Should off duty cops be subject to the same gun laws as the rest of us?
I've been having some fun at The High Road. I posted the following:
Powderman said:
You don't like the law? Utilize the three Constitutional processes--the petition, referendum and the recall. Don't just sit behind your keyboard and complain, do something about it.
I prefer to think of our options as three boxes: the soap box, the ballot box, and the cartridge box. I consider that the first two boxes have failed. It's only a matter of time before the third box comes into play. Wish it weren't so. He said, from atop his soap box.
It used to be that the law built a steel wall around actions that were universally thought to be repugnant: hurting people or stealing their property. The law was designed to keep us outside those dark places. I applaud such law, and those who help enforce it. Nowadays, the law builds the same steel wall around the small area of activity that is universally approved. It is used to keep us inside. I have zero respect for that "law". I do not recognize its authority to exist, and I do not recognize your authority to enforce it.
And it really isn't an issue of Constitutionality. It's an issue of humanity. It is inhuman to drag a man away and put him in a cage because he's carrying effective tools for defending himself and his family from predators. No matter how many people voted for it. Likewise for smoking an herb. All I ask is that peace officers help us to preserve the peace, instead of being the very predators from whom we need to defend ourselves.
But I've wandered way off topic. Or have I? As L. Neil Smith said:
Make no mistake: all politicians--even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership--hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician--or political philosophy--can be put.
If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash--for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything--without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.
If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.
What his attitude--toward your ownership and use of weapons--conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?
If he doesn't want you to have the means of defending your life, do you want him in a position to control it?
If he makes excuses about obeying a law he's sworn to uphold and defend--the highest law of the land, the Bill of Rights--do you want to entrust him with anything?
If he ignores you, sneers at you, complains about you, or defames you, if he calls you names only he thinks are evil -- like "Constitutionalist" -- when you insist that he account for himself, hasn't he betrayed his oath, isn't he unfit to hold office, and doesn't he really belong in jail?
I think that answers the question pretty well. Yes, off duty cops should be subject to the same gun laws as the rest of us. None.
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Posted later:
In my excitement, I forgot one of the boxes.
There are four boxes. The soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
Unfortunately, the jury box has been destroyed as well. Instead of every judge telling every jury that it is their right and duty to judge the alleged law as well as the alleged law-breaker, that a single juror has the power to veto the entire legal system, and rightfully so, judges now tell jurors that they must follow the judge's orders and are to consider only the facts presented in the trial. Any hint by a prospective juror that he knows of the age-old concept of jury nullification, and that juror will be disqualified. To my mind, nullification is the ONLY reason for a jury; it allows the people to keep the king in check.
Chris Floyd, Karen
Chris Floyd, Karen Kwiatkowski, Fred Reed and many others have come to the same conclusion. I have too.
I don't know what will happen, but I am done with these pigs and with people who are still stupid enough to say things like, "if you don't like a law, then you can work within the system to change it."
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