Should we take them away from the cops as well, so only criminals can have them? Or should we allow law abiding citizens to defend themselves, so you have an option other than becoming a victim?
What laws are worth if they aren't protecting me? I might be unable to protect myself, right? A strong young man may have a physical force advantage over an old disabled woman, right? So the idea is that the police should enforce laws which say it's illegal to harm me, which we're calling "police protecting me"?
Law protects "order". That mostly means "protects the interests of the rich". Sure, avoiding rampant crime to the point that it's an obstruction to commerce is the cops job. Stopping the mugger/killer/rapist that's attacking you personally isn't.
If the cops have a choice of stopping 2 crimes or the crime happening to you, they're going to choose the 2 crimes. Presumably you and definitely I would choose to prevent the crimes happening to ourselves. Thus, self defense.
They are a paramilitary force lacking the civilian supreme command that, in the US, the actual military has, empowered by but not obligated to act to enforce the law, an independent and centralized power center.
No. We should eliminate the cops (who have actively contributed to the current problem as a political protest to lobby for more control) and rebuild SF law enforcement as a non-monolithic function distributed in ___domain-specific units throughout local government (that component of the solution is not specific to SF, but SF is more accutely problematic than most places.)
Probably less of the total manpower directed to enforcing the law should be armed with firearms, an armed paramilitary force is not a universal solution, but there still should be armed enforcement.
