Returning to the heavily biased Philadelphia article on the PA court’s support of preemption:
Nutter made his case in stark terms, saying the General Assembly must now decide if it wants to side with cops or criminals when it comes to gun control.
"That's where our focus ultimately has to be," Nutter said of Harrisburg. "People have to make a decision as to what side of the issue you're going to be on."
Hmm. So you’re either on the side of the “cops” or the “criminals.” You have to wonder who’s on the side of the people. You know, the people who the constitution refers to, the people with a protected right to keep and bear arms, and the people who consistently vote for a state legislature that defends gun rights against the nastiest hyperbole that Mayor Nutter can come up with (the NRA may keep their members informed, but it is voters who vote in the legislators). Or maybe the people like those mentioned on this website who are sometimes forced to use guns to defend themselves, and know very well what they risk if they give that right away.
And you wonder why the reporter didn’t look for someone else to comment on this issue, someone with maybe a different perspective who could explain why a majority of Pennsylvania state legislators continue to vote with gun owners. But while that would be balanced, especially given that Nutter is working to limit a civil right, it certainly didn’t happen in this article – or many others of the same ilk.
But this tactic is common, often using the code word “first responders” to refer to police officers. Mayor Daley uses the same rhetoric in Chicago (the original article is gone, but this blog entry has enough to show the intent):
We're talking about putting first-responders in a very, very delicate position of people being armed without being notified how many guns they have in their homes," Daley said. "We have to be able to fashion a law that truly protects first-responders and protects the citizens."
First off, you can talk to any police officer on the street, and they will tell you the same thing. If they know there is a gun in a home/car/wherever, they approach with extreme caution and preparedness. If they don’t know there is a gun in the home/car/wherever, they still approach with extreme caution and preparedness. Because it is the people not supposed to have guns who are the most dangerous.
And not only are law abiding citizens not a danger to police officers, they are occasionally a lifesaver, as can be seen by these stories of armed citizens who came to the aid of police officers in grave danger.
And to put the concept of “support the police or support the criminals” in further perspective, albeit a grim perspective, there were 57 police officers killed nationwide by firearms in 2004. While it is a tragedy that any officer is killed protecting society, disarming the up to 2.5 million civilians who use a gun for self defense (usually without firing it) every year, much less the two hundred civilians a year who actually are forced to use a firearm to kill someone in justifiable self defense, does not seem like a fair tradeoff. Civilians use firearms to kill in self defense nearly as often as police officers.
When we look at the stories of people who have defended themselves with firearms, like this woman in aurora (look partway down the page) who sent a serial rapist running for his life … you have to wonder what kind of person, whether police officer or politician, would choose to have that woman disarmed and viciously raped to protect their lives by some tiny percentage. Is that a tradeoff an honorable, sworn protector of society would make? Or trade that tiny extra bit of safety for the lives of any of the other tens of thousands or even millions of Americans who use guns for defense every year?
One would like to think not. As that is certainly now how any hero of mine would ever feel.
When the media allows rhetoric like this to go uncountered, they honor groups that despise the 2nd amendment and believe that all American Citizens are just a gun purchase away from being a murderer. That is the basic argument behind “but there will be blood in the streets/return to the Wild West/shootouts over parking spaces” rhetoric that such groups repeatedly resort to whenever a discussion takes place about armed citizens (arguments that have been disproven repeatedly as 40 states now allow any law abiding citizen to carry a concealed weapon and the list has been growing for 21 years).
Mayors Daley and Nutter shouldn’t be worrying about whether or not law abiding citizens can own firearms. The First Responders/Cops don’t. They should worry about keeping criminals off of the street and working with the cultures that promote the gangster/drug dealing lifestyle.
Because gun ownership is a right of American Citizens, it is a cornerstone of our liberty and culture, and saves far more lives than it endangers. Both police and civilian.
We need more responsible, armed civilians. Not less.
