The Cop Revolt Against Gun Control

RichardPoe.com ^ | October 23, 2003 | Richard Poe

[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.

[El Gato]

Peace officers were never intended to be soldiers

Even soldiers may be called upon to make such distinctions. After all, they do take an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic" and to "bear true faith and allegiance to the same". Is the oath just meaningless words. The requirement to take the oath, at least for officers, (both and civil and military) is contained in the Consitutition itself. (Art. 4). The military officers' oath does not even mention obeying orders, although the enlisted oath does. And since I took the latter once and the former several times, I should know. (My retirement certificate is on the wall in front of me as I type, it doesn't relieve me of the oath, nor even remove my commision, it just transfers me to the retired reserve list)

[dasboot]

True, but disregarded by me for brevity's sake.

There's a great quote by Lincoln's VP..can't remember the name...about how it is every man's duty to uphold the Constitution as that individual understands it....

Washington and the DWM's had some to say about it , too. Something about the bulwark against tyranny, etc.

We are obliged to know and uphold..at all cost...the ideas therein (for the children). If there is a duty placed upon me that I find odious to the principles, I know what I must do. Refuse, resign, take the consequences. Liberty and justice ain't free. Ask Rosa Parks.

Oh yeah...Seward!

[archy]

Favorite quote I hear at the station, “I can flush this down the toilet or book you. What can you do for me?”

More common on my old department: It's okay, we aren't breaking the law...we are the law....

-archy-/-

[archy]

The military officers' oath does not even mention obeying orders, although the enlisted oath does. And since I took the latter once and the former several times, I should know. (My retirement certificate is on the wall in front of me as I type, it doesn't relieve me of the oath, nor even remove my commision, it just transfers me to the retired reserve list)

Yep, all too true. Seven times now I've taken that oath now; twice as a cop.

But of course, in the long run, it may not matter: if the second amendment, or any other portion of the constitution is *waived*, *reinterpreted,* *suspended,* or in any other way rendered meaningless and moot by those who are first to be governed by it, then the entire document is moot, null and voided. And thereby the constitution that sworn officers is the basis for their sworn oath to preserve, protect and defend it is just as meaningless, and that consatitution, the source of the laws and rightful authority derived therefrom is equally null and void- they are police no longer, though they may have pretty uniforms to rival those of any bananna republics goons and thugs.

And at that point, it's quite literally *every man and woman for themselves.*

-archy-/-

[Liberal Bob]

So you run the jail and house all those poor innocent prisoners that are unconstitutionally arrested. Lets see you put up or shut up, take your keys and release all those you “know” to be held unconstitutionally by these unconstitutional laws. I’m sure we’ll read about it tomorrow how you were protecting the constitution like any great patriot would.

You've got the last word good nite.

[dasboot]

I can't do that. The clerks won't get their release fees, and I won't be able to get my tickets fixed anymore.

[William Tell]

archy said: "But of course, in the long run, it may not matter: if the second amendment, or any other portion of the constitution is *waived*, *reinterpreted,* *suspended,* or in any other way rendered meaningless and moot by those who are first to be governed by it, then the entire document is moot, null and voided."

Sounds like the situation in Kalifornia since the state Supreme Court has ruled that Kalifornians don't have a right to keep and bear arms.

[archy]

archy said: "But of course, in the long run, it may not matter: if the second amendment, or any other portion of the constitution is *waived*, *reinterpreted,* *suspended,* or in any other way rendered meaningless and moot by those who are first to be governed by it, then the entire document is moot, null and voided."

Sounds like the situation in Kalifornia since the state Supreme Court has ruled that Kalifornians don't have a right to keep and bear arms.

Just so. So far as I'm concerned, there is no legitimate government in CA, though Ahnuld may take steps to restore it.

I certainly wouldn't count on that happening, of course, and in point of fact, CA has no more governmental legitimacy than if it was run by the Crips or Bloods, or from Mexico City. Which in fact, may be the case to a large extent.

Anyone wanting to ignore CA laws or legal restrictions will find little argument from me. That's Outlaw territory, baby.

-archy-/-

[Travis McGee]

Interesting times we live in. I think I picked the novel title of the decade.

[archy]

Interesting times we live in.

That should be *Interesting times in which we live* for a distinguished author and wordsmith such as yourself, or you'll be getting the same complaint letters from retired little old lady English teachers that I did as a newspaper calumnist.

It is sometimes said that *May you live in interesting times* translates as a curse in Chinese; but upon checking out the possible truth of that aphorism with a native Chinese history professor and scholar, he was unable to offer me any likely source or derivation for the happy thought from his native land. He did opine that to him, it sounded like some of the short choppy and to-the-point phrases sometimes heard in the Wu dialect of pre-WWII Shanghai. Further deponent knoweth and sayeth not. -archy-/-

[Travis McGee]

I believe that the Chinese use the same character for danger and opportunity, but I may be confused about this.

ForeignDomestic

[archy]

Enemies
ForeignDomestic

[archy]

Shouldn't that be:

Enemies
ForeignDomestic

[Travis McGee]

It works lots of ways.

Got rope?

BTW, that link I copied of the man hanging at the crossroads is as dead as the man being hanged.

[FlyVet]

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.

Oh REALLY?

Maybe I'm the one who is delusional, but I become less and less worried about these Sarah Brady types as I get older. Right to Carry laws are on the march. Thanks to Free Republic and the Internet, and talk radio, people are waking up to the fact that SELF DEFENSE IS NOT EVIL. For you steenking, lowlife anti-gun types, as Dolph Lundgren said to Sylvester Stallone,

You will lose.

[Mr. Mojo]

An alliance of gun owners and peace officers is a natural. It would drive the left wing gun grabbers up a tree and get them shouting: "Fascists! Fascists!"

All the while complelely unaware that fascist dictatorships are among the very last to respect the individual RKBA. .....just like the left-wing gun grabbers in this country.

[archy]

It works lots of ways.
Got rope?

BTW, that link I copied of the man hanging at the crossroads is as dead as the man being hanged.

Shucks, we can always string up another one or two for you. Somebody git a rope....

[archy]

I believe that the Chinese use the same character for danger and opportunity, but I may be confused about this.

I'm also told that the symbol for either *trouble* or *misery* is the characters for *two women* under that of *one roof*. I'll have to check that one out with Dr. Sun as well.

-archy-/-

[Badray]

"I believe that the Chinese use the same character for danger and opportunity, but I may be confused about this."

I believe it is crisis and opportunity that share the same character.

[SevenDaysInMay]

Our RATIFIED Constitution, the only Law of our Land, tells us clearly that, under "equal protection", We the People have "the right to keep and bear arms" - all people, all jurisdictions. Of course judges and legislators have nibbled away at citizens' Constitutional rights.

Any elected official, judge, or justice who officially rules to the contrary of our Law of the Land is, acting under color of law, an outlaw of the worst kind.

Judicial rulings without a RATIFIED Constitutional basis and certainly beyond the RATIFIED limits of the granted powers of government(s) are not consented to by citizens, armed citizens and others, of this Constitutional Republic. These bench edicts are interesting as they are threatening, but have no more meaning than that of any other bully's threats. UnConstitutional statutes and regulations abound, but are likewise without lawful basis as law which should be obeyed.

We are meant to cower under the threats of the police powers of the State with its "compelling State interests" controlling legal authority.

For too long we have allowed blackrobes the luxury of thinking that they are above the law. This will end as will their careers.

Some of us are sworn to defend our (ratified) Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic.

These enemies in high office and out cannot have us armed pursuant to our RATIFIED Constitution. They believe that such places their lives at risk. Fancy that.