This topic is not one that I expect to be very popular, especially among certain groups, but it is a topic that needs serious discussion before things get worse.
An important question needs to be answered, and that question is, "Is shooting a police officer worse than shooting someone else?" The gut reaction for most people is probably, "Yes!" I want you to think seriously about this though, and specifically ask yourself why. I won't accept an answers like, "It's obvious," or "They deserve more respect." I want to know exactly why shooting a police officer is worse than shooting someone else. If you are struggling with this, you might want to read this article written by a friend who has worked as a security guard and has interacted closely with police in that capacity: http://bfgalbraith.blogspot.com/2016/07/divide-and-conquer.html.
The fact is, we have a major problem in the U.S. The U.S. Constitution forbids the creation of government mandated social classes. Our current law enforcement system treats the lives of police officers as more valuable than the lives of regular citizens. It gives police officers rights beyond what regular citizens are allowed. It even provides police with access to weapons that are not legal for regular citizens to own. In short, in the U.S. police officers are a de facto aristocracy, given rights and privileges, by the government, beyond what are given to the "peasant" class. Police are not the only aristocracy in the U.S., but they are the only one that is allowed to pass judgement and execute the death penalty without giving the victim a fair trial, which has started to become a serious problem in recent years.
The 2nd amendment is often seen by liberals as purely related to the (possibly outdated) idea that states need armed militias for national protection. Many conservatives see it as a right explicitly given to allow the people to protect themselves against a corrupt government. I have already written on this subject, so I am not going to elaborate, but my conclusion based on the biases and situation of the people who actually drafted and passed the amendment, it is extremely likely that protection against a corrupt government was a very real and serious element (among several others) in the decision to grant the right to bear arms. Now, it should be obvious that the government will never justify the use of this right for the citizens of the U.S. to enforce their Constitutional rights. Any acts against the government, no matter how corrupt it is, will be framed by the government and anyone that benefits from the government (the media, for example) as serious crime. The use of the 2nd amendment by the people to protect themselves from a corrupt government will never be sanctioned by that government, or by the media that has a very close relationship with it. In other words, any violent act by the people to secure their freedom, no matter how necessary, will always get those people branded as villains and criminals.
The only way we can secure our freedom is by thinking for ourselves, instead of letting the government and the media tell us what to think. Now I don't want to glorify violence. No act of violence is ever glorious. Sometimes it is necessary though. I am not going to judge whether the recent violence against police was necessary or not. From one perspective, the police killed were not those guilty of the recent murders committed by police. On the other hand though, they are all part of the same de facto aristocracy, and the American people have a Constitutional right to defend themselves from this kind of government mandated social division. It is time for the people of the U.S. to think for themselves when it comes to this. Instead of taking the word of the media and the government, use your own brains to work out the ethics of a man killing illegally mandated aristocrats who have been given power over him to judge and kill him on the spot, without a fair trial.
I also want to point out something very important. The number of innocent black people murdered by police in the last few years is far greater than the number of police officers killed. Note also that the murders committed by police don't even include the white victims or victims of any other race. The media treats murders of innocent victims by police as controversial, while it treats killings of police as heinous crimes against our great country. This is a country where the citizens are supposed to be the most important thing, but the media and the government treat our police as more important than the citizens. If this does not prompt you to reconsider how you think about the relationship between the government, law enforcement, and the people, then perhaps you live in the wrong country.
I submit that the lives of police officers are worth no more than the lives of any other citizen of this country. I further submit that murders committed by police are a much more serious problem than the occasional police officer killed in the line of duty. Lastly, I submit that the guy who recently killed several police officers had completely reasonable and logical justifications for doing so, though perhaps he could have chosen better targets.
The fact is, we have a major problem here. People with strong morals and good ethics tend to believe that problems like this should be handled through the proper legal channels. It is generally better to campaign and vote for change than to get violent about it. The problem is, the "proper legal channels" are controlled by police through their magical union that has the powers to negotiate laws without the consent of the people. While I will hold out for the proper legal channels for now, this may be a problem that cannot be resolved without violence. It is possible that the shooter was just a hot head with a short fuse. It is also possible that he had better foresight than I do, realizing that the time for the "proper legal channels" has passed. Like I said, I won't pass judgement. I think that it is still possible to fix this without killing a bunch of people. That said, this police aristocracy is so deeply entrenched in our culture and our society that the time may already be here, where the sacrifice of lives is necessary to reestablish our lost freedom and to maintain it once we have gotten it back.
If you have thought seriously about this problem and can clearly see that it is a serious problem, please campaign and vote to fix it. Police should have no more power or value than any regular U.S. citizen. Police should be at least as accountable as regular citizens for any damage, injury, or death that they cause. If we can take police from their elevated position to the same legal and social status as every other U.S. citizen, we can avoid unnecessary blood shed. If we cannot do this though, we are going to have more police shootings and more murders committed by police, and eventually it will end in either open rebellion against the police or a police state so oppressive that we have lost most of the freedom guaranteed by the Constitution. Either way will involve significant blood shed, possibly for a very long time. The fact is, the U.S. has been a police state for quite a long time. We have let it sneak up on us, and if we don't do something about it now, it will get a lot closer to the movies and books than anyone ever expected.
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