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Typical--Not surprising.

Police Administrators are POLITICIANS.

Ther cardinal rule is to be obsequious to those they think can further their careers, and pander to "Minorities" including sacrificing police officers on the alter of Political Correctness.

REAL street cops want good citizens to have and use guns.

Real Police Officers know that jurisdictions will not spend money on manpower, and response time to a 911 call can be hours.

REAL street cops want good citizens to have and use guns.

That seems to be a regional issue and it is an attitude that is rapidly disappearing from the American landscape far and wide. Twenty years ago, I'd have unequivocally agreed with your assertion. However, given the corruption of the public schools by liberal influences that present a unified anti-gun agenda from kindergarten to senior high school, more and more potential cops are entering the academies with the elitist mentality that ONLY they should have guns.

Because the curriculums are so slanted to the left, they are unaware that such an attitude promotes the idea of a police state. Neither do they see the harm in this.

It used to be that conservatives would say that the police dept's and the military are the "safety net" of the 2nd Amendment. That any true attempt to seize the guns would be fought by these elements. But in the aftermath of KATRINA we see the lie.

It's funny, I was thinking about this today when I read an NY Times piece about a shoot out in Brooklyn, and Mayor Bloomberg saying he and the NYC Police Commissioner were tired of having to visit cops wounded by illegal handguns. (The context was such that he clearly meant he didn't like cops getting shot, not that hospital visits ate into his free time.)

Plenty of police officers support the rights of citizens to own and carry guns, plenty others do not. It seems more Police Chiefs and Commissioners support gun control than not, and many of us attribute that to them being more politician than cop.

Politicians like to roll out cops supporting gun control as proof that gun control is needed.

Taking all this together, I've reached a few preliminary theories. First, your average cop on the beat isn't a public policy expert or historian. Police are cited as authorities because the public is sympathetic towards them, and they have some (although not always a lot) of personal expereince about how crimes occur, or who commits crimes. (So we are clear, a Highway Patrol officer isn't an authority to protecting your business against a burglary, buy a detective assigned to a commercial burglary unit in a big city probably is; even a homicide detective probably can't give you much advice on avoiding being murdered other than, "don't buy or deal drugs, mind your own business on the street, and don't associate with criminals").

OK, so I got to thinking that cops encounter two kinds of gun, theirs (including those of other cops) and guns intended to commit crimes. They aren't afraid of their guns (although accidents do happen). But, they know criminal fight back against the police, and some criminals will kill cops. Basically, it's in the average police officers own interest for their to be no guns anywhere, because it increases their chance of going home safe. That's fine. I understand it. That line of thinking doesn't touch on whether joe citizen goes home safe, or sleeps through the night safe.

If it's true that police are more often seeing the world as "police and civilians" (us and them) then you're likely to see more police officers wanting guns out of the hands of all civilians.