Odd indeed that Ed Schultz is not proposing this for police where he lives.
Never one to refrain from embracing a dumb idea, Schultz doubled down on one last week in response to a Justice Department report criticizing police in Ferguson, Mo., for racial bias in law enforcement -- the MSNBC action hero made the novel suggestion that Ferguson police, or at least "some" of them, should disarm.
Here's what passes for a brainstorm from Schultz during a discussion with Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson and MSNBC reporter Trymaine Lee --
DYSON: What we have to see is if the police stop killing unarmed black men. That's the proof in the pudding. Not simply economic opportunity, but they've got to stop being murdered unfairly.
SCHULTZ: Well, I'll give you this one -- what about disarming the police? What about just having them carry nightsticks and the authority to arrest? I mean, now it would take a brave person to do something like that, but if you really want to, there are places on the face of this earth that there are police officers that don't carry firearms. Now, you know, I know the right wing's gonna think I'm crazy for saying that ...
Widely accepted wisdom long before this, Ed, but you just bolstered that belief immeasurably ...
... but if you really want change, you have to institutionally show it to the people that you want to do this. And that would be part of a big social engineering project if Ferguson is going to turn around. That's how I see it.
Only hours later, during a late-night demonstration outside Ferguson police headquarters, two area police officers were shot. Both men survived their wounds and a suspect was arrested Sunday, the accused claiming he was actually aiming at other people, a defense unlikely to sway most juries.
Would the officers have been shot had Ferguson police actually implemented what Schultz is proposing before the incident occurred? Obviously it's impossible to know, but Schultz is suggesting that disarming police in Ferguson would defuse tensions. I'll stick my neck out and venture to say that if Ferguson police did not have guns that night, far more than two officers would have been targeted.
On his daily podcast this past Friday, Schultz wasn't backing down from his delusion (audio) --
What would it say to the people of Ferguson if we say that some of our law enforcement officers on the street, making sure everything's fine, they're not going to be armed? Well, that would tell the community that nobody's going to get shot -- not by the cops! And so they become instant honest brokers and they become diplomats of peace and they become someone who has to converse because their words would be the weapon to stand down if there is any kind of confrontation. And so I do think that this is something that should be considered.
I've never been to Ferguson, I don't know, I've seen the videotape. But you know what I saw last night, as far as the videotape of the news, no arrests and no shootings. So, I would call that progress.
Even after a grand jury decided against charging Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown last August (and a reminder to Professor Dyson -- Brown was unarmed though not for lack of trying. He assaulted Officer Wilson and tried to steal his gun, a mistake that cost him his life), and even after the Justice Department investigation corroborated this, Schultz is essentially still peddling the obscene lie of "hands up, don't shoot." Schultz's call to disarm police doesn't stem from racist policing in Ferguson -- it emanates from his belief in Wilson's unlawful use of deadly force to kill Brown.
Bad enough that so many liberals want to disarm law-abiding citizens in their amorphous devotion to "gun control." Taking firearms from cops as well all but ensures that only the lawless would have guns. A police officer saying pretty please when confronting a hardened predator would do little to change that.
