It’s not an easy job. I think this guy has lost perspective.
I don't know which party you refer to as having lost perspective. While being a LEO may be at times difficult , that is not an extenuating condition for the profound contempt for the Constitutional Rights of the citizens of Connecticut that Officer Peterson displays. I have had an experience early in my professional life with an officer who believed that I had no rights under the 2nd Amendment. This was more than 30 years ago and in another state. Many, perhaps most police officers in the US have so little moral(as opposed to physical ) courage and are so ignorant of the foundational basis of Constitutional Liberty that they would behave towards gun owners or whoever else is a designated ‘enemy of the state’ such as TEA party members in the same fashion that the French police at all levels behaved towards Jews who were French citizens in World War 2. Those people had a choice and overwhelmingly they chose not just to go through the motions in a slow, inefficient pro forma way to sabotage the Final Solution through through pretended compliance, instead they displayed energetic zeal and a sadistic pleasure in doing all and more than SD directed. After the Nazis were ejected from most of France the same police agencies and frequently the same men acted with the same sadistic zeal in rounding up and incarcerating ‘collaborators’ of various degrees of culpability. What does this say about the mentality of those who fill the ranks of police agencies. That many are craven, power worshiping statist thugs? Perhaps so. In any case, in this small city officer Peterson should be made to feel the sting of public contempt. There is nothing illegal about organizing a public ‘shunning’ campaign in which many of his fellow townsmen will refuse to speak to him, transact business with him or have any social contact with him at all. After a number of persons cross the street to avoid his presence, refuse to acknowledge his greeting or cut him dead in restaurants, churches, and businesses this will have an effect. At West Point it used to be called giving someone ‘The Silence’. The Silence should be employed today on the likes of Peterson and a good many others.
I agree it is not an easy job. I have retired and current relatives that are law enforcement and the stories they tell sometimes are heart breaking and it is mentally and emotionally challenging for them.
However, this person is clearly a danger to the citizenry and as I posted will use the “I was following orders...” excuse. If he will gleefully kick someones door down and assault them in their home for gun confiscation what else will he use it for? Shoot to kill? No arrests? Fire into a crowd?