As individuals police tend to be very pro-liberty. Their chiefs are often politicians, who dance to a different drummer than regular officers.

They are the ones you call to clean up the mess after shit has blown loose.

The last time I called 911 was to ask for intervention in a suicide attempt by a friend of mine. The first officer showed up pretty quickly, i.e. about 25 minutes after I dialed 911. I've seen them take much longer than that. I live in a suburb about a 10 minute drive at most from the SDPD's downtown headquarters. Five minutes in a hurry.

Fortunately there was solid, indisputable evidence that a person was in danger of death. If there had been no concrete proof, the victim could have simply told the police that there was no suicidal intent and they would have left.

Seems counterproductive to me to support a position that invaldiates your existence.

I don't understand your comment. Please explain.

via weapons, why would you even need more than one or two police officers in a small town or a lesser amount generally. It's like saying "We don't need to the police to protect us. We've got this . . . . "

They rely on county law enforcement agencies.

what police do.


a) They are not there for your personal protection

b) They enforce laws and investigate crime... armed citizens don't do that.

The guns I own are for my protection, my family, and loved ones... don't expect me to rush to your aid- the laws are against me if I shoot someone in your defense.

All the LEOs that I know are in favor of a public that is well educated on gun safety and the legal use of firearms, weapons and self-defense.

response time in my area is fifteen minutes on a good day.

Chicago comes to mind.

but secondly they understand that their job is to provide public security within the constraints of the Constitution - they have to respect our civil rights.

Like any organization, the rank and file people have to keep their mouths shut or face loosing their jobs for speaking out. Only management, which in these cases are the Police Chiefs, Commissioners or Sheriffs, are supposed to speak up and "set policy". And law enforcement management are all politicians who have to answer to the mayors, city managers and city councils who hire and fire them. So they parrot whatever policy the mayors and other politicians want stated.

The rank and file guys know they can't be everywhere, and they know better than anyone what their response time is. And if the rank and file did speak up and tell people to arm themselves, if would be a political shitstorm, and the rank and file would then be accused of "parroting NRA talking points".

If they're a "good" police force, they want to bust bad guys and see them locked away while minimizing the danger to themselves.

Towards that end, they chafe under Constitutional limitations like probable cause, hearsay, racial profiling, Miranda warnings, legal counsel, privacy, freedom of speech, etc. And they don't want guns out there, period, because they don't want criminals to have guns, which they get through the general population by one means or another.

In any community, whether it be a small town or a neighborhood of a big city, the local cops know, through their work and stuff they hear and do that can't be used in trial, who's really doing what, and they have this fantasy that if they could just use what they KNOW to be true to imprison people, they could clean up their area.

... and that's from the Chief on down. This in a city of 30,000.

I sat next to the senior Texas State Trooper for our area at a recent city event. I told him I was carrying a concealed handgun. His reply was, "Good. I got backup." I ran into him again at the range last week and we chatted about gun control politics for about an hour. He is firmly on the side of RKBA.

but then again, I doubt cops that are against RKBA do any kind of recreational shooting.

And I doubt the ones that teach handgun safty are against RKBA either.

So pretty much you might only get anti RKBA in places like NYC where they probably don't get out of the city much and see how regular people live.

The Philadelphia Chief for example was on MSNBC and I think the Baltimore guy too.

Especially those in the cities, but the rank and file, IE, street cops, are mostly pro gun.

Beyond the politics of police agencies, I should think they know they have limited abilities to protect the public from the crimes it suffers, nor are LEOs legally obligated to.

You might google up Detroit's PD and its warning to visitors.

Did the cops just decide not to save those people? It's not a presumption that the cops can't protect you -- it's physically impossible for them to be everywhere at once. Unless you live in a police station, you have to take some responsibility for your own safety.