USA - The case for not giving police officers guns

OFF THE WIRE
copblock.org 
Giving cops guns creates situations where lethal weapons are used when they otherwise never would have been. Civilian rights have been abused many times, and thanks to the modern age and Youtube and video cameras, that is UNDENIABLE. The system needs to change. Maybe taking their guns away is not the right way, but the way things are happening right now is not okay either. The police have becoming a self-serving monstrosity with no place in our society, and I don’t know about you, but it scares the crap out of me. Next thing I know the police are going to be going for the Jews and no one is going to stop them then either. The situation that has developed in this country has created a terrible modern precedent for the suppression of free speech and the freedom of its citizens. Only those to stupid to realize not to fear the police don’t, and that is not right.
 All these cops beating on kids need to have resigned when they got ordered into those situations, their oath is to protect and serve, not shoot to kill anyone that their orders tell them is the enemy. Its real nice having a big gun to kill the enemy with, but suddenly the enemy is a bunch of college kids and out of work people who have been wronged by a social system that has failed them, the old man next door, the war veteran, the citizen trying to walk to work.
Police violence will only push moderates and conservatives to sympathize with the movements like Copblock.org. People that would otherwise have maintained their support of the police turn on the television and see armed and armored police thugs with taped-over badge numbers and blacked-out helmet visors beating up people in the streets with batons, shooting at them with gas grenades and rubber bullets and in general stomping on anyone that gets in their way. Stories are abound of people just caught in the crossfire at these events.
Taking away a police officers means of killing someone might hinder them in situations where actual aggressors come at them, but I don’t think that they’ll have a problem putting someone like that down with a rubber bullet instead of a metal one. They do it in England, don’t they? Officers will develop a new mentality, one in which they will know that their equipment kit does not involve an item that can kill someone. Maybe leaving them a few shotgun shells in the trunk for a backup would do the trick. 
It’s all about mentality. Once people get used to a certain system they get comfortable in it. They resist change. The police in this country are used to walking around with a gun. They have grown used to it. They are comfortable with the fact that they might have to kill someone at any point. CHANGE that equation and they will yell and complain that we are hampering their ability to be tactical, but it’s all just a knee-jerk reaction to the change. The numbers will speak for themselves. Cops will not start getting killed more overnight. Things will remain much as they are, but at least innocent people will not get killed anymore. That would be the only real change from taking guns away from thugs with badges. 
-Ethan I. Solomon