U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “When cops and America’s cherished gun rights clash, cops win,” Reuters reports.
A police officer raiding the wrong apartment while searching for a suspect was deemed “legally justified to use deadly force” on a resident who, startled by pounding on his door at 1:30 a.m., answered with a gun in his hand. It doesn’t matter that the citizen was within his rights. The sight of him armed was enough to prompt immediately opening fire. And “qualified immunity,” a legal doctrine created by the Supreme Court, “shield[s] police and other government officials from civil liability for actions undertaken on the job.”
A look at recent headlines shows that wrong house raids and tragic, outrageous outcomes are becoming more frequent. You can get similar results by looking up stories on qualified immunity for all kinds of abuses. And good luck to survivors who are forced to pit their meager means against the overwhelming resources of police unions and the state.
What are the incentives for change when shielded from accountability, and in some cases, like one I addressed several years back, police perpetrators were even awarded medals by the department because they “performed very bravely under gunfire and made smart decisions”? The incentives actually can go the other way when we see officers suing citizens for “severe trauma, mental anguish, and emotional distress.”
The thing is, by nature, most “law-abiding gun owners” and “conservatives” are supportive of police, and that’s reflected in their political leadership. White House Press Secretary Kelly McEnany has called reductions in qualified immunity a “non-starter,” and “the Ending Qualified Immunity Act … so far has 64 cosponsors, all but one of whom are Democrats.”
There is a reason why the term “Only Ones” has gained traction ever since a DEA agent told a classroom full of children he was “the only one professional enough” to be armed, and then shot himself in the leg while holstering his Glock. As I’ve tried to explain to those who dismiss the term as “cop bashing,” that’s not the purpose of using it.
I do it to amass a body of evidence to present when those who would deny our right to keep and bear arms argue that only government enforcers are professional and trained enough to do so safely and responsibly. I also use it to illustrate when those of official status, rank, or privilege, both in law enforcement and in some other government position of authority, get special breaks not available to we commoners, particularly (but not exclusively) when they’re involved in gun-related incidents. And that includes things like nationwide concealed carry for retired cops but not for citizens, “gun-free zones” where they can carry but we would be arrested, guns they may own but are forbidden to us, and a host of other areas of unequal protection, including qualified immunity.
That power – and common inclination – to arrest citizens merely for exercising a right they have no legitimate authority to infringe upon, is why a recent NRA promotion practically screams “Cognitive dissonance!” to anyone with an eye for irony. “Come and take it” messages on two NRA hats defiantly dare all comers. Scroll down a bit and members can also purchase an NRA “Thin Blue Line” t-shirt and hat. You have to wonder who anyone wearing both thinks it will be carrying out confiscation orders to go and take them.
But most police are “pro-gun,” some argue. No doubt many are. But that’s very different from being “pro-rights.”
I could make a good case that FBI HRT sniper Lon Horiuchi is “pro-gun.” That doesn’t mean he won’t shoot your wife in the head while she’s holding your baby if the rules of engagement say “Take the shot.”
As for police who put their oaths to the Constitution first, the number that actually will is unknown, and police officials actively go after officers who show signs of conflicted loyalties, to weed them from the ranks and to hold them out as examples to intimidate others. Consider the hysterical and chilling reaction to an Anne Arundel County officer who left an Oath Keepers hat in the cruiser, and the Orwellian smearing of those who take their oaths seriously as being “anti-government.”
There are no easy answers because the Founders’ idea of what was “necessary to the security of a free State” has been all but abandoned, and an unfolding police state has become the de facto “standing army” they warned against. As the Republic breaks further apart, citizens need to ask themselves “What price order?” and what responsibilities they are willing to assume to achieve it and to safeguard against it morphing into tyranny.
And the police? At some point, individual officers are going to have to decide what orders they will obey and what orders they won’t. At some point, with no “professional” exemptions to fall back on and just like the rest of us, they’ll have to choose whose side they want to be on.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
The qualified immunity is exasperated by the increasing incidences of “swatting someone”.
This is the increasing amount of faults police calls of people calling in that someone has been killed in a house and the perpetrator is still there. This has police arriving at a completely nonviolent home fully drawn and ready to kill any adult answering the door
“At some point, individual officers are going to have to decide what orders they will obey and what orders they won’t.” And there are no signs of that happening. In all our “summer of love” blue cities, police chiefs made the choice to toe the line drawn by their communist political masters, rather than to serve the public welfare… and those under them toed their chief’s line. Their masters had them ignoring actual rioters and looters, instead arresting innocent citizens who defended themselves against those rioters. And to a man, they went along with it. Katrina, writ larger, all over… Read more »
For those who are saying ‘lawful’ be very careful. Laws are hierarchical.
The SUPREME law of the land is God’s Law.
The whole point of the Republican Compact is that we consent to be governed by Man in exchange for their promise never to alienate us from our Creator or our Natural Rights.
If the break their oath then the Compact is void.
Cops already enforce every unconstitutional and/or unjust law. If you think they’ll stop at the next one then you’re either lying, delusional, or suffering from some severe cognitive dissonance. They don’t serve us. They serve the politicians and beauracrats who give them orders and sign their paycheck. The vast majority will do whatever they’re told in order to make sure that paycheck keeps showing up in their mailbox. A few may draw the line at some point and quit but you can guarantee almost zero will come to your defense against their fellow tyrants in blue.