The events of this week have been terrible. And they’ve been very depressing.

I have no doubt racism plays a role in bad policing every single day around the country. That is not to say all police officers are racists. That is not to say I don’t support and care about the safety of police officers. It is simply pointing out that we have a problem in this country. Racism is prevalent throughout our society, so why wouldn’t it also cause problems in police departments?

This week we had the awful events where two black men were shot and the events were captured on video. One in Minnesota and one in Louisiana. Awful. Tragic.

And then we had the mass shooting of 12 police officers, with five of them receiving fatal wounds. Awful. Tragic.

I find it horrifying that the way the Dallas Police ended the standoff following the shooting was to use a robot with a bomb. They found the suspect, drove the robot near him, and detonated it.

There are just so many issues here. I get that this guy killed cops and terrorized a city. And I honestly don’t feel sorry that he is dead. But I find it difficult to fathom that we are in a day and age when, because of the preponderance of guns in this country, and because people are now arming themselves with military style weapons, the police find it necessary to have robot controlled bombs to take out suspects.

One of the arguments by the gun loving right is that they need assault weapons so that they can rise up against an intolerable government. It is a stupid premise on many levels. First of all, who decides, and how do they decide, when we’ve reached a point where that is justified? Apparently, in the Dallas incident, this person reached a point where they felt they needed to stop the government from killing black men. Or maybe he just wanted retribution. I’m not condoning it at all. As I said, the idea of rising up against your government seems ridiculous.

After “the people” decide it is time to rise up, how are they going to win? Sure. They’ve gone to the local gun store and stocked up on semi-automatic hand guns, assault rifles, shotguns, and armor piercing bullets. But the police have remote controlled killer robots. How are you going to beat them? And even if you could, next you’re going to deal with the military. In case you didn’t notice, they have tanks, and missiles, and helicopters, fighters, bombers, drones, and all kinds of other highly destructive weapons. You’re not going to win. If you think you are, you’ve probably watched Red Dawn a few too many times.

I don’t feel any sadness that the shooter of the Dallas police is dead. But that isn’t the point. I am deeply disturbed that we have reached a level of armament in this country where police find it necessary to have robotic bombs to take our suspects.

We have a gun problem in this country. There is an actual arms race going on.