Originally Posted By: bws48
Originally Posted By: Tjin

Countries, regions, communities across the world are different. Don't judge them by compairing them to just yours. If it's stupid, but works it ain't stupid.


IMO, this is the key. And it goes both ways.

A quick check on Google shows 196 recognized countries in the world in 2015. 5 are cited in the article (with some few also rans mentioned). This is a low percentage, call it 2.5%. The article itself mentions unique local social factors that influence the lack or armed law enforcement.

So direct comparisons of "this works for them, therefore it will/should work for you," are very suspect. The local conditions, social conventions and social unity all play into this.

Just adopting the laws from another country where those laws work to another does not mean that they will work there.

IMO, disarming the police in the U.S. would not work. No sane person would join the police force in such a situation. Personal example: during the 1972 anti-war demonstrations in D.C., my Military Police company was sent onto the D.C. streets. We were told that groups armed with automatic weapons were stalking us, but were not issued ammo for the M-16's we carried. If we had not been under military orders and threat of Court Marshall, how many in my company of M.P.'s does anyone think would sally forth? Every Time a police officer in the U.S. makes a traffic stop for a trivial traffic violation, he has to prepare himself, mentally and physically, for a shoot out. Every stop, every time, 365 days a year. It can and does wear the best down.

25 or more years ago, I had the opportunity to talk off the record with the chief of training of one of the local (to D.C.) police organizations. At that time, “concealed carry rights” was just getting started as a movement. I asked him, how, if it passed, would this change Police Training. His answer was words to the effect that “Not at all.” When I looked surprised/confused, he explained that (in words to the effect that) “I train every officer to assume everyone they contact is armed,---if I don’t, I will end up with dead officers.”

“For every complex social problem, there is a solution that is simple, obvious, easy and wrong.” ---Anonymous.

So, yes there is a violence problem in the U.S. between police and civilians, but IMO, removing the objects used in the violence from one side (i.e. guns) does not solve the problem of the violence itself. It is a much harder problem, one for which I lack the wisdom to solve, but am pretty sure that disarming one side will not work.

I admire those nations that can work without armed police, but they are different nations and societies. As much as we in the U.S. might want something else, we must deal with reality as it is, not as what we wish it was.


I wasn't clear enough on that. I do mean it both ways. Certain thing work in certain locations. I just found the responce to the article at the top a little too viewed by the US kind of perspective. No illusion that disarming any US police will be a good idea.
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