Peace in our time. Building a bridge to the 21st century. If you like your health plan, you can keep it. Add to that list of laughable promises, “safety for all”. That’s the wonderfully Orwellian moniker attached to the ballot initiative that California Lt. Governor (and gubernatorial candidate) Gavin Newsom wants Golden Staters to vote on in November. If passed — and given the state’s recent history, why wouldn’t it? – the California gunpocalypse would accelerate to include outright confiscation of all magazines with a capacity over 10 rounds, electronic reporting of all ammunition sales and so much more! But not every law enforcement officer there is on board with the headlong acceleration of the nation’s most populace state toward full-on civilian disarmament . . .
A variety of county sheriffs have come out in opposition to the laughably named effort. The latest to speak up is Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood.
“We’re having a gang war in this county with gang members in retaliation, which has nothing to do with gun control, that’s human behavior,” said Youngblood.
Youngblood said the state needs to focus more on tougher sentencing when it comes to criminals, and not so much on restricting second amendment rights.
Sound familiar?
He said if this becomes law it won’t stop the crimes or bring down the number of deaths we’re currently seeing in Kern County, but instead make it difficult for law abiding citizens to defend themselves.
“The ones who aren’t going to be armed, are the people who have the right to protect themselves from these predators,” said Youngblood.
Just as in so many other gun control-happy locales, the knee-jerk response to accelerating gang-related crime and a permissive criminal justice system that keeps criminals on the streets is to reduce the rights of — wait for it — law abiding citizens to protect themselves. And Sheriff Youngblood isn’t the only one trying to sound the alarm.
Ed Whiting, City of Taft Police Chief, also shares the same views as Youngblood, saying the key to lowering crime rates it to keep criminals locked up.
“Dumping inmates is not working and I think it’s causing crime rate to go higher and I think we all see that,” said Whiting. “Prop 47 is one of the most horrible proposition laws I’ve seen in the almost 40 years I’ve been in law enforcement.”
It’s almost as if these LEOs have concluded that passing more laws to keep criminals from breaking the laws already on the books is doomed to failure. Go figure.
“There’s been laws against heroin use and methamphetamine use for how many years? Have we stopped it? No, because those people aren’t following the law,” (Youngblood) said.
Not that it’s likely to matter. The left coast has demonstrated that it intends to be the vanguard of Second Amendment rights abrogation, at least as long as and to the extent that the courts allow it. In California, this is how gun rights die…with thunderous applause.
The police will lobby against if evacuate there is no police exemption. Once the get what they want, most will support it like they did with the school ban.
They are exempt under the bill, afaik. Departmental purchases most certainly are. I don’t remember whether retired cops are exempt. Also in opposition is the LA Assistant District Attorneys Association, and a bunch more sheriffs who recognize that this will do nothing to reduce crime.
Oh, and this is a ballot proposition, not a bill in the Legislature. It is too late for it to be amended.
There is a competing bill in the Legislature that will undoubtedly pass that does not have a purchaser licensing provision, but does require an instant check against a California database of prohibited persons and an electronic report of all sales tied to the purchaser’s ID to the state, which will maintain the record.
I would like to ask our resident police commentators, why do police routinely support and/or enforce unjust laws? In this forum, in regards to firearm laws, but also any other ones.
It would be illegal for me to concealed carry without a permission slip in my state. Were I to do so, I would expect to be arrested and charged if caught. Why? Having done no actual harm, I deserve no punishment (in my mind), yet I would receive punishment anyway.
If observed driving with no seat belt on in my state, I can be stopped, briefly detained, questioned, required to show my papers, and fined. Having done no actual harm, I deserve no punishment (in my mind), yet I would receive punishment anyway.
I find both of these situations to be very much an infringement of my rights as a free American citizen. Why are nations police so complicit in enforcing such laws? I’d really like to know.
Police are bound to enforce the law. That is their job. Just or unjust, agree or disagree, they do it. You have to get a “permission slip” because it is the law. You have to wear a seatbelt because it’s the law. Those are facts. Whether you agree or not doesn’t matter, especially to those that enforce the law and make the laws, and your mind doesn’t make the laws. The seatbelt is for your safety anyways, why would you not wear it? No one is detained for not wearing a seatbelt unless they are belligerent or uncooperative. And in America, we don’t have “papers”, we have licenses and registration/insurance. You got a ticket, because you broke the law. You’re free to do what you want, within the confines of the law. Welcome to America.
Should speed laws only be enforced when you crash, or only when you crash and cause physical injury to another person?
I would say the answer to that question should be closer to yes than to no. I believe that zero tolerance and strict enforcement is not the answer, nor is it your right to drive as fast as you want as long as you don’t hit anybody. There needs to be nuance. Yet, there is not. Tickets should not be routinely issued to drivers exceeding the speed limit, yet doing it in a way that is not causing traffic disruption or unnecessary hazards.
Using the seat belt example, there is no direct harm as if you had punched someone in the face, but there is over time, indirect harm in the form of increased rates of serious injury and medical costs. Society has decided this is worth regulation when on the public roads, but usually can’t enforce it on private property.
As far as society deciding to regulate something it deems worthwhile. We as a society democratically elected representatives who then theoretically craft laws that are representative of the society who elected them. However, our country is not supposed to be purely democratic and thus at the whim of the feeling of the mob. We have a constitution that limits what kinds of laws we are supposed to be able to write. Seat belt laws may save lives and money on one hand, and on the other hand expand the power of the state to interrupt our daily lives, thus conditioning the populace to expecting state interference in our live, helping to pave the way for the next round of intrusive legislation. So, on the whole, if seat belt laws help to create a more powerful and obtrusive state, then they are a net nagative. IMHO.
I don’t want the state to pay my medical costs. “Rates of serious injury” due to my freedom is not their business. People should make their own personal decisions and live with the rewards or consequences. Anyways, it is more likely to get a ticket for not wearing your seat belt than to be seriously injured because you weren’t wearing your seat belt. In my state there are seat belt enforcement areas where they check your seat belt. The state uses this law as a source of income, and that is what it really is about. bigger budgets so they can expand and provide more services that I don’t want.
Like a good cocentration camp guard who forgot his oath to the constitution.
If you were supposed to follow the law blindly then there would be no oath to the constitution.
I’m sure when you speed and when you violate the federal gun free schools act, you turn yourself in, right lawman?
These are the worst kind of people. People that follow orders blindly without morally questioning them. These people are on the same level as Nazi gestapo or US gestapo in the Mai Lai Massacre. Hopefully you are not one of these people.
Except they aren’t facts. Technically I can carry without a permission slip. I can also do it without a seatbelt. So I don’t actually “have” to do that.
My mind doesn’t make the law, but it can disobey those laws. And it better matter to those that enforce and make the law. Since the beginning of time, dictators and lawmen have been slaughtered because they couldn’t help trying to force good people to do what they don’t want to do.
If I’m driving a block down the road maybe I don’t want to bother? Maybe I don’t want to wear it simply because it is a nanny state law.
Negative. In my state there are “seatbelt enforcement units” who use this law for state income. That’s right. They don’t care about my safety. They just want some money. My money.
Nazi’s called them “papers.” They are actually the same thing.
Sounds like America isn’t what it used to be. Sounds like America sucks, where the state with zero morals or intellect involved, blindly enforces nanny laws on the small helpless people of the nation, whom are incapable of taking care of themselves and need supervison from the state.
Right, like the NYPD would have a problem breaking into your home because you have an AK-47 and drag you at at gunpoint with another AK/AK firearm if you’re lucky or choke you do death for not paying confiscatory tobacco taxes before you sell them, BUT… They had no problem when they “went on strike” by not inforcing anything. Life went on and the quietly went back to work because no one cared…. Hypocrites.
Police are bound to enforce the law.
I vas zich folliven orderz.
Vat, I zhould haf not left Siemens to vork at der Kozentration Kamp?
Bull Connor sure enforced the law. He’s OK by you, right?
Only in the ungodly worship of the “rule of law” is it the job of the police to “enforce the law”. In the original America, their job was to keep the peace; the law was only a tool for doing that, and only applied when the peace was not being kept. Hence the concept “no harm, no crime”.
Where do you draw the line at ‘actual harm?’ Using the seat belt example, there is no direct harm as if you had punched someone in the face, but there is over time, indirect harm in the form of increased rates of serious injury and medical costs. Society has decided this is worth regulation when on the public roads, but usually can’t enforce it on private property.
How about speeding? There is a much closer link to ‘actual harm’ when someone goes twice the speed limit in traffic, because the chances are much greater that they injure someone else in the crash compared to driving normally but without a seat belt. Should speed laws only be enforced when you crash, or only when you crash and cause physical injury to another person?
How about drunk driving? If you make it home without crashing into another car, a signpost, or doing donuts in a neighbor’s yard, is there any ‘actual harm?’ Should there be different rules for people who are such hardened alcoholics that they are close to being completely functional with a BAC of well over the legal limit?
The general answer to your question is that law is one of the tools used to maintain an orderly society, and that society ought to decide what they consider just and unjust. On the one hand, if you don’t like the rules (and that goes for other things like polite behavior as well as actual law), then either work to change your society or go live somewhere else. On the other hand, society is composed of at least as many uneducated and unreasoning people as rational ones, and historically, far more who support overbearing government than people who value freedom above all else.
I suppose a more specific answer as to why police enforce laws you might feel are unjust is that police come from the same pool of human beings that made the laws in the first place. Where that pool of humans believes in more totalitarian government (China, North Korea, New Jersey), you find more enforcement of stricter law.
There is only one real solution, long term. Take the schools back, and teach the next generation of young Americans to love their country, their heritage, and their freedom again.
Speeding or driving drunk in traffic is different from the same if you are the only one on the road. That’s where the “keep the peace” distinction should come in: if you’re the only one on the road, an officer could stop you and suggest you drive more slowly, or ask if you’d like some safer transportation than your own, but there’s no reason for “punishment”.
@Arkansas
Honestly I would say they don’t. I could care less if you decide to put your pistol on your shoulder. Even if it has a buffer tube that kinda looks like a stock but isn’t. I could care less if you are carrying a gun without a permit. The only time I know of a person getting in trouble for carrying a firearm without a permit is because he was a felon and had just been involved in a fight. He also threatened to use the gun. We threw everything we could at him.
How would I know if a random joe shmoe had a glock in his pants? I wouldn’t. Even if I saw a guy carrying while working I wouldn’t ask to see his permit. I would tell him good for him and be safe. Heck if a guy shot himself in the bathroom I doubt I would charge him with anything just cause it was a bad enough day for him and we have no need to rub salt into a (literal) wound.
Seatbelts are a weird thing. I can tell you I have never pulled someone over for not wearing a seat belt because I think it is chicken shiz. But I think you should wear a seatbelt. After seeing literally accidents where the guy in the seat belt walks away versus the guy without the seatbelt (who is spread across 50 yards of dirt….), I think everyone should wear them.
I won’t force you to wear a seat belt. And I guarantee that 99% of the guys at my department would NOT enforce magazine restrictions or any Assault Weapon ban. Heck all the sheriffs in my state (except one!) stated that they would not enforce any new ban that Obama concocted.
Good luck with whatever you decide. Just don’t pull guns on cops (or anyone really) please.
I respect that maybe you don’t do those things. I would also commend your department if they truly dont. If what you say is true, I would like your department to start a police community outreach program directed at the other 99% of departments who are giving you guys a bad name, because, to use your word, chickenshit excuses routinely used by officers to charge the populous with chickenshit violations is the at the very root of the mistrust and dislike of said populous toward said officers. You could call you program #don’t be chickenshit.
Thanks for the reply
The ‘chickenshit’ won’t stop until police end the use of point systems. Cops get points for making arrests, for issuing citations, for seizing property, and as long as they do so they will ‘enforce’ anything they think they can get away with.
We had a deputy here who made false statements about his probable cause. He was caught at it, in court, by the judge, thanks to a cell phone someone turned on when he made the arrest. Did he get dinged for a false arrest? No — in fact he still got credit for the arrest.
Being police or anything really doesn’t change much. People are people. You can find good, bad, weird, normal etc etc
You see military supporting Killary so…. You see my point!?!
Sorry sir, but in the lower 48, Texas is much larger than California. Of all 50, Alaska more than doubles Texas. California is a lowly 3rd. Can’t have Texas knocked like that. Otherwise, nice to see some sane people out on the East Coast.
I think he meant “most populous”, not largest by land area.
….. California is on the west coast. Do they teach geography in Texas? 😀
Haha, Slick apparently not. I do that all the time, don’t know why.
I frequently see comments knocking police for enforcing these bad laws. But what of the citizens responsibility? Why do the citizens follow these bad laws and then rail at the cops for enforcing them? If these laws are bad enough to expect a cop to not follow them then why would we forgive a citizen for following them?
After all. cops are civilians like the rest of us.
Or is it just easier and safer to pay our taxes and keep our eyes down?
“…and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
“then why would we forgive a citizen for following them”
Because the cops get special carve-outs such that what is illegal for civilians is not illegal for the piggies. It is easy for cops to criticize bad laws when none of these laws apply to them.
“After all. cops are civilians like the rest of us.”
But with all sorts of legal privileges that regular civilians don’t have. Legally and in the context of the topic at hand, they are an entirely separate class unto themselves. See how easy it is to point out how empty your pro-cop soundbites are?
How you you reconcile the fact that your hero cops are the mailed fist that enforces all the bad laws, even as you bloviate about the need to support the police to protect the people against government tyranny? Are bad laws not part of government tyranny?
So. Once again you get it wrong. Not surprising from a troll. I’ve never said cops should protect us from tyranny. I’ve said that cops and soldiers and citizens can work together to undue tyranny.
How about your personal responsibility for the “tyranny” you claim to see in this country? Have you refused to pay your taxes and defund that murderous .gov you claim to hate?
Or are you that good little german citizen answering to the allies? I didn’t see or do anything wrong. No Nazis here. It was just those bad SS types.
“I’ve never said cops should protect us from tyranny. I’ve said that cops and soldiers and citizens can work together to undue tyranny.”
Heh. The cops are literally administering the minutiae of tyranny as we speak, so your back-tracked, damage control statement is garbage just every other time you blabber about “supporting the police”.
“How about your personal responsibility for the “tyranny” you claim to see in this country? Have you refused to pay your taxes and defund that murderous .gov you claim to hate?”
Taxes are extracted by threat of violence. imprisonment and death (by the police you love), therefore the taxed peoples are the victims in this equation. Your claim is akin to blaming the street vendor for Mafia violence because he had to pay protection money. Truly a ludicrous logical leap, but hey, you’ve said worse things. 🙂
“Or are you that good little german citizen answering to the allies?”
Say what now? Even the allies did not cast moral culpability of Nazi crimes onto the entire German population. And remember that the SS had police powers in Germany. So now you absolve the American SS while blaming the regular citizenry for government crimes. The irony… it is too much.
So a translation of your statement. “I’m going to do nothing to change the system. I’m too scared to do anything. If changes are made it will be by better men than me. Men like jwm and the cops and soldiers.” Bout sums it up.
Super translation, brah. Can you actually explain your plainly contradictory positions, or are strawmen the only argument you have left (or perhaps the only tactic you ever had to begin with)?
By the way I don’t expect you to know or understand the idea of non-violent resistance (you know, Gandhi and all that) or peaceful activism. This stuff is is way beyond your meager intellect. 🙂
So, you’re claiming Gandhi status? What an ego. And also, Gandhi routinely went into harms way. He had the balls to stand up for what he believed in. Hell, most soldiers have more in common with Gandhi than you do. They at least aren’t physical cowards hiding behind pacifism.
Gandhi my ass. He wasn’t a jackal hiding in the dark and yapping at braver men than him.
Assclown.
See what I mean about this concept being far beyond your meager intellect? 🙂
Firstly, doing something Gandhi advocated is not “claiming Gandhi status”, it is merely following his methods. Civil resistance is key to this doctrine. Shouldn’t you be insulting Gandhi as a coward, given your continual display of contempt for the idea of civil resistance?
Secondly, when the state’s primary method of control is the use of their monopoly on violence, even peaceful resistance against the state carries the risk of harm (as amply demonstrated throughout modern history).
And lastly, contemporary American soldiers have absolutely nothing in common with Gandhism, as their role is the willful dispensation of violence as part of American government aggression, which is literally what Gandhi spent his life opposing.
Even your lame attempts to derail the topic are incredibly easy to tear down. 🙂
So the internet troll tells me he’s taking great risks in his peacefull resistence. Such as? Have you refused to pay your taxes?
Tell me one thing. One actual thing you’ve done other than troll.
“great risks” – tsk tsk. What did I say about strawmen? Do you even know what a strawman is?
If you are aware of the idea of the “chilling effect” (obviously, you are not) created by modern administrative law combined with alphabet agencies, then you would understand the existence of risk involved in dissent.
“Have you refused to pay your taxes?”
There are thousands of methods of civil disobedience and you focus on this one like a bad statist caricature on Salon. Do you ever tire of your intellectual mediocrity?
Maybe I got my name added to a watchlist because I showed up at the last LP convention. What have you done lately to advance liberty? Sucking up to the cops because of some delusional belief that they will help defeat tyranny doesn’t count. 🙂
So, as I suspected. You got nothing. “Maybe I got….” sounds like a bar rat trying to sound important to a woman. You don’t like taxes as an example. Give one of your own. Just one.
Swatting your neighbors doesn’t count. And yes, I firmly believe you’d key cars or swat people. As long as you thought you wouldn’t get caught.
Just one.
Notice how I explain the concept of the chilling effect and it literally goes in your one ear and out the other. Like I said, way over your head. 🙂
Political activism, actually supporting third parties that advocate liberty, all of this is nothing. But your delusional belief in the police and the military being a guard of liberty somehow makes you a “better man”. Oh my.
“I firmly believe you’d key cars or swat people”
Why, because people who criticize your hero cops are automatically guilty of such acts? Confirm yet again that you have the logical reasoning of a child.
Politically active? That’s it? Like all the rest of us in the pro 2a community. Way to take huge risks against that evil .gov.
And you keep misrepresenting my stand. I don’t call cops heros. All I’ve ever said is we’ll need everybody in this fight to make things right. Cops. Soldiers. POTG.
The way you try to exclude people makes me suspect your real goals.
As for chilling effect. That’s just a way of saying you’re afraid. Man up.
“Like all the rest of us in the pro 2a community”
You? Pro 2A? Even as you suck up to the instruments of violence that 2A was specifically written to overthrow? Hah!
“And you keep misrepresenting my stand. I don’t call cops heros. All I’ve ever said is we’ll need everybody in this fight to make things right. Cops. Soldiers. POTG.”
And you blabber about this even as the cops and soldiers continually demonstrate themselves to be willing pawns in making things worse on behalf of the government. Do you ever get sick of reality conflicting with your delusion?
“The way you try to exclude people makes me suspect your real goals.”
And the way you suck up to the willful enemies of liberty demonstrate your ignorance.
Now you’re getting mad, brah. You non violent pacifist types can’t afford to get mad. Between currrent and former leo’s and soldiers they’re millions of us(was a soldier) out there. What do you intend to do with them? Ignore them?
And just because I question your motives and methods you call me a suck up. Methinks you’re much more statist than you will admit. Fortunately you’ll never be anything more important than an internet troll.
“What do you intend to do with them? Ignore them?”
Nah. As you demonstrate, simply by pointing out their service to tyranny is enough to drive them nuts. 🙂
“And just because I question your motives and methods you call me a suck up”
I call you a suck-up because of your continuous bloviation about supporting cops and soldiers even when their chosen careers demonstrably harm the causes of liberty and freedom, which directly contradict your purported support for said causes. Not to mention your continual refusal to address that gaping hole in your “logic”.
But I am amused by your admission that you question motives and methods, as opposed to the usual point of debate: opinions, and the rational basis behind them. Oh wait, you have no rational opinions. 🙂
So, in other words, you still got nothing. Good luck with that. I aim for a big tent approach to restoring civil rights in America and you aim to be the 1 looney insisting on his way.
“I aim for a big tent approach to restoring civil rights in America”
Yet another mindless soundbite with no substance. Not only have the police done absolutely nothing to prevent the wholesale destruction of the Bill of Rights, they have actively participated in it.
Specifically, the entirety of the police force is culpable in killing the 4th amendment, with enthusiasm. Most police are guilty of violating the 1st amendment while claiming ignorance. Many espouse contempt for the 2nd. The legal system and police act in concert to destroy the 6th and 8th.
Given that history, what makes you think my exclusionary approach is any worse than your plan?
“you still got nothing”
Says the guy whose hollow statements have been torn down at every turn. 🙂
Wah, wah, wah. You sound like the grownups on Charly Brown. Your way, as if it really existed, is doomed to failure.
So knock yourself out.
but don’t delude yourself into thinking you’re conning anybody around here.
“Wah, wah, wah.” – your debate method summed up succinctly
“you’re conning anybody around here”
Really? You speak for everyone? Dialectic is now subject to a popularity contest? Says a whole lot about your methods right there. 🙂
Yep. Just as I thought. You’re not in the fight against tyranny. You just like to bitch on the interwebz.
Just another useless feeder on society.
“Yep. Just as I thought. You’re not in the fight against tyranny.”
I know it is a lot to ask for, but can you actually explain why you say that? Or do you just get mad and rant aimlessly whenever your mindless blurbs are torn apart, which would be all the time?
The irony here is that cops are literally feeding off taxpayers, of course. 🙂
How can anyone that would exclude whole segments of a population based simply on their employment claim to be fighting against tyranny? In one broad brush stroke you’ve eliminated millions of potential comrades, maybe even tens of millions.
Your lack of reasoning and logic is the same as the folks that claim adam lanza represents all gun owners.
Any person truly interested in checking .gov overreach would welcome all comers to the fight. Instead, you actively seek to drive people away.
New to this site. The above discussion is why I avoid any interaction with anyone in law enforcement. I don’t want to know them, befriend them, associate with them or their families, because they could become my enemy overnight with the stoke of some idiot politician’s pen. Then we’re back to we don’t make the law, just enforce it. As far as I’m concerned, that’s no different than the excuse, we were just following orders.
Having an open doors policy for inmates then expecting crime not to rise is simply absurd.
The US has the highest recidivism rate in the first world. But the pigsters and their masters in the prison-industrial complex use this to justify more prisons, more inmates and more punishment, instead of examining the reasons behind this outlying statistic or even assessing the effectiveness of their “solutions” to crime.
Safety For All from the Ministry Of Truth And Love.
“Kern County Sheriff”
Naturally he would pay lip service to the law-and-order fetishist crowd, considering Kern County/Bakersfield PD’s have kill more civilians per capita than the NYPD and the LAPD.
Given the terrorist attacks on conservatives in San Jose is anybody shocked that California is rushing to disarm law abiding people? If La Raza had tried that shit in Texas, they would have gotten lit up like the 4th of July.
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