In an article entitled “The Myth of the End of Terrorism,” author Scott Stewart reveals that, surprise, “terrorism will continue no matter what the next geopolitical cycle brings.” Hear that? Cha-ching. There goes another $100b (or more) to America’s police industrial complex. This despite the fact that . . .
You can’t “harden” (i.e. pay a cop salary and benefits to protect) the millions of potential terrorist targets. And if you think a terrorist won’t start his or her attack by taking out a rent-a-cop guarding a hospital or school, or the “real” cop arming the metal detector at a public building, or simply attack an unguarded target, you’re the dictionary definition of oblivious.
That said, I’ve got nothing against obliviousness. It’s not my preferred mode, but I’m OK with Americans walking around in condition white. Their lack of situational awareness and/or a concealed firearm is a sign of American society’s safety and strength. If and when regular terrorist attacks start up (again), if and when terrorists strike “the heartland,” citizens will wise-up and tool-up. People are only as armed as they believe they need to be.
Provided of course, they can be. Ironically, the states with the most attractive terrorist targets are also the states where it’s next to impossible for average citizens to exercise their constitutional right to carry a concealed firearm. 9/11 went down in New York City and Washington, D.C., two urban centers where concealed carry is subject to a de facto ban. It’s the same deal in other big cities (e.g., SF, LA and Chicago). And, I might point out, on airplanes.
Government-mandated civilian defenselessness would disappear if the jihadist SHTF. Or would it? When the Twin Towers came crashing down The Big Apple didn’t liberalize its gun laws. After all, the threat came from the sky (although it started on the ground). More importantly, the police industrial complex wanted, and still wants, to keep their greedy lips glued to the taxpayer tit. The funding spigot depends on a frightened (i.e. unarmed) populace. Nothing loosens the public pursestrings for law enforcement expenditure more than fear.
So, now, do you feel safer with the new, vastly increased army of pseudo-military police protecting us from terrorist attack? And are those feelings fact? The lack of another 9/11 may reflect police expansion. On the other hand, a massive terrorist attack may have been averted despite the bloated bureaucracy created by the rise of soldier cop nation. Meanwhile and in any case, militarized SWAT teams have been busy, with sometimes tragic results.
There is an alternative to bulking-up law enforcement agencies against bonkers bad guys. Us. We’re the alternative. Armed civilians. Forget your FBI informants and so-called sting operations that stink of entrapment. We’re the best people to detect terrorists. We know who the strangers are amongst us and we have enough common sense not to finger the wrong people. We’re also the best people to take direct and immediate action if and when a terrorist attacks. When seconds count, the anti-terrorist SWAT team’s tank is only minutes away.
If U.S. citizens took responsibility for homeland security—which is, in fact, their security—they wouldn’t be quite so willing to buy the ever-expanding police industry its shiny new toys. And pay their ballooning salaries. And big fat pensions. And increase their powers of arrest and detention. And that’s just the bad news. The good news is that we’d be safer from any attack if we were, as individuals and a people, armed. We’d all be safer.
More guns less terrorists? Maybe. Maybe not. But as it was when this nation was founded, the fight to protect our gun rights is the fight to defend our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness against all those who would take it away from us, whatever their motivation.
This is so correct. Col Grossman has been saying this since 9/11.
You had me up to this part:
…There is an alternative to bulking-up law enforcement agencies against bonkers bad guys. Us. We’re the alternative. Armed civilians. Forget your FBI informants and so-called sting operations that stink of entrapment. We’re the best people to detect terrorists amongst us…
That might be correct re: the Timothy McVeigh wannabes that make up about 3% of your commenters, if you could get them drunk enough to turn in their anti-gummint gun club buddies, but otherwise, totally unrealistic.
You don’t have to get the 97% of pro-gummint, gun hating, handout loving Kool-aid drinkers drunk on the stuff to realize that when the SHTF, they will embrace their own police overlords, and martial law to boot. By the time their hangover is gone, they will be shorn and ready for the camps.
Our security in the US would seem pretty good if the CIA had just not blown it on the LA pair of the Twin Towers terrorists whom they’d followed from the Malaysia terrorist meet-up…they simply just took the month off, took a long lunch, after refusing to inform the FBI about the pair. The other major flaw was just incredible, the airlines fighting off for two sessions a regulation requiring hardened cockpit doors because they claimed the extra $150 would reduce their profit…even after we’d learned of an identical attempt in France. We accept failure across the intelligence spectrum. Then they say “Quadruple the funding and staff, let us put cameras everywhere and track every bank withdrawal, and all will be safer.” What BS. Remember, we’re buying ALL the increased security on the cuff with money we don’t have. It might help if Manhattan’s financial center were spread over 30 miles of Kansas (or Connecticut) instead. The era for such concentration of people and assets, read targets, should be over by now, purely for technological reasons, i.e. higher-tech explosives, drones, and poisons. This spreading out policy is Bloomberg and Rahm’s biggest fear. I don’t blame them. They’d rather have one intensive fortress…and own it.
“This spreading out policy is Bloomberg and Rahm’s biggest fear. I don’t blame them. They’d rather have one intensive fortress…and own it.”
+1
Thee major centers would not make it without fleecing the companies and income of all who work there. The need for these cities would be greatly reduced.
“…citizens will wise-up and tool-up. People are only as armed as they believe they need to be.”
Absolutely! Wise words to keep in mind when discussing the subject with others.
“So, now, do you feel safer with the new, vastly increased army of pseudo-military police protecting us from terrorist attack? And are those feelings fact? The lack of another 9/11 may reflect police expansion. On the other hand, a massive terrorist attack may have been averted despite the bloated bureaucracy created by the rise of soldier cop nation. Meanwhile and in any case, militarized SWAT teams have been busy, with sometimes tragic results.”
No, the expanded police depts I see do NOT make me feel safer and I’ll share why. The new larger budgets seem to be focused on weaponry, and gadgets and increasing the numbers of police officers, but not so much on training. Police officers get vilified publicly if they are caught “profiling” and they actually receive training in how to NOT profile, hence old blue haired ladies and kids get groped at the airport so that when the statistics of who got “looked at” are tallied up, the percentages make it appear that all passengers were selected at random. Same with auto stops on the road, I once overheard a border patrol agent instruct his boys to pull over every blue car for the next 2 hours. Nothing about the smell of pot or booze, nothing about look for a sweaty nervous driver, nothing about looking for people that didn’t look like they belong in the car they were driving, just pick out the blue cars. That kind of thinking scares me, because it passes for police work. And the bloated SWAT teams that have too many toys to play with, get to looking for reasons to “play” beyond the original idea. Like serving warrants at 4:00 AM, like driving the armored vehicles around on patrol in convoys with everyone aboard dressed in camo, helmets and face masks, like gearing up with .50 cal rifles, grenade launchers, and camo Hummvee’s. Why does a SWAT officer need to hide his face? What purpose does the “urban camo” serve? This kind of thinking scares me because these police commandos are esentially a paramilitary unit, they train that way, and they all seem to have a “us vs. them” attitude where if you are not part of the unit, you are the enemy. Maybe this is because we have a large amount of veterans going into law enforcement? and they bring their military training with them? I don’t know, but if that is the case, these folks need to learn that they are not patroling a foreign country any more looking for hostiles among the rabble.
So to answer your question, no I don’t feel safer today. I haven’t felt safe since 9/11/01.
“Maybe this is because we have a large amount of veterans going into law enforcement?”
In my opinion it is not the veterans who want to be all “military”, they would have stayed in the military if that is what they wanted. It is the ones who got rejected from the military and still want to play soldier.
That is a bold statement at the end there. PD’s generally don’t take military rejects nore does Target, and many other companies. You are essentially black listed similar to a felon.
Of course if you know something different and would like to share…
By military rejects I ment the ones who went to the Marine Recruiter talking about wanting to be Rambo and got sent out the door (I’ve heard USMC reject up to 80% of walk ins), ones wanting to be a SEAL but their ASFAB score didn’t qualify them, etc. There are plenty of people sent away with out even a file set up for them, add in those who do their research first and find out they won’t get to play Chuck Norris, etc. Not the ones who get the Big Chicken Dinner, Dis-Honorable or fail the psych exam, etc.
I hate to disagree with you but the majority of LEO are not rejects or Rambo wanna-bes. Many have degrees in CJ and are decent people who want to help others.
Sure there are problems everywhere but asserting that 80% of USMC applicants are rejected for such reasons is a long shot. Feel free to post links to hard data if you have any.
I did not say the majority of LEOs, nor was I talking about the majority of LEOs. I also did not assert the 80%, I specifically, and clearly said “I have heard”. I chose to use “have heard” specifically because it does not imply fact, only something that I have heard. I also did not state what reasons they were rejected for, I was quantifying an earlier phrase for clarification.
Please actually read the posts to see what they are talking about before replying.
I don’t think it’s fair to criticize ‘ordinary’ Americans for walking around in condition white all day. Why should we think that our situational awareness is better than anyone else’s? Situational awareness is great- but only for as long as you’re thinking about being situationally aware.
Once you stop thinking about situational awareness, it vanishes. Try it. Go do something. Dig a hole. Write an article. At some point, stop working and reflect on how aware you were while you were concentrating. Most people will find that you can’t focus on something in particular and everything in general at the same time.
You should, rather, criticize the fact that there is nothing out there to influence the need to have situational awareness. People are very capable despite how they’ve been conditioned to think of themselves. And no, nothing is full proof, but a shared collective in something that can actually make a difference is useful.
Also, let me correct myself; there are plenty of avenues to take if one wishes to increase their value of knowledge within self preservation. This would include dog training, self defense classes, street smarts, firearms training, etc. However the public at large has been conditioned to feel as though we as a species are beyond taking action if needed as well as preparing for a bad situation. People fall for the seductive illusion of safety; that someone else is watching out for them, or my favorite; the mentality that people shouldn’t do bad things to me therefore I’ll get upset when it does then believe that there is a breakdown in society (No you pu**y, you are the breakdown!).
The reason that OBL and that Yemeni-American puke Anwar al-Awlaki are rotting in their graves — or in OBL’s case, floating — is because of intel operations and informants. Several plots have been foiled because of the same. It takes years to put productive intel operations together, and ours are starting to produce. I’m down with that.
I prefer my fellow Americans to continue in Condition White. We all should. If they suddenly woke up, there would be more cases like Spencer Bergon, the Walmart manager who got busted for legally having guns in the company parking lot.
We aren’t Homeland Security as much as we are our own personal and home security. Knocking off al Qaeda isn’t our job. It’s our job to make sure that the people who are supposedly keeping us safe aren’t stealing our freedom while they do so.
The voice of reason. Thank you.
The killing of al-Awlaki should bother people a lot more than it does. This is a case where an American citizen was assassinated completely without due process, solely on the President’s claim that he was behind terrorist activities. Quite a disturbing precedent. Do we really want our Presidents having the power of summary execution over citizens? I’m not at all comfortable with that.
Al-Awlaki may very well have done everything they claim he did. He may have very well deserved his fate. But I want to see due process before the government deprives a citizen of life, liberty, or property, just like the Constitution requires. That’s really non-optional for me.
I’m glad the SOB is maggot food.
And you’re okay with Obama having the power to kill American citizens on his say so alone? Because that’s the power we’re giving him. We’re saying it’s okay for the President to act like a king and order the execution of a citizen without any sort of weighing of evidence or determination to see if the accusations made are true.
Honestly, Ralph, do you really trust Obama, or any other politician, with the power to kill any American citizen solely on his say so, without having to show any evidence whatsoever?
And you’re okay with Obama having the power to kill American citizens on his say so alone?
No. But since the scumbag didn’t appear to be willing to be subjected to a trial, I’m thrilled that the prick is dead. Frankly, I’d like to bring him back from the grave so we could kill him again.
What he said.
FLAME DELETED
A lot of people are unwilling to be subjected to trial. That’s why we have arrests. Or at least, that’s why we used to have arrests. I guess the new way is drone strikes.
In any case, the core problem here is that action was taken without due process, in violation of the Constitution. The guy may have been a scumbag, but the Bill of Rights wasn’t written to protect well-liked citizens only, it was written to protect all citizens. If Constitutional guarantees can be swept aside on a whim just because someone is a member of some despised group or other, then the Constitution is a dead letter. All you need do is slap that label on the target and you can do whatever the hell you want.
This is the kind of power that kings and emperors have. In this country, our politicians are not supposed to have this kind of power.
I am not sad this man is dead, but can anyone really tell me that if there happened to be some *ahem* “collateral damage” (nice way of saying dead people who had no need to be made dead) that this methodology is still acceptable? If someone is holding me with a gun and a cop comes on us and recognizes the perp as some sick freak they’ve been after for years, it’s acceptable for him to shoot through me to get to him? I might get flamed for this but I would feel sick wrong if I did not accept even OBL’s or whoever else’s own child as innocent until they were old enough to make the decision themselves. Drone strikes aren’t impersonal because they’re from a distance, they’re impersonal because for some reason they have a track record that includes a very poor provable enemy killed to provable woman or child killed ratio.
I don’t think anyone here isn’t glad. What I think he was saying, a sentiment I share FWIW, is that the means by which he was killed is troubling at best.
An American citizen was, essentially, assassinated. No trial, no jury of his peers, no representation, no evidence that was available to the public. An American citizen was bombed by a drone (and some people wonder why we’re afraid of 20,000 drones flying over us) while sitting in a compound. He wasn’t killed attacking anyone or resisting arrest or planting IEDs or leading a training class for terrorists. The only thing I’ve ever seen proof of is him making “Death to America” videos and an alleged connection to al Qaeda and a handful of small time terrorists.
I’m as happy as anyone else the POS is frying someplace unpleasant, but you can’t deny that the whole situation sets a disturbing precedent.
I think Al-Awlaki’s advocacy of “Death to America” in a foreign country in cahoots with avowed enemies of the U.S. [who would gladly murder U.S. citizens in cold blood at any opportunity] amounted to a de facto renunciation of his U.S. Citizenship and relieved his ex-fellow countrymen of any further concern for his “rights” and “due process”.
I respect the idealism behind what those of you who think otherwise are saying, but this guy would have openly gloated and rejoiced if someone he believed he directly inspired had killed your spouses, children, parents and friends in a cowardly terrorist sneak attack.
Yes, he sucked. The world is a better place with him dead. Now, the point is that, it seems to me, Constitutional protections were ignored. In this forum, it seems that we are almost all in favor of the 2nd Ammendment, so why are we not concerned with due process?
Precisely. A lot of us believe that a strong Second Amendment is key to resisting government tyranny, but what good it is if the President can just slap the label “terrorist” on whoever he feels like and then use a Hellfire missile fired from a drone to take him out?
What’s a populace armed with handguns and rifles supposed to do against a government with armed robots flying at 25,000 feet?
the same way insurgents in iraq and afghanistan and other countless guerilla wars continue to fight without end in sight.
Run away or die while watching the women and kids take the hit for them? Never. If the president wants to come and kill me and he wants it bad enough that he thinks he has to kill my whole family while I am celebrating a holiday or attending a funeral with them just so I will be “unsuspecting” and my death will be guaranteed he will see a great big birdie flying from the middle of my hand just before the drone passes over.
What if Obama got on TV tomorrow and said “that Derry M is mean, he’s a bad guy, he’s done a bunch of really bad things, so bad I don’t consider him a citizen any more, and if we spot him, we’re going to kill him with a drone strike”? Is it just okay to take him at his word?
Giving the President the power of summary execution of citizens is extremely dangerous, no matter what they’ve done. If they’re actually bad guys, then prove it in court, like the Founding Fathers intended it to work. If the evidence is good, it’ll hold up, and you can take the appropriate action. And if the evidence is bogus, then obviously killing the guy wouldn’t be justified.
The fact that the terrorists don’t care about due process and rights doesn’t matter to me at all. I like to think that the Framers of the Constitution were on a slightly higher plane than a bunch of bloodthirsty religious death cultists, that they were just a tad more civilized than that.
By your line of reasoning, Obama could do the same for anyone, so it does not make me any more fearful for myself, or you, or anyone else.
Al-Awlaki, by his actions, declared himself no longer an American Citizen, so the consequences he incurred are the results of his own decisions.
Exactly! That’s my point. It’s an all-purpose tool that he, or anyone else in his position, could use against anyone they felt like just by slapping a label on someone. That’s exactly why the Founding Fathers put due process in there in the first place.
By the way, there’s a term for the can of worms we’ve just opened: proscription. Click that link and read that wikipedia entry some time. We haven’t gotten into the full swing of it like they did in the Fall of the Roman Republic, but then they started out slow there, too.
Thank-you for agreeing that we are all equally vulnerable to proscription by our Government.
So, are you arguing that proscription is only wrong when applied to U.S. Citizens, even though they are advocating the destruction of the United States and the murder of other U.S. Citizens? In that case we were correct to have denied “due process” to OBL and the scores of other alien (non- U.S. Citizen) Al-Qaida leaders we have assassinated in the course of the “War on Terror”.
Then, what we cannot agree on is where is the point that a natural born U.S. Citizen (Al-Awlaki) has declared himself an “Enemy of the the (U.S.) State” and forsworn his right to “due process”. That is the proverbial “can of worms”.
In my view that line is crossed when you exhort others to murder your renounced countrymen and overthrow your renounced Country of Birth. I do not know if Al-Awlaki formally renounced his U.S. Citizenship, but I will maintain that in lieu of those specific words uttered by him, his actions amounted to a “de facto” renunciation of his U.S. Citizenship and made him an “enemy alien” the same as OBL et al.
It would be an interesting discussion to try to draw that line where most of us could agree on it.
I respect your opinion, if it differs from mine on this matter, because it is an extremely difficult and unclear conceptual question.
Augment that sympathy for Al-Awlaki with where he was and what he was doing. You don’t have due process abilities in Yemen and his activities were very well documented. The fact he didn’t get his CSI style dramatic trial before a long appeals process and a stay provided by the taxpayers might bother you ( and a lot of people) but not me.
Maybe Al-Awlaki would not be dead if he had the balls to do business in Va where he was from.
One of the few things Big O has done right is ignore the bleeding hearts and take out the trash over there. He could blame/thank/credit Bush for the idea but prefers to take credit himself.
I agree with the sentiment, Ralph, although we’ve already failed the test of guarding our own safety. We’re spending billions and billions (cue Carl Sagan) on global intelligence, yet we can’t stop the infiltration of our country by gangsters. We are protecting our freedoms? Sure, if we’re well-employed or rich: Our system is tagging 14 and 16 year olds for life as felons for marijuana violations. California is big on this. My state avoids it. It is our health, prosperity, and wisdom that matter.
We need to deprecate the “Imperial Presidency” of either party, and get the focus back on congressmen who do not sell out, lie, take indirect bribes through jobs for family members. We need a breakdown of the party system so that within congressional districts a man or woman runs on their own merits. The two-party system isn’t a part of the constitution, and Franklin warned us against it. It is time to implement these simple changes. But who’s going to agree or act on it locally? Who has the power? Nobody. So much for guarding our representative democratic republic.
Over ten years after the formation of TSA, with ever increasing budget and manpower the TSA has caught ZERO terrorists; none, zilch, nada. American passengers have a better record than does TSA.
TSA has managed to build a bloated, expensive, incompetent, abusive, arrogant, intrusive bureaucracy that, conjoined with fear, has inured the American people into acceptance of the trampling of our most basic Rights as citizens of the United States. Oh and you have to admit, TSA has the largest pocketknife collection in the world.
“We’re the best people to detect terrorists. We know who the strangers are amongst us and we have enough common sense not to finger the wrong people.”
Uh huh, yeah right. You must not live on the west coast. Stories of MWG! MWG! are all too common in just about every urban area out here. And I do NOT like the idea of my neighbors spying on me.
Yup. In California, we are not homeland security. We might as well be in Mexico.
Again, you guys are focusing on the gear and not the problem. How can we repeat again and again that guns don’t kill people and then
bitch about militarized swat gear?
All that stuff the cops have on, I want it. I want the cool fatigues with the big pockets. I want the dance chest rigs and mag pouches because they make training and competition easier. I want the best rifle and hand gun I can get. I want the bullet proof(resistant) vest because being bulletproof is pretty nice. I want the handcuffs because if the SHTF I might need them. I want all of that stuf because I, as a person who takes responsibility for himself and does rely on other to protect him, want to have the best possible gear so that it doesn’t hold me back if I ever need it. How can I say I want all this stuff and then bitch that a cop, who wakes up everyday to put himself in the Line of fire for me, wants the best stuff too? Sounds like a double standard to me an I hate doublestandards.
The gear is not the problem. The people are the problem. Would you be happier If the officer who overstepped his boundaries and killed you in an unjust swat raid on your house was using a old Remington 870 with a wood stock?
They don’t pay for that stuff. You and I do. If they want the latest tacticool stuff, let them buy their own crap. In some areas, just the fact that they can carry a gun already gives them a huge advantage over the disarmed citizenry they “protect” (e.g. NY, DC, etc) Why do the taxpayers need to pay for all that extra tacticool crap?
If they let us defend ourselves the way we ought to, none of that police gear would be necessary in the first place.
Same issue with the pissing and moaning about Fast & Furious. It just undermines the pro-gun position.
Reining in outlaw-gummint agencies is pissing and moaning that undermines the pro-gun position? You lost me on that.
Eric beat me to the punch. Dave Grossman is absolutely convinced the next one will be a soft target, like an elementary school or a day care. He makes a compelling case that we are not only vulnerable there, but that our ‘gun free zone’ inanity in these places and lack of attention to security (unsecured doors, for example) enhance that vulnerability.
I’m surprised that they haven’t tried that yet. It might just be that they are hampered enough not to be able to execute such a plan.
I understand the sentiment, but given that the modern terrorist’s weapon of choice is usually a bomb, how exactly does concealed carry of weapons act as a deterrent or response?
In fact, the whole reason terrorists like bombs is because of the fact that you can’t fight back against them. Once it goes “boom” the damage is done.
I also have to disagree with the notion that the money we’ve spent on counter/antiterrorism has been ineffective.
The paradox of intelligence and security agencies has always been that if they are successful you never hear about it. You only hear about the failures.
We also need to be honest about 9/11, about what it was and what it wasn’t. It wasn’t a “brilliant” plan, or even a “gutsy” one. In street-fighting terms, 9/11 was a sucker punch. And the thing about a sucker punch is – you can only do it once.
Most of the “terrorist plots” agains the US have been laughably amateurish, and the perpetrators quickly picked up by law enforcement. Sometimes you hear about it, sometimes you don’t.
Either way, if it makes you feel good to practice your quick draw or to walk around in condition green or red or zebra striped or whatever, that’s cool. I have hobbies, too. If feeling like a badass is your hobby, I guess there are worse ones to have.
Statistically, you’re at more mortal danger from that plate of bacon and gravy you had for breakfast or that motorcycle you ride on weekends than you are from terrorists, which rank right above zombies on my “things to be scared of” list.
You lost me at:
“terrorists, which rank right above zombies on my “things to be scared of” list.”
I have yet to hear about, see or feel the damage from a zombie attack. I have however heard, seen and certainly felt the damage from terrorist attacks. As someone who has to spend time in DC and visits the Pentagon every now and then, possible terrorist attacks are a reality. Zombies have yet to kill anyone I know.
You must have missed the word “statistically.” Statistically, your chance of being injured or killed by a terrorist is so low it is essentially zero.
And if a terrorist does decide to target you, most likely it will be with a bomb, which means a gun will be useless to defend you against the attack.
In India they used AKs.
But AFAIK every terrorist plot against the US has involved bombs.
In fact, the prevalence of guns is probably one of the factors that a terrorist cell would consider when planning their attack, which is why a bomb would be more effective for their purposes.
Remember that a terrorist isn’t just trying to kill people. He’s trying to terrorize them – to frighten them and make them feel as though they are helpless.
Bombs are great for this because of their shock value and because once they go off, there’s nothing you can do to reduce the carnage, so the security forces have to take preventive measures instead – measures which will have the effect of getting the people pissed off at their own government (checkpoints, random searches, etc.)
International terrorists of the Al Quaeda variety also want their attacks to be visible on a global level – that’s why they attack international airlines and world-renowned cities like DC and NY.
Having a gunman shoot up a shopping mall in Parkersburg, WV doesn’t give the publicity, exposure or notoreity that are the very goals of the attack.
What is scary to me is not the seeming militarization of local police forces, although that has seemed to go hand-in hand with the erosion of the Bill of Rights, ie. No-Knock warrants, “Sobriety Check Points,” warrant-less searches, etc.
What is scary is the growth of Federal police power. Prior to 1867, the “Feds” essentially policed currency violations, treason (a crime defined in the Constitution), Federal property and the military. With the first Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 began a slow slide toward the Federal government having police power. The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act 1914, Volstead Act 1919, “Little Lindbergh Law” 1932, National Firearms Act 1934, Marijuana Transfer Tax Act 1937, Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, USA PATRIOT Act 2001, and many other Federal laws have slowly expanded Federal police power. At the same time, these laws expanded the Federal police forces; USMS, DEA, ATF, FBI, ICE, FPS, DHS, etc.
In United States constitutional law, police power is the capacity of the states to regulate behavior and enforce order within their territory for the betterment of the general welfare, morals, health, and safety of their inhabitants. The Federal government does not have a general police power, as the states do.
Under the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution, the powers prohibited from or not delegated to the Federal Government are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. This implies that the states do not possess all possible powers, since some of these are reserved to the people.
In Israel they use retired folks with a ccw as school hall monitors. It’s worked to deter terrorism, supposedly because would-be terrorists see it as a potential moral defeat for one of their warriors to be shot in the back by grandma. By these standards, I guess the typical Florida IHOP would be a hardened target.
IHOP? Now THAT’s International terrorism.
Ow… my sides… they hurt… 🙂
But as it was when this nation was founded, the fight to protect our gun rights is the fight to defend our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness against all those who would take it away from us, whatever their motivation.
Gee…foreign and domestic?
I fear the domestic government ones more than the foreign ones.
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