Quote:
Originally Posted by WhiteTiger
The perspective I look at it from is that how do you step it down? To step things down, both sides have to agree to step down.
So the government decides to take cops guns away and have them only have billy clubs and tasers. How long do you think they would last against folks with handguns and automatic rifles? Do you think that the criminals will say "Well, the cops don't have guns, guess we should give ours up to keep things fair."
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I don't think anyone's seriously suggesting that you could take away the guns the US police has. Just a non-starter politically and culturally in the US, and unnecessary. And yes, the criminals are also killing police at a disturbingly high rate in the US, it's not just the other way around.
But, there are also a lot of police around the world who carry firearms without needing to use them much. (Again, Finnish police comes to mind.) Here's a couple of obvious changes that I think could be done in the US, and would help.
1)
Police training up to international standards. Something like 18 months. This serves a double purpose. On one hand you can give the police better tools to solve crime (not just keep the peace) and teach them more about non-violent methods of dealing with people. On the other, it would also probably help weed out the least motivated and most problematic individuals.
2)
End the War on Drugs. It's pretty hard to find
an expert who doesn't agree that it's not working anyway. The US has been trying to lead by example here, and I think their crime rate shows how much of a failure it is. Just like alcohol prohibition in it's day, drug prohibition and the income it generates is what gives organized crime both the means and motivation to fight the police (and each other), even to the death.
Without the drug war, we'd have less dead cops. Which should mean less cops afraid of dying, which should make them less inclined to react aggressively, especially if combined with new training.
The whole war on drugs is also just generally extremely detrimental to doing actual police work, as it creates an enormous and mostly unnecessary mountain of work. It's also extremely frustrating for the police. (And frustrated and overworked people are prone to do stupid things.)
I think both of these things are doable and would help things enormously, especially if done simultaneously. (You can take some of the money saved from the war on drugs to fund the extra training.)