I agree as no issue today is simple one size does not fit all. But to really address an issue we must learn things that a part of the problem.
I took a criminal law course at the university (part of the liberal arts program undergrads need to take) and the instructor was a former sheriff from a town in S. Dakota. He said that people (mainly men) seem to have a desire to knock heads and break laws. They can go to either side of the fence (crime or law enforcement). A younger brother was always getting into trouble with petty crimes (breaking into newspaper boxes) and constantly running away from home. He dropped out of HS and ran away to Alaska and became a journeyman roofer. Later he returned home, got his GED and became a lawyer. I asked him why he did so many bad things and he said he asks himself that every day. He doesn't know, he just did. And then he grew up and didn't anymore.

@JackPedigo yeah, issues around causation of aggressive/violent behavior are complicated. I am 3/4 of the way through a book called "Sex at Dawn," which though kinda academic in tone, is fascinating for its examination of human behavior. It is not just about sexual behavior---jealousy, male competition, domination of women, etc, but is also looking at aggressive behavior overall, critically examining the role of economic social structure, comparing hunter-gatherer societies in prehistory and current vs agricultural societies, which have come to dominate the world. It also examines human reactions to environment, compared to our closest cousins, the bonobos and the chimps. There is a lot in there about aggression being driven by access to food, and by extension, to wealth in general.

My undergrad degree is in sociology, which is still a fascinating subject to me. I have long suspected that America's sky high crime problems are directly connected with the fact of tremendous wealth inequality and a relatively piss-poor social safety net, widespread poverty in the face of obscene amounts of wealth all around us and a culture which worships materialism.

It may sound too hippy-yippy new age for some, but the science actually supports me on this. That book is the first I have seen to lay out the evidence so clearly in a compelling way.

As far as police behavior, they have a very difficult and scary job. I would not want to do it. They need support. They need proper training. They really need the scope of their responsibilities narrowed and Hell yeah! They need accountability. BLM is 100% valid. It is deeply frustrating to see current public discourse dumb the issue down to being either pro-police OR pro-minorities. Racists want to convince everyone that respect for minorities and demands for police accountability automatically mean people are "enemies" of the police. That is bullshit and juvenile, but fits easily on a bumper sticker, so it is easy to peddle that divisive thinking. Trumpian mentality is cheap, quick and dirty and easy to sell. Scapegoating seems always easier than finding comprehensive solutions.

I would disagree on the cause . . . "flood of unregulated highpower weaponry on American streets". In fact, most of the people who have the highpowered weaponry are the ones whom the police look the other way with. That is not the source of the problem. The source of the problem comes from two different places. The first one is the result of the imperialism of the USA getting out of hand, they have invaded country after country, fomented coups (which they have been trying to do in Venezuela as we speak), they have occupied countries for years on end, and guess what? Those people from the military who have become use to the role of occupier have come home, and guess where they end up? On your local police force. That is the number one cause. The number two cause, as I see it, it where these policemen have been being sent to train . . . . they have been sending them to Israel. Israel . . . practically one of the most racist country on the planet, they have made a career out of stealing land from Palestine, killing Palestinians, walling them off into a ghetto. Racism is alive and well in America because we also have a knuckle-dragging goon in the White House who literally promotes it. This issue is not because of the weapons, weapons in themselves are not racist. But if you want to tell who really is the most racist on the planet . . . . take a look at what countries the USA has been bombing and invading, they are not full of Caucasians . . . take Iraq for example, over one million dead, millions of orphans, people whose lives were destroyed . . . . If the USA did something like that to a country like Great Britain, people would be up in arms . . . . but sadly, they do not see it the same way when it is another race or culture.

@Archeus_Lore You make a very good point about racism. But is is not "...alive and well because...[Trump]...literally promotes it." I am positive it was alive and well all along our roughly 300 year history in this society, and Trump's blatant racist pandering has emboldened White nationalists and like minded to crawl out of hiding and proudly proclaim themselves. Trump's ascension to the White House was only possible in part because of the fact of deep veins of American racism, along with a perfect storm of treacherous factors(Mitch McConnell, voter suppression, Fox "News," Putin's propaganda disinformation machine, etc. ) None of that would have worked in installing Trump if we didn't already have so many bigots susceptible to his blatantly bigoted populist appeal.

As for the guns, I think we are both right. The gun lobby is a massive pox on our nation, and we have continually ignored massive lessons learned by many other countries about the direct connection between unfettered gun proliferation and violence and widespread sense of danger. Police are not immune to that fear, even though racism may(likely does) misdirect their assumptions about whom to fear having those guns.

Statistically, compared to 25 years ago, gun crime is down. All crime is down dramatically. It has spiked recently, a trend that for some reason seems to happen during Republican administrations, but it's still well below what it was at the end of the first Bush administration, for example. Crime didn't shoot upward when the Brady bill expired, as some predicted.

"Mass" shootings have increased, but the total numbers are still low compared to 25 and 30 years ago. Not to say we can't do better, but it's not a rampage of gun violence by any means. The pervasiveness of the media may be making it seem more prevalent than it is.

@Paul4747 shootings down....good, but those violence rates still blow away the rest of the devloped nations, which have common sense gun regulation, which we lack. And as for police behavior, it is largely about their perception of the threat, including racist culture, military experience, and the fact that we have a flood of high powered wraponry in the public sphere. The fact much of that weaponry is held by White conservatives doesn't stop racial prejudice among police from assuming racial minorities are the ones likely to aim those guns at them.
Racial profiling is not a new problem of just the past few years. It is endemic.

@MikeInBatonRouge I agree to the extent that we need comprehensive, universal background checks along with training and education for law enforcement in community policing, to counter these assumptions. "Sensitivity training", to use a much-derided term.

@MikeInBatonRouge I have rad the book and loved it. It had a lot of great information. My undergraduate degree is European History. I also was a board member of PG and throughout history these problems crop up time and time again. The 'core' problem is overpopulation. This planet has a natural carrying capacity and we have exceeded it several times over. We are the preeminent invasive species and when resources start to crash people start to fight.

@JackPedigo over-population. Well that's not complicated at all! (..by which I mean the opposite, of course). The key to stabilizing population humanely is educationg women and granting the social opportunity for self-determination. Maybe we'll get there by the time the world has a hundred billion people.

@MikeInBatonRouge There will never be hat many people and the way things are going we may not even make it to 8 Billion. Unfortunately, education is a resource and there is a limited supply. Education is not enough and we need to 1stly recognize the seriousness of the problem and then make laws to limit how many kids people can have. There are ways we can adjust the tax structure t this end. However, nature has a way of balancing too many of one species and it is not pretty.

@JackPedigo Agreed. Nature's way is not pretty. Neither is what humanity has recently done to nature. We literally have caused and are still causing one of the most massive of mass extinctions ever. It is almost more horrifying that we are able to discern this with science, yet our leaders refuse to take the science seriously and for selfish, cynical reasons, NOT because they honestly doubt the science. AND the masses are confused enough and suspicious and doubtful enough of science (let's face it, IGNORANT) not to be unified enough to demand better of those leaders. We might still destroy our own species. It is like a bad scifi dream.

@MikeInBatonRouge Could not agree more. Not all politicians feel this way, though and more humanist and atheist politicians are getting elected. The problem is they still have to walk a narrow path as the prevailing religious dogma has brainwashed too many into thinking this is only a small part of our life and need to keep focusing on some future heaven.
Because this is the sixth greatest loss of biodiversity science has named this the Anthropocene.

There is an excellent program on PBS called "Hacking Your Mind" and the episode of "Us vs. Them" speaks to how science can clearly show what drives people to do what they do. The show also shows how most of us are gullible and fall for ploys put out on the social Network and politicians like tRump. Basic human behavior has been used against us since the beginning of time.

Like state and local governments are going to "waste" money on mental health care. A lot of places just treat it like a risk analysis, a business decision.

@PadraicM Which is precisely why systemic racism is pervasive throughout law enforcement and the entire judicial system.
It is also precisely why predominantly black, AND I must add, INNOCENT people are being killed without being convicted of ANY crimes.

I think the only way the money will start being budgeted for combating proper training will be because the lawsuits being brought against these cities and states will end up costing them more than proper training and screening.
Money talks.
Additionally, an awful lot of people currently in power, at all levels, have to fucking DIE off.

You seem to believe that bad officers are "bad" to begin with and therefore should be filtered out of the system. But, the experiment in 1971 at Stanford University indicated that just putting people in power turned them into abusive persons. If that be true, perhaps there should be no permanent police, but a system similar to the draft in the Army years ago, wherein a person could serve for two years as a soldier, or two years a street policemen (with a cadre of detectives for investigating crimes). That system should logically result in fewer police shootings inasmuch as they would not have time to develop into abusers of power. It seems worth investigating, piloting to see if it would work.

@dahermit You're assuming what I may believe. You are incorrect.
I grew up surrounded by military and law enforcement members.

The Stanford experiment notwithstanding, mental health screening would weed out a lot of potentially dangerous people who have no business being given a gun and a badge.
Continued mandatory screening once on the job would help prevent abuses and assist those who require help coping with the stress of the job.
People who are racists would also be able to be weeded out, as well.

I do not discount your idea. Although, the military could stand to do more in the way of mental health screening for new recruits, and continued mandatory mental health screenings for all members. The military population is rife with mental health issues which manifest themselves in many violent ways.

How many times are we going to have this discussion before anything changes? It's frustrating, it's sad and people are dying.

Many people in law enforcement should never have been there in the first place. Giving police departments war toys only increases the bad attitude of some of them. We are all people and should respect each other in that way even while remaining safe.

@dahermit Just as most nations have abandoned the draft because the majority of people are simply not suited to military service, whether physically or temperamentally, most people are also not suited to law enforcement. As a corrections officer, I can't possibly count the number of people who've told me, "I could never do your job;" some of them civilian staff who work with me and see up close what we do.

Putting someone in a situation where their very life, and worse, someone else's, can hinge on a split-second decision, is not something to do lightly. Even worse is the idea of putting someone in that situation against their will. One of our officers was set up last month; a fight was staged, and when he responded to it, a steel pick was produced and he was stabbed in the side of the head and neck. If his partner had not reacted as she did, and in the very few seconds that she did, he would likely have been dead. She reacted due to her training and, I feel certain, the motivation that comes with choosing the career.

I've also seen veteran officers freeze under pressure. There are no guarantees. But I've found that experience and dedication matter.

@Paul4747 "ust as most nations have abandoned the draft because the majority of people are simply not suited to military service, whether physically or temperamentally..." I was in the military when there was a draft. I found that the severe discipline during that era DID shape even the most loathsome miscreants into usable soldiers with very, very few exceptions. Also, the military did not end the draft because people were not suitable...Nixon used the end of a draft in an attempt to lessen anti-vietnam war resistance. [politico.com]

@dave1459 Of course his life matters to him. But, there is a real difference between being alert and higly concerned and being afraid,. A person who is alert and highly concerned is much more likely to make goo, rational decisions, including regard for the safety of all involved. A person who is full of fear is much more likely to act irrationally and impulsively, often with bad results.

A start would be to vet all applicants and properly train them..according to fbi stats many law enforcement agencies have been infiltrated by kkk and white nationalist members..and most aren't trained for the job.

@Redneckliberal Yes, and also a national database so that the bad eggs can't go to other cities with a clean slate.