plawolf
Lieutenant General
To be very honest, your suggestions could only happen in ideal world:
Until the day we can replace police officers with terminators, or iron man armor become standard issue, it's just unfair to tell officers at the line of duty to adopt the "let the suspect shoot first, then we shoot back" approach. It's one thing about unwarrented brutality and suspects giving officers the wrong signals, which in the latter case the suppects is totally begged to get shot.
Just where in my last post did you get the impression I advocate that police wait for the suspect to shoot first?
And you ask those "fringe groups" to go through the systems? Please, the very fact that they formed into fringe groups is because they distrust, if not totally despise, the system in the first place. In short, the only outcome could only be the ugly one.
Fringe groups need to learn to respect the system. They can learn that themselves, or they need to be taught.
Frankly, the authorities have been far too lenient with their handling of this case.
They would have avoided a lot of the bitterness of the sneaky way they mounted what is effectively an ambush or trap by point blank refusing to negotiate until the armed trespassers surrendered at least their weapons from the start.
I would have surrounded them and promised that their case would be fairly re-examined once they turned in their weapons and kept my word as I persecuted them for armed trespass.
That would have seemed harsh to many, but would have been fair, just and honourable, and infinitely better than the sneaky, untrustworthy and dishonourable reputation law enforcement have earned from the way they did handle it.
I think the fringe groups could have been taught at least a valuable lesson that armed resistance is categorically the wrong way to voice their grievances and concerns, and that they will be punished for trying it.