Hacker News Reader

Comment by threatofrain | Hacker News Reader

People who want weaker and stronger gun control laws can find consensus for the idea that trained police are the most tactically equipped to deal with an ongoing crime, and that you should not interfere with professionals who are already on the scene. 40% of Uvalde's city budget is going to police.

The police went in to save their own kids, but detained and chastised parents who went in to do the same. How many more trained experts with guns we do need to stop school shootings? Should townsfolk have enough guns and force on their side to subdue the police so that they can go into classrooms themselves as an impromptu tactical force?

View on HN

If by "chastised" you mean "threatened to tase", yep. They're also retaliating against one woman who went in to save her own kids. IIRC, she's on probation and they're trying to take her kids away now.

For the original source, a mother first told this to CBS News in a video interview: https://www.cbsnews.com/video/mother-who-ran-into-texas-scho...

Online publication "The Root" paraphrased this (source: https://www.theroot.com/uvalde-mom-who-saved-her-children-sa...) as: "Angeli Rose Gomez told CBS News that she was informed that if she continues to talk to media about her fearless actions, she would be charged with a probation violation for obstruction of justice."

I'm pretty sure since that time a judge ruled in her favor and the previous probation history is no longer a threat to her maintaining custody to her kids.

Can't find where I saw that right now.

Thankfully, a judge nixed that threat. Still, that the threat was even made in the first place is disgusting.

"But Gomez said the judge overseeing her probation told her she did not face new legal problems and that her bravery would be rewarded with a shortened probation."

https://nypost.com/2022/06/04/angeli-gomez-says-she-was-thre...

> Should townsfolk have enough guns and force on their side to subdue the police

At any given time, yes.

You can watch the hundreds of videos on the PoliceActivity youtube channel showing how terrible "trained police" are at using guns (or doing anything really). Any shooting hobbyist is going to be a better shot than most police officers. My favorite video is the one where the cop empties an entire magazine at a stationary guy 7 feet away and misses every single shot. The one thing cops are really good at though is multiple cops screaming conflicting commands all at the same time. Freeze! Don't move! Hands up! Turn around! Get down on the ground!

Accountability is the issue. If they can tax you by force, they're not going to put themselves in harms way. They already got paid.

(Generalization of course, but true in many life-and-death situations.)

Most people won't willingly die at work for any amount of money or accountability, and I don't blame them.

These kinds of situations are outrageous because people want to believe in superheros, but they don't exist.

When a group sees themselves superheroes, are treated like superheroes, put superhero slogans on their vehicles, are given weapons and armor and hazard pay based on their imminent superhero behavior, only to run and cower at the first sign of danger...

Perhaps it's not the rest of us who are the problem.

Perhaps not the superhero we want, but the superhero we deserve?

An antiquated notion of a profession is some "job" that has a primary responsibility to the public: nurse, doctor, lawyer, police officer, firefighter, etc.

You should not go into a profession that entails personal risk if that prevents you from meeting your obligations to the public. I surely wouldn't call actually following the department's policy and training in response this event superhuman in any way, though pretending it is serves to absolve those who failed in their duty.

There's a large difference between taking on expected amounts of risk, and engaging an active shooter. Most of the risk that police officers are expected to take on are struggling with an arrest suspect, being in the vicinity of violent people, standing along a busy roadside, or the potential of being in car accidents. Most of their obligation to the public is to show up after a crime has happened, writing a report, and investigating the high priority crimes. About 3/4 of police in the US never use their gun over their entire career.

To protect and serve*

If we could choose our police like our cell service, I'd pay for the police force that required military service or punished officers who did not act when they should

"protect and serve" is a motto that originated from a contest in a magazine. It's not a quote from a legal text.

We vote by wallet for our cell service and we vote by ballot for our police budgets. If you can only afford a house in a neighborhood with a Cricket Wireless tax base, then you get Cricket Wireless quality police.

> We vote by wallet for our cell service and we vote by ballot for our police budgets.

And you're free to start a new wireless company. But try starting a new police force and you'll get arrested. Not the same.

It is absolutely possible to create a new police force in the US, and not really that uncommon.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/creating-your-ow...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_police#United_States

In fact, schools are a good example of this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campus_police#United_States

Creating a new police force is probably not any harder than making an MVNO and probably much easier than acquiring spectrum to create a real wireless carrier.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com