When I came across this story some two weeks ago, I thought that it was perhaps the final word on gun control. Thanks to stories like this, I fervently believe that anti-gun prohibitionism is on its last legs. In the interim, events like the rampage of nut-job Christopher Dorner concentrated the minds of vigilant, law-abiding citizens everywhere. For those who don’t know, a force of up to ten thousand police and paramilitary troops were unleashed to try and take down Dorner.
Regardless, the Senate is dragging its heals on the President’s wishes regarding this issue. Read the story below and you can see why.
Source: Los Angeles Times |
By Matt Pearce
Milwaukee County sheriff: Don’t wait for the police; arm yourselves
Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. has a message for residents in his jurisdiction: You can’t rely on him anymore. You need to arm yourself.
On Friday, the nominally Democratic sheriff issued a recorded public safety announcement on the radio and on the Web that encouraged residents to take their lives into their own hands.
Here’s the full transcript:
“I’m Sheriff David Clarke and I want to talk to you about something personal: your safety. It’s no longer a spectator sport; I need you in the game. But are you ready? With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option. You can beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back. But are you prepared? Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there. You have a duty to protect yourself and your family.”
Crime is relatively rare in Clarke’s jurisdiction: In 2010, the Sheriff’s Department reported two burglaries, nine robberies and zero murders. (Preliminary data from 2012 were not available, and it’s not clear if the department submitted its crime statistics to the FBI for 2011.)
Also rare are justifiable homicides in the U.S.: About 260 private citizens lawfully killed someone committing a felony in 2011, or less than one case per every 1 million people in the nation.
Clarke’s announcement has nonetheless tapped into a raw current in American politics over the role guns play in a civil society, which has occasioned some slightly less-than-civil discourse.
“Apparently, Sheriff David Clarke is auditioning for the next Dirty Harry movie,” Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett‘s office said in a statement.
That remark drew this retort from Clarke: “Several years ago, a tire-iron-wielding suspect beat Mayor Tom Barrett to within inches of his life. I would think that he would be a lot more sensitive to people being able to defend themselves in such instances. A firearm and a plan of defense would have come in handy for him that day.”
Barrett was calling 911 to report a fight when the suspect batted the phone out of his hand and began to beat him, according to a police report; the suspect, Anthony Peters, claimed to have a gun, but didn’t.
Clarke has been Milwaukee County’s sheriff since 2002 and, running as a Democrat, easily rolled to reelection. His remarks, however, have earned him praise among conservatives, and he has occasionally flirted with the tea party.
In the days after the December shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Clarke again raised the proverbial call to arms in an Op-Ed article on a tea party website.
In those remarks, Clarke said gun control advocates were “sheep” and called for “an armed tactical trained officer or security officer in every school and public place [theaters, malls, etc.] in America.”
There’s been massive protest over proposed gun control measures here in deep blue (which should actually be deep red – switch colors, please!) Maryland.
There is also a growing number of attempts by state government to not effect criminal sanctions against any officer attempting to enforce draconian gun laws.
Sorry. That should have read “to effect criminal sanctions”
This is a statement by one sheriff. What is the stated opinion of other professionals in law enforcement, such as, but not limited to, the Association of Chiefs of Police?
The Association of Chiefs of Police is infamoulsy left leaning, liberal (in the worst current sense,) and fervently anti Second Amendment.
Curiously, rank and file law enforcement officers tend to be the opposite.
In either case, I refuse to surrender my Constitutional rights to an organization of civil servants.
Where may we verify Sasha’s claim that ‘rank and file” (that’s a term much loved by and associated with old-line orthodox communists: ‘the rank and file of the Workers’ Party”) law enforcement officers tend (sic) to be the opposite? Or did we just deduce that ourselves because that’s what we want to think?
Interesting,is it not, how many armed policemen are the VICTIMS of gun violence, no? And when they are not victims, they are often investigated for having killed individuals allegedly carrying guns that would be used to protect them from government oppression….
Good question Your Grace. All I can say is that when legislation for Concealed Carry started in Oklahoma several years ago, most cops looked to be against it. With an increase in crime in certain localities, they’ve seemed to have come around to Sheriff Clarke’s position.
It’s not so much “you’re on your own” but “there’s only so much we can do.”
The way you folks read the news… looking-glass land.
Per LaChaise, please explain what you mean by how we read the news.
And start by letting us know What News it is to which you refer.
Perhaps you’ll tell us how YOU read the news which, I assume, is a veritable MODEL of correct news-reading?
Interesting that all of the gun control measures that are being proposed already exist in California. One could argue that on both sides of the issue, however … those guns are controlled in California and the murders certainly haven’t stopped (although they’ve dropped dramatically in the past few years, mostly due to other issues) or those guns are controlled in California and it hasn’t proved the end of the world nor of democracy as we know it.
The laughs start with this assertion: “a force of up to ten thousand police and paramilitary troops were unleashed” which is true only if one counts that every sworn peace officer in five or six counties, one of which is Los Angeles, a county that is more populous than 40 States.
I’m not surprised that George chose to ignore the rationale explicit in the Sheriff’s comment . “With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option.”
So, to be clear: It’s better to have fewer police and more armed citizens?
More police AND more armed citizens. It’s not a mutually exclusive proposition.
Gotta be careful, George. Those 10,000 police might come looking for one of those people with a gun.
rank and file (Origin: 1590–1600)
The people who form the major portion of any group or organization, excluding the leaders: “The rumors of corruption at the top disturbed the party’s rank and file.” This phrase comes from military usage, where enlisted men march in ranks (close abreast) and files (one behind another), whereas officers march outside these formations. – American Heritage
In this sense, Sasha’s useage seems appropriate and enlightening.
Those who currently formulate & impose these new “laws”, the technocratic elites, are not interested in protecting the rank & file… those who march off to wars and die fighting in the trenches. That the Communistrs used the term to great effect is no surprise. The political Left has — & is — constantly pillaged the language looking for tools by which they might deconstruct the established order.
After 1917 there was a White rank & file in Russia. And there was a Red rank & file.
Our time is not so much different.
elias
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Bishop Tikhon Fitzgerald says:
March 3, 2013 at 6:15 pm
Where may we verify Sasha’s claim that ‘rank and file” (that’s a term much loved by and associated with old-line orthodox communists: ‘the rank and file of the Workers’ Party”)
I was in college when Senator McCarthy and HUAC were active. In those days, Elias, anyone who slipped and allowed the words “rank and file” cross his lips would be assailed as, at least, “betraying how heavily influenced he is by Marxist teachings.” It was, in fact, the Communizt elites that used the term ‘rank and file” to death, and they are responsible for the conservatives’ once-upon-a-time knee-jerk reaction to any instance of its utterance.
Forgive me for my age. You’re so much more in tune and perceptive relative to our times and today’s language than i can hope to be!
Read Arthur Koestler’s “Darkness at Noon,” for more about the use (or constant misuse) of ‘rank and file.”
Elias! I know what “rank and file” MEANS. If you have troops in a parade formation, say a platoon, they’d be lined up in four or five rows of men, side by side. All the men in a side-by-side ROW are called a “rank”. The men standing directly behind and in front of one another, one from each rank, form a column called a “file.”
(At USAF Officer Training School, in 1960, I was the student Drill Master of our student squadron. Nudge-nudges encouraged!
Anyone’s free, of course, to imagine that the term ‘rank and file” was not one particularly loved by Marxists, German, English,American and Russian so that just using it would not only act as a ‘secret handshake”, but give the party members a frisson of delight.
Your Grace:
Of course we know what rank & file describes. It seems that it’s the social application which is still somewhat in question by some (or one). I don’t mind being odd & or the man out on this one. If R&F was a term of political approbation at one point in our socio-cultural evolution, I would opine that there was a time in the 1960s & ’70s where it became more mainstream. And the Rank & File were at that point, struggling for their rights as decent, hard-working clones… err, members of the new industrial social order.
That’s all.
elias
Your Grace:
One of the fondest memories from my ’60s childhood was being allowed to watch evening newscasts featuring such progressive luminaries as Cronkite, Sevareid, Huntley & Brinkley as they commented from time-to-time on the virtues of George Meany, Walter Reuther, James Hoffa and others. Quite often these newsmen — or ones like them — would use the phrase “rank & file” in describing the dynamics at work in the unions attempt to obtain greater benefits for time spent by blue-collar labor on the industrial front lines producing goods which made owners rich and the little guy stuck in borderline conditions of poverty & deprivation.
Ahh, those were the days… alas, language progesses. Perhaps we now have Chomsky to thank for the verbal confusion in which we now find ourselves. Or maybe it all began at the Tower of Babel.
elias
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Bishop Tikhon Fitzgerald wrote:
I was in college when Senator McCarthy and HUAC were active. In those days, Elias, anyone who slipped and allowed the words “rank and file” cross his lips would be assailed as, at least, “betraying how heavily influenced he is by Marxist teachings.” It was, in fact, the Communizt elites that used the term ‘rank and file” to death, and they are responsible for the conservatives’ once-upon-a-time knee-jerk reaction to any instance of its utterance.
Forgive me for my age. You’re so much more in tune and perceptive relative to our times and today’s language than i can hope to be.
Quite right, Eiias! And every time they’d speak the HUAC-types and the McCarthy types, etc., would loudly point to this evidence of their “working for the Reds.” Or did you miss that era? Or weren’t aware of any anti-communist hysteria then?
Dorner was a middle class black that killed another black and an asian, maybe growing up in La Palma Ca where they were not that many blacks effective him.
Well, Dorner killed two of his victims in Irvine Ca known as one of the safest cities in the US with populations about 75,000 or larger.