Black citizens are buying firearms<\/a> in record numbers, as are white women. Clearly, people believe guns offer a form of security, even if the data don\u2019t support that assumption.<\/p>\nNo responsible gun owner would lose rights if we required licensing and training. If you cannot pass a background check and training, you should not handle a firearm.<\/p>\n
I do not support per-gun licensing fees, taxes on ammunition, or other schemes. But, I would punish unlicensed and untrained gun owners.\u00a0Gun registration doesn\u2019t seem unreasonable if it is for a fee close to the actual cost of recording the data.<\/p>\n
More weapons among the public make the police uneasy. In response to gun violence, the police argue that they must not be \u201cout-gunned\u201d by criminals. Our leaders have given police more and more weapons, only escalating the potential for violence.<\/p>\n
Over the last 35 years, we\u2019ve witnessed the militarization of our police. Departments went from having small specialized tactical weapons teams to over-arming every officer. The \u201cSpecial Weapons and Tactics\u201d went from a rare sight to a commonplace on the evening news. SWAT teams seem pretty busy to the general public. They have tanks, personnel carriers, and other heavy military vehicles. It\u2019s all absurd.<\/p>\n
In a time when violent crime had been declining, we were arming as if there was an open war on the streets of America.<\/p>\n
When the police abused their powers, including deadly force, politicians and courts granted officers \u201cqualified immunity.\u201d This basically means that a bad choice made to protect the better good might be immune from prosecution. Yes, it\u2019s more complicated, but the basic result is that officers are not held accountable for serious violations of rights, harm caused to citizens, or even the deaths of suspects. As long as an officer could make a \u201creasonable\u201d claim to be acting in good faith, prosecution has been difficult.<\/p>\n
Policing is a response to public fears. Many of those fears defy the data.<\/p>\n
I understand we cannot disarm the police. We cannot reduce funding, either, since training and testing are both expensive. We should also allocate more funds to community social services.<\/p>\n
Traffic cops are rarely saved by their guns during deadly encounters. Sadly, police rarely have time to react when a driver or occupant is prepared to kill officers. Likewise, when police do use weapons during traffic stops or other \u201croutine\u201d engagements, there was no immediate threat to life.<\/p>\n
Some police might object to carrying only Tasers, chemicals, and batons alongside handcuffs. They do not need utility belts rivaling Batman\u2019s gadgets.<\/p>\n
As a classical liberal, I do not want more laws, nor do I want a militarized police force in any community.\u00a0We don\u2019t need more laws. In fact, we need fewer laws and less special protections for police.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
People kill people, it is true, but guns certainly make killing people easier. To reduce all gun deaths, we should: Amend the Constitution to clarify…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"iawp_total_views":8,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[36,37,34,8,43],"tags":[32,33,35,38,39,40,41,42],"class_list":["post-1057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-law","category-media","category-politics","category-constitution","tag-amendments","tag-constitution","tag-gun-rights","tag-law-enforcement","tag-policing","tag-qualified-immunity","tag-safety","tag-second-amendment","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/03\/AC_Banner_Gray_1200x630.png?fit=1200%2C630&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfivL7-h3","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1057"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1344,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057\/revisions\/1344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}