What is so ironic about the right wing law and order crowd is that they often act within a vacuum totally devoid of what the real law enforcement professionals think.
Take the anti-immigration crowd including Bacons Rebellion bloggers who hail Arizona’s racist pat ’em all down law. They say they are just against “illegal” immigration and are just trying to keep things tidy and legal.
Well, according to this news article, the real cops say Arizona’s law is a ridiculous and harmful waste of scarce resources. Police chiefs from Los Angeles, Houston and Philadelphia, among others who actually know something about real crime, say laws like Arizona’s will divert police resources from far more important criminal investigations and spook illegals who might be important witnesses in criminal prosecution.
According to L.A. Police Chief Charlie Beck : “This is not a law that increases public safety. This is a bill that makes it much harder for us to do our jobs. Crime will go up if this becomes law in Arizona or in any other state.”
Funny that Beck didn’t bring up how Arizona’s law might also stop bomb-laden terrorists dead in their sandy tracks as they try to infiltrate the U.S. border. A number of BR bloggers have, but one wonders if they really know what they are talking about. After all most of us are business people or former land use planners, not narcs or homicide detectives.
One has to wonder why it is so important to net Jose whose papers might have expired as he returns from his night job of bussing tables at Denny’s.
But the right wing crowd often is strangely at odds with real law enforcement.
Take Gov. Bob McDonnell who has backed lax handgun regulation and thinks it is just dandy if a modern Jesse James wants to take his .357 Colt Magnum into a bar or Starbucks.
McDonnell actually got behind-the-scenes pushback from the Virginia State Police who often are the ones who have to look down the barrel of some hombre’s handgun or try to separate two gun-toting cowboys in a bar parking lot.
It’s a Second Amendment thing, we are told. You know, TJ, limited government and all that crap.
As someone who was a newspaper reporter on the police beat years ago, I got to know a lot of cops and have seen my fair share of what guns can do. I also have seen the victims’ families in hospital emergency rooms. Although this was an accident, I will never forget the 20-year-old sailor after he had rushed his 9-month-old son to a hospital. The sailor had been cleaning his pistol with his son in his lap. The gun went off, taking away the child’s head.
What is tragic today is that some of those families could have been spared a lot of grief had someone came up with sensible gun laws and not diverted law enforcement resources to deport hard-working and otherwise lawful immigrants.
Peter Galuszka
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