Prior to the attack the shooter had been posting online, asking people to fight back, following the deaths of black men at the hands of police. Officials said in a statement that the shooter was "certainly seeking out police."
LIVE on #Periscope:.@MayorKipHolden, @LouisianaGov and others provide an update on yesterday’s fatal shooting of o… https://t.co/zb3qBUCDdX
— City of Baton Rouge (@TheCityofBR) July 18, 2016
Wendy Cukier, vice president of the Research and Innovation Center at Ryerson University in Toronto, told Radio Sputnik that, "in the current environment, given that there are almost as many guns as people, it creates a very volatile situation."
According to Cukier, the militarization of law enforcement is not what America should be worried about at the moment, even though there are consistent issues with police use of guns and other weapons against ordinary citizens. There is a need in better training, she suggested, as well as in the repercussions of the misuse of firearms, but armed civilians is a much bigger cause for concern.
The broader issue really remains the availability of firearms and lack of effective control," Cukier said, adding that improved, common-sense gun-control laws would help to prevent such attacks in the future, but that the structure of American government makes it almost impossible to pass such laws on a state level.
Gregg Carter, of the Research and Innovation Center at Ryerson University, agreed with Cukier, saying that the problem lies in the American political system, and that new gun laws are unlikely.
The aftermath, he suggests, will find police responding differently, and more cautiously, wearing body armor and increasing their preparedness for demonstrations and protests.
A number of the larger police departments in the US have issued safety recommendations for officers, in response to a wave of shootings across the country.
Carter agreed that the availability of guns is the root cause of such deadly attacks.
"Today on the internet it is no big deal to acquire a firearm anonymously, so it's actually not a state to state problem, it's a national problem," he told Radio Sputnik.
Three police officers were killed and several others injured, including one who remains in critical condition, in a Sunday shooting in Baton Rouge.
The location of the shooting is some five miles from where police shot and killed Alton Sterling last week, triggering protests across the country.
