Posted on 10/23/2003 4:36:27 PM PDT by Richard Poe
AN ALL-OUT REVOLT against gun control may be brewing among rank-and-file police officers. In my last column, "Gray Davis’ Cop-Killing Gun Law," I revealed that anti-gun zealots such as Sarah Brady and Ted Kennedy have found a new enemy: cops. No longer content to disarm ordinary citizens, gun prohibitionists now want to strip off-duty and retired police of the right to keep and bear arms. Reader reaction to my column was mixed. Virtually every correspondent favored gun rights, but many expressed disdain for the rights of police. "Maybe when their CCW [Concealed Carry Weapon] rights are stripped away they will look more favorably on ALL of us being allowed to carry," grumped one reader on the FreeRepublic.com message board. "Police officers should not get special rights." "Hear Hear! Screw the cops… let them see how it feels!" responded another. "[I] find it hard to feel too sorry for the cops," opined a third reader by e-mail. "…Let them taste some of what we supposedly free Americans have been dealing with. If I can't carry across state lines or into a government building, why the hell should a cop be able to?" The resentment these readers express is understandable. Police spokesmen often publicly applaud gun crackdowns. But police brass in big cities are not free to speak their minds. They get their marching orders from City Hall. If they want to keep their jobs, they must toe the party line. Often that means pretending to support gun control, when in fact they oppose it. During a 1990 crime wave in New York City, an ex-cop named Stephen D’Andrilli suggested on a TV talk show that the city issue one million permits to carry handguns. Host Dick Oliver asked then-New York Governor Mario Cuomo to respond. Cuomo snapped, "Why don’t you ask the cops what they think of everybody packing guns?" Oliver replied that a Mr. Byrne, then head of the Police Benevolent Association, had said of D’Andrilli’s plan, "It’s a good idea." "Well, somebody better talk to Mr. Byrne, straighten him out," said the governor. Many high-ranking police have been "straightened out" behind the scenes just as Governor Cuomo prescribed. "The Clinton Administration was particularly successful at enlisting police support for gun control," notes the Web site of the Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA) a national anti-crime organization of law enforcement professionals, crime victims and concerned citizens, based in Falls Church, VA. "[The Clinton White House] funneled millions of your tax dollars in political payoffs, disguised as `research’ into the pockets of national law enforcement organizations…," states an online article published by the LEAA. "…In one year during the Clinton Administration, the Police Executive Research Forum, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Sheriffs Association and the Police Foundation collectively hauled in $4.4 million in Justice Department grants. …[P]olice groups that scurried to do Clinton's bidding happen to be the same ones that were awarded the lucrative federal grants." The same LEAA article notes that many police officers were literally ordered to support the Brady Bill and the 1994 "Assault Weapons" Ban. "In some outrageous cases, police officers who actually opposed the legislation were forced by their superiors to appear in staged photographs as if they were solidly behind gun control!" charges the LEAA. Despite all the payoffs and political arm-twisting, when the National Association of Chiefs of Police conducted a mail survey of 15,000 sheriffs and police chiefs in 1996, 93 percent said they approved of law-abiding citizens arming themselves for self-defense. More and more pro-gun cops are working at the grassroots level in support of citizen gun rights. Shortly after the 9-11 attacks, Sheriff John Raichl of Clatsop County, Oregon proposed recruiting armed citizens to guard docks, bridges, reservoirs, power stations, gas lines and other potential terrorist targets. Governor John Kitzhaber shot down Raichl’s plan. Kennesaw, Georgia and Virgin, Utah passed laws requiring every household to own at least one gun. "Hundreds of towns and cities are passing or considering similar ordinances," claims VirginUtah.com, a Web site which promotes the town’s unusual gun laws. Meanwhile, Sarah Brady and Ted Kennedy continue antagonizing police by opposing Senate bill 253 – a law that would permit active and retired cops to carry concealed weapons anywhere in the USA, without restriction. Gun-ban activists have made a fatal error by targeting police. They have laid the groundwork for a grassroots alliance of gun owners and lawmen – a coalition that could well tip the scales in favor of our beleaguered Second Amendment.
__________________________________ Richard Poe is a New-York-Times bestselling author and cyberjournalist. His book The Seven Myths of Gun Control was just released in paperback. Poe’s forthcoming book, The New Underground: How Conservatives Conquered the Internet will be available soon.
Posted on Wed, Oct. 22, 2003 The Philadelphia Inquirer
Police chiefs' conference opens in Phila.
By Ira Porter Inquirer Staff Writer
For the next few days, Center City should be safer than usual, with more than 15,000 law-enforcement officials from around the world in Philadelphia for the 110th annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
Mayor Street welcomed conference attendees yesterday at an afternoon luncheon at the Convention Center, where the event will run through Saturday. Street was one of several big-name guests to greet officers. The chiefs will also welcome U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Gov. Rendell, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller this week.
The conference, which is not open to the public, is a chance for officers to network and educate one another about different law-enforcement tactics being employed around the world.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson, who also attended yesterday's opening, thanked the chiefs' association - and its president, Joseph Samuels Jr. - for bringing the conference to Philadelphia for the first time in 37 years. The city hosted the chiefs in 1955 and 1966.
"We have every intention of making this one of the best conferences in the history of the IACP," Johnson said, and then joked that former Police Commissioner John F. Timoney offered to host the conference while he was here - and then left. Johnson, who has urged his officers to attend the conference, said the department would lead several workshops, including one focusing on Philadelphia's antidrug program.
Exhibits will begin today, showcasing 1,600 booths with new technology, mapping systems, vehicles, and a host of other tools used in law enforcement. The conference has 120 workshops listed, covering issues from homeland security, terrorism and community policing to law-enforcement ethics.
Also today, a group of chiefs representing major American cities will formally urge Congress to extend the Brady Bill, which bans assault weapons. The Brady Bill is set to expire next year, and groups including the National Rifle Association have been trying to persuade Congress to let the law expire.
Benjamin Braxton, chief of police in Willingboro, Burlington County, came to Philadelphia yesterday with hopes of taking new tactics back to his department. "We're all talking about issues we may need to know," Braxton said. "We're here to pick up new ideas. Every police chief has some problems, and there is some chief somewhere who has had the same problem."
The problem is as long as some of the LEO brass are in favor of gun bans, then I have a hard time gunning up any sympathy for them. On top of that, the reporter who wrote this piece is obviously a dufus; he doesn't know what the hell the Brady Law is nor that it is not that rotten piece of crap that bans so-called AW's. It is just another demonstration of how the press is deliberately ignorant about the RKBA, because their minds are already made up, not to be confused by actual facts or by some real checking of facts before writing stupid anti-freedom articles.
This should be a clear warning to them that they will someday be disarmed when it is only their own personal defense or that of their families which is at stake. Police who infringe the right to keep and bear arms have no justification for doing so and are themselves violating the supreme law of the land.
They'll take our money in dues, but they only beat the drum over such LEO-friendly issues as national CCW reciprocity for active and retired LEOs while usimg their "concern" for the rights and interests of "civilians" as front to stay afloat with donor dollars.
They doggedly beg on at least a monthly basis for donations and even admit that they are in financial doo-doo.
AMF, guys. Market forces are in play...
Maybe it’s some kind of class envy everyone or no one? How about convicted felons or illegal aliens should they be part of the everyone?
I was once ordered by the the city I worked for to tell citizens if asked the question, Should I buy a gun, “NO guns are unsafe to have around the home and you are more likely to shoot a member of your family then a burglar.” So when asked that question I would answer, “I have been ordered to tell you, NO guns are unsafe to have around the home and you are more likely to shoot a member of your family then a burglar. Then I would say, “I have a number of guns in my home and every member of my family can shoot them well.”
Street cops have a greater percentage of NRA members then the public and most police range masters are NRA trained. Your gripe is with the chiefs and city management and your legislators not the rank and file cops. The street cop can not make decisions on the constitutionality of the laws he is sworn to enforce or your system of justice will begin to fall apart for that action in itself would be unconstitutional and lead to confusion amongst the governed.
You think you are offended. I am the third generation in my family to own this house, in Falls Church, VA...
And we have been screaming for years, THOSE F%%%%%% ARE IN FAIRFAX!
(Our post office serves a large area. If you are served by our post office, you have a Falls Church address.)
Was there anything during the Clinton years that wasn't fake?
Thanks for the excellent link. I have added it to my gun link page.
Here's the trend:
My state passed a law that allows officers who obtain an Associate's to get a 10% pay increase; 20% for a Bachelor's; 25% for a Master's (Crim. Just. or Law only). About half the guys who never went to college took advantage of the thing and got degrees at the diploma mills that sprang up.
A lot of the fellas get their brains washed but good. Without a firm technical understanding of the foundational aspects of US tradition, they are at the mercy of liberal college profs and their fawning, brainless fans in the mixed classes. Cops get called Nazi's and such for expressing an opinion about this or that conservative notion, and they usually cow because they don't know how to defend or even articulate the truth they can feel in their guts.
The rank and file in this Northeastern State is being 'transformed' in other ways, too. I could go on.
Suffice to say, don't depend on protection for your rights from PO's. Conservatives are marginalized: Libs are awarded rank. You wouldn't believe the stuff some of these college educated cops spew as 'known fact'. It's like "The Body Snatchers".
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