> The criticism is due to the fact that they burst into the room with guns drawn. It was an over-reaction to a completely unknown situation that was about 99.9% benign.
The cops received a report about armed individuals- that warrants an armed, yet retrained response, no?
On any given day, the odds that I will use one of my fire extinguishers is very very small, ditto the gun I carry concealed almost every time I walk out the door (have never used either, in decades). The odds that cops with such a referral will encounter weapons is a whole lot higher.
I'm not as sure. One could argue that if you removed guns from the equation while still retaining a population prone to violence the police would be in an even worse posture, because up close edged weapons are very dangerous and they don't wear stab vests (which I suppose they could switch to, but I'm told they're even more uncomfortable than soft ballistic body armor, which is bad enough). Prone to violence in that as I recall our edged weapon murder rates exceeds most of "the developed world's".
Watch Tueller Drill video, then factor in the police having to close with someone with an edged weapon, an option I as a civilian can almost always avoid. I say worse, because the public generally doesn't realize the danger people armed with knives poise.
The experience of Brittian is suggestive, it:
Started getting serious about gun control a century ago (fear of the Left, becoming panic with the Bolshevik's win).
Effectively outlawed the use of guns for self-defense in the '50s (courts) and '60 (statutory law).
Then went almost all the way to banning guns that might be useful for self-defense a few decades ago.
Hasn't helped violence, hasn't made much of a dent in "gun violence" as I recall, but could be wrong, and now the obsession is with knife control.
Which suggests a people problem, not an object problem.
(Then again, when the police are nationally centralized and used as a weapon to punish areas that vote "incorrectly" by mostly withdrawing their protection, you've got bigger problems, but again people problems.)
The cops received a report about armed individuals- that warrants an armed, yet retrained response, no?