We’ve been struggling for a good way to say this, the ACLU seems to have said it for us.
…police admitted that Bradford had not “brandished” the gun but simply had it in his hand when officers approached.
The officers shot and killed Roberson, even as witnesses warned them he was a security guard. Roberson has widely been lauded as a hero, and even the police department later conceded Roberson was “a brave man who was doing his best to end an active shooter situation.”
Philando Castile was killed in 2016 after telling the police officer who stopped his car that he had a gun and a license to carry one — the recommended procedure for announcing the presence of a gun to an officer
We’ve talked before on this blog about the unequal protection of the right to keep and bear arms; how gun control has roots in both historical and modern day racism; how there’s little disagreement that there is a problem with some modern policing unfairly targeting people of color. We’ve mentioned that it’s almost astonishing that more minorities aren’t armed, particularly when seeing what has happened to them at the hands of the public and police. We’ve discussed the long history of both minorities being armed, and the government’s apparent intent on disarming them.
Whatever one’s view of the appropriate scope of the Second Amendment, it ought to extend to all equally, without regard to race.
Demand an accounting.
Support your fellow citizens in the exercise of their Constitutional rights (all of them).
Stop making excuses when those rights are violated just because your team tells you its OK.
Nothing can bring these young men back. Let’s do our best to make sure they didn’t die in vain and make real changes so that it doesn’t happen again.