For those who want to disarm civilians, can we disarm the police too?

[MarvinGardens]

Parents say police pulled guns on them after 4-year-old daughter took a doll from a store in Phoenix

A Phoenix couple is seeking $10 million from the city after a video showed police officers drawing a gun on them after their 4-year-old daughter allegedly stole a doll from a Family Dollar store.
...
Soon after they left the store, Ames said the couple pulled into an apartment complex to drop their daughter off at a babysitter. Then an officer began banging against their window, yelling and threatening to kill them.

"Our hands are up, we're just trying not to get shot, trying to stay calm," Ames said. "He had a gun drawn."

More at link.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/15/us/phoenix-police-investigation-shoplifting-incident/index.html

Given recent history, they are lucky to be alive. I wonder if we'd save more lives disarming the police rather than civilians.

For those who do favor disarming civilians as a solution to gun violence, how about this for a compromise? Now I'm just putting this out as a trial balloon, and am not sure I'm totally in favor, but here it is: You can disarm all of us civilians, but the police will be disarmed too.

[emmaverybo]

1. Who wants to disarm civilians? Gun regulation and control is not banning guns. nt

[MarvinGardens]

4. I see it posted on DU all the time,

in this group, and elsewhere on DU, particularly after mass shootings. In my opinion, calls for the Australian solution are equivalent to calls to disarm civilians.

I am not against regulation, either.

[emmaverybo]

6. Australians after the massacre at Port Arthur were not disarmed. Military-style weapons

were banned, that is, semi-automatic and self-loading weapons of the type to inflict mass casualties in a very short amount of time. Firearms had to be registered and owners licensed. In the 18 years before Port Arthur, Australia had had 13 fatal mass shootings.
Since, there has been an incident of a rural family shot dead.
I assume you consider a restriction on the type of gun one can own to be an order to disarm.
I am not trying to argue, just get the term straight.

[MarvinGardens]

9. Those are what the police carry, right?

semi-automatic and self-loading weapons of the type to inflict mass casualties in a very short amount of time.

It is a call to partially disarm. I think it is reasonable that if civilians are asked to give up semiautomatics, then the police should give them up as well.

But I must admit that I was wrong about one thing. I thought the Australian solution was even more restrictive, and I stand corrected. Either it is portrayed as such by its proponents here, or I have misunderstood them.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

13. I see the ban really helped

https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/homemade-sub-machine-guns-australia-video/

In 2015, Australian police estimated 10 percent of the guns they seized were homemade. In 2009, copies of the MAC machine pistol were confiscated. The MAC is a little more sophisticated than the guns in this video, but is well within the capability of any metal working hobbiest. The underground manufacturer admitted that he made as many as 100 for the black market before a sting operation caught him. The MAC homemade guns included a homemade silencer and two magazines.

Why, in this country, is there a push to ban future sales of semi-auto AR-15s but no push in most states to overturn the law preventing those who now lawfully own ARs and most other guns from doing a background check on someone they sell a gun to?


IMHO, "disarm" in this sense, is when the law requires the surrender of a gun.

[sarisataka]

8. Who wants to disarm civilians?

Many gun control advocates want that. It is not at all difficult to find posts proclaiming only the police and military should have guns. "Melt 'em down" is the mantra of several posters.

The position held by even more GC advocates that the 2A only applies to the militia leaves open the possibility that eventually gun control will include banning guns from civilian ownership. The old statement by the founder of Handguns Inc that goal of gun control is to incrementally increase regulation until all guns are banned has never been explicitly rejected by any gun control organization.

[emmaverybo]

10. That did not happen in Australia, banning all guns, or in California during the time there was

gun restriction. That gun control was never intended to control crime committed with handguns.
Any regulation on anything or person can be seen as a step down a slippery slope.

[sarisataka]

11. I am aware, and did not claim

Either or Australia or California banned guns.

You asked if anyone wanted to ban civilian ownership of guns; I pointed out that there are people who do want that ban.

I do accept and support more regulation of guns than most "gun supporters", as I have been labeled. I am not aware of, but would be happy if you could point me to, any gun control organization that has made a statement that mirrors the Democratic platform. That being an affirmation that gun ownership is an individual right, subject to reasonable regulations. GC groups all believe in the second portion but I know of none that have agreed it is an individual right.

[emmaverybo]

12. Well, that's news to me, that gun control groups do not affirm the right to own guns. So I am

getting educated.

[Snackshack]

2. I watched...

The video of this...wow. The LEO’s were way over the top in dealing with this. As you mention both are very lucky to be alive today. The one LEO keeps yelling at the mother to put her hands up and threatening to shoot her in the head when he can clearly see that she is holding her 4yr old in her arms. Both of those LEO’s have no business being in that job.

[deist99]

3. Small

The number of people killed each year by police officer shootings are very small. Less than 2% of all gun related deaths are by law enforcement if my memory is correct. The largest percentage of gun deaths are suicides. I think the last time I checked it was 60%?

The media just makes it appear that police officer’s are killing a bunch of people.

[shanny]

5. how many are they menacing, threatening,

and scaring the shit out of, and for what purpose? "Protecting and serving?"

[emmaverybo]

7. It is important to point this out. The majority of police officers do not want to have to draw their

guns their whole career.
Obviously, even two percent is too many, and abuse of the power to be judge jury and executioner in the field can not be tolerated in any officer, regardless of whether or not a situation ends in a wrongful shooting.

[DashOneBravo]

14. I think the majority of the LEOs'

Are good honest people.

But after a fat Navy Intel Reservist scared two states worth of LEO’s so bad they were shooting up grandmothers delivering newspapers.

And don’t forget two thugs with a low order overgrown pipe bomb who shut down Boston area suburbs while they pointed weapons at US citizens.

You might be right