I hate people who treat them like some toys and fantasize about them. That makes me think they are in some sort of death cult. That they found socially acceptable way to love violence.
I would still get one for safety but it is a tool made for specifically one thing. To pierce the skin and rip through the inner organs of a person.
They can serve a good purpose but they are fundamentally grim tools of pain and suffering. They shouldn’t be celebrated and glorified in their own right, that is sick. They can be used to preserve something precious but at a price to pay.
“very leftist” “wants police to have lots of versatile guns and the populace to not” I’m confused.
Not all leftists are anarchists,not all leftists are communists,not all are utopians and not all leftists are pacifists either. Some of us know Realpolitik fairly well. But considering I was a candidate for a state parliament for one of the furthest left parties in Europe I think I can still claim that. (I left in the meantime on their stance on supporting the Ukraine,btw. Don’t be shocked,some of us aren’t couch pacifists either and firmly believe that democracy needs to be defended - even though a lot of us and a lot this ideology died back in Spain)
I firmly believe that a healthy society needs a very well regulated, extremely well qualified and trained and well equipped police.
That does not make me a friend of the police as it is acting in a lot of countries (we have our fair share of them and I am constantly addressing them publicly - but our situation is far better than e.g. in the US and a lot of other countries) and I campaign for that a lot. With police officers,btw. Because good policeman have one major problem - the bad apples spoil the whole lot.
I am neither anarchist nor communist but the day I’m okay with police being better armed than the populace is allowed to be is the day I can’t imagine police not standing with labor unions or treating minorities significantly differently than those in the dominant socio-economic class and not a second sooner.
Police here are amongst the jobs with the highest union participation and while due to some special legislation they cannot go on strike their major union (there are smaller ones, one right wing, one for detectives only)are in a association with all major other unions here and they cooperate heavily - due to fact that they are seen as regular “public officers” with a small policing allowance they profit from the collective agreements the regular public administration workers fight for and the regular public administration workers on the other hand can use them as a bargain.
The treatment of minorities is a an issue and while a lot of officers are alright in that regards more than enough aren’t - and that is something we need to address.
…but I must disagree on the armed population point - it is a absolute delusion that an armed population can “resist” a possibly oppressive government any better than an unarmed one as the nature of oppression is always systemic - and an armed individual is unable to withstand the tools of oppression the government can use on them, not even considering the actual force imbalance. Some amateurs with a assault rifle won’t stand a chance against a trained military or police force. Instead of the false narrative of “we can topple the government with guns in our hands if necessary”(no you can’t - and if you could the other side can do it as well) it would be far more important to secure democracy against extremism - what happens if this is not done is currently seen in the US.
Additionally a armed population fuels the “we against them”/“warzone environment” perception in part of the police force, which leads to an escalation of violence by the police, has an extremely detrimental effect for mental health patients and fuels the general danger for the population by providing more weapons for criminals.
There is an abundance of research on this topic that sustain this - an armed population is a very bad idea.
Police being better armed is extremely common in developed counties with far better police than the USA.
I am very glad for them? I hope their police stay that way