about gun licensing and training
May. 27th, 2022 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdOne thing I really have to ask people to keep in mind as they talk about gun licensing and mandatory training and all that is...
...who is going to administer all that? Who is going to be given that job, if somehow it actually were to happen?
I'll tell you who.
Cops.
That's who will get the job. Maybe not everywhere, but most places. They have the shooting ranges, after all. They have "training," as racist and terrible as that training often is, and how much they shrug off all the parts of it that attempt to make them better. They have the facilities, and Americans won't pay a goddamn dime they don't have to. Most places. Just like ambulances first went to cops, so will this.
And that's why all the white nationalists and authoritarians and fascists and straight white dudes will get to keep all the guns they want, and everyone else will be completely disarmed.
You know I'm right. You know I am.
Just as the police were the slave catchers, just as the police were the backbone of the KKK, right now the police are centres of violent white supremacist and authoritarian thinking - and, often, violence.
And yes, that means even places like Seattle, where - as one cop told protesters over his bullhorn after another cop got busy driving his cop car at protesters - "we wouldn't have all this trouble if more people would just like our Trump government."
(It's on video, look it up if you want.)
It's been true for two centuries of American policing and it's still true now.
I'm not going to get into about any kind of real argument about of gun control right now. Emotions are high for damned good reasons and I more than respect that.
I just want people to think about who is going to enforce whatever they want to implement, because the person doing the enforcement often matters much more than the actual law.
And in this country, the people who will be doing the enforcement - the gatekeeping, the determining of who can and cannot have firearms...
...will be the cops.
Think about that.
...who is going to administer all that? Who is going to be given that job, if somehow it actually were to happen?
I'll tell you who.
Cops.
That's who will get the job. Maybe not everywhere, but most places. They have the shooting ranges, after all. They have "training," as racist and terrible as that training often is, and how much they shrug off all the parts of it that attempt to make them better. They have the facilities, and Americans won't pay a goddamn dime they don't have to. Most places. Just like ambulances first went to cops, so will this.
And that's why all the white nationalists and authoritarians and fascists and straight white dudes will get to keep all the guns they want, and everyone else will be completely disarmed.
You know I'm right. You know I am.
Just as the police were the slave catchers, just as the police were the backbone of the KKK, right now the police are centres of violent white supremacist and authoritarian thinking - and, often, violence.
And yes, that means even places like Seattle, where - as one cop told protesters over his bullhorn after another cop got busy driving his cop car at protesters - "we wouldn't have all this trouble if more people would just like our Trump government."
(It's on video, look it up if you want.)
It's been true for two centuries of American policing and it's still true now.
I'm not going to get into about any kind of real argument about of gun control right now. Emotions are high for damned good reasons and I more than respect that.
I just want people to think about who is going to enforce whatever they want to implement, because the person doing the enforcement often matters much more than the actual law.
And in this country, the people who will be doing the enforcement - the gatekeeping, the determining of who can and cannot have firearms...
...will be the cops.
Think about that.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-29 03:27 pm (UTC)At the time the worst school shooting in the history of Great Britain - Dunblaine, Scotland in 1996 - took place every single gun purchase there had to be approved by local police. Those in Dunblaine kept approving this one guy to buy guns, in spite of complaints against him by others in the community. One day he walked into a school and shot a bunch of students and teachers and then himself. (Is this sounding familiar? School shootings are much rarer in Great Britain than in the US, but they often follow the same pattern.)
As far as I know the police officers who approved his gun purchases were never investigated. Instead, the government used this tragedy as a justification for even stricter gun control.
Violence is a social problem, and social problems are not easily solved by passing laws.