Who will defend you?

January 6, 7:20 AMCleveland Gun Rights ExaminerDaniel White

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Courtesy of Oleg Volk

Professor Don B. Kates, Jr., a civil rights lawyer and criminologist, once wrote:

"Even if all 500,000 American police officers were assigned to patrol, they could not protect 240 million citizens from upwards of 10 million criminals who enjoy the luxury of deciding when and where to strike. But we have nothing like 500,000 patrol officers; to determine how many police are actually available for any one shift, we must divide the 500,000 by four (three shifts per day, plus officers who have days off, are on sick leave, etc.). The resulting number must be cut in half to account for officers assigned to investigations, juvenile, records, laboratory, traffic, etc., rather than patrol."

In the 2005 Castle Rock v. Gonzales case, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Jessica Gonzales did not have a constitutional right to police protection, even in the presence of a restraining order.

Gun rights advocates have long known that it isn't possible to rely on the police for protection from violent crime. The sad reality is that the police are often reduced to being armed historians, there only to investigate a crime after it has been committed.

A strong law enforcement presence does certainly have some deterrent effect, but even that is now at risk following announcements by several Ohio Sheriffs, including Lorain County and Cuyahoga County, that budget cuts are forcing them to reduce their manpower and hours worked.

Once of the most common questions that anyone who chooses to carry a firearm for personal protection gets asked is "why do you want to carry a gun?" The answer is simple. If the police aren't responsible for your safety, and it is numerically impossible for them to be everywhere at once anyway, who will be?

Those who choose to carry a firearm for personal protection aren't paranoid crazies who see danger lurking behind every shadow. We have simply chosen to take responsibility for our own safety, and are very serious and dedicated to that endeavor.

I'm sure not everyone reading this article is a pro-gun person, and that's ok. I hope that by visiting here you are at least open minded to the idea that gun owners are not the crackpots we often are painted to be by the anti-gun zealots who think that crime will just magically disappear if we could just disarm the entire world. I would encourage you to talk to some of your friends and coworkers about guns, and I bet you will be surprised to learn just how many of them have chosen to take responsibility for their own safety, whether by owning a gun only in their homes, or by choosing to become a mobile Crime Free Zone by carrying a firearm in their daily lives.

The world isn't getting any safer, and with the sharp downturn in the economy and budget cuts to police and sheriff's departments, it is only going to get worse before it gets better. There is a lot of advice out there about how to stay safe, and owning firearms is a viable option for many of us. Let's get to know each other!

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In today's National Gun Rights Examiner column, David Codrea continues to list the arguments for why Eric Holder should be opposed as U.S. Attorney General. This is good stuff.