So I see from this morning's NRA-ILA update that we're probably going to have a law soon that will allow law enforcement officers (federal, state, and local, both active duty and retired) to carry concealed firearms anywhere in the nation, on or off duty, even in areas where they have no law enforcement jurisdiction. The NRA is supporting this discriminatory legislation, which I find somewhat surprising (usually, it's gun control advocates, not gun rights advocates, who want to give special firearm privileges to the government).
I'm pretty pissed off about this for several reasons -- not the least of which is that we've been trying to get concealed carry reciprocity for private citizens for some years and haven't been able to. And apart from the fact that this legislation is a violation of the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection of the law for all citizens...
...I am sick to death of people -- on both sides of the gun control debate -- making a distinction between private citizens, law enforcement, and the military when it comes to firearms. The odd thing is, most people who want to make these exceptions just seem to presuppose that there should be such exceptions without even thinking about why those exceptions should exist.
It's not a safety issue, because private citizens are much safer with their firearms than the military and law enforcement. It's not a law enforcement issue, because an LEO who leaves his jurisdiction has no law enforcement authority -- an off-duty New York cop in Tennessee is just a private citizen. It's not a training issue, because the military and law enforcement generally receive pretty minimal training with their firearms (often less, in fact, than is required of private citizens). It's not a question of "needing your gun", because private citizens use their firearms for self-defense far more often than military or law enforcement officers do (and even if that weren't the case, it would be nonsensical to say that LEOs have the right to protect themselves with a gun, but that nobody else does).
I think it's that these days, most people have forgotten what the relationship is between government and the people. They believe that the government is the people's master, when it is actually our servant -- our employee (we hire it with our votes and we pay it with our taxes). And it is impossible for an employee to have any rights or privileges that the employer doesn't also have, because employees receive all their rights and privileges -- and responsibilities, for that matter -- from their employers. That being the case, when you say that the government has any right, privilege, or responsibility, you are automatically admitting that the people also have that right, privilege, or responsibility, because the people are the ones who gave it to the government in the first place. Would that more people remembered that these days... I'm not holding my breath, though.
Posted by Zathras at July 10, 2004 12:01 PM