A heavily armed man wearing body armor who had killed 7 people, including a retired police officer

[Jedi Guy]

62. "I don't think cops that are doing traffic stops need to be armed."

My apologies, but this statement is absolutely asinine. I used to be a dispatcher for the Tucson Police Department more than 10 years ago now. The department published internal statistics which indicated that 70% of the cars stopped by officers contained a weapon (either on the occupant(s) of the vehicle or stashed somewhere inside). So suggesting that cops pulling traffic stops shouldn't be armed is just ludicrous.

Secondly, while some larger departments will have traffic enforcement units, that's comparatively rare. Most traffic stops are conducted by regular patrol officers who aren't assigned to an active call, and who therefore do need to be armed for when they are assigned to an active call, or by motorcycle cops who just pull traffic all day.

People act like traffic stops are normal, but they're often the most stressful situation for the officers themselves. They don't know who's in the car, whether or not they're armed, and whether or not they're dangerous. For all they know, the person in the car is armed with a hand cannon, has a pound of meth under the front seat, and has decided that come hell or high water, they're not going back to prison. Or the person in the car is a kindergarten teacher who wouldn't hurt a fly. But until they walk up, initiate contact, and assess the situation, they have no idea how that interaction is going to go.

As an illustration of why cops pulling traffic need to be armed, I had two officers pull a guy over for running a stop sign. The moment they got out of their car, the guy got out of his car, raised a gun, and started blasting. So given how prevalent guns are in the States, cops pulling traffic most certainly do need to be armed.