this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
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THE POLICE PROBLEM
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The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.
99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.
When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.
When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."
When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.
Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.
The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.
All this is a path to a police state.
In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.
Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.
That's the solution.
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Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.
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ALLIES
• r/ACAB
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INFO
• A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions
• Cops aren't supposed to be smart
• Killings by law enforcement in Canada
• Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom
• Killings by law enforcement in the United States
• Know your rights: Filming the police
• Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)
• Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.
• Police lie under oath, a lot
• Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak
• Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street
• Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States
• When the police knock on your door
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• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
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Your framing of people who are concerned about gun violence as "the anti-self defense crowd" is very disingenuous. No one is anti-self defense.
I'm sure there are some extremes where people are anti self-defense, lol.
But I absolutely 100% agree. As someone who does support the 2nd amendment AND reasonable gun control, people who are concerned shouldn't be called "the anti-self defense crowd", because it's a legitimately valid concern, just as much as defending yourself and others.
Yeah exactly! I've been around a lot of guns in my life, have shot several different types, come from a hunting family, yadda yadda. Honestly people in general shouldn't be blanket trusted to be safe with weapons, because in my experience many of them just are not. I don't think having guns is a problem in itself, we just need to make sure people are safe. Many serious self-defense experts advocate for running or removing yourself from potentially dangerous situations before exercising violence, and I think we can carry that philosophy forward into our lawmaking.
Something I haven't seen before that I'd like to see tried out would be some sort of required firearms training, but make it mandatory that a local certifier, a police or sheriff's liaison or something, perform the training for free to citizens. I think if we had police doing it that might be a chance to foster some good will with the community, do some regular humanizing type stuff. No infringement of anyone's rights, and I also get what I want in more safe gun owners.
That's a good idea in theory, I just hope no problems come with it! Also yea, I've shot a few guns at my local range. I've stopped going because I got chronic pain, shooting a gun, having to have a proper posture, grip, dealing with loud noise (obv), I don't think it's for me, or everyone for that matter.
Giving every teacher a gun doesnt mean they'll be able to handle it, let alone the situation of fighting a school shooter.
The police on the other hand did sign up for combating shit like that.
It would seem that many of them are under the impression we can regulate away "most of" the crime and therefore we won't need to defend ourselves, and we can do this by passing laws like feature bans which only affect people who are afraid of going to prison (which is to say, not mass shooters.) They'd probably tell you they don't mind self defense, but their actions betray their words.