You can’t really trust the orange tip anyway, since criminals have been known to paint that on real guns to trick cops, with mixed success.
Regardless, from a police officer’s perspective, you only have half a second to tell whether an object that someone is getting out of their pocket is a gun or something less harmful, like a cell phone. So it’s understandable why they chose to shoot in this situation.
Of course, if it were harder for the general public to get guns, then police wouldn’t be put in these situations where they have to make life-and-death decisions in under a second, but we have to live with the consequences of which rights we chose to value.
if it were harder for the general public to get guns
Is there anywhere harder to get a gun? Even pellet guns are illegal in NYC. You can be legal in one state, passing through to another state where you’re legal, and NY can take your ass to jail for a gun in the trunk.
Laws aren’t, by themselves, an effective way to keep dangerous guns out of the hands of criminals, because it is really easy to (illegally) import guns from a place with lax gun laws into a place with strict gun laws. There’s also a problem with existing gun laws encountering enforcement problems from law enforcement agencies who refuse to enforce them or who don’t care enough about it.
On top of that, there is a cultural problem where guns are associated with masculinity and being “cool”. That leads to way more people acquiring them than there really should be, and many of those people really shouldn’t be having them. That’s not something the law can fix.
You can’t really trust the orange tip anyway, since criminals have been known to paint that on real guns to trick cops, with mixed success.
Regardless, from a police officer’s perspective, you only have half a second to tell whether an object that someone is getting out of their pocket is a gun or something less harmful, like a cell phone. So it’s understandable why they chose to shoot in this situation.
Of course, if it were harder for the general public to get guns, then police wouldn’t be put in these situations where they have to make life-and-death decisions in under a second, but we have to live with the consequences of which rights we chose to value.
Right with ya, until…
Is there anywhere harder to get a gun? Even pellet guns are illegal in NYC. You can be legal in one state, passing through to another state where you’re legal, and NY can take your ass to jail for a gun in the trunk.
So. More laws might help?
Laws aren’t, by themselves, an effective way to keep dangerous guns out of the hands of criminals, because it is really easy to (illegally) import guns from a place with lax gun laws into a place with strict gun laws. There’s also a problem with existing gun laws encountering enforcement problems from law enforcement agencies who refuse to enforce them or who don’t care enough about it.
On top of that, there is a cultural problem where guns are associated with masculinity and being “cool”. That leads to way more people acquiring them than there really should be, and many of those people really shouldn’t be having them. That’s not something the law can fix.