“Police are the only ones who should have guns.”
That’s one of the more extreme, but honest, positions we’ve heard from gun control advocates. They tell us that they don’t trust us to exercise good judgment or that we don’t have enough training, and that in any given time or place, the cops are the only ones who should be armed. Sometimes, the less extreme use of this phrase only applies to a particular set of circumstances, but deep down, most of them think it to some degree or another about everywhere.
Or, maybe they don’t. Maybe what they actually think is that even the police shouldn’t have guns.
No, that’s not really hyperbole, because a town in New York state is trying to determine what to do with the police department’s old firearms. While many want them destroyed, others sell their guns to licensed dealers. So, there’s a proposal to sort of split the difference, at least to some degree, and let active duty officers purchase the guns.
And yes, some people are freaked out by the proposition.
Critics of the New Paltz policy believe the town should limit gun sales to officers. At meetings, they have pointed to the public safety risk of putting more guns into circulation and the increased risk to officers themselves, who tend to report higher rates of job stress and suicide.
At a meeting last month, town resident Tom Jelliffe urged the board to ignore officers’ “sentimental attachments” to their guns and instead “stand with gun safety” by formalizing a policy against the sale of firearms altogether.
“This may be an improvement over the previous proposal under which weapons not bought by the officers would have been sold to the department’s gun dealers, but it still puts the town government, and by extension taxpayers, in the position of selling firearms,” Jelliffe said.
He added, “We must be concerned about the added risk to life and limb.”
Now, let’s look at some of these arguments, if they can actually be called that.
First, yes, law enforcement officers have high rates of job stress and suicide. Job stress doesn’t go away because they can’t buy a gun from their department, and if suicide is a concern, why do officers get to take their duty weapons home? Saying they can’t buy their old carry weapon doesn’t mean they won’t have access to a firearm should they wish to end their life with a gunshot.
Further, let’s look at just what people like Mr. Jelliffe are implying here. He’s saying that the city’s police officers cannot be trusted with the firearms they purchase. Is he implying that the city’s police officers are violent felons who will kill innocent people for no reason, but not with their current duty weapons?
Plus, New York is a universal background check state, which means no law-abiding citizen–such as one would hope would describe the city’s police officers–can sell a firearm without the buyer passing a background check. While officers can do what they want with the guns after the purchase is finalized, unless they’re actually criminals, they can’t turn around and sell them to someone who shouldn’t have one.
And if they are criminals, do you think they won’t have other avenues to get guns that won’t be traced right back to them?
At its core, what we’re seeing here isn’t that there’s a concern with public safety, but a profound distrust of anyone who wants a gun of their own. These critics are essentially telling everyone that they don’t trust the police with firearms, even as the department issues them a gun when they join the force.
It’s really kind of telling, don’t you think? It makes it very clear that no matter who you are, anti-gunners don’t trust you with a firearm. Most of them are just smart enough not to say it out loud like this.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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