Unpopular Opinion
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Police here are amongst the jobs with the highest union participation and while due to some special legislation they cannot go on strike their major union (there are smaller ones, one right wing, one for detectives only)are in a association with all major other unions here and they cooperate heavily - due to fact that they are seen as regular "public officers" with a small policing allowance they profit from the collective agreements the regular public administration workers fight for and the regular public administration workers on the other hand can use them as a bargain.
The treatment of minorities is a an issue and while a lot of officers are alright in that regards more than enough aren't - and that is something we need to address.
...but I must disagree on the armed population point - it is a absolute delusion that an armed population can "resist" a possibly oppressive government any better than an unarmed one as the nature of oppression is always systemic - and an armed individual is unable to withstand the tools of oppression the government can use on them, not even considering the actual force imbalance. Some amateurs with a assault rifle won't stand a chance against a trained military or police force. Instead of the false narrative of "we can topple the government with guns in our hands if necessary"(no you can't - and if you could the other side can do it as well) it would be far more important to secure democracy against extremism - what happens if this is not done is currently seen in the US.
Additionally a armed population fuels the "we against them"/"warzone environment" perception in part of the police force, which leads to an escalation of violence by the police, has an extremely detrimental effect for mental health patients and fuels the general danger for the population by providing more weapons for criminals.
There is an abundance of research on this topic that sustain this - an armed population is a very bad idea.