One thing these two idiots in St. Louis remind us is that if we’re going to have a less paramilitary and hyper aggressive kind of policing and approach to public safety you’re not going to be able to get there as long as the civilian population is so saturated with firearms.

2/ It’s not that one causes the other or that one has to wait for the other. But they reinforce each other. One reason police in other countries can make much less use of firearms, or do patrols without firearms is because very few civilians have them.

3/ We’re worries that our police think they’re operating in war zones or warriors. And we should. But lots of our civilians do too. The two things reinforce each other. They grow from the same social ills.