As law-abiding firearm owners, we relentlessly monitor the law in order to keep ourselves on the legal of the fence. That’s no easy feat in places like California where the steady influx of new laws, updated old laws, and changing administrative rules flow faster than our tax dollars down the drain. But what happens to our law-abiding status when the laws specifically target us instead of the criminals?
The political types like to say they are tough on crime and are all about “public safety”. The problem is, what they SAY is completely opposite from what they DO. While espousing public safety, California has decreased the penalties for breaking the law. Proposition 47 reclassified many crimes as misdemeanors and as a result put more criminals back on the streets and increased the crime rate in every city and town in the state. Proposition 57 redefined crimes such as assault with a deadly weapon, rape of an unconscious person, human trafficking involving sex act with minors, drive-by shootings and assault with a deadly weapon on peace officer as “non-violent” felonies eligible for early release.
So that’s how the State treats criminals. How do they treat the law-abiding citizenry? Proposition 63 makes it a crime to import ammunition into the state, creates a licensing and background check system for every ammo purchase and takes away grandfathered standard capacity magazines, all perfectly legal today. The 2016 Gunmageddon Laws also redefined currently legal firearms as so-called “assault weapons” that must be registered or disposed of.
What impact will these laws have on criminals? To people who don’t obey the law, the new laws will have zero negative impact. It will only make it harder for the law-abiding citizens to defend themselves from criminals who aren’t following the law anyway.
Since the government is taking away your ability to defend yourself, they will protect you, right? Not exactly. While many police departments have a motto similar to the Los Angeles Police’s “To Protect and To Serve”, the truth of the matter is they have no duty to protect you.
In 2005 the United States Supreme Court ruled in Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748, that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm. This case involved a woman who had obtained a court-issued protective order against a violent husband, making an arrest mandatory for a violation.
Now I can tell you as a former law enforcement officer, I most certainly considered it my solemn duty to protect the public and I did absolutely everything in my power to do so. Of the officers I worked with over the years, I am confident they would say the same. However the harsh reality of the police work is that but for the one in a million fluke of incredible luck, you will not have an officer there to protect you when you need one. There simply can never be enough law enforcement presence to accomplish that. The absolute best the police can do is respond AFTER the fact.
See the previous Odd Stuffing post on law enforcement response times: When Seconds Count at: http://oddstuffing.com/archives/53
So where does that leave us? If the police can not be there to protect you, and have no legal duty to provide protection to you – the very same agencies who will not grant you a concealed carry permit because they deem your need for self protection to not be greater than what is met by current police services – the law-abiding become a by-product of gun control with no means of redress.
Gun control’s inevitable end result is just one thing, law-abiding victims.
Bob
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