Obama and the liberals have shaped the issue of police shootings over the past two years since the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri (August 9, 2014) as…”Why are the police shooting young black men, many of them unarmed?”

But that confuses cause and effect.

The police are there to protect the community. Why are they needed? Because we don’t want those who will not obey the law to gain ascendance over those who do. So the quiet part of the community hires police to maintain the peace.

The police have force on their side for two reasons:

• to subdue the lawbreaker
• to protect themselves: to go home when the shift is over

The second point is critical. Police are authorized to use lethal force in order to protect their persons, since protecting their persons is critical to the success of their mission. Assault of a cop by – here by black males, but by no means limited to them in the wider world – is the first step in an altercation. The second step is the cop defending himself.

“Why are the police shooting black males?”

Wrong question. The right question is…

“Why are black males assaulting the police?”