Probably the worst development of this past political campaign was the phrase, Defund the Police. It was pinned to Democrats and might yet lose them control of the Senate. It certainly lost them an increase in the House, which they now keep but in a very small majority.
The derivation of the phrase came with the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Memorial Day weekend. The Black Lives Matter movement picked up the cry and it was front-page news for a while.
An understandable exaggeration of the problem, and the Republicans wisely repeated the mantra. It added to their strategy of trying to scare the hell out of enough people to get them to return 45 to office. His transgressions were too much, even for some dyed-in-the-wool Republicans, but people clearly did plenty of ticket-splitting.
Defunding the police would be a terrible mistake. The country sits on a razor's edge at the moment, with far too many people buying into the illogical, ridiculous myth of a fraudulent election. As January 20 nears, some have taken to carrying weapons outside the residences of ballot counters, as if to intimidate them to change their minds about numbers that have somehow been tabulated arbitrarily. (They haven't.)
Beyond that, gun laws have been loosened in far too many states, allowing far too many people to strut around in holsters. They wait, I suppose, for the opportunity to take the law into their own hands, or to fulfill some pledge they've made to themselves to defend the public interest against a wild-eyed person carrying an automatic weapon lurking right around the corner, not considering that that person could be themselves.
I don't know about you, but I need protection against these self-appointed deputy sheriffs. I need a police presence more than ever. Defunding the police works in the opposite direction. If anything, the police now have weapons that the military no longer use but are plenty powerful. Ever see them arrive in full force? Pretty tough to outgun them now. In a way, that's good. In another, that's sad and dangerous.
There are two things we need: First, an end to the racism that some police clearly demonstrate, either willingly or not. Yes, white people get arrested, too, and some have died in captivity. That's tragic, too. But the percentages still say that if you're black and you get stopped, you'd better be on incredibly good behavior, or someone in a uniform is more likely to jump to conclusions much faster than they would if you were white. That needs to stop.
If you disagree, let me ask this simple question: If George Floyd were white, would he have been treated the way he was? Would he have died right there on the street, with a knee on his neck, for the non-violent charge of trying to pass off a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill?
If the police claim innocence, let's see the numbers. If their unions provide protection, let's take the idea of qualified immunity and re-examine it. Yes, the police need some room to treat resisting arrestees with enough force to subdue them. The phrase sounds reasonable, but has it been expanded too far? Have the police taken reckless advantage? Are there too few restrictions? How could George Floyd's arresting officer believe that he needed to put a knee on the neck of a prisoner who was already handcuffed? How could he assume that blank check?
The second thing we need is that which obviates the previously discussed overweaponized police: To get weapons off the streets. When guns are criminalized, only criminals will have guns. That's exactly right. That's just the way I want it.
With the proliferation of cell phones, common citizens can become informational officers. They can call 9-1-1 and report people with weapons immediately. The police will be there in four minutes, maybe less. They can take the guns away. They can issue vouchers that will pay for the guns, or set a court date for the perpetrators to sue to get their guns back. Refusal results in, hopefully, no more than arrest. Either way, there will be confiscation.
There will be NO licenses for concealed or any other kind of carry. Target practice or hunting, for which there will still be licenses issued, are other matters. Again, there is no need to openly carry any weapon outside of those activities. The only people who should be with a weapon in public are police officers or security personnel, PERIOD.
If someone is afraid for their family or property, they can have as many weapons as they want ON their property. Defense of property, loved ones, and self on one's home turf has never been challenged, and it never will be. That's what the Constitution has always meant, and that's what it always will mean. Your home is your castle. Nobody should mess with that. That's originalism.
Will it stop the crazies who want to shoot up restaurants, workplaces, movie theaters, churches, and schools? Not altogether. But it will reinstate an atmosphere in which the thought of bringing a weapon into such establishments becomes more unthinkable than it is today. And again, such perpetrators had better hide that weaponry until the last second, because all it will take is one phone call to take it out of their hands.
Will it stop armed robbery? No, not that, either. If that should happen, the perpetrators already have their weapons brandished. They already have the drop on you and they're not going to confront you in a spot where someone else could come along. Reaching for a weapon would be a really bad idea, perhaps a fatal one. But everyone who's thinking already knows that.
Part of the reason the police are so heavily armed today is that they now have to assume that people are more heavily armed themselves--especially with automatic weapons and even open carry. All this is ramping up, going in a direction no one prefers.
There will be a showdown soon, I fear. It will be based on race or politics. It matters not. But then the police will have to either make a choice about who to disarm first or try to disarm everyone. They will probably succeed, but at a terrible price.
But the Supreme Court said we have gun rights, you might say. Yup, it did. It was wrong to extend them that far. It didn't take into consideration what's really happening out there. It's getting out of control. It needs to be revisited, re-examined, and reversed. Get the guns off the streets.
If not, we will have open warfare on the streets and/or police openly patrolling with weaponry that is truly scary; machine guns and grenade launchers. The tear-gassing that welcomed protesters last spring might easily be more generally utilized, with "unrest" more broadly defined. We might feel safe, but it will be a relative brand of safety that is contingent upon attitudes that nobody can hold back and, once unleashed, cannot be reversed. It will inch along until we have a genuine police state on our hands.
Lobbying for universal background checks is a nice idea, but I think it's too late for that as a primary solution. The absorption of weapons in our society has ascended beyond mere record-keeping. No: Get the guns off the streets today.
Everyone with a weapon will complain, until they realize that nobody has an advantage anymore. Yes, that involves the interference of government at a level we haven't realized. And yes, it is necessary.
It will make the libertarians crazy. But libertarians have been allowed to dominate social thinking lately, and we have seen the results. They used to be at the fringes of our society. They need to be catapulted back there.
They will complain that big government is holding them hostage. No, gun toters are. They hold us hostage in a newly created world in which normal people would rather not bother to arm themselves and are supposed to come and go without having to worry about who's going to open fire. Just ask the Secretary of State of Michigan, for instance, and vote counters in Phoenix.
The pandemic is putting this mostly on hold, election paranoia notwithstanding, with far fewer people on the streets. It's probably the one good thing about it. But vaccines will become common fairly soon, and we will return to life as we've once lived it. There will be more guns around us, not fewer.
Put the guns back into people's homes. Defend yourselves there. You have that right. Leave the rest of us to exist without fear of being gunned down. And keep the police funded.
Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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