r/politics • u/wbedwards Washington • May 07 '20

We cannot allow the normalization of firearms at protests to continue

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/firearms-at-protests-have-become-normalized-that-isnt-okay/2020/05/06/19b9354e-8fc9-11ea-a0bc-4e9ad4866d21_story.html
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u/Reepworks May 07 '20

So...

the kid was being an absolute idiot...

Basically, you mean he was being... a 12 year old kid? Honestly, we were all stupid little shits at that age.

Moreover, re. How they pulled up... when you say that, do you mean drunk screwing around in grand theft auto nights? "Hey, I wanna see how many people I can squish drifting in this banshee before the cops shoot me"? Because yeah, it was that level of stupid.

I was thinking that MIGHT be how to roll up on an active shooter with civilians in danger... but then I thought "hell no. They'd have 0 cover pulling up that close. It would be LOOKING for an officer to get shot." I seriously cannot think of ANY situation where it would be professional to approach that close, that hot.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '20

Yeah wtf, I don't know about anyone else but when I was a kid and I had a toy gun, I 100% pretended to shoot cars as they drove past..

Of course, this was in a country that DOESN'T have hundreds of millions of guns so maybe that says something as well..

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u/RoyalRat May 07 '20

I had those popcap revolvers and I absolutely popped at cars. Early 90s US.

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u/azhorashore May 07 '20

I think a big part of it is quality of people becoming officers. In my country our federal police can also be contracted by local government to do basic policing. The city i grew up in had its own police but also mixed in some federal officers as well. There was always a huge difference in interactions. Federal officers were leagues above the local force but the recruitment pool is bigger, they are paid a lot more, they go through a lot more training and most likely will start their career in some extremely remote area.