As a policeman in the United States Air Force over 20 years ago, I gave a lot of thought - at the age of 19 - to how to handle those shoot or dont shoot scenarios. I knew it was important not to goof it up so that some innocent wouldnt die. It took me a bit, from the age of 17 when I was first a policeman, to 19, but I finally figured out how to get those scenarios handled correctly so that no innocent would ever die. First, I received my Honorable Discharge from the United States Air Force. Second, I did not become a policeman in civilian world, living off of peoples taxes against their will. Third, I never strapped on a gun and went over to peoples houses to tell them what kind of fun they could have, how loud they could be, and what substances they could or could not take. This avoided all manner of situations in which I might have murdered someone who might have reacted badly to me breaking into his house to kidnap him. Fourth, I never stopped my fellow citizens who were driving to and from their homes and jobs so that I could threaten them with kidnapping and make them kiss my ass with more slobber than Oriental Potentates used to expect. It made a big difference, my failure to make men crawl on their bellies so as to be released unharmed. It was remarkable how little danger I was in for not trying to degrade people that way. Fifth, I failed to violate the civil and constitutional rights of everyone else. I realized that in stopping that, no one was getting all hysterically angry at me any more, or reacting to me out of fear for what I and a dozen other armed men might do to them. Sixth, by staying out of blue uniforms, I was declaring myself an equal to everyone else, one not entitled to any special rights or privileges denied to others. This made people less hostile to me. Seventh, I never used the just following orders excuse or the just doing my job excuse to justify hauling peoples children away from them based upon bureaucratic whims and dubious civil court procedures. I found it refreshing how when I never tried to steal children that parents never then tried to attack me. Eighth, I never kidnapped people who pissed me off and locked them up for a night, knowing that the DA would never in a million years charge them (as they hadnt really done anything) but knowing that I could not get in trouble for giving them a day in jail that usually resulted in job loss and other troubles. Ninth, I never seized the entirety of a persons life savings under some flimsy RICO pretext, be it DUI or suspicious amounts of cash or any other fantasy I could whip up. The number of shoot or dont shoot scenarios are zero when you arent threatening to destroy a man in every way but physically. Yes, by all those things I was able to create a situation in which I never encountered any more life or death situations or any shoot or dont shoot situations. No more was I attacked simply for showing up with a gun, no more was I attacked for simply bursting into a persons home, no more was I threatened by various irate citizens. Life was not perfect, no. As a bank security guard, and one who transported money and gold in Alaska, I had to wear a gun and a vest, and had to take precautions. But I never encountered the routine hostility that cops get, and since my job was not to interfere with peaceable citizens, I learned just how few non-peaceable citizens there are. And that is the whole key to this cops in danger thing. When your job is only to guard against bad guys looking for trouble, youre very safe and hardly ever have any shoot or dont shoot situations. But when your job is to horrifically interfere and harm any and every random citizen that your bosses order you to, and threaten them with the utter destruction of all they hold dear - family, job, home, life and liberty - over victimless crimes then yes, it does seem that all hands are turned against you and like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, one gets a bit skittish and a bit fast on the draw. So next time you read some apologetic article or propaganda puff piece about how those poor cops are in so much danger and its so hard to know when to shoot or not shoot, just remember that that choice was purely theirs, and that I can easily imagine that any gangster, Klansman or terrorist must have that same problem. And for the SAME REASONS! Those looking for trouble always find it, but those who confine themselves to only guarding people and property rarely find any trouble at all.
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 01:41:48 +0000
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