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“You really can’t dispute it. Cops have been pushed back on their heels, and the criminals are on their toes, encouraged and carrying their guns again.” – New York Detectives’ Endowment Association president Michael Palladino in Cops shot gun-wielding thug involved in Harlem shootout [at nypost.com]

60 COMMENTS

  1. criminals don’t generally fear police, and do so even less now.
    when does the tipping point come when “good” people stop caring as well and begin to exercise their natural rights and not care about the police bothering them?

    • It’ll be a long long time. “Good” people fear the police and the law. Unlike the criminals.
      Good people need to realize the police, police unions, politicians and the law in general are all working against them.

        • Imagine – I know this is a stretch – that the cops in some precinct could be brought around to see that the good people in the neighborhood they patrol are their friends and supporters rather than their enemies.

          E.g., suppose the good people in the Black neighborhoods of Baltimore began to armor-up and carry on the way to the grocery store around the corner. The cops on the beat are none-too-happy about the situation their bosses have put them in. They want to do good for the law-abiding on their beat; but they dare not. They want to defy their chain-of-command without being chastised for doing so. Maybe the conversation could go down with a wink-and-a-nod.

          Grandpa or grandma aren’t going to be bothered with a stop-and-frisk; not even if they show a little butt while picking up a can of beans that fell out of the bag walking home from shopping. The single mother isn’t going to be bothered walking home from her second-shift job just because she is keeping her hand in her purse.

          Admittedly; such a thing is very unlikely to happen. Usually, there just isn’t enough pressure on the sheep to defy the sheepdog. Nor is there enough incentive for the sheepdog to defy the shepherd. Nevertheless, on the rarest of occasions, there is a confluence of unusual forces that might favor an aberrant outcome. Baltimore might be just such a case. (Or, maybe it will be somewhere else even less likely such as in NJ or DC).

          Geraldo’s body-guard just got arrested for carrying in Baltimore. We might ask: “Where’s Geraldo?” Will Geraldo throw his body-guard under the bus? Or, will he use his bully pulpit to take a fresh look at how the carry laws affect those near and possibly dear to him?

    • So people go and carry guns anyways, and cops treat everyone like criminals? Sounds like NYC to me.

      • Police generally reap what they sow – show no respect, get no respect. If police displayed a little more respect in their interactions with the general public and quit acting like playground bullies or macho men, it would go a long way in changing the public’s opinion about police (criminals excluded).

    • O’Vomit hates traditional L.E. as a “tool of oppression”. Why are we surprised that his DOJ sock puppets are spraying gasoline on every incident they can. Until this turd salad stole 2 elections WHEN did you ever see the DOJ so active on the local level unless called in? This is what he wants- an ineffectual police force to justify natioinalizing and politicizing all police operations.

      Ray

      • @Sock Monkey: I’ve given up on trying to correct the legion of typos. As a professional writer (and an OCD grammar Nazi,) it pains me to do so.

  2. Wait, didn’t liberals save us from crime by removing lead from gasoline? Damn NRA, they must have snuck in over night and re-leaded it!

  3. The NYC cops are to blame for the courts smacking their asses over “stop and frisk.” They got lazy and that became their primary “tool.” They stopped too many people that were law abiding and the pesky 4th, 5th and 5th Amendment got in the way.

    • I don’t read S&F that way.
      My opinion (nothing more than that) is that S&F was to gun-carrying in NYC what sobriety checkpoints are on New Year’s Eve. If you know you are apt to be stopped you will make other arrangements.

      S&F made carrying – whether it was guns or pot – marginally risky. The criminals would avoid carrying except when they really needed to do so; i.e., when they were intent on committing a crime. Carrying a gun by coincidence when a crime of opportunity happened by was less likely to occur.

      Where the NYPD made a strategic mistake was in busting a prospect for drug possession. To the individual patrolman, a bust-is-a-bust; a score on possession was another notch on his performance report. What did the minority community want?
      – fewer guns on the street;
      – leave my recreational-user son alone!
      What was more important? Guns? Leaving recreational-users alone? Can we figure this out?

      Personally, I think we strident Constitutionalists are playing the S&F issue ineffectively.

      How much leeway is there in “shall not be infringed”? How much in “unreasonable search and seizure”? Can we tell the difference?

      How unreasonable is it to endure a “wanding” for the presence of a weapon that wouldn’t detect drugs?

      Imagine if NYC went “Shall-Issue”. Well, then, a ‘yout’ who had reached the age of 21 could apply for a carry permit irrespective of any wish to carry a gun. When detained by a police officer the encounter might go something like this:
      – Officer: ‘Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?’
      – Yout: ‘As a matter of fact, it [IS; is-NOT], would you like to see my carry permit? And, in any case, I’m always delighted to see you Officer Molly.’
      If such a program were successful with 21-yos we could imagine a “learner’s” ‘carry’-permit for teenagers. Albeit, they wouldn’t be able to carry a gun (maybe a knife) they would be able to demonstrate their lawful behavior and thereby avoid the humiliation of an “Up against-the-wall and spread-’em” order.

      • It is a people problem not a gun problem, and the cops are not the cause or root of the problem,they are the placebo, for that cultures failing and the milking of trillions of dollars from civilized taxpayers.

      • Why not just of the police pop by everyone’s house 2 or 3 times a month unannounced to do safety walk through checks? If you go and look at the rationale that SCOTUS has made on sobriety check points, you will see that they backed into those and the are supposed to be for just enough to see if someone has been drinking.

        “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,[a] against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

        That first part was problematic for “stop & frisk.” Furthermore, this wouldn’t have worked in Georgia nor Florida. Courts have ruled that in states where weapons are legal, that isn’t in and of itself “probable cause” of wrong doing. Of course in NYC, the 2nd A is already violated so it makes walking on the 4th that much easier.

  4. If you live in an area like this, you’re totally on your own for personal defense. The cops answer to venal politicians with their own agendas , none of which include “keeping the people safe”. When Thug Lyfes gang slides your state or city rep a suitcase of money come election season, it buys them a lot more representation then our mere ballot box .
    Your government is actually Thug Lyfes government, which is why you can’t get a carry permit while the real constituents shoot it up in the streets.

    They’re not afraid of cops, because the cops answer to the government, and the local government answers to them and their money. One phone call from a connected city politico and the case is dropped -and so are the cops’ if they keep up with the whole ” fighting crime ” deal. That’s partly why you see so many thugs with twenty arrests and multiple violent offenses with maybe probation and a year in jail at most.

    Which means at the end of the day, were on our own folks. In many cities, the police chain of command doesnt end with the mayor or city council-it ends with one or a group gang boss with the mayor/council on speed dial.

  5. What the reaction to the latest two incidents of “police violence” tells me is that anti-police rhetoric is part of the faux Libertarian assault on civil society and public law. Both McKinney, Texas and the Metlife concert incidents were assaults on private property rights. The overall police response was proper and legitimate. To argue otherwise is to reject the concept of private property. Those party and gate crashers were engaged in the theft of property rights.

    Way back in the early days of the Ferguson riots I pointed out that the objective was not to right some wrong but to use the incident to put the gangs in control of the streets. That effort has been successful. It is no longer considered proper for the police to protect an individual’s property rights. You can thank both Al Sharpton and Radley Balko.

    • Per the Warren decision, the police have no obligation to protect you or your property. That means it’s up to you.

      • Until it’s time to actually protect your property, in which case you’re the criminal for protecting your property.

      • And your point is? The police may not be obligated to protected property but as both these assault on private property show they generally will come out and do it. You [deliberately] misunderstand what the courts have said. The role of the police is not to protect your property but property and public order in general. Since Ferguson, the police have increasingly withdrawn from this duty and we know what the result has been This has been the intent of Progressive and faux Libertarian anti-police agitators. Understand this, when the police aren’t there to maintain the civil peace then it falls on you. You don’t want that to happen because you will be very unhappy standing guard over property 24/7. Why do you think police organizations were created as the country urbanized?

    • Yes, I agree that one of the underlying purposes of this deliberate agitation we’re seeing is to attack private property rights. The same paid agitators have now shown up in McKinney to try to destroy a decent, well functioning, mixed race neighborhood.

    • tdiinva: You are positing that Radley Balko is not really a libertarian?
      His criticisms of laws and the police seem pretty reasonable to me. It rather looks like he brings attention to the legislative and police assault on property rights too. What is your evidence that he is assaulting property rights rather than defending them?
      For my part, I might even posit that police have participated in efforts that have had a more detrimental effect on property rights than even Al Sharpton.

      • I don’t even know why he bothers with “faux”. I haven’t seen a single libertarian here on TTAG that he didn’t dismiss as a cop-hater.

      • Balko and the Reason crowd are Rothbardian anarchists, the very opposite of a real Libertarian. Balko and Reason’s attack on the police are not about police militarization. That is just a narrative. Their real intent is to undermine support for public law in general. A real Libertarian would never have sided with mob in Ferguson or the one the invaded the Mall of America. Real Libertarians understand that you cannot have liberty if you do not protect property rights. Despite the talk Balko et al don’t support property rights unless it involves drug or sex.

  6. “Encouraged to carry their guns again?”…. Makes me wonder if NYC cops intentions were to keep the public in fear.. Their view that everyone is a potential criminal certainly shines.

  7. When were the criminals ever so scared of the cops that they left their guns at home?

  8. The cops being bought to heel could be considered a good thing in a way. We’ll learn a bit of self-reliance and maybe this will further the 2A movement since people will want guns for themselves since the cops aren’t going to come. The police have their place, sure, but at the same time, remember the Warren decision by SCOTUS in 2005 – they aren’t obligated to serve and protect.

    • Let’s do a thought experiment. Suppose the police are scaled back to a bare minimum. Are you prepared to be George Zimmerman and keep watch on your neighborhood? If you do then do you believe that you will never make a mistake, use too much force or be the subject of race bating?.

      • “Are you prepared to be George Zimmerman and keep watch on your neighborhood?”

        WTF, so in your own words any person who watches over his community is a moron like Zimmerman and not a concerned citizen, okay FEDCOAT your blind allegiance to the state is coming through. Zimmerman saw and stereo typed a stranger to a tee I might add, in his community, but he was in no way wrong in asking somebody if they live around there. When Zimmerman was attacked by a savage he did very well in stopping a threat. Just like Mr. Farago learned the other day that the truth about guns is in no comparison to the truth about cars, because gun owners believe in liberty,self-reliance, plus the right to armed self-defense is not socioeconomically prohibitive.

        To answer your Question about if people are willing to watch over their communities and protect their communities?

        The joy of a free market with less state sanctioned thugs roaming the streets it would lead to deliberate men being paid for their skills by those who would need them. A group of contractors could clear out any ghetto in the country within a week, but the only problem is the crime is culture deep in those areas. Bounty hunting would improve certain communities or at least instill fear in criminals, instead of criminals who receive three hots and a cot as criminal deterrence. Excessive force and and race baiting would no longer matter because if the police are scaled back that means the criminal justice system has been overhauled to provide equal and swift justice at the bare minimum expense to the taxpayers.

        • If you take away the police enough everyone will have to be more like Zimmerman, though- if they are concerned about their community. One reason we all think Zimmerman did something dumb was that he got out of his vehicle and started following a suspicious subject (in his mind) around at night instead of letting the police deal with it. You won’t be able to just call the police and expect them to take care of it if they’re not around doing that sort of thing. And when you’re the one to end up in a situation where you have to use deadly force you’ll also be the one who faces the sort of trial(s) Zimmerman did.

        • I have been troubling posting today but I am glad Hannibal explained it to you. If there are no police then you are responsible and that will put you in the same situation that Darren Wilson, the officers that arrested Freddy Gray or the officers in McKinney Texas faced. The people of the gun like to point out that armed citizens make fewer mistakes than the cops. While that is a true statement such people forget that the armed citizen generally knows who the bad guy is while the cop arriving at the scene sees is you standing over a body holding a gun. If you want to police your neighborhood then be prepared to get second guessed and make mistakes.

  9. so if i understand this statement she is implying that criminals at one point STOPPED carrying firearms? and when would that be? and where? and for what reason?

  10. “Why don’t Obamma take over them powlice?” is what the mass media and the administration is waiting for us to ask.

    • Isn’t that a scary reality, which most of WE the People are in fierce opposition of, which is also the point.

      The scariest part of the police state is not the police but the laws sanctioning their behaviors. The worst example of a police state is how easy the powers that be can declare a State of Emergency, which renders the law null and void only to be replaced with hierarchical sanctioned state force. The agents of the state then protect the government’s interests, not the people the government is supposed to be granted its powers from.

  11. THEY NEVER STOPPED CARRYING A GUN YOU BLIND DUMB JACKASS!!!! CRIMINALS DON’T FOLLOW THE LAW!!!!!!

  12. Police culture, i.e., police unions, implied immunity, and the infamous “blue wall of silence”, evolved as a way of shielding police both from public retribution and from the excesses of corrupt public officials. An unintended consequence of this was a too-close relationship between the police and prosecutors which resulted in the police routinely being excused for doing things that caused private citizens to be tried and sent to prison. Another unintended consequence of this relationship is the tacit acceptance of bad behavior, including militarization, which both distorts traditional police relations with the public and the professional standards that support those relationships.

    Aided by public media and the profusion of cell phone videos, for the first time, the public has ready access to instances of excessive, brutal, even senseless police behavior that in earlier times could be effectively hidden from public view. While these videos may well be isolated examples of individual bad behavior, they nonetheless show a certain routinization suggesting that this kind of bad behavior has been going on for quite some time.

    America’s law enforcement apparatus, including the police, politicians, and prosecutors, has generally responded very poorly to these highly visible examples of official misconduct. Arguments stressing “officer safety” along with other customary denials of responsibility now appear as increasingly lame excuses which work to further undermine the public confidence in the police. As this has happened the political class, never loyal to anyone but itself, is turning on the police. As we are now seeing, the results are not going to be pretty.

    • Addendum: If my theory is right, we can see gun-rights and gun-control as countervailing forces which have emerged in response to the kinds of changes in policing that I’ve just described. Castle laws, concealed and open carry laws, constitutional carry dialogues are entirely logical responses to public perceptions that the police are, perhaps, not always the protectors we have thought them to be. As private citizens begin to realize that they are more responsible for their own protection than they previously believed, it’s entirely likely that the current double standard of implied immunity for police and prosecution for private citizens will come under increased criticism and even change. If this happens the political and law enforcement landscape will undergo a profound change. Duck and cover.

    • “. . . the political class, never loyal to anyone but itself, is turning on the police.”

      In reply to both your initial comment and addendum; I agree that the phenomena are inter-related – but in a different way. SYG, Castle Doctrine and Right-to-Carry seem to have preceded the pulling-back of the veil on police misconduct and the Black-lash against police shootings.

      My take is that gun-rights arose spontaneously with a recognition that when seconds count the police are STILL minutes away.

      Now, with Ferguson and Baltimore, inner-city residents are beginning to see what happens when the police are held on a short leash and then won’t take any initiative. They are paying for a police force that isn’t doing its job for reasons that are primarily political and only secondarily self-serving by the officers.

      The question we PotG face is whether and how to participate in this development.

      I’m deeply disturbed by the painting with a broad tar-brush of all police by commentaries on TTAG or elsewhere. A ready skepticism of all public servants is well-advised in a republic; and police are public servants just as are politicians. We should – by all means – call ’em like we see ’em whenever we see misconduct. And yet, I’m pretty confident that the majority of us PotG would have to admit that the majority of our contacts with police were concluded with a modicum of civility. (I didn’t like getting any of the tickets I’ve ever gotten; nevertheless, I’ve had only a very few mildly offensive interactions with cops).

      The police know that criminals aren’t covering their backs. They are beginning to learn that their politicians can’t be relied upon to cover their backs. Do we PotG want to get in line behind the criminals and politicians to assure the cops that we-too are their mortal enemies?

      In the battle over gun-rights the cops are positioned to be our supporters or antagonists. Most municipal Chiefs and a much smaller number of Sheriffs seize every opportunity to testify before legislative committees for gun-control. Notable exceptions are Detroit’s Chief and Milwaukee County’s Sheriff. The annual polls by PoliceOne show strong support among the rank-and-file for gun rights.

      Here is our chance, fellow PotG. Are we going to support our Milwaukee Sheriff? Our Detroit Chief? The 80+% of the nation’s rank-and-file? If so, maybe we can get more support in legislatures from the sheriffs and chiefs. Maybe we can get the rank-and-file to speak-out on gun-carry by citizens in their coffee and doughnut shops. How about inviting the cops to attend our OC demonstrations wearing a smile on their faces. Imagine the devastating effect on the photo-ops with smiling police in the background as OFWG stroll by OCing.

      On the other hand, maybe we could just continue tarring them all with the same black brush. Ought to increase the number of officers altogether too eager to kick-in our doors when a confiscation order is issued.

  13. It always amazes me how fast libturds switch between “Only the police and military should have guns” to “F**K THA PO-LEECE!”. Then again, I realize how uneducated and brain washed libturds are…

    • “Then again, I realize how uneducated and brain washed libturds are…”

      Dangerous assumption and I hope it was sarcasm. Most are educated, not intelligent, but you are spot on with the brainwashed part. The only problem with those brainwashed liberal lemmings is that they have the government bought and paid for, which means they have legislative tyranny over their opposition.

      A conservative cop will execute you the same as a liberal cop if they are ordered to, hence same team just different jerseys and different membership dues, but the same sponsor.

  14. I think the liberal Black-lash against the police is a very interesting development for the progress of gun-rights.

    Let’s acknowledge up-front that the hand that feeds the police officer is his chain-of-command up to the top official (sheriff or mayor+city-council). The “feed” is a periodic paycheck; promotion-path and a pension if he can survive 20+ years-of-service. All these are very strong influences.

    Yet, an overwhelming influence is the prospect of getting home safely tonight. A second strong concern is being left hung-out-to-dry by your chain of command.

    Cops can see when their chain-of-command DOES/does-NOT have their back. When the cops see that their leftist leaders don’t have their backs they will stand-down. This scenario is more likely to play-out in the inner-city with devastating results on law-and-order in those precincts.

    What are law-abiding residents going to do? They will – eventually – do what is within their own power to do. Some will armor-up their doors and windows; some will go beyond such common-sense measures.

    Outside inner-city precincts it’s hard to tell what the short-term impact will be. I doubt that things will change much in either Montana or New Jersey.

    In the longer run; this is a more fascinating question. The governors of anti-gun States such as CT, NY, NJ, etc. have probably counted on their “army” of men-in-blue to do as they are ordered to selectively enforce the establishment political agenda. If that means kicking-in doors to enforce an assault-weapons ban; well, then, the heads of the State Police and city Chiefs-of-Police will give them every assurance of the loyalty of their “troopers”.

    It’s really hard to predict what the rank-and-file will actually do. Will they feel ultimate loyalty to their chain-of-command? Enough so as to continually rush into-the-breach in the face of gunfire from within and from their backs? Will their paychecks, promotions and pensions be so dear to them that they will risk the overwhelming desire to go home to their families that night?

    Perhaps that depends upon where we position ourselves – we PotG – vis a vis the police community.

    Are we generally supportive of the police? Do we keep our criticisms of individual police officers in sharp focus? Are we on the side of law-and-order when emergencies break-out? Or, do we tar all police with a broad brush?

    • Put another way, is it possible for an armed citizenry to replace many traditional police functions? Probably it is, although whether this happens as a grass-roots solution or a direct government action remains to be seen. We live in interesting times.

      • I think that an armed citizenry is more-so a complement to a police force vs. a substitute for a police force.

        Looking back to the earliest appearance of a sheriff or constable (in England) the prospects of dialing 911 and expecting a bobby on horseback to ride to the scene of the crime was technologically and economically absurd.

        Nor has the introduction of the cell phone and police cars capable of 120 mph closed the space-time continuum to a relevant limit approaching zero. (I e., it matters not whether the bobby is 3 days late or the cop is 3 minutes late to stop a crime in-progress).

        What we have always needed – and will continue to need – is a professional and dispassionate police force to take-into-custody the suspects who don’t get-away; and, to track-down those suspects who do get-away. We PotG do not advocate summery justice in hanging car thieves from the nearest tree. Nor do we advocate mounting up a posse of motorcyclists to run-down a fleeing felon.

        All we ask is that we civilians are left at liberty to arrest a perpetrator during the commission of an actual crime (i.e., when there is little ambiguity as to identity and guilt). If a perpetrator dies in the commission of a heinous crime that is perfectly in accord with our culture’s tradition of justice. Often, the perpetrator will get-away; should he leave a trail of blood leading to a hospital, so much the better for proper identification by the police.

        Conventional wisdom is that 90+% of DGUs end with the perpetrator fleeing without being injured (much less killed). There are 3 things to be said about this outcome:
        1. – the crime was not completed; i.e. the victim was left with little to no injury or loss of property;
        2. – the perpetrator’s perception of the risk/reward in his chosen vocation has shifted; and,
        3. – the prospects of the police identifying and bringing the perpetrator to justice are unchanged.

        The net outcome for the individual victim and society as a whole is entirely salutatory. The offsetting case must be argued successfully that errors and collateral-damage by law-abiding gun keepers and bearers exceeds the benefits. The Antis have failed to make this case.

  15. Hmmm…”stop and frisk” might concern more of you if you were just walking while black(or brown). So now the poor po-leece can’t be thug criminals because all the crap they do is on camera. I just saw a cop on CNN justify(rationalize?) kicking a black man in the head while he was down…and tasered already. You are truly on your own and need to provide your own protection…Man this site is working BADLY(and ONLY this site….)

  16. If this keeps up, the police will be forced to do something different than they’ve been doing. Maybe they should try police work.

  17. Awwww, a mouthpiece for one of the most corrupt police forces in the nation gripes about the peasants being able to carry guns, instead of just the government anointed dispensers of violence.

  18. Cops have been pushed back on their heels, and the criminals are on their toes, encouraged and carrying their guns again.” The latest statistics by John Lott state that this is a pure finger fVking fantasy. There is no crime epidemic, just the same flat line.

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