We’ve been saying it for a long, long time (in Internet terms): all Americans have a natural, civil and Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Some Americans have more of a pressing need to exercise that right than others; entire classes of people are more likely to be subject to violent attack than the average population. Members of the LGBT community, for example. And law-abiding citizens living in crime-infested neighborhoods. They should be armed. The recent “unrest” in Philadelphia and Ferguson has . . .
highlighted the need for law-abiding citizens in those economically-deprived areas – and others like them – to arm themselves against criminal predation. Simply put, the politicians and police left residents to the mercy of arsonists and looters. Who saw that one coming? Anyone who understands that leaving law enforcement to the police makes you vulnerable to attack, that’s who. Not just when riots occur, either. Every single day.
But it’s worse than that. Urban cops in gun control-heavy cities who tend to cruise around in cars and respond to crime rather than integrate themselves into the communities they serve, don’t see citizens as equals. They see them as criminals, victims or passive bystanders.
Does that perception make cops racists? Of course not. Most cops are not racist. Or sexist. Or anti-Muslim. Most cops take people as they find them. Their behavior – good or bad – is independent of those concerns. But seeing citizens as vermin or sheep is, in many ways, worse. That’s how I interpret this video: evidence of a dysfunctional police culture rather than racism. You? [h/t John in Ohio]