Re-Current Events

One hallmark of idiocy is doing the same thing incorrectly over and over again.  Recently that badge of dishonor belongs not to slain civilians nor to police officers, but to so-called civic leaders who for some reason can’t seem to identify and execute the world’s most obvious solution to the recurring problem of legally ambiguous police shootings.

The problem is apparently that police departments are still in the stone ages with respect to weaponry.  Individual officers do not have the tools necessary to dial down force to non-lethal levels.   For the most part, they’re issued a lethal pistol to carry in their holster, and then they have additional lethal weapons in the trunk of their vehicle.  It would be like showing up to a job site to build an entire house from scratch, and only bringing a hammer.

Unless they want to rename these divisions “Death Squads”, it doesn’t make any sense at all for police personnel to have only one weapon to choose from – with just one lethality setting.

How much would it cost to supplement each officer in each police department with a taser/electroshock gun?  With respect to overall budgets, who would really care or oppose this?

On the other hand, continuing to spend millions of dollars on trials arguing whether shootings meet the letter of various highly-subjective laws is about as constructive as arguing over what shape you see in the clouds.