Forget emotional arguments about whether Black Lives Matter or All Lives Matter or any specific case.  There is one easy to verify fact that proves that policing in the United States is Broken. We give police a 9mm Glock that carries about 15 rounds or a similar gun.  Then we give them a 1 shot Taser.  All things being equal in a fight if the police use their one taser shot and it does not work, or misses they are going to have to shoot.  All things being equal if they must choose in a split second how to stop person A from shooting or stabbing person B there are 15 chances to one that they will use the Taser. 

It did not have to be this way.

Taser X-Rep Was Defunded, Military Weapons Were Funded.

About 12 years ago Taser developed a special shot gun and shot gun round that was basically a taser that had a range of 30 – 50 yards or more and about eight shots VS 15-35 feet and one shot they have now.

It seems this was brough to market, offered to police departments, then they did not buy because it was too expensive.   About 12 years ago we had a president, Barrack Obama, and congress that could have bought this for every police officer in the country as a federal mandate.   They did not.  Instead, police got military surplus weapons, armor and vehicles made for anti-insurgent missions in Iraq.

This is not just racist, this is a matter of the power elite who know they will not likely be the ones to face police officers, (let alone must be police officers themselves). This is a matter of class and in the US that means money.  Money tracks with race in this society for a lot of historical reasons.    However, reducing this to race is the oldest trick of the elite in the new world to divide us. 

This is a numerical fact. Giving police a 15-shot pistol and a one shot taser means that when a life is on the line the gun is what will be used. 

Last and not least.  No one “deserves to die” but in situations like that of Makhia Bryant shot while trying to stab her foster sisters who were there to visit for their foster mothers’ birthday.  All over an argument about housekeeping and who must clean what.  That numerical fact contributed to what the officer had no choice but to do.

For anyone who needs it here is Nate The Lawyer a very NOT right wing, NOT blindly police supporting, Black lawyer who was a prosecutor and now is a defense attorney breaking down this situation.