His plan only attacks the pension if cops don't snitch on their fellow officers. So if you are a month from retirement, you better become Snitchy McSnitchpants on your fellow officers to protect your retirement.
Because cops know they have an entire army of other armed cops that will give them a firepower advantage of anything goes down. Take away all their guns and they will become a lot less willing to escalate things.
The key to checking the power of any authority figure is to make them legitimately fear for their very lives if they begin to abuse the power they have been given. That fear does not exist among the current authority figures in this country which is why things have gotten so out of hand.
I don't see the wisdom in jumping all the way from granting police officers near-total authority with almost no accountability to making them fear for their lives. I'd like to try giving them proper training, holding them accountable for their actions, and building out the larger framework of criminal justice around them first. Maybe after we genuinely try some constructive ideas, if those don't pan out, we could threaten them with death. We haven't really committed to repairing a clearly-broken system yet, but the small, tentative steps we've taken (bail reform; drug courts; veterans courts) have shown some promise. I guess I can't speak for everyone, but
I'd like to live in a society with
less shooting of people rather than more, including of police officers. I'd bet the guy who knelt on George Floyd's neck wasn't even worried about his colleagues telling him to cut the crap, or about his sergeant assigning him garbage duty for a week, or about his lieutenant tearing him a new [nostril], nevermind about being fired or charged with a crime (I read somewhere that this specific officer had multiple complaints against him, and nothing was ever done - I don't have a link handy, though). And, frankly, the possibility that police officers might get shot doesn't seem to deter this kind of behavior. On the contrary, it's one of the things that people use to justify it. I think police officers already frequently characterize their job as akin to a war, and try to arm themselves accordingly. Ramping up the violence doesn't seem to make violent people less violent. And anyway, even if we
did have an armed insurrection that somehow put a lid on the problem, we would still need a comprehensive overhaul of the entire criminal justice system. Just for starters, I'd like to see a 100% turnout rate by African-Americans and anyone else interested in criminal justice reform at the polls this Fall. I won't hold my breath, but maybe I'll cross my fingers.