mightyboosh
Member
While this is always a sensitive issue, and obviously brings up the same old circular arguments on gun control, armed police, 2nd amendment etc. I will say this: I am 99.9% sure that in the UK, or many other European countries this incident would not have resulted in the death of a 12 year old boy.
The tighter gun laws mean that seeing guns in open sight is complete rarity – no officer would have jumped to the conclusion the gun was real, nor would have felt threatened enough to shoot at a child who was neither threatening them nor even aiming the gun at them. In Europe, most officers are unarmed, and even the armed ones are adept at resolving dangerous situations without the need to discharge their weapon. There have been many examples of UK/European police resolving gun and knife incidents without shots being fired.
However, this is not necessarily a specific attack or criticism of the two officers involved in the Tamir Rice incident. I understand that you might feel that they had to shoot for their own safety (that may or may not be true), but the issue is not with them. It is with a system of high firearm availability, where the premise of a 12 year old boy having a loaded gun in a park is entirely plausible, and where the majority of officers are licensed and supported to fire upon any perceived threat.
(Please think of the broader picture here - there are many recent examples of fatal police shootings, not just this Tamir Rice case)
Whilst I understand that many of you will own, and feel the need to own, guns, the widespread ownership of firearms in the US, be it by criminals, civilians, trained professionals, police, or even children, only makes these kind of tragic mistakes possible.
The tighter gun laws mean that seeing guns in open sight is complete rarity – no officer would have jumped to the conclusion the gun was real, nor would have felt threatened enough to shoot at a child who was neither threatening them nor even aiming the gun at them. In Europe, most officers are unarmed, and even the armed ones are adept at resolving dangerous situations without the need to discharge their weapon. There have been many examples of UK/European police resolving gun and knife incidents without shots being fired.
However, this is not necessarily a specific attack or criticism of the two officers involved in the Tamir Rice incident. I understand that you might feel that they had to shoot for their own safety (that may or may not be true), but the issue is not with them. It is with a system of high firearm availability, where the premise of a 12 year old boy having a loaded gun in a park is entirely plausible, and where the majority of officers are licensed and supported to fire upon any perceived threat.
(Please think of the broader picture here - there are many recent examples of fatal police shootings, not just this Tamir Rice case)
Whilst I understand that many of you will own, and feel the need to own, guns, the widespread ownership of firearms in the US, be it by criminals, civilians, trained professionals, police, or even children, only makes these kind of tragic mistakes possible.
