condeelmaster (PRO)I am not in favor of violence. I believe that you can solve problems in other ways. However there are certain situations in which some force is required.
I'm convinced that force is a way of guaranteeing security and safety. That being said, the police must be capable and allowed to use that force in the adequate situations. In order to achieve that, police officers should carry a weapon with them. If police officers don't do so, they can't accomplish their duties completely. And when the police can't accomplish their duty, We lose our democratic right of security.
We cannot allow the streets to become more dangerous and our peers to become more unsafe and terrified. We can't permit chaos just because we are cowards.
Return To Top | Posted:
2016-01-20 10:32:16
| Speak Round
admin (CON)Round Forfeited
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2016-01-21 10:33:01
| Speak Roundcondeelmaster (PRO)I don't have anything to add to my argument and since admin forfeited I can't write anything.
Hope next round you don't forfeit!!!
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2016-01-21 11:58:41
| Speak Roundadmin (CON)First of all, I wish to apologize for forfeiting the previous round. The narrow time limit and my alarm not working this morning conspired to make this difficult for me, especially since I had a lot to say. I'll summarize a little more in this round and hopefully I can get it all in!
I'd also like to thank my opponent for offering up this challenge and welcome him to the site.
Why do we have a police force?
We broadly feel that the goal of police ought to be for the protection of the people and enforcement of the law. That is not to say, however, that police themselves are infallible. If police harm people or break the law, then there is a problem.
A basic protection that exists against this, is simply not to provide police with more resources than they need for their jobs. If police are quite capable of performing their duties without firearms, then there is no problem to solve.
What do officers do on regular duty?
While the tasks that officers do on their normal patrols is varied, it usually doesn't warrant a gun by any reckoning. If you're sitting there making sure nobody breaks the speed limit, you do not need a firearm. Or if you're door-knocking around a neighbourhood asking if somebody has seen some criminal, you do not need a firearm. Or if you're conducting a search of a former drug-lord's property, you do not need a firearm.
Much like police dogs are not taken by most police officers on regular duty, so too should firearms (in my view in this debate) be reserved for very few situations. If you will, only in irregular circumstances should police carry firearms - something like the UK model, where firearms are locked inside the police cars (so they're available if needed) but not with the officers as part of their regular duties.
Prevent corruption
The alternative to this is something like the US model, where cops become reliant on the use of firearms instead. This is wrong for two reasons.
First, it corrupts and perverts the justice that is the rationale for a police force in the first place. Police don't have it easy, but frequent force or threat of force by means of so lethal a weapon cannot be excused on regular duty. Even if this were not the case, less-lethal alternatives such as taser guns are far more useful materials to carry, as the goal is to subdue criminals as opposed to killing them.
Second, it extends natural criminological biases in that society. In America there's the whole "Black Lives Matter" movement for exactly this reason, as many feel that police are more likely to take risks with the lives of largely foreign cultures in the name of "self protection".
Security
Naturally an officer's security is important, but guns do not achieve this.
If you want to defend against somebody shooting you, then a gun will not stop a bullet; this is why police officers often wear armor. Armor is an effective way of defending against weapons, because it is able to protect officers against the impact of a bullet. Investment into firearms is not justified by protection.
Street Unrest
As an extension of the above point, armed cops contributes to unrest, and does not prevent it. What prevents it is taking guns away from criminals.
This might seem like an obvious point, but unrest is not the result of inadequate officer firepower. Numerous protests that actually had a police presence, yet nonetheless turned violent (often against the police themselves!) are a powerful testimony to this effect. Of course, there are a few cases where the executions of warrants to seize firearms may reasonably be expected to cause a standoff, and police may need to prepare for that - but such cases are exceptions, and not rules.
Summary
While pro is arguing for the "protection" of people first and foremost, I am arguing for the protection of basic values. A peaceful and prosperous society cannot coexist with an armed one.
We don't want a corrupt government, so why place the tools of corruption directly into the everyday arms of police. After all, the everyday people they deal with are largely law-abiding. It is only outliers and exceptions where firearms are required, if ever.
As for security of officers and the social cohesion of the common people, neither are enhanced by police brandishing guns. All it does is create targets.
The resolution is negated.
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2016-01-21 12:36:00
| Speak Roundcondeelmaster (PRO)I understand the worries of CON about security and corruption. But this has a more efficient solution. Instead of taking away guns from cops we should give them a better education.
If we leave policemen unarmed, they will be limited in their capacity of doing their job, and unsafe from the risk of the job. I know that a gun won't stop a bullet, but It will stop the shooter, which, at the end, es better. This mean kill whatever moves? Not at all. Policemen have certain techniques to neutralice a threat without killing it.
To solve the problem CON proposed, and avoid the risk of having damage we must educate our police. If police officers are excellently prepared the risk of doing harm to themselves or to others is minimal, if not none.
Also a more educated police force will have less corruption ratings. Educating will leave better moral understandings to cops, which will upgrade the police.
Lastly I believe that a pacific society can't exist without someone who is capable to ensure the pace and safety. The one who is capable of doing so is an armed police force.
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2016-01-21 13:12:29
| Speak Roundadmin (CON)Education
First of all, we note that pro doesn't evidence this claim. Just because somebody is educated in the use of firearms does not mean the harms I have substantiated will not accrue. Even if this were the case, pro has not proven it.
Of course, any police officer handling small arms needs extensive education in their use. We agree here. But this does not have any bearing on whether officers are armed on regular duty, or armed only when required as I advocate.
Guns stop shooters?
This is evidentially false. The USA is the most armed society in the world, and yet it also has the largest number of mass killers in the world. Clearly guns are incredibly ineffective at stopping shooters or other violent criminals.
In fact the opposite effect occurs - guns create a culture of violence, and in fact normalize it. As role models, when police carry guns, so too does everyone else come to see guns as a normal fact of life. This is not only true in the USA - if you look at some of the other most highly-armed states in the world, you'll find all of them are rife with so much violence, they are practically failed states - places like Somalia, which has the second-highest gun ownership rates in the world.
Use guns safely
When pro says that techniques exist to neutralize without killing, he also needs to explain why many of the most highly trained armed offenders squads around the world routinely kill people. Almost every week a new story breaks about some person killed through police violence.
This is not to say that explicit police brutality need exist - though of course that's a given. Nations invest millions into the proper training of police right now, and yet it hasn't escaped the police psyche - perhaps part of it is human nature. But when we're actually talking about "training to shoot somebody without killing them", what we're really meaning is "aiming a lethal weapon at the parts of the body least likely to cause death". For example, chests are generally considered more durable than heads.
This assumption, like most others, is very dependant on individual physiology. Even if police had perfect judgement and training, they would still kill people using guns if those people have certain medical conditions, were below a certain body mass, or even just were plain unlucky! Numerous people have died from bullets to the chest, just as people have died from bullets to the head.
Moral understanding
Just because you teach morals doesn't mean police will always abide by them in the field. Many police like the feeling of power and authority and it's not something easily rooted out in a classroom.
Even if police were moral angels who never did anything wrong, the fact that they're armed could still cause them to appear corrupt in the eyes of the general public. I discussed this in more length in my previous round.
The resolution is negated.
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2016-01-21 18:19:08
| Speak Roundcondeelmaster (PRO)Guns do stop the shooter
What I mean by this is that policemen without guns can't stop a shooter. Cops can't just say "police! freeze!" and wait for the shooter to be a nice guy. They have to use the force the y have to stop him/her.
If we don't allow police to have guns bad guys will continue to have guns. It's a false assumption to say that if cops don't have guns people won't have guns. I believe that it would be te opposite, people will feel insecure and will have more guns.
Education
As studies show (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abstract/10.1080/10511253.2014.923010), policemen with better education are better at their job and produce less accidents while using force.
What this proves is that the risk of guns can be minimized with better education, and in doing so solving the worries CON proposed.
Corruption will always exist
There will always be someone who doesn't have the morality to do his/her job. There will always be corruption. But taking away gun won't stop It. Police corruption isn't based on guns, but on intimidation, abuse of functions, bribes, mob connections, politics, and so on. Getting guns away won't stop corruption, proving the second argument against guns is also false.
Morals
I admit that teaching morals doesn't ensure cops to be good guy and not corrupts. But you must accept that teaching morality will decrease this. If cops understand morals better the possibility of them being corrupt is less.
Anyway, you can't make them all be good. There will always be a corrupt one. However, as I said above, guns won't fix this.
Lastly, the image of cops being corrupt just because they have guns is very subjective. As far as I'm concerned, guns make policemen look more credible, guns make people feel safer. Again, this is subjective, people can be against guns or in favour of them, and this doesn't prove the point that guns are good or bad.
Return To Top | Posted:
2016-01-22 04:43:52
| Speak Roundadmin (CON)Police need guns to stop a shooter
First, this is false - I gave the example previously of, for example, using a taser to attack a shooter. There are countless other non lethal subdual weapons that have a much reduced chance of death. So much for my opponent's opening statement that he believes other ways are superior to violence!
However, this is irrelevant to this debate anyway, because one would hope police don't generally encounter shooters on regular duty. This is not your everyday sort of police activity, and should be left to either a more specialized armed offenders squad, or to extraordinary circumstance. My model in this debate, after all, is not that police will never have guns, but that they will not carry the guns (or other weapons) around while on regular duty.
People feeling insecure
Again, I am compelled to point out that the evidence shows the opposite. Police armament has practically no correlation with lawlessness.
What guns do is normalize a culture of violence. They make it seem alright to have guns because the cops do. If nothing else, the people feel like they need to be able to defend themselves just in case the cops are corrupt! And that's perhaps the most dangerous of all.
If there is no culture of violence, then people have nothing to feel insecure about - because if you decrease the prevalence of guns in society, you make it harder for ordinary criminals to become shooters.
Education
I'll admit that education helps a little with reducing accidents, but it does not go far enough. When you're dealing with lethal force, it's not good enough that the protectors of society have even a 1% failure rate, because people's lives are at stake, and many of those people will be innocent.
Guns are the most lethal weapon known to mankind for their size. I want to question - why does my opponent insist on arming police with the one weapon most likely to kill somebody, and then expect them not to kill anyone? Education is profoundly unhelpful in defeating the whole purpose of the design of the gun, which is murder.
Police corruption not because of guns
My opponent is missing the point. Given that police corruption will exist (as he admits), guns make it a lot worse, as guns give the police ready access to the firepower required to kill people practically at will.
When people carry guns, they tend to feel more powerful. This is a normal reaction, because they are more powerful. It's easy to consider yourself above the rest of society when they carry guns but you don't. Likewise, for other people, they're going to feel relatively powerless/oppressed. It's hard to be on equal terms with a police officer while they carry weapons.
The resolution is negated.
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2016-01-22 11:04:25
| Speak Roundcondeelmaster (PRO)Round Forfeited
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2016-01-23 11:05:04
| Speak Roundadmin (CON)It appears that both my opponent and I have managed to forfeit a round each! I believe this is the final round, so I wish my opponent good luck in the judging.
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2016-01-23 11:06:46
| Speak Round
Judge: lannan13
Judge: darth_timon
Judge: Stick
Judge: Ketuvim
Sorry for last forfeit. Time problems. Good luck for the judging! Posted 2016-01-24 02:40:15