Police nowadays are generally paid well and have generous pensions and health care plans. There was a time when these benefits were justified, because police assumed greater risk as part of doing their jobs. That is no longer the case when “officer made it home safe” is the single greatest goal in policing today.
I totally agree we need gun control...by COPS! They need to keep those weapons holstered—even if it means they assume a very slight increase in risk to their own safety—because otherwise peaceful and law abiding citizens don’t deserve to be shot down in cold blood over simple misunderstandings.
I daresay many actual crimes, like possession of drugs, shouldn’t also expose one to the risk of execution at the hands of police. Violence should ALWAYS be the last resort, and fear for one’s safety should be based on some higher level of reasoning than seeing something that might look like a gun in the hands of an otherwise nonviolent person, EVEN IF that person isn’t immediately complying with police instructions.
Our militarized, overly violent police must be addressed!
It's the illegality of drugs and the draconian punishment for their possession or use which motivates some to react violently to the prospect of being incarcerated for decades.
Without the artificially high prices created by the illegality, most illicit drugs would cost pennies per pound. It's always been my opinion that less harm would be done allowing addicts to overdose whenever they like rather than give up all of our Constitutional protections in order to fight this losing battle.
I'm just uninterested in continuing the effort to protect people from their own bad choices at such a high cost to me.