I am a former Navy Boatswains Mate. I served on shore patrol duty many times while in the Navy. I was PROUD to wear that uniform and salute the ensign every time I came aboard. I am also a former deputy sheriff. There was no one in this country more supportive of law enforcement than I once was, BUT it is cases like this one that has caused me to change my mind about law enforcement over the last 20 or so years. I have thought about how that has happened.
It started with the FBI and their attack on the Branch Dividians at Waco. One man in that compound was charged with a firearms misdemeanor crime. David Coresh said that if the sheriff had come out and asked him to come in to discuss it that he would have cooperated. And even if he had been found guilty of the crime, all he would have faced was a fine. But 86 men, women , and children were burned alive because of the way it was handled. It was the begining of my disenchantment with law enforcement today. There is NO WAY the crime Coresh was charged with merited that kind of response. It was waaaaay out of porportion to the crime. It was excessive and it was CRIMINAL and it was directly approved by the attorney general of the United States, our chief law enforcement official, Janet Reno.
Then there was Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge. He was minulipulated into committing a crime of cutting the barrel off a shotgun so the feds could blackmail him into becoming an informant on a group they had under survailance. When Weaver refused, they killed his wife, who had not been charged with any crime, as she was standing in the door of her home unarmed with her infant daughter in her arms. She was shot right between the eyes by an FBI sniper. Her 15 year old son was then shot in the back and murdered and he too, had not been charged with any crime. They also killed the family dog , and as far as anyone can determine, it had not committed any crime either.
Randy Weaver later won a milti million dollar award against the FBI for violating his rights and all charges against him were dropped. If a foreign nation had done that against an American citizen, the country would have wanted to declare war on them, but when our own government does it, we just pay off the victims and give the sniper a raise and promote him. That CRIMINAL raid was also approved by the chief law enforcement official in America, Janet Reno. It was waaaaay out of porportion to what should have been done. It was excessive,it was illegal, and it was CRIMINAL.
The federal government has been pouring money into police and sheriff departments all across the country since those incidents because they had violated the possee comatitas law. Look how many times you now see police and sheriff’s dept. people dressed in black with military weapons. They all think they are Rambo and they all act like that. That kind of training makes people AGGRESSIVE because their training teaches them to be AGGRESSIVE. They are training and equiping local police to act like the military and the local law enforcement people are doing exactly that. They have forgotten they are there to serve the public and not the other way around. Now we are GUILTY until they decide that we are not.
They have become the enemy. I don’t trust them any more and I dispise them for what they have become. They are DANGEROUS! I do not cooperate with them at all any more on anything and I am NOT GOING TO COOPERATE with them. I am learning to shoot for places that are not protected by a vest. It is a shame that our nation has come to this state, but it has.
A person’s moral compass can be determined by how he references free men the right to defend themselves. It can be determined by how they value life. The Second Amendment is so obvious to me that it is insane that there is any argument against it. That there is an argument in America from a whole gaggle of politicians, or police, or sheriff deputies that they will tell me where, when, how, and if I can defend myself and my family is preposterous. It is unacceptable and I will not accept it. As a free man living in America, the Second Amendment is my weapons permit. PERIOD!
Back when I was a deputy, we were required to know and follow the law, the Constitution, and to have some common sense when dealing with the public. OBVIOUSLY, those are no longer qualifications for being a deputy.
I have thought privately that the police seem more militarized than they did in my youth. I have noted that even small towns now often have a "SWAT" team. What do they need a SWAT team for? I have read with alarm sites where police officers, thinking that they might not be read by the public, call themselves "warriors." Do they mean soldiers, or do they mean that they are somehow professional paladins, guns for hire. It seems quite often it is the latter. It seems in their minds, they have become Judge Dredd, dispensing instant "justice" according to their own internal standards. This is not right. As David Codrea's "Only Ones" files clearly demonstrate, the police must be as constrained by the law as any member of the public (who pays them, by the way.) We can not have a group running around above the law, acting like Samurai with guns. More to the point, the police can not have access to any weapon to which any member of the general public does not have access. That merely sets up a Samurai class, above the rest of us.
The commenter also points to a way out of this mess. The Fed is the one who has been equipping and training these terrible examples. Perhaps we need to cut of funding for this. A government starved for cash has to start cutting somewhere. Don't they always start with the troops?
When I was young, it was well known that the average police officer was unlikely to ever draw his weapon while on duty. Indeed, a detective's need for his weapon was so rare, that most felt carrying a 2 inch Colt or Smith and Wesson revolver was enough. Makes you wonder how we got on the wrong track.
No comments:
Post a Comment