DABDA

Entirely hypothetical situation, but a passerby seeing police mistreat a black suspected drunk driver physically or verbally is an appropriate and useful time to make the point. Even if everything appears above-board, if the cops aren't doing anything wrong then they shouldn't be concerned with being reminded to treat others' lives with respect, right? Part of their job and training revolves around conflict resolution and dealing with frustrating situations. They should be able to handle people shouting things at them.

I'm not trying to get into a lengthy discussion over police abuse or their current role in our society either. But I generally think until their accountability is the norm and not the exception they deserve all the animosity coming their way. If they want to lump everyone into good guys and bad guys without caring about nuance then the same can be done for their group.

I'm also not going to pick apart all the things in your links but I strongly disagree with your recommendations about interacting with the police. You also spend a lot of energy trying to equate fewer headline police abuses with effective and thorough widespread reform.

[This section is more directed at others reading the thread than expecting/inviting a retort]
You flat out do not talk to them in any capacity beyond the hard legal requirements unless you've talked to a lawyer or someone educated and qualified enough to give sound legal advice. Your saying things like "don't refuse to give ID" or "Just talk with them. Tell them what you know, help them figure out the situation." as a blanket suggestion can potentially be harmful to an entirely unrelated and innocent individual. I wholeheartedly wish this wasn't the case. I'm an overly honest person and generally believe that telling the truth and providing whatever help you can in a given scenario is the correct course of action - but with the current police and legal situation in the US there's only the potential to cause harm to you or others if you give them the benefit of doubt and volunteer information. It's not just for the protection of stoners and crime-adjacent people, "proper upstanding citizens" have found themselves as people of interest in a crime they were either a victim of or unconnected to because they wanted to tell their side or offer what little they know about the event. And playing dumb with ICE has the potential to bite your ass if they decide to try proving you were impeding an investigation by providing false information or downplaying your knowledge; it's safer to state you're invoking your right to silence and then say nothing at all.

I've had interactions with police where I've talked to them and nothing bad has happened to me, but I'm not going to try telling others that's the smart or correct thing to do. And just because I got an empty chamber doesn't mean playing Russian Roulette is safe. In this poor analogy it should also be recognized that my game might be different than someone else in that my revolver is aimed at an extremity, while theirs is aimed at their head with more chambers and only one being empty. Instead of talking about tricks to determine if the cylinder landed on a safe spot the more prudent advice is just don't play the game at all.

interacting with a shoplifter or drunk driver and start bellowing “BLACK LIVES MATTER!”

I'm struggling to see this in a manner that doesn't read as racism. It shouldn't be socially unacceptable to insist that black lives matter, particularly towards one of the organizations most prone to abusing them. It's also telling that those were the example crimes you cited and that, regardless of the accused infraction, that still shouldn't imply that their lives therefore don't matter.

And the reason for the mindset that ACAB is because if they weren't, they wouldn't be cops. There's countless examples of "the good ones" being run out departments (or worse), meaning that any remaining are either active participants in corruption and/or abuse, or at least willing to look the other way to it. It doesn't matter what an individual's ethics are if they allow themselves to assist others in harmful activities.

The mythical good police should be furious at the reputation their bad members have brought to the profession and be taking loud and decisive steps to reform. But there's not large numbers of precincts striking (or similar) over the human rights abuses, except for their desire to continue causing them without consequences.

You would be punctilious in assuming that.

What am I missing that indicates this belongs in this community? I don't see anything showing the purchaser supporting leopards that have now turned against them. Thinking maybe the username was a clue, top DDG results indicate "goucher" might refer to Goucher College in MD, a private liberal arts college.

Saved this comment from somewhere, probably Reddit:

I've actually been using the cars analogy for a couple months now and I think it's very fitting. Imagine if you were a mechanic who owned an auto shop and your average customer call went something like this:

Customer: My car isn't working and I need you to fix it immediately, this is an emergency
Mechanic: Alright sir what seems to be the problem?
Customer: I don't know, I tried to use my car on friday and it didn't work, now it's monday and I need to get to work and I can't and this needs to be fixed right now.
Mechanic: Can you start the car? Can you even get into your car? Does it make any sounds when you try to start it? Are all 4 tires there?
Customer: I don't know, I don't know what any of that stuff means, I tried to get to work and it wouldn't let me and you need to fix it now because you changed my oil 6 months ago.
Mechanic: Alright well what kind of car are you driving?
Customer: I don't know, a green one, why does that matter?
Mechanic: Please take a look at the back of your car and see if there are any letters or numbers that would indicate a vehicle model or manufacturer
Customer: Ok, my car is a SV2 87K.
Mechanic: No sir that's your license plate. My records indicate that you drive a Nissan Altima, can you confirm that the key you're using to try and get into this car says Nissan on it?
Customer: My key says Lexus but I don't see how that makes a difference, I've been using this key on this car for years and it's always worked, what did you do to my car?

I'm guessing this comment will get edited out too for being under the wrong account but I'll share my reply anyway:

Unless you specify what you mean by "rifle" that designation does include things like an AR15 with a 50+ round drum magazine that will load and fire bullets as fast as you can pull the trigger. If you are talking about something like a breech loading single shot rifle or a Carcano that is certainly true, but specificity is actually important when talking about firearms and related laws and it's not just pedantry for the sake of nitpicking. It's why gun people get anal about when people interchangeably use "assault rifle" and "assault weapon", or claiming a firearm is "fully semi-automatic" - it's important to use precise language because there's vast differences in the various terms and concepts. Yes, generally it's possible to discern from context that someone using the word "clip" to refer to a magazine-fed weapon isn't using it literally, but if you want to try to speak authoritatively on the subject you should know what the difference is.

Which states just let you buy a gun with no background check or registration?

I'm not going to check current status of every state's laws, but I did already address it's possible to buy guns from places other than a licensed firearm dealer and required registration is less common than not. In private sales you're at a minimum legally required to not intentionally sell to prohibited people but clearly that isn't always obeyed - it's possible some states require you to then register that transaction in some way but that's not the default expectation/requirement everywhere.

How are people convicted of owning unregistered firearms if registration isn’t required?

People can be convicted if they are in a location or have prohibited items that DO require registration and they aren't. Suppressors or short-barreled rifles/shotguns and full-auto firearms being common examples.

Isn’t there always a waiting period and a background check?

In my state, with a permit to purchase (good for 1 year, no qty limits) or a permit to carry (5 years, no qty limits) there is no waiting period. If buying from a licensed FFL there is still a NICS check with each purchase though.

Felons aren’t allowed to buy or own guns.

Correct. Felons also aren't known for obeying the law so just being prohibited doesn't ensure they can't obtain a firearm.

You're certainly free to have your own opinions but most of your assumptions shouldn't be trusted by anyone else reading this.

It is possible to purchase and own firearms without a permit - typically just limited in form-factor and features (i.e. shotgun, no handguns or semi-auto rifles). And even when a (purchase) permit is required, that doesn't necessitate there being a registry and frequently one is explicitly disallowed. It's also possible to buy/trade firearms with private citizens (or 3d print/mill your own if especially crafty) which wouldn't provide a record to anybody but the included parties. When you aren't legally required to disclose you have a firearm it's always better not to make that known. Besides the potential worries about a fascist government coming for them, there's the concern that a list of firearm owners going public is a prime target for theft and break-ins.

Rifles aren't necessarily "slower to load," are you speaking specifically of bolt-action rifles with this? It's about the same amount of time and steps to load a magazine into an AR15 rifle as it is a semi-auto pistol. Unfortunately that also makes them effective in an unlawful mass shooting situation.

If you feel a firearm is the proper solution to the situation you NEVER aim to wound or fire warning shots. It's (presumably) always a life or death situation so you're hoping for the most effective "fight stopping wounds" which is basically center mass of whatever you can see. Same thing with rock salt in a shotgun, it's going to legally be seen the same as if you were firing shot/slugs so you shouldn't treat it like something you can use just to scare something off. In close range, shotguns will have practically no spread unless you're using an extremely cut-down barrel (typically cut to an illegal degree) - you still need to (and should be) direct aiming it and not wildly firing from the hip.

DS also displays the generated invite link when you submit the request so you don't need (and imo shouldn't ask for) someone's email address to send them an invite. I don't think their form does anything more elaborate for validity checking than seeing if there's an "@" symbol but when I was giving out codes I just entered the requesting person's "username@serveraddress", clicked the button, and then copy->pasted the url to the user

Just sent you the last one :)

Sent!

Sent!