During the Dallas police shooting, matters were serious complicated by a number of protesters who showed up with slung semi-automatic weapons, in accord with Texas' Open Carry laws. Problem is, once the shooting started, police apparently had problems figuring out how many shooters there were, and which of the folk running away might be among them.
This time it ended only in mistaken arrests. Next time, it's all too easy to imagine a far worse outcome.
(Oh, all those "good guys with guns"? None of them — aside from the cops — appear to have done anything about the "bad guy with a gun". And that's probably just as well, too, because that would have likely ended far worse all around.)
Texas Open-Carry Laws Blurred Lines Between Suspects and Marchers – The New York Times
The mayor of Dallas suggests tightening the state’s gun laws to make it tougher to carry long arms in public.
I suspect that the actual result of more people carrying guns in a situation like this will be more gunfights, as people shooting at the shooter are mistaken for the shooter and get shot at.
And of course, had the shooter been white, they would probably have kept negotiating.
+Andreas Geisler I don't know that I completely agree with that (esp. as apparently the Dallas PD has done a lot to fix some of those sorts of systemic problems of late). I'm unconvinced, though, that the course they took was necessary, even against a cop-killer.
It's hard to know for sure now, yeah. It seems a robot would have been able to deliver a tranquilizer or other inhibitor, though.
How long have they had those bomb-drones? Who thought it would be a good idea?
My understanding is that it was the same sort of thing that they use for investigating (or blowing up) suspected bombs.
Why a tear gas cannister, or a flash-bang, or something like that could not have been used is unclear. Or even something less than a full pound of C4.