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Jon Stewart, of Comedy Central fame, and his successor, Trevor Noah, have both made very eloquent videos that say that being against violence towards Blacks does not imply that one cannot be at the same time against violence towards the Police.
Some of the massacres, of course, are perpetrated by opportunists, who capitalize on strong public feeling to either justify their actions (presumably even terrorists want to be thought well of by certain people), or to make their actions easier. All terrorists are despicable, and opportunistic, cowardly terrorists are even more despicable. This issue should be addressed independently of the fact that the availability of assault weapons is a factor. We must accept that the culprits of yesterday's Dallas shooting carried it out not because they could, but because they wanted to.
More information is needed before we can get really furious against anyone; who were the snipers, and why exactly did they shoot? Were they African Americans taking revenge on the Police, or were they some other group more interested in making scapegoats of the protesters? Was it a calculated atrocity, or was it a stupid action by a fringe group not based on a calculated agenda? My sympathies are definitely with the Dallas Police, in this event, but I would certainly like to have more information.
Meanwhile, we have to look carefully at the assumptions behind various statements we make. For instance:
We can always trust the police.
This is what I taught my infant daughter. The alternative, at the time, was too terrible to contemplate. The police are there to help little girls in trouble, and they are there to protect us. But the assumption was that the police would never shoot an innocent person. They are trained to give a person every possible chance to establish their innocence.
The police will never shoot an innocent person.
Behind this assertion is the assumption that a policeman is supremely confident about his own safety. All civilians will give way to the police, so a policeman never needs to act out of fear.
A policeman or policewoman is never afraid.Well, sure; who else carries a gun? Well, usually only police carry guns, but we know that anyone can carry a gun, provided they have a license.
Anyone can carry a gun, provided they have a license.
Well, we know all about this assumption. Most people likely to use a gun on the street are not likely to have a license. On the other hand, this Orlando kid did appear to have a license. The licensing process permits all sorts of psychos to own guns. Half the population is adamant that psychos should not have guns, but the other half is not happy with the inconvenience of having a person establish that he or she is not a psycho.
So, the upshot is that, since a frightened policeman is more likely to shoot an innocent civilian than a policeman who is not afraid of the civilians he is likely to encounter, the killings by policemen, accidental, or unintentional, or whatever, is probably by a police officer scared to death, or, less likely, pretending to be scared to death. Fear breeds mistakes. But that's life. As long as everyone has the right to carry guns, the stakes are now high, high stakes breeds fear, fear breeds mistakes, and prejudice aggravates mistakes and fear. The gun companies probably do have a vested interest in the fear of the general population. But, according to the interpretation of the constitution by the late idiot Justice Scalia, this is what the founding fathers wanted, a sort of modern day Wild Wild West. It's good for business.
I, for one, want to know more before I get really mad.
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