• machinin@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Has there ever been someone armed that has stopped police abuse? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a case like that.

      • mathesonian@ttrpg.network
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        5 months ago

        The black panthers routinely showed up armed and arguably had that effect. Ironically, this then led to more gun control laws being put in place.

      • TauZero@mander.xyz
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        5 months ago

        One example: on May 30, 2020 in Minneapolis, during the protests after George Floyd killing, some police were driving around the streets in an unmarked van, shooting at pedestrians at random without stopping. They later claimed they were shooting rubber bullets to “encourage” people to obey the curfew order. Of course, if you are the one being shot at in a drive by from a mystery van, you have no time to determine what kind of bullets are being fired… One pedestrian shot back! There is a video of it.

        The guy was immediately arrested, miraculously without being shot to death in the process, and put on trial, but acquitted due to justifiable self-defense. The police did not drive around shooting randomly any more after that though. I see the guy even won a $1.5M lawsuit against the police now!

        • tobogganablaze@lemmus.org
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          5 months ago

          Nice job on actually finding an example. And it is a great one. I really don’t want to diminish that.

          But it feels like a rare case and I’m not a proof of concept.

      • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        During the summer BLM protests, police were using excessive force constantly, shooting people in the head with rubber bullets/beanbags, beating people nearly to death, gassing everything… it was pure hatred from the thin blue line.

        When protesters were calmly walking wearing their rifles, police were mysteriously real polite. Funny that.

        • tobogganablaze@lemmus.org
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          5 months ago

          When protesters were calmly walking wearing their rifles, police were mysteriously real polite. Funny that.

          I see your point. But isn’t that entire situation really fucked up? If that was a regular thing that’s just civil war battle waiting to happen. This can’t be the solution to the police problem.

      • Mango@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I’m sure they don’t like publishing results that aren’t good for their goals.

      • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        5 months ago

        A lone individual is just going to get themselves killed, and probably cause the police to arm themselves even more. Which would be extremely counter productive.

        I’d also like to add that you don’t need fun to stop police brutality, and yet nobody is willing to stop it. Mostly because you’re just going to end up being the one police brutalitied in addition to the other guy.