Grady is the best. Since all of this has started I now never leave the house without a side arm even if it’s to go to work on my new house. I’ve had to increase the ammo cache to a new high level. Security cams going up. It’s a bold new world we’re living in. I’m not afraid of the rioters. Those I can stay away from. It’s the “peaceful protestors” that get all of my attention. They’re working with a hair trigger and anything can set them off. It’s getting hard to buy groceries or fuel because these PP’s are surrounding these areas. But alas, the MSM will give us new fears to consume our time soon enough. Covid no longer a threat (because rioters are large groups of closely spaced people) and these protests will go away so they will need to find something else to fill our time with.
Law Enforcement and Military should remain neutral while on duty or in uniform.
The compromise of neutrality, while being emotionally charged, waters down their effectiveness, oath of office, protecting the constitution.
When the smoke clears. One may find that they supported something nefarious. There is an agenda behind all of this orchestrated disorder.
You got that right! It’s a horrible situation but I believe there are powerful evil people who are hijacking this incident for nefarious reasons and to carry out an agenda. They are marring this tragic incident by infusing more into it than is merited.
People are angry and tired of the lawlessness demonstrated by these thugs; and that is exactly what they are. These people are financially supported by people like george soros and bill gates through foundations and shadow organizations like antifa. The sanctity of your home is an ABSOLUTE, and NO ONE has the right to violate that space. You need to add a lot of cities and town to the list.
I support the movement for justice for an atrocious act by a bad cop.
Fortunately, bad cops are a lot less common than bad people.
George Floyd had a very dark past. He had committed some seriously terrible acts. I will not support his martyrdom. I also will not support BLM. All lives matter to me. From the data I’ve seen, black lives don’t seem to matter to young black males, who (although they are 6% of the population) commit almost 50% of the homicides, the majority of which are other black people. I would like the people protesting to apply a little critical thinking, and not just blindly follow the propaganda.
I agree with this, but I think anyone who has met enough police knows at least one that makes them uncomfortable. (Following the Joe Biden rule that 10-15% of people just aren’t very good folks.) I used to just shrug and accept this, following my grandfather’s advice that my job with any LEO encounter was to comply and survive so that I could file a complaint the next day.
Chris Rock made a good point, though. Would you be comfortable being told that “most airline pilots are good at their job; there are just a few bad pilots that crash planes.” No. We understand that people are fallible and that every group has “bad apples,” but we demand that certain professions approach 100% accountability.
I wonder that he’s on to something. Maybe that’s the kind of police reform we need. How do we raise the standard for training and accountability in our police departments? And if we’re going to demand more of our police, does that warrant a pay raise to meet our high expectations and the risk that a police officer may lose his career if he makes a mistake after 10 years on the force?
Heck, now that I’m saying it, why stop at police? Why not teachers? Or Soldiers?
I get the gist of it, but its hard to apply that across a lot of occupations. “most Doctors are good at their job; there are just a few bad Doctors that kill people.” And how many malpractice cases are there every year?
We underpay some of our most important folks in this country. Teachers, 1st responders (LEO, Fire, EMT), etc. The way to attract the best talent is to pay them well.
Could you cite some examples?
@I_am_Harry
Unfortunately I think we are at the point of dialing 1-800-ANTIFA. This was the goal. And they won another round. November, round 12.
I agree whole heartedly with the following:
I am firmly convinced that focusing on color, any color, will only create more division. I had an intresting dialog with some youngsters while tailgating at the university back when BLM was growing legs a few years ago. Youngsters say… BLM,
I say… No ALM
Youngsters get irritated and say… it’s BLM, BLM
I say… you are only half black, does that mean you only half matter… end of conversation…
However, when you say:
This is inflammatory, divisive, and scientifically wrong. You can’t pull a bunch of numbers out of a context and analyze them in a vacuum with credible meaning. In other words, put some white folk into an inner city, high population density, low opportunity environment and see if you get different results first.
I think history has already tried this experiment. Didn’t Nazism rise out of a bunch of German (white) folks being economically and socially repressed after world war 1?
In 1920s external power (USSR) financed and directed communist riots all over Germany. Police was ineffective, small businesses were devastated, streets unsafe to walk. Then another group of thugs rose up and fought the communist thugs. They were called the Nazis. This brought overall order and gave rise to the popularity of the Nazi party. You can argue economics and WW1 outcome, but similarity of the situation in 1920s Germany to the 2020 US is very concerning.
You make a sobering point about chaos and the rise of National Socialism. I don’t think we’re at a point of desperation, yet- at least not on a nationwide scale- but if we allow ourselves to spiral into anarchy, it could well lead to something similar. Desperate people will accept desperate solutions. I know history repeats itself, but here’s to the hope that enough Americans aren’t willing to go down that path, yet. 
While we’re on the topic, don’t forget that the National Socialists in Germany were supported by U.S. progressives. I’m not equating them with anyone from modern U.S. political parties, I’m just saying that people who think they know how to fix other people often make things worse.
I would ask, why no outrage over the black on black killings in Chicago?
There is no systemic racism, there is no white privilege (white privilege is a political construct and attempts to make you guilty of something you did not do, simply by the color of your skin).
Is there racism? Yes, but it is not institutionalized or systemic. The police do not hunt black people.
What happened to George Floyd was wrong (though he was no angel, he had a criminal record, what was done was unacceptable)… but it was not about racism. Two reasons, Tony Timpa being killed the same way as George Floyd, yet Tony did not rate the outrage, because Tony was white. If you claim Floyd was killed because of racism, how do you explain the death of Timpa… since it was not racism. The second reason is, the four officers involved in the Floyd death are of mixed races, so it is difficult to claim racism.
In 2019, 9 unarmed blacks were killed by police (in millions of interactions and hundreds of thousands of arrests… some for violent offenses.) and 19 unarmed whites were killed by police (again, in millions of interactions and hundreds of thousands of arrests), per the statistics, it is very comparable.
These are issues we must be aware of, as it is not ‘black’ people, it is Communist / Fascist / Totalitarians who want to collapse the system… as they currently demand ‘defund the police’ and some leftist weak politicians are actually cutting police budgets and looking to cut police functions.
Who will enforce the laws, who will you call when someone is attempting to break into your home, your car, assault you or someone in a parking lot or on the street.
These are self defense issues. If they cut the police, either reduce the ability to actually enforce the law, or reduce the police to the point they are ineffective and can not do anything and are ceremonial… we the people will be more on our own.
What happens when you go to town, or go to a part of town you go several times a week, and suddenly you turn the corner, and there are mobs, rioting, looting, vandalizing cars, attacking people… are you to run home and remain in your house waiting for them to come, or do you still live your life, and if you live your life, what do you do when that mob turns on you. What if you were walking, and they come at you with bats, clubs, chains, bricks… or they surround your car, and you are in a position of being dragged out of your vehicle and who knows what will happen to you. And if they get their wish and the police do not exist or are so reduced to be unable to protect or arrest those who commit crimes…
We must consider them deadly threats, and if the left wins and the police are decimated to the point of inability to enforce the law, we must react quicker or suffer the fatal consequences.
So, is it really a black / white issue or is it leftists attempting to bring down the Republic and our Rule of Law?
I’ve done a lot more research since my last post. There is a lot at play right now. The media is blowing out of proportion, really bad political games are being played behind the scenes, and people are reacting on what appears to be %100 emotion (no logic).
I agree with the stats on police brutality. It is an issue across the board. The problem is what to do. Police rarely use batons because of brutality, and they’ve moved more towards grappling… which I think is good but we saw what happened to Floyde. We can’t leave our police incapable of performing there jobs. Like you said, there will always be prejudice And there will always be bad police officers. Minneapolis police department simply failed to be honest. The guy that put his knee on Floyd’s had complaints and should have lost his job already. All the police officers with him failed to intervene. You’re story was true. This happens to other races, it just doesn’t go viral like this occurrence. The biggest issue that concerns me is actually the issue with Breonna in Louisville. The police pulled a silent warrant out of uniform and the boyfriend called 911 and opened fire at the police believing they were home invaders. The girlfriend died and they found out the police acted on bad intel… I found other cases (amongst multiple races) that were also bad.
I agree. These issues are not about race. These issues are related to how the government can safely use law enforcement to enforce the law.
I do believe there is racial tension as a result of these issues, but I don’t see that going anywhere unfortunately. Not with how it’s been handled.
To try and keep it on topic. It puts us in strange positions. If a cop starts acting threatening, I can’t see use of a carry gun leading to anything good. Unexpected police raids could lead to us shooting cops, or getting gunned downed for being armed, or family for being present. When law enforcement fails to do their job, it puts responsible gun owners (really everyone) in Seemingly impossible situations.
At the same time, I want to back the blue. There are mostly good cops out there.
Greg, young black males are responsible for about 50% of the homicides–primarily black on black homicide, and are 6% of the population. How is that ‘out of context and analyzed in a vaccum?’ It’s accurate and unfortunate. To be a young black male in poverty is a bleak prospect–without a doubt.
There is no conclusive proof one way or the other on the effect of poverty on crime. While it’s plausible to believe environment is the issue, and this has been shown in a study, there are also studies that have not found this to be the case. While I would tend to believe that poverty is the reason for the crime, I would guess that gang/drug culture has had more of an influence on the cause of this. That is just my opinion.
See the attached article for background. FactCheck: do black Americans commit more crime? – Channel 4 News
This tragedy (killing) has led to a lot of opportunism by a lot of thugs, and all in the name of BLM. The movement is being tarnished by a lot of bad actors, and if things continue down this road (defunding the police), as has already been pointed out–we will not be better off.
There had been legitimate griping about police tactics on this forum. At least one person was SWATted, people posted articles about cavalry showing at the front door to take home owners’ weapons without a good reason. Somehow the narrative focuses on race issues.
I fear the real point of this discourse is $14T. For this kind of chump change anyone would start a dangerous game.
I’ll remind everyone that the reason for the USCCA Community is a place for those who are passionate about defending themselves and their loved ones have a respectful place to learn from each other.
We’re getting a bit off topic on this one and I’ll ask that you to come back to the topic of defending your home from a looter.
Thanks!
@Dawn - Point taken and I apologize in advance for making one last observation on the risks of taking data out of context, or drawing conclusions without having All of the facts.
@Aaron25 - there is a saying, liars figure and figures lie. Broadly it means you can make the numbers say anything you like if you are skilled in how you use the numbers.
According to pewresearch.org : "Using the FBI numbers, the violent crime rate fell 51% between 1993 and 2018. Using the BJS data, the rate fell 71% during that span.
In 1990 24.5 % of the US population was non-white. In 2018 27% of the US population was non-white
Therefore in the United States a 2.5% reduction in white folk was accompanied by a greater than 50% reduction in violent crime. Those are just the facts…
I know a figure that doesn’t lie - 100% of people in the USCCA Community want to be able to defend themselves and their loved ones. 
I see the thread has gone a little off topic, so in that spirit:
What have you done to make sure your home is protected from looters other than your firearm?
ie: I live in apartments and have a patio so I keep my bikes inside now. I also created a FB group for my neighbors to discuss things happening in the neighborhood.
I made some formatting changes to make the question stand out, I_am_Harry.