[CAF Note: The Economist is dead wrong about gun control, but many of their other points are well taken. What is most interesting is that they are saying that the US police state has gone too far and could seriously damage the economy by destroying trust. They are right – except they would be well advised to use current tense. Arbitrary and capricious enforcement is destroying or oppressively taxing entrepreneurship and handwork everywhere you turn in the US these days]

The store camera tells a harrowing tale. John Crawford was standing in a Walmart in Ohio holding an air rifle—a toy he had picked off a shelf and was presumably planning to buy. He was pointing it at the floor while talking on his phone and browsing other goods. The children playing near him did not consider him a threat; nor did their mother, who was standing a few feet away. The police, responding to a 911 caller who said that a black man with a gun was threatening people, burst in and shot him dead. The children’s mother died of a heart attack in the ensuing panic. In September a grand jury declined to indict the officers who shot Mr Crawford.

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