Surely one can conceive of effective ways to limit to damage the police can do to people short of abolishing the police. For example, disarm the police and they can’t shoot you.

Well, yes, that's kind of my point; strawmanning all sorts of scenarios distracts from taking a look at what's actually happening and creating meaningful checks and balances.

You still are paying the same under your plan.

You abolish them and then move that money/power into some other entity like social services until the power / money corrupt them.

As long as it's legal for them to kill you because they feel like it, not having a gun doesn't change that.

Their knees are just as deadly, but I don't think taking away officers knees is a good next step after their guns

Or just have public audits of police forces and provide accountability and transparency into cases as necessary.

In addition good policing should be rewarded with significant bonuses.

Incentivizing good behavior will always Trump criticizing "bad" (often never defined) behavior.

I personally would rather see disciplinary action akin to what's done in the military. Not that that isn't without its issues, but the machinery that makes it work is larger and more independent from the people being disciplined than what you get at the state and local law enforcement level.

Right now you have a damned if you do damned if you don't situation where police get 0 credit for saving thousands if not more lives, yet the one time they make a mistake their are immediately put on the chopping block. Recognizing what policing should look like and idealizing that would go a long way.

No, since you are forgetting to take into account the probability of an outcome/risk analysis.

The probability of the local police being used against your city is so low, that the benefits are deemed to outweigh the risks. On the other hand, imagine software that lets you spy on all your employees' personal opinions, being sold as a way to "help strengthen culture-fit". That is something where the negatives may vastly outweigh the positives.

Yes, That's why most people are against the use of military equipment by police even if they're not against defunding them.

First off: no, that is not the abolish the police argument. The argument for police abolition is as part of a massive restructuring of how we think about crime, not how we think about police. It's about taking our focus away from police themselves (the antithesis of 'imagine the police doing horrible things to you') and onto the factors that make people victims of the police: systemic racism, drug addictions, mental illnesses, and the exploitative nature of capitalism at its worse. When we redirect our attention to solving the root issues, focusing on policing is redundant and harmful.

Second off, you're totally right. Abolish the police.

Many of the people who say they want to "abolish the police" actually just want to be the police, but under a different name and under their rules.