[NullInvictus]

You have to have been raised pretty sweetly to not have known this kind of racketeering was a 'thing' for a very long time. Pressure to hire cops is rampant. 'rent-a-cop' is not aimed at the fact that security companies apply aggressive mimicry to their people, but that these people are themselves often off-duty cops. Security companies are strongly "encouraged" to hire off-duty cops, and find themselves left out to dry or otherwise 'convinced' if they try to resist.

Before you add 'Why don't [you|they] do...' responses, recognize for a moment that the police in the U.S. are largely out of control, have undue control of local government and politics, and have an ideology that enforces self-righteousness and an 'enemy at the gates' siege mentality, and oh yeah, are able to apply violence at a level unmatched in society. These are not polite people, and the way one 'deals' with them has far more in common with radical militias rather than state bureaucrats. If you haven't encountered that, you're just lucky enough to have never threatened their interests.

[edrxty]

It's pretty eye opening to watch every bill pushed through in the name of firearm safety turning out to have massive exemptions for off duty and retired cops. They're such a powerful political force that it's outright expected they should have a disproportionate ability to deliver force even after they're retired.

[PumpkinSpice]

My favorite part is that California has a roster of handguns approved for sale. The pretext for its existence is consumer safety (it is entirely separate from bans on stuff like assault weapons or large magazines), but the actual effect is that you have a very limited selection in stores, and most of the designs are very dated.

But if you're a police officer? You get an exemption! Apparently, the state has no regard for your safety as a consumer, and allows you to buy whatever you want...

[edrxty]

And importantly, as a cop, you're allowed to buy off-roster (modern) handguns and then turn around and sell them to the public at a profit. You have to be slightly careful because the ATF doesn't like non dealers buying and selling tons of guns, but it's a huge racket where cops will make a few thousand dollars a year selling modern/desirable guns to the pubilc (through FFLs).

[mcv]

Why do po police officers buy their own guns? Do they not get their guns provided to them by the police department?

[cvccvroomvroom]

Another reason why I left California. You can't buy a Canik's as a non-LEO. Also, criminals get whatever guns they want and carry them while law-abiding citizens can't do anything except wish not to be mugged or murdered with strong objections. It's completely absurd given how violent America is.

[earthscienceman]

Can you tell me, with sincere curiosity, how you expect being able to buy modern handguns to make America less violent? I ask as a gun owner.

[hellojesus]

There's a saying, "An armed society is a polite society."

The reason is because of perceived threat. If very few people are armed, people are more likely to act a fool because they don't fear the consequences from npcs. Risk taking along these lines increases as does the physical delta. But as the probability of random npc folks carrying approaches one, suddenly there is a very real chance that acting a fool carries permanent consequences.

Consider the active shooter in a church that was stopped in Texas by a worshipper concealed carrying. One person stopped a tragedy. https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/man-who-took-out-church-gu...

And now consider other situations that tend to be heated where folks overreact: road rage, etc. Folks may be less likely to escalate things when they believe the other party has the ability to respond with deadly force.

This same hypothesis applies to mugging. While the mugger may get the drop on their victim, others nearby that are armed may be able to appropriately intervene to stop the initial assault.

Allowing the general public to not only be armed but carry the same stopping force as the baddies reduces the imbalance, leveling the playing field.

[adammarples]

And as usual Americans fail to spot that they have one of the best armed and least polite societies in the world. I'd put the case that a polite society is unarmed.

[danny_codes]

Except for the fact that this doesn't work at all in practice, it makes perfect sense.

[pkulak]

So, just so I understand, bad guys all have guns. And you wish you could have one too, for protection against said bad guys. But why is a firefight preferable to a mugging?

[a-french-anon]

There's that little something called "dignity". You know, trying to do something about your situation instead of rolling over and praying for the meanies to be lenient with you.

[datavirtue]

This. I used to live in an area that was overrun with a biker gang and had friends who had slight involvement with them and ended up getting intimidated into giving them their nicer positions like furniture and TVs. Classic bully shit but a grown adult coming into your house and taking your shit.

I had a retail shop in the community and also lived next to a bar and a property where they would congregate and some would roll into town and stay there. Very tense environment. When I first moved there I had no idea that it was like this.

At that point I armed myself and made the decision I was not going to take any crap off anyone.

Thankfully, no one gave me any shit but I have plenty of more stories from my time there.

The only choice for me was to arm myself. The cops were scared shitless and were unreliable for other reasons. One of the gang members had already opened up on one of the cops with an AK-47 in front of my store. He lived because it jammed.

[pkulak]

I find dignity in being alive for my family.

[andelink]

Not worth dying over

[freen]

They buy the guns from the cops.

[dclowd9901]

At 4x retail. Don’t think that isn’t part of the reason it’s set up that way.

[dclowd9901]

Must also be something there on propping up the select few for secondary sales.

[lobf]

What does buying a gun have to do with safety?

[PumpkinSpice]

It started as a program where you had to pay the state a pile of cash to have them carry out a number of tests, like repeatedly dropping the gun to see if it goes off on its own. They kept adding stuff, culminating in microstamping requirements that no manufacturer could or wanted to comply with - so only a small subset of pre-2007 semi-auto pistols could continue to be sold.

[mcpackieh]

California's Unsafe Handgun Act is ostensibly intended to protect consumers from cheaply manufactured handguns that might malfunction or otherwise be unsafe to operate.

Here is California's Attorney General explaining it:

https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bont...

> “California’s commonsense gun safety laws save lives, and the Unsafe Handgun Act is no exception,” said Attorney General Bonta. “Accidental shootings are preventable. The fact that children under five are the most likely victims makes these accidental gun deaths even more tragic and inexcusable. As weapons become faster, more powerful, and more deadly, this risk only increases. Flooding the marketplace with unsafe semiautomatic pistols that do not meet necessary safety requirements poses a serious threat to public health and safety, especially for children and young adults.”

> The UHA was originally enacted over two decades ago in response to the proliferation of low-cost, cheaply made handguns that posed consumer safety risks. Under the UHA, the California Department of Justice (DOJ) compiles and maintains a Roster of Certified Handguns that meet certain public safety requirements. Generally, a handgun must appear on the roster to be sold by a California firearm dealer.

> When the UHA was first enacted, revolvers and pistols were required to have safety devices and pass drop safety and firing tests at independent laboratories in order to be added to the roster. [...] The UHA has since been amended, adding additional safety requirements for semiautomatic pistols including that a new semiautomatic pistol must have:

> A chamber load indicator that indicates if the pistol is loaded; A magazine disconnect mechanism that prevents the pistol from firing when the magazine is not inserted; and Microstamping capabilities that allow law enforcement to trace a shell casing to the pistol that fired it.

So this law is ostensibly intended to protect people who buy handguns and those around them. But cops are exempt, because... cops never drop their guns?

[b5n]

It's worth considering that this is the same attorney general who recently doxed all law abiding concealed carry permit holders, applicants, and others (including but not limited to home address, phone, DL number, etc.) many of whom are victims of domestic violence, stalking, and sexual assault.

[lobf]

My point was that a gun doesn’t make you more safe, but the opposite. Anyone talking about buying a gun shouldn’t be discussing safety, they are unrelated concepts.

[mcpackieh]

You're [deliberately?] misinterpreting the stated intent of the law. A gun that goes off when dropped is substantially less safe than a gun which doesn't. People who buy guns are in fact justified in considering such factors.

I think there's a real case to be made that the Californian law is duplicitous and is actually intended to reduce the availability of handguns in California, but that's not the point being raised here. The point is that for some reason Californian cops are exempt from from the law. That's like exempting cops from the lawn dart ban, it makes no sense.

[greyface-]

Harm reduction is a component of public safety.

[giantg2]

Most of the reason for cops being security and being excluded from most firearms safety bills is because rhey already have a credential that was more strenuous to achieve than what the proposed bill is. That training, whether effective or not, is also seen to mitigate risks around litigation when they work security due to how our courts work (how things look can be more important).

Although there are other laws that do illustrate what you are saying.

[rpmisms]

In many cases (especially magazine capacity laws, the stupidest of all restrictions), cops are exempt while nobody else is exempt. They're simply a caste above you.

[giantg2]

Yeah, but I wouldn't consider stuff like mag restrictions as safety or security training. I would say that falls under the "other laws" part of my comment.

[xboxnolifes]

IF they're able to obtain this "higher credential", then they should have no issue obtaining the lesser one like everyone else.

[giantg2]

True. The point is to eliminate waste. For example, if you already got a psychological evaluation as part of being a cop, they use that one for the security license requirement in my state. At least in my state they still make you get the license, but they trim out the redundant portions.

[some_random]

You can take a look at Minneapolis to see how well those credentials work. Police very obviously cannot be trusted with a monopoly over violence.

[pard68]

You have a citation for your interpretation of "rent-a-cop"? I am intrigued but cannot find any use of the phrase other than something to the effect of "wannabe cop". Even the 1987 movie by that name is a former cop who works private security (fair warning I have never heard of the movie until reading the wiki summary a few minutes ago).

[mcv]

I live in a different country where this sort of racketeering would be extremely illegal and a national scandal if it happened. I find this article far too mild in calling out the blatant crime that these police officers openly engage in. With full knowledge of the city. People should be going to prison for this. A lot of people. That this is allowed to continue so openly is incomprehensible to me.

[cvccvroomvroom]

Some types of publics works projects require hiring police for traffic safety and insurance reasons.

In addition, retired police officers often can keep their uniforms and work privately in an official capacity.

[Ylpertnodi]

Impersonating a police officer? Where...?

[mnky9800n]

Don't forget if none of that gets them whatever it is that they want then they can just lie about whatever until they get it. Supreme court stamp of approval.

[TurkishPoptart]

Yes, but this epidemic of urban crime is very new for our generation. We haven't had these "catch-and-release" policies with violent criminals. We haven't legalized shoplifting for sums under $950 before. We haven't had DAs in many major cities that are opposed to jailing violent offenders for "diversity and equity" reasons.

[sneak]

> We haven't legalized shoplifting for sums under $950 before.

One of the main reasons for this is because mobile phones keep getting more expensive, and high school kids frequently steal other high school kids' phones. The limit keeps getting raised so that 18 year olds don't end up with felonies on their record.

[TurkishPoptart]

That is not related to why stores like Target, Rite Aid, etc. continually get looted in San Francisco and other west coast cities.

[jancsika]

> have undue control of local government and politics

Now, some facts:

In North Carolina at least, the Council-Manager form of government provides that the police chief is hired/fired by the city manager-- who is hired/fired by and reports directly to the city council. Depending on the city's charter, the manager may hire/fire the police chief with or without approval of the council.

Apparently there are a few city councils who have a charter that requires the police chief to be hired/fired directly by the city council.

This council-manager form is by far the most popular form of city government in NC. IIRC, there are only two other forms allowed by state law-- one is a city council without a professional manager (only an administrator with the elected council making all the important decisions), and one other one which I can't remember atm.

So on the local level, local sheriffs are hired/fired by the local government-- either directly, or by a professional manager who reports directly to the council.

County sheriffs are elected in NC. But the day to day goings on in a municipality-- i.e., any politics related to businesses hiring 'rent-a-cops'-- would be handled by local police officers. (Outside of perhaps one or two counties out of a 100, and unincorporated towns.)

Apparently, the council-manager form of government comes from a template for local governments that is used by many other states in the U.S. The only way I can think of that NC is special is that there are no county roads-- only state and town (which, again, puts citizens in contact with local police way more often than county police).

In conclusion, the very popular form of council-manager government is counter to your claim that local police have "undue control over local government and politics."

> These are not polite people, and the way one 'deals' with them has far more in common with radical militias rather than state bureaucrats. If you haven't encountered that, you're just lucky enough to have never threatened their interests.

I don't have the stats on radical militias. But I'd wager at least two orders of magnitude lower chance of being killed for threatening retaliation to a police officer in the U.S. than for threatening retaliation to a member of a radical militia.

Edit: threatening retaliation, as in their job/livelihood, to fit with your general statement "threaten their interests."

[sbarre]

And yet, stories like this one are not uncommon:

https://www.propublica.org/article/homicide-detective-st-lou...