Me too. Thanks.
this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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I can absolutely understand why people don't trust the police but I want a solution to institutional racism and police brutality that actually works, not some bullshit that uses guns like "healing crystals" for social problems.
These days, cop-watching can be done just as effectively with the cameras everyone has in their pockets, without unintended side-effects like fucking school shootings.
We've even seen it actually work with George Floyd. The closest only reason those cops faced justice is because their brutality was recorded. If people pointed guns at them instead of cameras, the cops would have walked free and more minorities would have been killed or imprisoned.
That's not like, the problem guns are really meant to solve, it's kind of unrealistic to expect guns to fill that role. At least, in full, right. If you want a solution to institutional racism and police brutality, guns are kind of secondary to that whole conversation, as I see it, you'd ideally want to just like, abolish the police, and probably you'd want some form of reparations, you'd probably also want to enact more federal funding for local civic infrastructure to bridge the gap while also not forcing people to abandon their own communities, you'd wanna do a lot of stuff. The guns are kind of a secondary order of thing, if we're talking about racial inequality.
I agree that cop watching can pretty effectively be done with cameras as well. I'd also like to add, though, that had people pointed guns at them instead of cameras, the cops probably would've stopped killing him, in that moment. It's hard to say anything with certainty, though, I'm not one to try and make claims on that front. Part of the issue is the cops are extremely unpredictable, consistently well-armed, and consistently poorly trained. They might just scramble to shoot someone immediately on seeing anyone with any kind of gun, regardless of whether or not they're in the right, because "their life was in danger", or whatever, just like that guy with the acorn. Probably this would be less likely in a scenario in which you were consistently cop-watching enough that so-and-so cop knew who you were, but yeah, it's gotten pretty bad. I think probably there's a mild element to which this has escalated due to increased police militarization and paranoia, compared to the 70's.
I dunno, it sort of depends on your definition of working, of success, I guess. The cops still choked that man to death, it's just that his death led to a lot of backlash, riots, and the cop being actually charged for once. I mean, someone still died, so that's pretty bad, but a cop finally got put in prison, so that's good. Pretty sad, that that's what it takes, and I would probably say that it's a massive shame if that's really the case. I dunno if any institutional level of police reform has taken place in minneapolis specifically where it happened, and I guess you could blow that up nationwide. I do know that post-protests, a lot of cities scrambled to fund their police more, like atlanta with the stupid cop city shit they're pulling, but that arguably would've happened anyways since both before and since, we've seen an increasing ramp up in the "crime wave" type of narratives, which are trying to pour more into police funding.
If cops are hard to predict, knock on effects from social media spread of police brutality videos are really hard to predict. It's hard to know if, had he not died, would those protests have still happened with a slightly different catalyst? It seems like there's a pretty consistent set of protests taking place at least in minneapolis almost every time a high profile nationwide or local incident occurs. Would we be in a better or worse position, afterwards, had he not been murdered? I don't really know, I still think it shouldn't probably be a controversial position to take that he should probably not have been killed. I don't know whether or not someone doing an armed cop-watch could've solved that, at this point, or if it would be kind of moot, and the only solution is an unwavering dedication to more radical political reform under which all other tactics are rendered kind of moot, or at least secondary. Certainly I've always been in favor of a diversity of tactics, even including electoralism and reform, mostly under the guise that it doesn't take too much extra effort and time spent fighting over it is time better spent doing other shit. I don't even necessarily think that armed protests are a bad idea in all instances, and that's another possible political use for guns. Certainly, the right has found success with that tactic, though they also benefit from a being in a position that most police are going to be more sympathetic too. I think a lot of it probably comes down to local gun laws and how they're enforced, being a major factor in their political use.
I can appreciate that you're genuinely trying to articulate your opinions but are you sure you haven't picked up talking point that you're now trying to work backwards from to justify?
The refrain is always the same: If guns genuinely helped solve the problem, why isn't that ever reflected when comparing the U.S to other countries with gun control? Why isn't the U.S government less authoritarian? Why aren't the crime rates lower? Why isn't police brutality nonexistent?
Watch the "call to action" comments in any thread that discusses police reform or guns -- anything at all that suggests people do X. The "buy a gun" comments outnumber anything else by at least 10 to 1 and it doesn't actually work.
I mean it's a pretty common talking point, but it isn't exactly a lie to say that the US is pretty unusual as a country on the global stage. I dunno let me hit you with the, again, constant disclaimer of: I still support federal gun legislation as long as we could maybe figure out a way to combat the inevitable compliance problem which probably has to due more with regulation on guns as an industry. Probably like that guy said in the comment chain I linked two comments back, an expansion of NICS on private sales, and with better and more precise data, as well as probably better registration with mental health services, and also mental health services existing, which probably also includes the existence of single-payer healthcare.
I dunno, if you're asking why the US is a uniquely authoritarian country. I could just gesture at like, the entire US's history of religious fanaticism and settler colonialism, and the fact that white people as a collective were willing to totally burn the futures of their children just because they wanted to stick it to black people, which we're still seeing. I'd probably gesture to the fact that the US's military industrial complex is THE military industrial complex of the western world's exploitation. It's not surprising to me, after any of those, that the US is pretty authoritarian. In that perspective, the US is maybe more similar to a fucked up version of south africa, than being similar to most European countries, or even Australia or New Zealand, which are obviously much less militarized and used as a global engine for imperialism abroad.
But also notice how I didn't bring up guns in that? I'm not going to blame a technology for the factors which drove that technology's use, that's buying too much into a guns, germs and steel style meta-narrative of history. The guns are not like a driving factor in that shit, the guns are just a relatively like, simplistic tool which is used to enact it. A probably inevitable one, at that, given the relative advancements of chemistry, metallurgy, and mechanics which lead to their development from a minor kind of historical footnote or oddity into a large encompassing weapon type, over the course of hundreds of years.
Again it's also unrealistic to expect that guns, being a tool through which this happens, that the guns' mere existence alone is capable of reversing these problems, which is basically what like, the common narrative would have you believe. Their use is never brought up or really intellectually engaged with politically, outside of the really simple stuff like hunting, self-defense, historical collections. Simply the ownership of the guns themselves is the end point, which isn't a wonder to me in the current economic system that wants you to buy and own shit.
If you were to put me on a spectrum and play out the like, country to country comparison, right, the comparison of the UK, me personally, I would be agreeing more with the IRA, if that helps you understand the sentiment, and gives you more of a use case for guns. Police are an occupying force.
At this point we're also getting more into overarching political strategies for revolutionary action or political reform, and guns as a vehicle for that, which, again, I'm less sure on, and it's sort of much harder to make a clear assessment of because it's pretty case-by-case. There are lots of ways to engage in that even without guns. The IRA, once again, made great use of IEDs. I'm pretty sure I just have a more radical take on the use of violence for political ends, than you do. It's maybe important to understand violence, or, the threat of violence, as a form of political leverage, over just the violence itself kind of being like, again, an end all be all goal. I don't think it's a mistake necessarily to think that property damage that arises as a result of a protest or riot can create a political incentive in decision making bodies to cave to demands, lest they might face the wrath of a large scale protest once again. The organization of people can provide an implicit threat. Guns are a mechanism by which this can also be accomplished with a smaller force, with greater efficiency per person, maybe at a greater risk to each individual as well. Are you getting what I'm saying so far?
The other shit, I won't disbar that generally people are stupid around guns, that's pretty clear. Victims of 2A lobbying and gun industry marketing and inner city crime wave narratives.