Only having police armed isn’t safe

In responds to Chraminski’s July 13 letter on guns. He stated that if we eliminated guns, only police and military would have weapons and our society would be more peaceful.

The Guardian (best newspaper in UK) reported:

“Young black men were nine times more likely than other Americans to be killed by police officers in 2015. The Guardian study found 1,134 black men killed by police in 15’.”

What is interesting about the study was that The Guardian could not find that data in any CDC, Department of Justice (DOJ), or national police data (in fact, the police departments fight against this type of central data collection ).

So, no, it’s not a good idea (if you’re black, Hispanic, or poor) to only have police and the military armed (I am totally for gun control!). In fact the DOJ has a program of arming police around the country with military hardware! As we and the world saw during the Ferguson debacle.

The Baton Rouge PD, the police department that murdered Alton Sterling, has twice been under investigation by the DOJ for civil rights violations. Yet Baton Rouge PD has received $3 million from the DOJ over the past five years.

In the aftermath of his death, it was revealed that Philando Castile had been stopped by police 52 times in 14 years — and surprise surprise, young blacks and Hispanic are subject to the same profiling, criminalization, and incarceration around the US!

The parents and loved ones of the 1,134 black men killed by police in 15’ sure wished the police didn’t have guns!

Ttlaloc Tokuda

Kailua-Kona