Friday’s Seattle Times update carried a brief story about a New York City police detective who had been charged with shooting his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend; not much of a story until one discovers who this guy was assigned to protect.
Does the name Michael Bloomberg ring a bell? He’s the anti-gun mayor of New York, the fellow who founded Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Only bad guys are supposed to get arrested for doing what one of his security detail is alleged to have done. You know, armed private citizens who have a difficult, if not impossible time getting a carry permit in the Big Apple.
A longtime New York City detective assigned to Mayor Michael Bloomberg's security detail was charged Friday with shooting and injuring his girlfriend's ex-boyfriend in a confrontation this month.—Seattle Times
This column wonders what Bloomberg might think if he came out to Washington for a visit. Here, he would find quite a few armed citizens. According to the Department of Licensing, there are now more than 275,000 active Concealed Pistol Licenses in the state and the number keeps climbing. Joe Waldron, legislative director for the Bellevue-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, believes this is a new record.
Why are so many citizens armed? Well, let’s see. There was this story in the morning paper about the “armed and dangerous” paranoid woman suspected in the shooting of another woman in Skyway the other day. With women like that on the loose one can’t be too careful.
There have been all those stories in the newspapers about how the Sheriff’s Department in King County is going to lose several deputies, which just might translate to less safe neighborhoods in unincorporated parts of the county, or so some folks might think.
Maybe there doesn’t have to be a reason that so many Washingtonians are getting CPLs. After all, bearing arms in the Evergreen State is a civil right, a fundamental right, protected by both state and federal constitutions. One doesn’t need a reason to exercise a civil right.
We understand that here in the West. Bloomberg probably doesn’t understand that at all.
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Comments
275000 Concealed Pistol Licenses to a population of 6,664,195 gets you about 1:25 ratio of persons holing CPL's. Just think the next time you are in you local supermarket one of every 25 people possibly have a CPL.
I wonder if it's possible to do a demographic breakdown of where most to the CPL's are issued county/city-wise?
Is that doable, Dave?
Bloomberg doesn't understand this either:
In Bowers v. DeVito (1982), the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled: [T]here is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen.
In its landmark decision of DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services the US Supreme court declared that the Constitution does not impose a duty on the state and local governments to protect the citizens from criminal harm. Attorney Richard Stevens, author of the book Dial 911 and Die, writes, "All in all you'd be much better off owning a gun and learning how to use it."
In Warren v. District of Columbia (1981), the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled, official police personnel and the government employing them are not generally liable to victims of criminal acts for failure to provide adequate police protection... a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular citizen.
Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, in which the court ruled, 7-2, that a town and its police department could not be sued under 42 U.S.C.§1983 for failing to enforce a restraining order, which had led to the murder of a woman's three children by her estranged husband.
Yet, according to Bloomberg, we're all supposed to 'depend upon the police' for our protection.
Yeah. Well, only if the cops are surrounding you all the time as is his case.
I don't carry a cop because they're too heavy and cost too much to feed and clothe.
My firearms have only an initial cost, don't need much beyond occasional care and feeding, and don't weigh nearly as much as a cop!
Many high profile gun rights opponents have armed body guards to protect them (Rosie O'Donnell for example). It's a double standard and classist discrimination; if you can hire someone to protect you - fine, if you can only afford to protect yourself - no dice.
Bloomberg and O'Donnell, would have a bit of trouble here.
SECTION 24 RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS. The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain or employ an armed body of men.
The "armed body of men" come on out here Bloomberg, we have a Walla Walla State Penn for YOU!
George Washington, would have had him in a trial years ago, and expert in burning New York City to the ground.
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