Sorry to harp on about this, but it’s important to understand that TTAG shines a bright light on police militarization, police negligent discharges and bad police shootings (including homicides) in part because doing so undermines the antis’ agenda. As you know, gun control advocates argue for civilian disarmament. But they do not for a moment suggest that the police should be disarmed. Nor, of course, do we. But the antis’ double standard – no guns for non-law-enforcement civilians, any gun goes for LEOs – reveals the antis’ underlying desire for a police state. How else would you describe that outcome? The fact that high-ranking police officers buy into this “only ones” POV is doubly scary to those of us who cherish our individual liberty. If our focus on police ballistic malfeasance makes us seem unduly harsh, so be it. Again. Still. [h/t DB]

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63 COMMENTS

  1. Yes there is a double standard. However, the antis are caught in their own hypocrisy.

    One one hand, as in the MSM reporting in Ferguson, MO, the heavy handed, often racist, bullies, militarized police in Everytown, USA scare them, (they applauded them in Boston) however.
    On the other hand, as you posted, only the cops should have guns.

    To quote Doc Holliday “my hypocrisy only goes so far”.

    I get a headache trying to wrap my head around liberal thinking.

  2. Excellent point. Police can live in an US vs THEM world, but treating citizens equally is a core principle of this country. I cringe every time it see a 380 bodyguard. In CA ok for LEO’s, citizen no touch. We’ll take your taxes for our coin, but a harty FU citizen when it comes to the tools for lawful sel protection.

  3. ‘But they do not for a moment suggest that the police should be disarmed. Nor, of course, do we.’

    Speak for yourself. The civilian police have no business possessing and using fully automatic firearms. It is NEVER OK for police to spray the neighborhood with bullets no matter how bad ass they think the bad guy they’re after is.

    • Show me where in the constitution it states that full auto firearms are not allowed for the public or police?

      • It doesn’t. However it doesn’t say private citizens and civilian police can’t have nuclear weapons either. I’m not arguing the constitution, I’m arguing that police shouldn’t have fully auto weapons because they will use them in their 3:00am no knock raids. If you or I had a fully automatic weapon the only place we’d use them is at a range. Which do you think is potentially more dangerous?

        Anyway, if I can’t have one, neither should they.

        • The constitution does not guarantee RKBA to police forces, only to the people. Any city, county, state could forbid police from carrying firearms within its borders, according to the constitution, though those persons could carry to and from work, like everyone else. IOW, conditions of employment or working conditions either one, are not addressed. I do not think the LEOs should be disarmed, but also point out that if firearms were needed to defend them, relying on nearby armed citizens would make the relationship peachy!

          BTW, I absolutely agree that law enforcement agencies should not have access (SWAT or no) to full auto weapons. These are people who would be shooting in our neighborhoods, around our children and our schools, and in this case that is not sarc. If an LEO is surrounded, outnumbered, and panics, he just MIGHT switch to full auto and spray everything and everybody in range. His weapon should not have that capability, even if it costs his life.

      • It’s the 44th Amendment. You know, the one ‘Barry wrote and passed and signed into law with an executive order.

      • The Constitution restricts government, not citizens. Law enforcement is government. The greater selection of firearms and tools for law enforcement as opposed to what is readily available or forbidden to US citizens is backwards.

        No, I do not do that job. Nor should I have to in order to define the limits of government.

        Until US citizens can purchase the latest and greatest in select fire weapons just like any other semi automatic, manufactured before or after 1986, law enforcement does not need access either in order to fulfill their job description.

        As citizens, we get to/should decide what a government employee needs to do their job, especially law enforcement.

        • I might be picking nits here, but I don’t actually have an issue with cops carrying M4s with 3 round burst. It’s the full auto I have an issue with. I’ve read about too many incidents where cops fired 250 rounds and hit their target once or twice. Full auto is for when EVERYTHING in a general direction is OK to be destroyed, and that is NEVER the situation in policing.

          That said, if they can have it, I should be able to have it too.

    • Repeal the NFA and I don’t care what weapons the police is using as long as they are used responsibly.

    • Agreed!
      Anyone else recall the manhunt in Boston for that bomber? Anyone remember seeing how the authorities were pointing vehicle mounted weapons at people who were recording their activities from their homes?

      That should have been the crucial turning point. Don’t know how or what form that backlash should have manifested, but I feel we missed an opportunity to regain some more of our Constitutionality.

      • Yet the answer was putting a glamour shot of a terrorist on Rolling Stone. Boston was a turning point alright, but not the direction you or I would have chosen.

      • I might even date the should-have-been-a-turning-point a little earlier than that, and go back to LAPD’s hunt for Dorner. When those EIGHT officers fired 103 rounds at that mother and daughter delivering newspapers, simply because their truck bore some kind of reported passing resemblance to one Dorner may or may not have possessed, the aftermath should have slammed the brakes on overzealous police nationwide, at least for a while. Instead, it didn’t even slow anything down as far down the road as a couple of months later in Boston.

        The investigating commission in L.A., I read, recommended against firing or even suspending the officers, despite finding that they had violated the department’s policy of using deadly force. The ladies settled for about $4.2 million with the city. Meanwhile, the city of Torrance, CA settled with another driver who was shot at by an overexcited officer during the same hunt. He only got $20,000, though, and the D.A. declined to bring charges against the officer.

        These cops are way out of control. The “system” is careening toward an extremely dangerous day when people, regular everyday law abiding people with jobs/homes/families/futures, start wondering why they must obey the laws while the law enforcers get a pass.

  5. I am not saying that the anti’s want to kill jews with this comment. With that said, it sure seems like they want the USA to be like Germany of WWII era. Or England of today. Oh and the “well to do” anti’s who want only police to be armed, seem to excuse their armed body guards from the ONLY police idea’s as well.

    • The Nazis actually eliminated much of the gun control passed by the Weimar Republic. Of course they still took the guns from the Jews, but for good white Aryans they were relatively pro-gun. Similar to the old Jim Crow south with blacks.

      • Yep, it’s the old “WE will have guns” intention that underlies all “gun control” groups.

  6. The guy is accused of a brutal murder……nothing harsh about that. He needs his face plastered on every news site. Anyone want to be an Atlanta cop? I guess they are hiring.

  7. “Only cops should be able to have guns” in reality means only cops and gangbangers will have guns. Both those industries would certainly be “booming” under such a circumstance.

    A disarmed populace lowers the risk of committing crimes, which increases crime and defenseless victims, which necessitates more cops, and swat teams, and tanks.

  8. “Atlanta police spokesman Carlos Campos released the following statement Thursday morning:

    “We are shocked and saddened by these developments. The officer has been relieved from duty, and is in a non-enforcement status. Chief [George] Turner will schedule an emergency hearing immediately today to determine the next course of action. We must allow the justice system to run its course. But these clearly are very disturbing allegations that are not in line with the expectations we have for our officers, and will be immediately dealt with.” “

    Uh, excuse me, but what the hell kind of statement is THAT? That is a total disconnect to what was reported just a few paragraphs above that:

    “Officers arrested Rana around 8:30 a.m. Thursday at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, according to Channel 2 Action News. They say he was headed to Monterrey, Mexico, which may have been a stop on the way to India. Rana was on the no-fly list.”

    Hey, Carlos. HE WAS ARRESTED for murder in the process of attempting to flee the country. And your spin is that he has been relieved from duty and placed in a non-enforcement status?

    And the Chief has to have an emergency hearing to determine the next course of action?

    You read that and wonder why so many people are mistrustful of police accountability. This is just nuts. APD probably arrests and processes murder suspects every single day. They know, or should know, what the next course of action is: book him into the jail and schedule a bond hearing.

    Good grief.

    • Um, if you read a little further up you’ll see he was booked into jail from the airport. But that was before his union rep got involved.

      • You kind of missed my point. It was not really about the booking into jail..that was a rhetorical metaphor for “they know the process of dealing with murder suspects.”

        Why the spin? Why the emergency pearl clutching to ask “what do we do?” Is it because he’s a cop, and therefore not accountable to the same laws as the rest of society?

        At the bottom of that page there was a link to an article about another murder suspect. Was the the Chief having an emergency hearing to determine what the PD should do about him? I kind of doubt it.

        • Same question that came to mind when certain religious bigwigs were uncovered as serial rapists of little boys, some with hundreds of victims. Much gnashing of teeth about what is to be done, with some observers wondering why the criminal was not in prison. No actual charges filed, shuffle him off to another location without warning them what’s coming, prosecute? Oh, goodness no! He is such a wonderful servant of the lord yada yada. The mentality is identical, laws and punishments do not apply to the anointed, we’ll just slap their wrists and be done. Why is it not even a consideration for the voters? You don’t prosecute these things, we are coming for your job, and your bosses’ jobs, and their bosses’ jobs, it will not stand. But nobody seems to care.

          And I, for one, am convinced without any actual proof, that many people seek jobs as LEOs (or priests, for that matter) BECAUSE of that ability to violate the law with impunity.

  9. Death by gun or shootings is ranked 10th on the death list….number 1 is the baseball bat….the only reason guns come in number 10 is because they count justified shootings as death by gun….if justified shooting were left off guns would probably come in 20th……you can look this up it is put out every year by the FBI

    • Ok, please link to your source because from what I’m seeing here gun criminals are still numero uno, and have been for over 50 years, and even when excluding justified shootings. Maybe you are referring to the preventable death index? In that case, I believe medical error is still number one, with gun deaths falling back to around 30th, like you suggest.

  10. Robert’s commentary and points made hit the mark. One of the biggest things antis fall back on is “Well, only LEO and the military should have access to guns…”

    Let’s pretend for a minute that was true. Only the cops and the military had guns. But your average civilian didn’t. However, civilians would be aware of the power of guns, and those whom are deranged enough in society would (gasp!) take on cops and the military specifically to get at their guns. Either they’d challenge them directly in a fight (get the jump on a cop, steal his or her gun) or they would go through the system, become cops or soldiers themselves, and either have a gun for their own nefarious purposes, or use their access to guns to funnel weapons to others.

    Basically in a society where only cops and soldiers are armed, criminals would be armed, too, because the criminals would want the guns for themselves. And cops and soldiers are human, too, and make mistakes. Or become corrupt. In this hypothetical wet dream of the antis, there’s still thirty or forty ways by which a person could get a gun if they really wanted to.

    It’d be akin to Mexico. Mexicans basically can’t legally arm themselves. But last time I checked, it’s not a huge issue to get a gun down there if you know who to talk to.

    Now, realistically, if a total ban on guns in the US happened – there’d have to be the confiscation of 300 million weapons or more. Even if half were surrendered, that leaves quite the stockpile out there. And to flush those out via force or coincidence (i.e. the cops show up to bust you for smoking weed and they find a gun in the house) would take generations. Some antis I know say “Well, it’s a start..” but even that “start” would accomplish little. Chop the gun supply in the US by half, the statistics on crime and such would remain the same. Actually it would go up because suddenly a lot of gun owners would become criminals.

    Firearms are here to stay in the US, as much as freedom of speech and the freedom to pour yourself a glass of vodka on a summer night. We all hate crime that involves guns, it’s just that those of us who cherish our natural right to self-defense choose to address that issue another way, rather than taking out our frustrations on an inanimate object.

    • My guess, which by rights should be as good as anyone’s, is more than a billion functional, smokeless powder weapons in the US. And I’d guess at least 100 rounds of ammo (of some description, target, SD, etc) for each.

  11. It’s too bad but I can’t argue on this site any more. The lions share of folks on this blog have no LEO training or experience and lack the capacity to understand the LE need for automatic weapons, MRAPs, 30 shots fired at a single threat, blah blah blah. It’s like a professional RN talking to you about why certain medical procedures must be followed. Because time, trial and technical information tells us it works best under this circumstance. Most people who lack the training and experience of a seasoned LEO just don’t have the understanding or institutional knowledge to make the hard decisions needed in a LE environment. This is not to belittle you, its just a matter of fact. Like when you go to the auto mechanic and trust that a part needs to be replaced simply because it does. You rely on the knowledge and experience of a professional. You all should try to do that with LEOs instead of verbally crucifying them every chance you get. But then, this site wouldn’t be soooo much fun to read . . . would it. Carry on simpletons!

    • You’re absolutely right. Police should be more tooled up to serve a warrant on a non-violent offender than infantrymen are in the sandbox. We just can’t wrap our little brains around how hard and dangerous your job is.

      Patronize much, Barney Fife?

      • Glad you agree with me DJ, those two environs are exactly the same in most respects. Yes I do as I find it most amusing . . . you?

        • If you seriously think your job is comparable to combat, you need to find another profession before you get yourself or someone else hurt.

          That attitude is EXACTLY why the posters’ on here have a problem with police militarization.

        • DJ, Although you’re obviously the product of an underfunded school system, I promise I don’t hold that against you. As you muddle through the rest of your life, I’m sure you’ll come to the understanding (albeit years from now) that I was right. Good luck and take care.

        • DD, I make you at about 14 years old, giggling about how actual adults are being fooled by your BS. If you were real, any actual police department would have screened you out as mentally unfit for police work. Still, you need to seek help.

        • Larynks TX, Your respect and admiration for 14 year olds is well founded. Perhaps one day you’ll find one to your liking, but I would caution you, if you do, it should probably be within the state of Georgia. Until that time, learn from the professionals what you are incapable of understanding through your own efforts. Be well and prosper my friend.

    • Im just trying to think of one single instance over the past, say, 50 years where cops needed Automatic gunfire…Maybe you can tell us simpletons when, if ever?… you know, to rationalize your point.

    • DD,
      My wife is in LE, I asked her to read your post, because she is seasoned, well trained, and experienced in LE ( 13 years this month ) after that many years, doing her job, for the great State of Washington, and being recognized , and receiving the governors award, for her accomplishments,in the field of LE she of coarse has the knowledge and expertise to comment on your post…. she sent me this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HcO-UXJ3M8

      and said you need to find another line of work before you end up killing someone, or getting yourself killed.

      My opinion is that you just full of yourself, and will eventually end up on the evening news, and Not in a good way. But my opinion doesnt matter, because i fall into the simpleton category.

    • I think DD is a troll. I could only find one DD in TTAG search, and frankly,
      you dont sound like any cops I know, just someone trying to stir things up.

      Here is the one and only other post: “Home carry, stage weaponry, have a plan, carry it out with a vengeance”.

      I’m happy to be proven wrong. You could start by explaining more about your views of MRAPS and automatic weapons, and how your police force needs them, etc,and why we simpleton civilians could never understand. I’m sure your explanation of ROE and procedure will be obvious to the other LEOs here as convincing or not.

      • Why bother to those who lack the simple experience to understand the reality of law enforcement. Stay a simpleton, and remain obedient.

  12. I think the anti’s real agenda is “To have the trains run on time”, and the police state is the method to achieve their goal.

  13. Alright RF, point taken. I’ve been pretty hard on you about the perceived anti-cop bias, as my local police in PA are pro 2A and non militarized, but have to concede that you make some valid points here

  14. I have responded to anti Second Amendment supporter assertions that police should be the only ones with guns by presenting case after case of police abuse of power and criminal acts by law enforcement officers with links to news stories. The anti gunners completely ignore these facts. The number of police abuse and criminal activity stories average between 8 and 14 daily from the website Police Misconduct. Unlike mortal citizens who go to jail for the same type of crimes, many police officers get a free pass from the local district attorney. Some dont even get suspended or lose their jobs.

  15. The wealthy have all the money and they’re using it to buy the government. It’s called plutocracy. If we did have a police state it sure as hell wouldn’t be owned by people without money! I think that the antis are just haters, against all things related to testosterone/southern/country. They just want to take guns any way they can, any excuse will do.

    • I’d say that’s as good a guess as any. I sure can’t figure it out. For most of the followers, they’ve just been lied to forever, don’t understand. But where the leaders/liars come from, I have no clue.

  16. Again, Cops are LEO-civilians, while non-Cops are civilians. Once the civilians are disarmed, then LEO-civilians can disarm too, because they won’t need guns either! It’s that simple. In the interim, the LEO-civilians can be co-opted with their gun control carveouts, until those carveouts are no longer necessary either.

    • So you are convinced that, in the end, there will be no guns at all in America? Except mine? That works for me. However, I’ll bet you are not planning to personally come and collect mine, are you?

  17. My only problem with the double standard on negligent discharges is that, barring injuries, i don’t think Joe Blow should be arrested for one either. I don’t care that a cop wasn’t charged. No one should be IF nobody else was hurt.

  18. I hate the double standards we live by! I went to an indoor range that said “no hollow points because of the danger of fragmentation, but we allow it for LEO’s.” Is there less danger of fragmentation when they shoot? I was so mad I would have left the range but it would have ruined the day for the people I was with. My buddy was trying out a new gun (reason for wanting to use hollow points) and I was not about to sit in the car while he tried his new gun.

    • I’m missing this, somehow. At this range, they sit and watch you load your gun? Why do you pay attention? I obey the “No AP”, cuz there might be an issue, otherwise, meh. Didn’t notice that sign.

  19. I am a self-described Liberal/Progressive (while also a veteran and lifelong Second Amendment advocate) but feeling ever more “pushed” toward conservatism by the increasingly out of control ignorance, hypocrisy and self-delusion of my fellow liberals. The fact is, we do not possess one single liberty that does not pose a significant risk to safety. For example, on a daily basis thousands of guilty people are released into the public on legal technicalities designed to protect the innocent from false imprisonment. As a result, citizens are hurt, robbed, raped, murdered. Yet it would be clearly insane to suggest that this is a justification for nullifying the 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments. We accept the risk because ultimately we understand there can be no liberty without it. Similarly, when someone writes racist or otherwise inflammatory literature, we do not reflexively call for a repeal of the First Amendment – and anyone who would suggest that words don’t kill should perhaps read the Bible, the Koran, etc. The Second Amendment is no different, and IMHO is absolutely worth the risk its preservation entails. It was put in place as a bulwark against tyranny, and anyone who imagines this notion is antiquated or paranoid evidently is not familiar with the Patriot Act, nor the NSA, nor our own shamelessly corrupt Congress and its multiplying abuses of privacy and the Constitution.

    “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”
    -Benjamin Franklin

    • Very good post. Years back before my service I was pretty far left of the political spectrum myself, though I’ve always been a huge 2A supporter, (back then I was very ignorant of politics and the internet wasn’t very prevalent and I didn’t know the left was so insanely anti gun). After I started to work and then joined the army I became very middle of the road. You know, having experiance in the real world does it… Following Iraq and after leaving the army I went from a fence sitter to solid right wing after seeing the disqusting showing of their true colors by so called “liberals”, in the past 6 years. They’re not even liberals, they are Statists. A true liberal would embrace armed civilians… But in every single topic they argue for you can just see bloodthirsty facism and hatred cone out in their tone of voice and the look in their eye. They have one goal: demonize and destroy any thing American. I’m in school now, and constantly debate down the brainwashed liberal students and their professors. One openly socialist professor himself actually garunteed me that “I would be converted to liberalism before I left here, because higher education requires it.” I laughed, everything I’ve learned in higher education has done nothing except push me farther and farther to the right because I see how disqusting their plans for America are.

    • Why don’t you fly your damn pancreas into a quest for elected office? You’d have my vote and my donation.

      I am (and have been) solidly social liberal and fiscal conservative. “Social liberal” means I support your right to run your own life, and specifically your constitutional rights (all of them!), and “fiscal conservative” means I don’t support the taxpayer subsidizing any of them. Pretty simple.

    • Thank you Flying…

      I have a sense that there are many like you, who don’t feel comfortable speaking up. It stuns me when I talk to someone like my very intelligent, well-read, lawyer bro-in-law, who still makes excuseds for Obama, and the various failures of this administration, and cant explain how we got to this place, as you say, with NSA spying on all of us, lying to Congress, CIA spying on Senate, covering up Benghazi by gag orders on the people there, lying to Congress, DOJ investigating the press, lying to Congress on F&F, IRS targeting get out the vote groups (TeaParty) and lying about it to Congress, hiding evidence…

      there is a fact pattern, and its very scary, and I just hope more people are paying attention.
      What is the general sense of the folks in your network of liberal/progressives- are you the outlier, or is there a shift you can detect?

      thanks again, for you are a reminder that the POTG contains all types- liberals of the classical variety, even converting progtards… to the middle and “hard” right of Rush listeners…;), and TTAG is one of the most diverse places on the innertubz, where we can all agree or at least agree to disagree on what freedom means, in 2A rights, at least. This is the canary in the coal mine, about the larger sea change underway, and I expect its why we are seeing so many progtards heads exploding in their frustration that we little people are not buying their Agenda.

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