Breitbart – by AWR Hawkins
On March 28, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry
suggested the push away from gun control and toward expanded gun
rights–which means more armed, law-abiding citizens–actually puts police
lives in danger.
Harris-Perry read a summary from a recent Department of Justice report on police activity in Chicago and New York City. She then specifically focused on Philadelphia police, whom the report
claims “averaged about one shooting a week from 2007 to 2013.” She said
that during this time period “the percentage of unarmed suspects shot
by the police increased from 6 percent to 20 percent.”
Harris-Perry then paused and asked, “Is is
possible that our lack of national, common sense gun control laws leads
to a situation where it is more dangerous to be a police officer and so
police officers begin acting in ways that they expect everyone to be
armed?”
In other words, instead of adopting the gun
control measures pushed and rejected on the federal level in 2013, we
are now seeing a push to repeal gun control and expand concealed carry
and could it be that these things make police feel that their lives are
in danger?
What Harris-Perry failed to note is that Chicago and New York City–two of the prime focuses of the DOJ report–are
not cities with a high rate of concealed carry permits. Moreover, New
York City is in a state where the SAFE Act mandates the very gun control
measures rejected on the federal level in 2013. But gun control does
not impact criminals and criminals are the ones who endanger the lives
of police officers.
Police are not getting into shootouts with the father who takes his son out to dinner on the way to a Boy Scout
meeting, nor are they in a shootout with the mom who keeps a Glock 42
in her purse to protect her daughter en route to dance class. Rather,
they are getting into shootouts with criminals and suspected criminals
who do not even read, much less follow, the gun control laws of a given
state.
John Jay College’s Jon Shane alluded to these
things when answered Harris-Perry’s questions by pointing out the need
for “context.” He told her guns are not a new thing, that they have
always been part of American society and “always will, and have always
been a factor that’s trained on in policing tactics.”
And because he made his point successfully,
Harris-Perry shifted the conversation away from how more law-abiding
citizens with guns put police lives in danger and focused instead on how
police are racially biased.
She said: “I guess part of what I will say is my
concern that because of racial stereotyping that creates implicit bias,
that for officers who are making a judgement
call about whether they are in fear, that an African-American male body
can be perceived as more dangerous than it actually, empirically is.”
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/03/29/msnbc-police-lives-in-danger-because-of-armed-law-abiding-citizens/
2 comments:
Turn the TV off... you don't need it, trust me, you will thank me. It's like a 'junkie' thinks he needs that fix to survive...he don't. Put the needle down and turn off the TV.
The last statistics showed that it is more than 100 to 1 that officers are shot by other officers. I think some of these officers would shoot at there own shadow.
Officers are such wimps today that they would tazer an eighty six year woman multiple times that was bed ridden because they feared for their lives. What wimp-asses they have become.
Ken T.
Post a Comment