SayUncle notes the violent insurrectionist rhetoric from Mayor Bloomberg. Note that it’s only wrong when we do it. The fact that Bloomberg even thought “If the NYPD were an army, how big an army would it be?” is scary enough in and of itself.
Here’s by bit of insurrectionism: that people like Bloomberg can end up in positions of such power are one of the reasons I think gun ownership is important. Not that I think Bloomberg has plans to march the NYPD across New Jersey and invade Pennsylvania (though that would be fun), but that in the event of a breakdown in civil order, there’s something to keep the ambitions of such a dangerously grandiose individual in check.
One of the problems our opponents have with characterizing our views is that they make the assumption that we feel directly threatened, rather than believing widespread gun ownership among the civilian populace acts as deterrent to the ambitions of the powerful, and creates a political ecosystem that makes it more unlikely those ambitions will be followed through with to the sacrifice of everyone else’s liberty.
I dunno, not really scared of his army.
Not that I think Bloomberg has plans to march the NYPD across New Jersey and invade Pennsylvania
I can still vividly recollect how that whole scenario has actually happened already….well, it sort of happened.
Back in July of 2007, hundreds of uniformed NYPD and NYPD vehicles swarmed all over the Poconos over a two-day period. The NYPD and other police were intensely searching for two very wanted shooting suspects. These two suspects had shot two NYPD uniformed officers in Brooklyn during a car stop, killing one and wounding the other.
These shooting suspects from NYC had apparently thought they could lam it in the wilderness of the Poconos with some bottles of spring water and cans of tuna fish that they purchased while fleeing the scene of the crime. It turned out that they were both city types that could not hack it in those woods for very long at all. Somebody driving along Interstate 80 saw both of them just walking along the edge of the highway before sunset, like it was a sidewalk in the city. The shooting suspects were quite recognizable at the time due to all of the publicity at the time. The passing motorist then alerted the police of this spectacle. The jig was up for these two shooting suspects not long afterward.
Both of these NYC shooting suspects were soon tracked down with the help of police K9’s and arrested – one later that same evening as their walk along Interstate 80, the other was nabbed the very next day. Both of these arrests were in the woods, just a bit south of the Route 940 exit of Interstate 380, which is also near where Interstate 80 and Interstate 380 connect, which is less than a fifteen-minute drive from my house.