You're asking police officers to be less armed then the general public. 43 states are "shall-issue" and allow residents to conceal carry a firearm after completing required training and submitting an application.
But most policing tasks don't involve interactions with people looking to fight to the death. Do people really react to being stopped for speeding by starting a firefight? Is that genuinely a routine concern?
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/08/a-closer-lo...
In the US they've got loaded and cocked guns on their waist belts ready to use in a second.
Note that when I was in a literal warzone I didn't even always keep my rifle cocked.
Can we at least agree that off-duty police officers working as security guards at a hospital or elsewhere should not under any circumstance carry a weapon (other than perhaps a stick or something) while on non-police duty?
> Soon, from inside the room, there was shouting, sounds of a scuffle and a loud pop. During an altercation, two off-duty Houston police officers, moonlighting as security guards, had shocked Mr. Pean with a Taser, fired a bullet into his chest, then handcuffed him.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/us/hospital-guns-mental-h...
> Mr. Pean said he was informed of the dismissal of the assault charges against him in a phone call to New York, where he is finishing college. He said he was relieved but remained deeply disturbed by his experience, noting that his family spent more than $100,000 in his defense. “If I was someone else, I could have ended up in jail,” he said.
> After the incident, federal health officials conducted an emergency investigation and faulted the hospital for the shooting, saying that St. Joseph had created “immediate jeopardy to the health and safety of its patients” and ordered that it restrict use of weapons and provide more training in dealing with mentally ill patients.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/19/us/alan-pean-hospital-gun...
In addition, perhaps if a police officer is not "on duty", felony assault charges should not be possible. This may sound harsh but imagine a bus driver goes on a walk and someone hits him on the head with a stick. Does that carry felony assault charges as well?
I think many people are saying a police officer's testimony should be void in a court of law if they do not have other evidence (in which case the evidence can stand on its own without the officer's testimony).
My mother was a nurse and had guns drawn in the hospital by opposing members of a gang there to inspect someone who was shot.
There are three main problems. District attorneys who do not like to charge cops. Police unions protecting cops. And the justice system requires a unanimous jury verdict to convict. This is to protect the accused.
If you think the riots are crazy now, wait until the jury is hung or acquits Floyd because one juror has doubt. Floyd had fentanyl in his system.
The lawyer only needs to convince ONE juror that it wasn’t just Chauvins fault that the fentanyl contributed to it and you can’t know BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT that it was all Chauvins fault and boom, he gets off.
This has a reasonable probability of happening. I hope it doesn’t and he convicted. But this is the real second wave I am worried about. More than Covid.
People that don't know the average day don't have any basis to accurately imagine the average day, it's not a useful activity at that point.
The less obvious answer is to stop glorifying violence, including gun violence, war porn, drug kingpin lifestyles, cop/detective lifestyles, and other forms of abusive aggression in the media.
Considering that the US seems to go insane when a nipple appears on TV without a formal invitation, it's really quite strange that you can watch dramatised blood spurting out of fatal high-calibre organ wounds multiple times an hour - if you really want to.
I never ever considered owning a gun in my entire life, but I have one now and not afraid to use it if needed. Several friends have also done the same.
The debate for gun ownership is probably dead for 1 or 2 generations, and I do not want to see a single person blaming anyone about it when I was literally told by the police the other day that I am on my own during the night of looting in NYC.
Anyway, take a two day training course on how to use a gun (not “safety” course), otherwise owning a gun is pretty useless. Also, you need to periodically go to the range, and clean the gun after. And stock pile some ammo when you can - you are not going to be able to get any during any crisis.
That don't need to be armed with firearms. That's overkill (literally overkill, unfortunately) for community policing. They could have batons. Firearms should be restricted to specialists deployed only when needed for a specifically authorised task.