I outlined it a while ago, but I'll do so again.
It wasn't a single decision, nor even just a couple. It was a lot of little steps to get where we are. First, the decision that if you perceive a weapon, there is one. A man walks into a bank. He waits patiently in line, and then once at the counter hands the teller a note. Give me the money in the register and nobody gets hurt. He has his hand in his pocket and wiggles it. The teller feels that the man must be armed. Later he is arrested, and all he had in his pocket is a pen or some other object. He simulated the weapon. There as a time when this would get the charge reduced from armed robbery, to robbery. But Prosecutors argued that the victim believed him to be armed, and that was good enough. The legislatures and the courts weighed in and decided that belief of the perpetrator being armed was plenty thank you very much. Before that, if the cop said he saw a gun, there had better be a gun. On the chance the cop was wrong, many carried drop pieces. Guns hidden in an ankle holster to plant on the victim of their mistake. Sometimes they do still plant evidence, but it's not really needed anymore in regards to shooting.
Dirty Harry, I think it was the movie Sudden Impact, but it may have been the Dead Pool. Harry is walking out of the Restaurant with the reporter. Two guys stop him and ask if he's the cop Harry Callahan. One reaches into his jacket and Harry grabs one and quick draws his pistol (impossible with a shoulder holster) to point at man number two. The first says. "I was reaching for a pen, I just wanted your autograph".
That is symbolic of the next phase. The idea that if you didn't move first, the bad guy would get the drop on you. So it went from seeing a weapon, to seeing something that looked like it maybe could be a weapon, to moving as though you thought he might be going for a weapon. He reached for his belt is the common phrase uttered. I remember one shooting in California, where the police were chasing a man. He ran around the corner, they pursued him. He turned and reached into his jacket, they shot him full of holes. Nothing was found in his jacket except a comb. Witness's saw the man do this, not just the cops, so I believe he did that until I am given reason to doubt the official story.
The police were cleared, because he made a movement commonly associated with reaching for a weapon.
In the meantime, families, and women, were facing intruders. When I was a boy, it was generally accepted that if you had to shoot someone, as a civilian, you had to say those words you hate to hear. It was in fear of my life. It was a generally accepted legal defense. An intruder is in your home. You wake in the night to find him. Is he there to murder you? Rape your wife, daughter, self? Is he there to just burgle your belongings? You don't know. Jumping to conclusions you assume it's the worst. You pick up your handy shotgun, pistol, whatever. You shoot and kill the intruder, or just wound him. Perhaps you bash him with a Louisville Slugger. The point was that you could not be charged with a crime if you were acting in self defense. Not protecting your property. You couldn't shoot him if he was sneaking out the window with your VCR. (For younger readers let me explain what that is. An arcane DVD player that also acted like a Tivo that used large cassettes. Not to be confused with a Betamax, which used smaller cassettes.) or your Silverware. You could only act in Self Defense with deadly force.
I remember the debates this caused, arguments that vigilante's would lay a trail of those arcane VCR things to the house so otherwise innocent people would be lured into the home where they could be assassinated by the Charles Bronson wannabe.
It wasn't a single step. It was dozens of little steps. Many of which I haven't mentioned here. It was the game of inches. The game where each decision pushed the line another inch, surely another inch wouldn't hurt? I mean, if we allowed this, certainly common sense says we have to allow this next thing too, it's only another inch.
But much like the man at the table in the Monty Python sketch, the thin mint was just too much. Now we are in a situation, where the two generations of this progress is threatened. The Police and their supporters don't see it as needed reforms. They see it as risking their lives. I don't know if they argue that because they honestly believe it, or if they are afraid of being held accountable if they don't show whatever levels of restraint that the public wants to see in growing numbers.
I think we've already eaten the single wafer thin mint. I think we're exploding right now. I hope this helps bring into focus how we got here, and I hope that for those of us older folks we remember the many little steps we took to this disastrous place.
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