I’ll begin with the unavoidable truth that Americans have the right to keep and bear arms. The courts have fallen down on their job protecting our rights and as a result the nations criminals have the upper hand.My friends at Second City Cop have expressed themselves well on the issue of Chicago cops literally being regulated to death. This happens in cities where the bosses and politicians deliberately insure that the criminals can always outgun our cops. This is also a true in New York where cops are forced to carry underpowered and inadequate firearms.
This was the case in Los Angeles until one day the North Hollywood bloodbath changed things for good, on February 28, 1997. That’s when bank robbers armed with heavy automatic rifles and protective vests were virtually unstoppable. Some 370 officers had to respond to deal with just two criminals! The officers had to borrow real firearms from a local gun store to deal with a couple of determined maniacs.
Before it was over, the desperate pair wounded 14 officers and civilians. At least in Los Angeles there were still were gun stores, unlike Chicago where they’ve been banned.
After the dust settled on the North Hollywood shootout, the rules changed for nearly every California police agency. They were allowed to carry firearms such as the Glock 21 .45 ACP and nearly every patrol car is equipped with an .223 M-16 and a .12 gauge shotgun.
Of course Chicago and New York has not yet seen an event with the magnitude of the North Hollywood tragedy so steps to deal with this kind of an armed assault have just not been taken. The North Hollywood battle got a huge amount of press coverage along with motion pictures about the carnage. But there are too many far less newsworthy events were officers are either killed or wounded nearly every day.
There is no excuse for cops or law-abiding citizens to have less firepower than the felons roaming our streets. There is no excuse for infringing on any cop’s or law-abiding citizen’s right to keep and bear arms.
I find it incredibly frustrating that Mayor Daley is anti-gun, yet has an armed security detail assigned to him. Same goes for Governor Blago. Talk about a pair of hypocrites. Even though CPD was not allowed to upgrade their firepower after the L.A. shooting, that incident did wake up a few other Illinois police departments. The Illinois State Police acquired AR15 and M4 rifles for about a third of it's patrol officers, who also carry a shotgun as part of their department issued equipment. Chicago police officers are more likely to encounter a situation similar to Los Angeles than the ISP. The top brass needs to convince Hizzoner of this, or the people of Chicago need to vote him out. Just like we need to vote out Blago next week.
ReplyDeleteRetired ISP
Paul,
ReplyDeleteUnfortuantely you're wrong about the Patrol Rifle deployment. Officers (and cars) that carry Patrol Rifles are the exception rather than the rule.
For instance, in my dept (in a city of 120k) very few patrol officers carry a Patrol Rifle. They're a small minority.
The reality is that most police administrators (Chiefs) see a Patrol Rifle as a liability (not to mention the "evil assault-rifle" stigma), regardless of it being a life-saver for patrol dogs. Consequently, many Chiefs are still hesitant to deploy them.
Every department is different. Things get almost always get better away from the big cities. Fewer Bolsheviks in these administrations.
ReplyDelete