Law enforcement bureaucrats: What's good for my spouse not good for yours

Anti-self-defense extremists are an interesting bunch. Much of their objection to the private use of handguns stems from the phobic belief that guns in the hands of the "untrained" are unavoidable tragedies simply waiting to occur. This opinion has been taken by a minority of Ohio's law enforcement bureaucrats.

Despite all the proof that rank-and-file cops support CCW, and despite all the repentant testimony from law enforcement bureaucrats who were former opponents in other states, a minority of bureaucrats and union officials still oppose HB12, saying it poses a safety concern.

But author Don B. Kates reveals quite a different viewpoint is held privately among law enforcement:

In a deposition taken in a failed New York lawsuit against local firearms dealers there, Kates writes, a high-ranking New York state officer testified of the following:

"I am...convinced that handguns are far and away the most safe and effective means of self-defense because that is what law enforcement officers overwhelmingly assert in various...polls sampling opinions. I cannot count up all such polls I have seen, but I have seen plenty.

Nor is this just a matter of opinion. Officers vote this opinion 'with their feet.' Officers are exempt from the New Your State law that requires a license to own a handgun. Officers' wives are not exempt. But it is understood in the police community - and I know it is true from conversations with many, many officers over the past 40 years or so - that you leave a loaded handgun at home where your wife has immediate access to it. In addition, many wives carry handguns with them with with their husbands' approval. Of course, that is theoretially illegal. But it is understood that an officer does not arrest another officer's wife for doing what is only sensible to protect herself." (emphasis added)

Gov. Taft has placed law enforcement bureaucrats from the Ohio Highway Patrol and labor union officials from the FOP front and center in the debate about the self-defense rights of Ohioans. Are their spouses, or those of their subordinates, also enjoying the same privilege, while the rest of Ohio's law-abiding citizens continue to be arrested for the same?

A Dept. of Justice survey found that 40% of felons chose not to commit at least some crimes for fear their victims were armed, and 34% admitted having been scared off or shot at by armed victims. (James D. Wright and Peter H. Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous, Aldine de Gruyter, 1986). Officers know this, which is why they allow those they care about most to protect themselves, in spite of the law.

The police are not required to protect individual citizens -- In Warren v. District of Columbia (444 A.2d 1, 1981), the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled, "official police personnel and the government employing them are not generally liable to victims of criminal acts for failure to provide adequate police protection ... this uniformly accepted rule rests upon the fundamental principle that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular citizen ... a publicly maintained police force constitutes a basic governmental service provided to benefit the community at large by promoting public peace, safety and good order." In Bowers v. DeVito (686 F. 2d 616, 1982), the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, "(T)here is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen."

No matter the number of police officers, the fact is only you can be counted on to defend you.