General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSo, I'm wondering...
Was the cop who killed three people a "good guy" with a gun before he became a "bad guy" with a gun? Or was he always bad, or good sometimes, or good always, or bad sometimes, or maybe just spontaneously turned bad? How can you tell when a "good guy" will turn bad, and vice versa?
Get's confusing.
RandiFan1290
(6,237 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)... that he was turning that corner. YMMV.
Timbuk3
(872 posts)...is a bad guy.
I'm not sure why this is so difficult for you.
What's interesting, to me, is that there are so many people advocating taking away guns from citizens, but allowing the police to keep using them.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022330462
That's a police state.
I don't want to live in one.
magellan
(13,257 posts)How would you define it, if not "the police have more power than the people"?
"I'm a cop. I can buy an AR-15. You can't."
That's a police state.
magellan
(13,257 posts)Are you openly advocating that the police have ordinary citizens outgunned? That the police can buy things we can't buy?
You don't see any imbalance of "power" or "rights", there?
magellan
(13,257 posts)I said your definition of a police state is over-simplified, nothing more or less.
Timbuk3
(872 posts)Why is a state where the police have more power and rights than citizens not a police state?
Where's your "dictionary definition" of "police state" that says this is OK?
magellan
(13,257 posts)...while the people don't, as you originally posted.
We have a pseudo-police state right now despite people generally having access to more fire power than the police. It's not only about the police having guns. It's about government using that and other powers to repress the people in various ways.
...that we have a "pseudo"-police state right now. For one thing, the police have access to automatic weapons that we can't access as easily. For another, judges place the word of a cop in higher regard than an ordinary citizen, should you find yourself in court. Drones hovering overhead and a "unitary" President claiming the power to kill American citizens without giving them a trial, first. I'm sure the list is long, but the point is that omitting one doesn't lessen the fact that it's still evidence we live in a police state.
Cops having better weapons (i.e. more power and rights), government officials (not just cops) having more power in the courts, a unitary Executive claiming the constitutional right to deprive American citizens of a trial by jury; any of these is a sign that we're living in a police state.
Yeah, I thought so.
I don't sit here waiting for Timbuk3 to post something.
cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)davidn3600
(6,342 posts)We don't anymore.
Over time the police have been given far too much power. Now we got a federal government that is spending billions and billions of dollars to see what emails im sending to Grandma and putting drones in the air with kill lists.
magellan
(13,257 posts)Timbuk3
(872 posts)I couldn't agree more.
If I had one wish granted, it would be that so called "liberals" give up their pointless screams to ban guns and high capacity magazines, measures which WILL NOT PASS, and go after the extra-judicial killing of Americans by a "unitary" chief executive.
Let's fight for something we can win!
The only gunless world I want would require no cops with guns, no soldiers with guns, no guns for anyone.
Take the same guns away from the military/the police that are denied to citizens.
Anything else is a police state.
It's the only way I'll support banning guns to citizens.
H2O Man
(73,559 posts)moondust
(19,993 posts)He's the authority on how all that works.
Comatose Sphagetti
(836 posts)And it is the point I was trying to make when I started the thread.