This country needs to stop being so gun obsessed. Period. I'm not saying "Wahh take away all the guns/wahh they want to take our guns," but christ people.
I mean, yeah, even if you are certified to carry, people shouldn't be stupid about it and be well aware that simply having it could be an issue in some situations. YOU may know that you are completely harmless in most cases, but a stranger, including a cop, does not know that. Sure, they shouldn't assume you may be trouble because of it, but unfortunately we no longer live in times where everyone is using muskets and old time rifles that can't be fired off so quickly and leave a little space for rational thought. We've become a shoot first ask questions later kind of culture... 'get them before they get us.' Because understandably no one wants to be the victim, but it's too easy to act too rash
I don't condone the overly rash actions by the police that have been involved in these terrible incidences, and certainly not in cases where there is actual prejudice involved, but the cops still have every right to fear for their own lives just as much as any civilian. If you interact with a cop and you're armed, then yeah, that's probably going to increase the amount of which that cop is on edge as well, they're still only human after all... and if the damn cop draws a gun, now the civilian is on edge as well... two armed people, capable of putting each other on edge and worry for their own safety, can't ever be a good situation.
If so many feel they must be armed for protection... why aren't we using rubber bullets more? Supposedly those may not be entirely kill-free(?), but they'd at least hopefully kill less often while getting the same desired result of fending off an assailant in most cases.
Why aren't cops using more rubber bullets? In areas that are riskier, why aren't they specifically working in pairs, only one with a live gun while the other is armed with a gun that ONLY fires blanks (separate so there is no mix up) and simply used to startle and subdue some people that are a struggle to arrest.
What kind of training are our police getting? Is there no mock training that tests a person's reaction time and fast judgement making in life or death situations?
I dunno... it's so terrible and generalizing on either side is never gong to help matters. It's never going to change until people all around are willing to change. We can't keep just making assumptions and judgements just based on race or social class and generalizing people from a certain background as all bad. But on that exact same note, we can't generalize all police as bad, racist, and keep allowing a culture that pushes the idea that the police are your enemy... that is wrongly then raising young people to hate and fear police, react combative if they have a run-in with them because they fear the police and then what... that puts the cops on edge themselves and creates a bad situation. Fault is in all hands.
