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Comment by MeImCounting | Hacker News Reader

So your argument is that cops should have weapons because some extraordinary circumstances sometimes happen and we should hope that instead of acting like the cops at Parkland did they take it upon themselves to circumvent the justice system and instead dispense "frontier justice"?

I am going ignore the part about grizzly bears because I dont believe that is in good faith and is basically just a non-sequitur

I fail to see how thats any better than disarming the bullies and letting specialized teams IE SWAT teams take care of extraordinary situations. That is if they even manage to show up in time to do anything which is in doubt.

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I think you haven't been paying attention if you think people shooting guns at the public, or at cops, is an "extraordinary circumstance" in America. It's not just mall shootings, or parkland. It's also people just shooting at cops after getting pulled over for speeding, which is far less likely to get national news attention.

You're free to ignore it, but I added the point about grizzly bears because you seemed confused how a gun can help defend you against someone with a gun. It can help defend you against many threats, in fact.

Edit:responded from the account on my phone, sorry for any confusion.

The premise of a gun being able to defend you from anything is dependent on you using that gun to kill said thing. I feel like maybe I didnt get across what I was trying to say clearly enough. Cops being protected by guns = cops killing anything they "perceive as a threat"

I dont believe police officers should have the right or responsibility to dispense "frontier justice" meaning to execute people because they do something that is illegal. I am sure there is some legal definition of when an officer is allowed to shoot and kill another human being but I, and I hope most other people see that as circumventing the rule of law, making themselves into the judge jury and executioner.

The entire premise of our legal system is thrown out the door when we accept police officers having the capability to use their own judgement to dispense death. See "Robocop" this isnt some new idea. Cops having guns on them is equivalent in many ways to martial law. I hope I dont need to explain why martial law is not a good thing for a free society.

I think generally, cops do not execute people they find doing something illegal. There are far too many people in US prisons for that to be the case.

They do shoot people who they perceive as a threat to them(some of whom did not do anything illegal).

But I would love to know how you would like police to respond to situations that actually are a direct threat to them, if their guns are taken away. Hope they can run away quick enough?

Well I think generally police have lots of methods for responding to situations that they feel are a direct threat to them- that they use all the time. For instance tazing, pepper spray, and any other "less lethal" methods of violence.

Locking people in cages for a living is an inherently dangerous thing to do. I don't see how that should give them the right to execute people on a whim.

In fact I cant really imagine a situation where an ethical and justified police officer would ever need to kill someone. Like I said before in extraordinary circumstances I can see highly trained and equipped people as a necessity but having the run of the mill street bullies walking around armed to the teeth is, like I said before, literally equivalent to martial law.

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