Why I’m so adamant that All Lives Matter
I realize that it’s become politically incorrect to say that all lives matter – that by doing so, some people somehow feel like I’m saying all lives *don’t* matter. Or like I’m saying there’s not a problem with people of color being gunned down by people wearing blue.
Look, I do get it that statistically said people have been getting the short end of the stick. However, I belong to another group of people who I would wager are a lot MORE likely to be gunned down by the cops – people with mental illness. 99% of the time I’m perfectly normal. 1% of the time I’m really not. I’m not *dangerous*, but I’m definitely way, way outside of normal. Numerous times I have had cops with their guns drawn and aimed at me, so I know of what I speak. I’ve never acted threatening towards them in any way, but nonetheless it would not at all surprise me if I were gunned down someday by a cop with had a itchy trigger finger.
But I’m not looking for special service for my group, because I think that’s part of the problem. I’m looking for general, broadband fixes that will help both people of color and the mentally ill – and anyone else who interfaces with our gaurdians:
1) Streaming video from body cameras, which can not be disabled nor easily tampered with
2) Guns and tasers that have small but powerful ANNs* and video cameras and software designed to make the ‘danger/no danger’ decision, so that even if a cop does pull the trigger, the gun will not fire. As a backup, two individuals (generally dispatch, who has streaming video from #1, and the officer in question) can override the computer to un-safe the weapon.
3) Until the day that #2 is a reality, any cop who shoots a innocent should lose their right to carry. Actually, anyone who shoots a innocent, period, should lose their right to carry. You’ve proven via the only test that matters that you don’t have what it takes to carry a gun. It’s *extra* important that this apply to cops, however, given that their job often puts them in situations where emotions are running high and split second decisions are needed.
#2 is just common sense. Humans are not really rational enough to be trusted with guns. Unfortunately we have a ton of them out there, and it’s going to be a long time before we realize this, but of all the guns you want to be safe, the guns carried by the guardians are the most important, because they might see use at any time, 24×7, they’re always loaded and always being carried.
In any case, while it may not be possible to preserve all lives under all circumstances, all lives matter. The lives of our guardians matter. The lives of people of all colors, stripes, and religions matter.
* = Artificial neural networks. It should not be that difficult, in a era when we can do face and voice recognition, to teach a computer to recognize when there’s real danger, especially once we collect a corpus of incidents where there was real danger from #1.
July 24th, 2016 at 8:25 pm
When you’re right, you’re right.
(Sometimes I am so, so scared for you out there.)
July 25th, 2016 at 12:54 pm
The possibility of someone mentally ill being shot has been at the forefront of my mind many times. Very scary and sad. Is the technology possible? I don’t know what ANNs are and the decision to shoot or not obviously has to be made so very quickly. As I recall, there have been shooting incidents involving the deaf, as well. Well written.