How about we first examine what we have, what is desired, what will have the least impact on vigorous enforcement of just laws, what will have the most beneficial impact on handling issues of mental health and vagrancy while minimizing risk to responders and how much it costs?

Depending on a given city, it may be that expenditures have to be increased because it’s impractical to cut too much from police funding and what can be cut won’t be enough to supply the services desired.

You suggestion is going to lead to some half-assed “solution” that leaves everyone worse off.

After all, if you ever actually needed the police wouldn’t it be nice to call 911 and not be told to take a number or “Your call is very important to us. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered in the order in which it was received. Current wait time is <click> 2.5 hours <click>.”

Or were you planning to do what about five million people did from March through the end of August and buy yourself a gun? They’re not just for cops anymore. Of course, there is such a backlog of background checks in California, that it’s taking the state as much as 30 days to process them, so get your purchase in soon.