Comment by pessimizer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pessimizer | Hacker News Reader

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> If people actually cared about creating a broad coalition to address this, they would want to highlight both facts, not hide the latter fact.

People fighting for black lives aren't hiding bad things that happen to white people. The reason Duncan Lemp doesn't have posters up about him isn't because black activists against police violence haven't fought for him, it's because both black and white activists against police violence haven't fought for him. And as white people still make up the majority of people shot by police[1], far more white people than black failed Duncan Lemp.

I find it to be a fantasy that somehow, if people fighting for black lives would emphasize the suffering of white people, it would suddenly turn the white people who are hostile or ambivalent about this stuff into supporters. Again: you can't get white activist gun owners to defend a licensed gun owner who was surprised and shot in his own home by police executing a no-knock warrant that wasn't for him. The NRA supported gun control to criminalize the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers were an absolutely straightforward open carry movement, with one important difference.

edit: I meant to exclude Reason-style libertarians from this. They're scrupulously consistent.

> Again: you can't get white activist gun owners to defend a licensed gun owner who was surprised and shot in his own home by police executing a no-knock warrant that wasn't for him.

That's patently false at the very least. Everyone I've talked to said it was a horrible act and those officers deserve legal charges.

> Everyone I've talked to said it was a horrible act and those officers deserve legal charges.

That's great for the people you talked to, the comment was about the NRA or any other gun rights group actually defending him. Did you friends protest for him? Did they write their congressperson? Did they raise legal funds at the gun range? If they didn't, then they aren't activists.

What about Philando Castile? The NRA didn't have anything to say about that incident until a year later.

EDIT: made less combative.

Did you do any of those things, or are you just pointing fingers at people for not doing the same things you did't do?

Make no mistake, the government's job, first and foremost is to protect itself. This means state, local and federal. The only reason we're even seeing any resolution on this sort of thing is they see it as a systemic problem. "Defund the police," and some local government's willingness to put it to a vote put a lot of fear into police departments. Over time, they will revert back to their normal behavior, so it's something we have to be diligent about.

Yes, I wrote my mayor, city councilman, senators, the president and congressman. Nothing really happened until defund the police became nationalized and the state / local / federal governments were forced to act out of pure self interest and self preservation. Bad, murderous cops got away Scott free for decades before that.

One of the saddest parts is good people become police to actually do good for the community, then they are met with this sort of nastiness from their departments and bosses. It's gotta be a real gut punch.

Here's a recent example of a cop trying to pull a sergeant off of a perp. Sergeant was threatening to pepper spray a guy handcuffed in the back of a squad car. Other cop pulls on sergeant's belt to stop what he was doing. Sergeant freaks out and puts his hand around other cop's (female by the way) throat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUX25CO6hhE

> Did you do any of those things, or are you just pointing fingers at people for not doing the same things you did't do?

I protested, donated, wrote letters to voters, and contacted a local politician.

But that isn't relevant to the original comment, which was a person claiming that "everyone I talked to said it was horrible" is equivalent to gun rights activism.

So let me break down how I read it. This is what the person was replying to, he quoted it so will I:

> Again: you can't get white activist gun owners to defend a licensed gun owner who was surprised and shot in his own home by police executing a no-knock warrant that wasn't for him.

Which is first, an absolute, and absolutes are rarely true. Second, you said defend. "...you can't get white activist gun owners to defend a licensed gun owner..." Defining a police shooting as a bad shooting (illegal) is defending the victim of the shooting. To defend the police and not the victim would be to justify it the shooting as a good shooting (valid/legal). Based on what he said, he points to everyone he knows defended the victim claiming it was a bad shooting, therefore, everyone he knew defended the victim and not the police.

It sounds like you might want to slow down a bit and give people the benefit of the doubt, maybe take the time to read and understand what people write. I have the same affliction myself sometimes.

> It sounds like you might want to slow down a bit and give people the benefit of the doubt, maybe take the time to read and understand what people write. I have the same affliction myself sometimes.

Thanks for the advice, but I re-read everything and verified that I understood. It's possible that we just disagree, or maybe your quoted comment removes all context from the discussion.

> Did you do any of those things, or are you just pointing fingers at people for not doing the same things you did't do?

Was this an example of you giving me the benefit of the doubt?

>Was this an example of you giving me the benefit of the doubt?

Hah, good point, it was not. I told you I have that affliction sometimes as well. That's the problem when a discussion becomes emotional, it usually ceases to be a discussion.

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