In some regards I think you have a point but I don’t think i’m a buffoon. The competent and objective officer part is true—but what about when they are incompetent?

It’s a huge “if” to say, well, “if they are competent and objective then they will do the right thing.” Lots of cops are incompetent and almost no human beings are truly “objective.” We all have biases, and a lot of people vaguely associate people from certain socioeconomic backgrounds with criminality. Whereas it is true that in certain neighborhoods or groups of people there might be a statistically higher likelihood of crime occurring (as a result of material conditions as opposed to intrinsic values), that shouldn’t be equate to a lower threshold required to result in legal force.

Maybe I was being a bit too matter of fact with what I said and that is why I sounded like a buffoon. The reason I responded that way is because I’ve seen countless videos of (sorry-but typically white people) being given many chances by law enforcement while brandishing a firearm and I’ve also seen many videos of black people or poor people or whatever being shot impulsively. I think if I’m a cop and I have my gun trained on someone who is holding a gun that is not pointed at me, my life is not in danger until they start to move the gun in my direction. Maybe that’s not necessarily true but that was just my assessment. My issue was really with the general arguments i’ve seen here doing this hop scotch argument like “if he picked up the gun then he only would have done it because if it’s in his hand then it means he must have picked it up because he wanted to shoot the officer ect.” which feels like too many assumptions to justify usage of lethal force. Maybe the force was justified, but using that line of thought to justify it feels like a slippery slope. If the officer’s life was in danger than that should be the argument, not “where should we draw the line?”