other folks’ experiences as well… there are, obviously, billions that we ourselves will never see first-hand. Fact-checking outlets is also important, just be sure that the research you’re doing is from an unbiased source. There are several rabbit holes out there, best not to trip into one.

KCPenguins wrote:

That's absolutely false and you just parrot the propaganda pushed.. Simple Google search will provide hundreds of instances of cops shooting pets, killing by guns, tazers, strangulation, dying in custody, etc ..


Congratulations!!!! You may be one of the special ones... Cops should treat everyone like that but maybe there's something special about your skin color

It's not propaganda, it's statistics. There are roughly 700k police officers in the US. They interact with people dozens of times a day. So conservtively speaking there are 5,000,000 interactions with police daily. That's well over 1,000,000,000 interactions yearly. Yet every police officer is a bad person out to do harm over "hundreds" (under sold that imo) of 'bad examples' that may or may not have been just?

You assume a lot about me with that last comment. I have been pulled over unjustly, I have been profiled because of how I looked, and I have been asked absurd questions by the police in my opinion. I also knew they were just doing their job and understood the circumstances of the interaction.

You talk about "not doing something stupid" but that is colored by your perception of cops as generally trustworthy and good people.

For folks who have had (or been told about) a majority of negative experience with cops, something that seems stupid to you might seem like a good idea to them.

If you've grown up on stories of harassment, arrests, beatings, strangulations, tasings, and shootings, the survival instinct might be to get away from the cop as fast as possible, even though you know you did nothing wrong.

Of course once you do that, from the cops' perspective you are now obviously breaking the law and trying to avoid being caught, so their adrenaline goes up and often more force is used.

This is why we need non-cops to handle more mundane interactions. Because sometimes the presence of the cop is what escalates it.

The other alternative is changing culture which is way harder to do (just ask gun control/gun rights advocates)

Uvalde.... Bent Badges... Human beings shouldn't be murdered for traffic violations.. Humans shouldn't have collect dead pets ... Humans shouldn't be belittled by phycos

America is a police state ... Back the Blue until they kill you too..

Regarding the part where police have a power trip...

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I think asking whether all cops are bad or if it's just a case of there being a few bad apples is the wrong question. A better question is "On average, do cops enforce the laws fairly?," since that's their job and the reason why we cede them power. When authority is held legitimately, people tend to comply. The problem is that we know (from numerous studies) that, on average, police officers are more likely to stop, frisk, and arrest black people and Latinos than white people for the same crimes. For example, despite fairly similar self-reported rates of selling drugs between white people and black people, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, black people "comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population" but "30 percent of those arrested for drug law violations--and nearly 40 percent of those incarcerated in state or federal prison for drug law violations." Thus, it makes sense why people are skeptical of police overall.

Well said.