Maybe I’ve misunderstood your point, but I think we’re largely on the same side of this issue. As for what unarmed citizens should do until my pie in the sky dreams come true: fuck I wish I knew!

I would absolutely support additional funding for officers injured/disabled in the line of duty. The fact that this isn’t widely popular is unfortunate and, it seems, a contributing factor to officers shifting the responsibility for mitigating risk over to the citizens they are charged with protecting.

Being a police officer in most places in America is an extremely safe profession. I’m not especially concerned with their current level of risk. As for the risk to passers-by, I’m not convinced that was a risk in this case, and in general I have little confidence in our police force to determine when someone poses…

I don’t have family in law enforcement, so you might be correct that I’d see it differently, but that wouldn’t make it the right way to see it.

I understand where you’re coming from in terms of wider risk, but given the details known at present, it seems unlikely that others were in imminent danger, even if the weapon had been real.

Why should we expect men and women empowered to kill citizens in the line of duty to be only as dedicated to their jobs as the average American? I want cops to be better qualified for their jobs than I am for mine, and that should include being willing to take risks we wouldn’t expect of a random person.

I think we set the bar too low for what constitutes an action requiring lethal force. Even if this young man pulled the fake weapon on police, I would prefer officers risk their own safety in an effort to confirm the weapon in question is real before opening fire. That’s literally the entire reason the police force…

As an admittedly infrequent watcher of motors ports, I’m sure there are monetary reasons why, but in a sport designed to be a competition between drivers and their crews, why is there any distinction whatsoever between cars? Let them have the sponsors they prefer, of course, but why let teams build or modify the cars…

I can hum most of “Driving With the Top Down” from the Iron Man score without issue. Ramin Djawadi is the man.

Yeah, but they nailed that Metroid 2 remake and yet have not made a good Metroid game for like 8 years.

While I agree that Shinsuke Nakamura is the greatest, when it comes to style I prefer Joey Ryan.

The handgun ban in DC (before its repeal) was demonstrably effective, and strict gun control laws are effective in Europe and other developed nations. The 2nd Amendment as a concept is outdated, and should be repealed in favor of strictly enforced restrictions on gun ownership, use, storage and resale. This will never…

And your point? That gun was owned by a person so profoundly negligent that it was obtained by a minor and utilized in an attempted murder-suicide. Is it your belief that the original owner of the weapon was a competent steward of it? If that person wasn’t a competent steward of that weapon, why didn’t our (apparently…

No, I live in an alternate universe where millions of dollars have been spent lobbying our government to ensure that enforcement of wildly inadequate gun laws is barely funded.

Criminal negligence is a crime that should be prosecuted more often.

Just so we’re clear, as Columbine demonstrated, being provided a gun by a parent or theft of a gun are not the only options for a minor to obtain a gun. And regardless of how she acquired the weapon, her having it is an obvious issue, because it means that the gun was originally possessed by someone so incompetent…

To be fair, we haven’t really tried preventing them from having guns either, I feel like there are several issues to be addressed.

Presumably for the same reason I cook instead of drinking Soylent: it’s fun and it tastes good.

Presumably the full quote is “God willing, there will never be another Phyllis Schlafly.”

In the UK the parties who don’t make up the government (that is, parties who aren’t part of the Parliamentary majority) used to be called “the loyal opposition” in deference to the fact that a belief in different policies didn’t mean that they were any less dedicated to their nation.