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What people in this thread are missing or ignoring:
- The University of California is known for being a place for political protests
- These protests do not always stay peaceful
- These protests are not always primarily student-run or consisting of students
All combinations have happened. Peaceful student-run protests with overreactive police. Violent non-student protests with police doing their job to control things. And everything in between.
Do you really think the UC is the only university in the world having protests? Because you know... I've seen protests in so many other countries but none of them had a university buying a fucking grenade launcher to "pacify" them.
The tear gas is definitely excessive, but the right amount of “weapons” to buy is not 0.
That's exactly the amount of weapons universities in other countries buy. And apparently, they all work and deal with protests frequently.
Do they have “protests” where they go smash any business in the surrounding area that’s a franchise of a recognizable brand? When it started as a protest about a politician?
You think other countries don't have protests?
I just don’t think it’s unreasonable to use force to stop things from actively being destroyed.
Yes, and the police force from the city, which by the way is not as militarized as the American one, deals with people without the university needing to buy weapons.
Ah, so the problem you see is the university having its own police department.
I definitely do think it’s a bit weird that the university has its own police. That’s not uncommon for universities in the United States. I’ll be honest that I don’t fully know the history behind it.
No. The problem is not just the university police, but how they deal with protests. First of all, a university having a police force is already crazy, but dealing with protesters with grenade launchers? Maybe America's problem is not the protests but how they think they should deal with them, just saying.
Because if you tell me that the police need to arm themselves that much because citizens can be armed too and they need to counter those weapons then the problem is still weapons.
the problem with the person you're arguing with is that they clearly value property more than the human. Who cares if a business gets destroyed? Well in america you don't have the support structures to help that business recover from that, since insurance will try their damn hardest to not cover it, and the government isn't going to help. So the person you're arguing with is arguing from a completely different position than you. You're arguing "why are you using to force to stop protests" and they're arguing "property might be destroyed, so you have to stop that".
First of all, a university having a police force is already crazy.
You’ve already said the university having its own police force isn’t what you are really concerned with.
but dealing with protesters with grenade launchers?
So here’s the part where you keep straw-manning. I’ve agreed with you on this point several times. Tear gas is excessive. I find it hard to come up with a scenario where tear gas isn’t excessive. There should be limits on the amount of force police can use.