Do you believe owning guns

[pscot]

will protect you from the police?

[ileus]

1. Are the police supposed to be a threat of some sort?

Owning firearms won't protect you from anyone. The firearm is the tool used to save lives from those that pose a danger to you and your family.

You have to train to use it properly and circumstances have to be in your favor before there's any hope of defending yourself from an attacker. That said if you're carrying a firearm at least there's an option of not being a willing victim.

Safety first and carry on.

[Xipe Totec]

4. Uh...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is conducting an independent investigation of the fatal shooting of a popular 13-year-old boy by a sheriff's deputy in Northern California.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/10/26/fbi-to-probe-deputy-shooting-california-13-year-old-with-pellet-gun/

Iowa - A 19-year-old man was fatally shot by police on the campus of Iowa State University after his father called authorities to report that the teen had stolen his truck, reports CBS affiliate KCCI.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57611421-504083/tyler-comstock-killing-iowa-police-shoot-unarmed-19-year-old-after-father-calls-authorities-to-report-the-teen-stole-his-truck/


A Bronx judge dismissed manslaughter charges on Wednesday against a New York City police officer who had shot and killed an unarmed 18-year-old in his family’s home.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/nyregion/charges-dismissed-in-officers-killing-of-unarmed-teenager.html?_r=0


A week after police shot to death an unarmed 18-year-old in his grandmother's Bronx apartment, questions continue to swirl around the aggressive police tactics that led to the fatal confrontation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/09/ramarley-graham-new-york-police-_n_1266715.html

Do you need more, or can you Google from here?

[Eleanors38]

17. My gun beside my bed won't defend me from anyone.

If I pick it up to use in self-defense, I might be able to protect myself. I have no intention of using it against the police. If the cops break down my door in search of my schwag, I won't stop them or threaten them.

Do you contemplate a different course of action?

[Xipe Totec]

23. That wasn't the question asked.

Last edited Sun Nov 17, 2013, 10:19 AM - Edit history (3)

What was asked is if the police are supposed to be a threat of some sort.

The answer is yes.

Whether a gun helps, hinders, or is ineffective is a totally different question.

[oneshooter]

24. If they are a threat then they should be disbanded and removed from power.

[Xipe Totec]

25. Indeed.

Or replaced by higher quality public servants.

[Eleanors38]

26. That's not what I got from the question, which prominently featured "gun."

I am left musing on what is asked more than what my answer would be. The comments in this thread regarding "insurrection" conditions may serve as examples of where guns could be effective, though they certainly were when the Koresh compound in Waco was beseiged initially by federal police agencies. These police were promptly beat back, and only subsequently were military units employed to wipe out the compound's civilian inhabitants. Police are thin gruel for something more than a violent one-on-one encounter.

I would point out that historically LEOs have complained about being out-gunned by even pedestrian violent criminal elements. Insurrection is a quantum leap in being out-gunned.

Am I dealing with the question's point?

[shedevil69taz]

2. why would I need protection from the police?

I actually follow the law...

[Boom Sound 416]

3. Uuhhhh that's a no

[petronius]

5. Oh, absolutely! Whenever I'm out robbing a bank, I always carry a gun

in case the police try to arrest me. I think I have every right to defend myself against people who would interfere with my ability to earn a living...

In other words, no - I'm not really a criminal, so I don't need to 'protect' myself from police doing their job, and I don't think that a gun would be useful protection against incompetently-trigger-happy officers (never heard anyone suggest that, actually).

What inspired this question?

[pscot]

8. I guess the number trigger happy police

who keep making the news, plus the suspicion that we may be headed for some fairly wide spread civil disorder as climate change begins to bite.

[Jenoch]

31. Are there any black helecoptors flying

around in your neighborhood?

[Eleanors38]

18. My guess is that anytime some kid is killed by trigger happy cops,

then it is only logical that the responsibilty for such behavior can be laid at ANY gun owner's feet. Saw a lot of gyration & square peg fitting in those oft-repeated posts.

"Trouble. That starts with "T," that rhymes with "P," that stands for POOL!"

[jeepnstein]

6. No, I'm a Deputy.

[Thinkingabout]

7. Be reasonable, police have guns and they are killed so having a gun does not protect

One against the police or anyone else. There was armed guards in Columbine and many was killed. One must be dumb to think owning a gun will protect you.

[Eleanors38]

19. Gosh, you mean no one has ever protected themselves with a gun?

[Thinkingabout]

21. You must have gotten lost on this thread, the question ask does owning a gun protect

You from the police. I pointed out police have guns and they are also killed. Owning a gun does not prevent someone from killing you. I never said anything about anyone ever have protected themselves with a gun. In fact there has been accidental deaths to gun owners by their own gun. I would never think for one moment owning a gun draws a shield around one and they can not be killed.

[Eleanors38]

22. Not lost. Responding to your last sentence.

[OutNow]

9. No

But then I don't believe in owning guns for any reason.

[In_The_Wind]

10. No

[rrneck]

11. Insufficient data to reply. nt

[krispos42]

12. Absent a popular revolt?

Or a domestic insurgent movement?


No.


The police, while heavily out-gunned and out-numbered by the population they protect, have an enormous advantage in that 99.99% of the population is uninterested in armed conflict with law enforcement. They are also organized and have communication, so the police can respond with overwhelming force to take on the 0.01% of the population that gets featured on "World's Wildest Police Videos".

[spin]

28. In order for a domestic insurgent movement to have any chance of success ...

it would have to be supported by forty to fifty percent of the population. Even then the chances of success of such an action are debatable.

I don't anticipate that half or more of our nation will support an uprising anytime soon.

[dairydog91]

13. In a domestic insurgency, probably.

Otherwise, the best way to protect yourself from the police is to be white, at least middle-class in income, and to do any shenanigans unobtrusively.

[Eleanors38]

27. ^^^This makes more sense.

[Starboard Tack]

14. Absolutely not. Guns are not designed to protect. They are designed to kill.

In fact, if you own a gun, you are more likely to be killed by a gun. If you carry a gun, you are even more likely to be killed, especially by the police, or some other idiot carrying a gun.
Avoiding guns altogether is the safest path, but then what would happen to "Family Fun Time".

[gejohnston]

15. Author Kellerman again

the only ER doc that can write a bogus study that gets raked over the coals in peer review with "invalid" and was called "as scientific as popular literature put out by the NRA" by a leading criminologist at a congressional hearing can still make the rounds over 20 years later and be taken seriously in a public policy debate.

[Eleanors38]

20. He's like the Headless Horseman, just keeps on keeping on...

Wow! A gun issue posted in the real gun forum. Is GD getting boring?

[Kaleva]

16. No as I don't need protection from the police.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

29. Short answer; no.

Explanation: A gun is a tool. Jimi could do magic with his guitar tool. Without skill, MacGuyver could make a satellite antenna with duck tape and Swiss army knife. The tool is only as good as the user.

As for the police, we are the police.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

30. Assuming you see your audience as peacably-minded citizens of good nature --

If we ever had a scenario where the general population needed protection from the police being unarmed would be the least desirable state of affairs because such a thing would accompany a broad collapse of civil authority.