Here it is again: Police shoot another unarmed man

Police shoot an unarmed man.

This time it was in LA. And the news reports recite the same familiar sequence of events, as told by these news reports:

“A bystander shot the video which shows police wrestling with the homeless man.”

“Critics of the police department say the officers overreacted when they opened fire.”

“But investigators countered that, showing an enhanced image from the video.”

“The man forcibly grabbed one of the officers’ holstered pistols.”

“We owe the city a thorough investigation as to what happened.”

But we know what happened!

An unarmed suspect struggles with a police officer, goes for his gun, and the officer feels he has no other choice.

He has no other choice because his gun can be fired by anybody.

Related: Dave Ross says maybe New Jersey is to blame

So this story repeats itself even though there’s a potential solution: guns that only fire when in the hands of the rightful owner.

Yet this smart gun technology has been held back by the fears of gun rights groups that if these guns reach the market they’ll trigger a New Jersey law that would allow only smart guns to be purchased.

Well, the state senator who pushed that law says she has changed her mind. New Jersey State Senator Loretta Weinberg says she is ready to repeal her own law if the NRA will give the technology a chance because she now thinks it can sell itself without a mandate.

“If the gun is available, why wouldn’t people want it? The marketplace should take care of it,” said Weinberg.

Let the free market take care of it, she says.

Yet, the developers of these guns think they’ll be boycotted if they put such a gun on the market.

In the meantime, given the number of homeless people with mental illness, all of us know that this will happen again, and again, and again.