A West Palm Beach, Florida man called the police Thursday when his drunk, agitated wife began throwing things at him. The man, Dean Perkins, had left the family home after his wife’s display of belligerence, but stated that he did not fear for his life. However, he and a roommate suggested that Veronica Harding-Perkins, Dean’s wife, was possibly armed.
Police approached the house in the usual manner – guns drawn and at the ready – and when, according to one officer, she pointed a gun at them, she was promptly shot dead. Usually, when a person is holding a gun, when they suddenly face another the gun does, too. Guns are designed to be held in such a way that this happens unless one consciously avoids it, which takes training and awareness. Therefore, it is all but guaranteed that there will be a lot of shootings when police suddenly approach and surprise armed civilians on their property (I know from personal experience that police use the element of surprise in these approaches and stay out of view until the last moment to gain a tactical advantage).
Mr. Perkins expressed dismay over the shooting, saying “If you know someone has a gun and they’re drunk, do you just approach the residence? If they knew she had a gun, what were you hoping to accomplish by walking up to the door? I’m not painting my wife as lily white or innocent, but at the same time, I’m saying the way this was handled was unconscionable.”
Unconscionable or not, this is the standard response to DV incidents, thanks to DV legislation demanded by feminists. Rather than allow people, many of whom are likely suicidal rather than homicidal, to calm down, arrests are mandated, and the sooner the better, which has resulted in an unending stream of shootings over “domestic disturbance” calls.
In the large majority of cases it is men who are killed, so feminists probably view these isolated cases as acceptable collateral damage in their crusade to have as many men shot by other men as possible.
I believe in the principle of harm reduction. The fewer people killed, the better. Feminists may point to a lower incidence of DV, but it is clear that this has come at the cost of a great number of extrajudicial executions, and has prompted many murder-suicides as people have grown aware that the likely response to a “domestic” 911 call is a swift and brutal arrest by storm troopers with assault rifles and body armor. It is easy to claim “progress” when none of the killings or violence carried out by the state make their way into crime statistics, but it is a deeply dishonest and inhumane policy to sweep tragedy under the carpet in this manner.
