Bits and Pieces: Guns, Cops, and?

Protecting Neighborhoods

I expect to walk a sidewalk to a store, office or restaurant. I expect no obstruction to this action other than pedestrian traffic, traffic signals, and perhaps a longer walk from my car to where I’m headed on foot. I do not expect to confront or be confronted by a person acting very odd and heightened by the presence of a gun. In fact if I were confronted by someone with a gun I don’t know what my reaction would be. I doubt it would be calm.

Why some areas of a town experience weird acting people and guns is not in my understanding. My first inclination is to call the police for protection. I would want order restored and the least threat of damage to others to occur. This is a law and order issue in the instant. Why that instant exists at the moment is not in my purview. Order is the first thing on the list of things to do. Later, we must learn why this situation existed in the first place.

That question is complex in and of itself. But finding the answers to it are complexity magnified. Designing the proper solution to avoid such problems in the future is yet another magnification added to the situation. This is Public Policy 101. It is a difficult subject to master. For those elected and employed to do this sort of work, it is difficult not only to do but to get others – especially the public – to understand what must be done.

Your freedoms and rights must be protected. So must they be protected for others, including the suspects. And of course the people working for us all in elected and professional positions alike must be protected as they go about their work. This is what makes public policy work so difficult. So many masters. So many truths. Only one or a few can be implemented at a time.

It would help if neighborhoods understood their problems first. It would help if they struggled with knowing why they have odd behavior happening more frequently rather than less. And it would help if they understood why and from where the guns have appeared. Are they regulated well enough to maintain peace or are they a problem causing the violence just because they are present? That’s what the citizens of the neighborhood have to understand and seek help for.

And then they have to ask for that help so the helpers know they are welcome to work with them. Not suspected of being an enemy but welcomed as a partner to solve a problem.

Protecting Protests and other Rights

Cops and public authority have you and me to protect as we live our lives. We choose how to live the life and we are protected in doing it as long as we are not breaking the law in the first place. So, lawful assembly and action is not only allowed it is a celebrated freedom in our nation. Public authorities protect that. In Dallas last Friday police were doing exactly that when they were attacked by a sniper with deadly training from prior military service.

Why this individual went off the track is something to learn from research. For the moment on Friday the police had their job to do and they did it. They protected the innocent and got the bad guy and saved many lives. They lost five of their own plus 11 more wounded, some maimed for life. This is the threat they endure for the privilege of doing their job for the rest of us. They are cops. They are protectors. They are not the enemy.

And the protesters were protected.

Protecting the Protectors

But the cops have their own training to protect themselves as they go about their dangerous jobs. So they were protected. But theirs is a very dangerous job with lethal consequences. Some died last Friday. More remain injured.

They all deserve our thanks and support for the travail they suffer and have suffered in doing their jobs for us.

Common Elements – Guns; too many of ‘em

There are two sides to Black Lives Matter and Police Brutality. In the first instance black lives do matter. For me that is a given. I am white and old. I have a lifetime of sensitivity and dedication to racial integration and civil rights. It is my personal history and earliest political bent. I am definitely not an enemy to Black Lives Matter. I get it. And so do millions of other people. Our skin color – white – does not make us an enemy.

Cops are not brutal in the main. In fact most police personnel live lives of quiet and calm. They are on the line to do a tough job for the rest of us but they usually do not encounter violence while it is being committed. Often their jobs are boring and routine. That means our public life is routine and peaceful. In the main.

When violence happens adrenaline and fear and threat response take over. In some of those cases police personnel can and have overreacted. More violence has occurred as a result. And some of that violence could and should have been avoided. It wasn’t. It is now a fact of life and we have to process that. That does not make the problem an epidemic among all police forces throughout the nation. We must all understand that.

It is a wake up call, however, that something remains wrong and needs attention. So let’s fix that however we can. In the meantime let us not paint all police personnel with the same broad stroke labeling them enemies. They are not.

But guns are everywhere and that heightens the emergency. How do we reduce gun violence in America? That is the question. And it deserves an answer. If we don’t know the answer, then we need to research it. The NRA and all gun rights groups should be helping with this research. They claim guns are not the problem. Then let them prove it. Meanwhile their work can be used to assist the rest of us in finding the solution.

All of us working together on the question: How do we reduce gun violence?

July 14, 2016