He’s basically saying that more gun control means fewer dead police officers. Kind of ballsy for a guy who has “unnecessarily played up tensions between police and civilians” and been a key player in driving a “narrative that seeks to divide police and communities they serve.”
“It’s time to be honest: fewer gun safety laws don’t mean more freedom, they mean more fallen officers. They mean more grieving families, and more Americans terrified that they or their loved ones could be next”
At this point, I think he’s just trolling us. But hopefully he keeps is up. I’d love to have an election where the Democrats run on nothing but gun control.
I don’t think Obama has done as much as the police to divide themselves from the public. The police’s near complete disdain for body cameras and other oversight has. Shooting 12 year olds has. Throwing people in the back of vans and taking them for a rough ride has.
That being said, I still want less gun control… or I want the police, on and off the job, held to the same laws we are.
Kind of a “who polices the police?” situation.
Sure you “can” place a cop under citizen’s arrest, but just try to actually do it.
And cops don’t arrest cops 99% of the time that laws are broken by cops.
I agree that “police” need to be held to the same standards as any citizen for use of deadly force. That is already the law, with only minor exceptions. Now, as long as powerful unions like SEIU have control of local and federal governments that is not going to happen. We certainly know that Obama will never do anything that is not “approved” by the big unions.
Exactly, why we need new leadership in DC and why government employee unions need to be prevented from spending any money on political causes. If I had my way there would not be government employee unions.
http://www.nleomf.org/facts/officer-fatalities-data/year.html
and
http://www.odmp.org/search/year?year=2014
Both datasets indicate the number of officers killed in the line of duty is trending down. There’s no escalation at all.
This article has charted the NLEOMF data:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/how-many-cops-die-in-the-line-of-duty-each-year/384129/
Number of assaults of police officers trending down too, however latest (2014 and 2015) data is not yet available:
http://www.nleomf.org/facts/officer-fatalities-data/daifacts.html
Wait, “gun safety laws”?
It’s already illegal to shoot at someone without justification, or even just discharge a firearm, in pretty much every locality where officers get shot.
(The latter, that is, is the “pretty much”; some officers get killed roadside in places it’s not generally illegal to discharge a firearm.
But not, of course, by people who are just doing target practice, and it’s illegal to, well, murder cops.)
Why not just pass a law saying it’s illegal to kill people and all this shit will stop happening….
This is hilarious, considering that ever since he became president Obama has only exacerbated tensions between the police and the community. Killings of police officers may be trending downward as a whole, but targeted killings of police just because they are police have at least anecdotal evidence of an increase, an increase which is due in part to Obama’s rhetorical excesses. The police themselves appear to feel this way, so I suspect that BHO’s calls for ignoring the 2A will fall on deaf ears.
The plural of anecdote is not data.
However, I’m interested to see what more recent numbers (read: post-Ferguson and others) indicate for the trend in officer deaths. Those numbers aren’t available yet.
Brain Terry was, notably, not available for comment.