The shooting that held me up in traffic for several hours on my way back to from the Lucky Gunner shoot has turned out to be quite a scandal, raising quite a number of questions about who knew what and when. If you’re looking for excellent coverage of the matter, go see Curses! Foiled Again!
One thing our opponents are always quick to counter with is that they are activists against gun violence. That is their issue. They aren’t about gun control for control’s sake anymore, just about common sense measures to cut down on gun violence. Well, it seems to me that someone shooting his ex-wife, and then a police officer after a high speed chase is a pretty notable act of gun violence, and worth a mention at least. But the response from our opponents would appear to be crickets. I guess it’s not a concern if a police officer does it? It’s only gun violence when it’s perpetrated by a civilian? Or is it that there are only common sense measures that restrict civilians? I eagerly await our opponents to talk about what common sense solutions could have prevented this tragedy, but so far I only hear gun bloggers talking about it. I’m not holding my breath.
“It’s only gun violence when it’s perpetrated by a
civiliannon-cop.Police are civilians too.
Sorry, but that’s a GIANT pet peeve of mine.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/civilian
Fits the dictionary definition on usage.
Indeed, I use “civilian” quite often to mean outsider, as in someone not in the industry, not in my company, not from my area, not in my hobby ….
Guy beat me to it. It’s a civilian police force. Beware any cop who uses military terminology – he’s probably a flaming douchenozzle if he does.
Markie Marxist sez: “We’re not against guns; we want our Marxist/warrior/hero/government agents to have all the guns they can use. We’re not against gun violence; there’s not enough of it against private gun owners and we want more of it.
We are against private gun owners because they are our political enemies, and we are against private gun ownership because it diminishes our power over people. We want absolute power.
So, we ignore instances of our government agents misusing their guns because it contradicts our agenda. It’s just common communist sense really. Eventually, we’d like to round up all private gun owners, and send them to the gulag, and we’re going to need lots and lots of armed government agents to do that, so we look the other way when our guys mess up. Again, it’s just common communist sense as a consequence of our Marxist private gun ban agenda.”
I don’t know if these anti gun types don’t care when it’s the government, or if this is a deathblow to all of their arguments. The type of vetting and training that a police officer receives is more than even the most radical gunner wants people to go through to get guns. If someone can get through all that and still go crazy and kill people, it ruins their arguments. It probably also scares them silly since they know how they would react in a life or death situation (hide under a desk).
FWIW, the DOD considers local police to be civilians. And “ain’t” is in the dictionary these days, too. ;)
They like to argue the “only ones” angle so much that when a cop does go bad like this they do everything they can to avoid drawing attention to it. It doesn’t fit the narrative.
Re: “civilian” – In an absolute sense, guy is correct – “civilians” are everyone who is not military. But I think proper usage can depend on perspective and context. In EMS we often use “civilian” to distinguish between police/fire/rescue personnel and bystanders/rubberneckers (especially in larger incidents), because it’s both concise and conveys specific meaning.
A couple of things in this case that are interesting to note: 1) the Sheriff in question is up for reelection this year; 2) he apparently won the last election by less than 250 votes, and is running against the same guy this year; and 3) there is now a petition being circulated to have him removed from office before the election.
Actually, I should note that our local paper’s anti-gun shill Dan Casey is making noise about this, calling for the Sheriff’s resignation, keeping the pressure on, and noting other developments.
I’ll give him credit for this, and for the fact that he doesn’t engage in Reasoned Discourse(tm) on his blog even in gun debates.
In the anti’s world, government agents must be inhumanly incorruptible. And bad data points are ignored.
Here in Colorado we (to the best of my recollection) have had one shooting in a courthouse in the last fifteen years; a police officer shot his wife’s divorce attorney. Yet to this date, only police officers are allowed to carry their weapons in courthouses. Shouldn’t bans be based on actual history of abuse?