Editor’s Note: This week’s essay comes from PoliceOne Member Jeff Baker is a patrol sergeant in a large Midwestern city. In PoliceOne “First Person” essays, our Members and Columnists candidly share their own unique view of the world. This is a platform from which individual officers can share their own personal insights on issues confronting cops today, as well as opinions, observations, and advice on living life behind the thin blue line. If you want to share your own perspective with other P1 Members, simply send us an e-mail with your story.
By Jeff Baker
Police1 Member
I recently watched Piers Morgan on television, nose raised arrogantly, pontificating on how reprehensible it strikes him that in “today’s America” a person can purchase a military style rifle and 6,000 rounds of ammunition for it.
As a rule, I like Morgan’s show. He’s a tough interviewer who demonstrates a broad understanding of world events and current affairs, and his guest list is both varied and entertaining. His liberal anti-gun narrative, however, is a real turn off, especially coming from someone who enjoys a handsome annual income -earned, for the most part, here in this prosperous land of opportunity- yet isn’t an American citizen.
How dare you, Mr. Morgan? If the Wild West is too bold for your delicate sensibilities, kindly go back to England.
A civilian friend and I were having coffee the morning I would ultimately pen this article, and the Aurora shootings were the understandable topic of conversation. My friend (who is very much a Republican voter) was shaking his head, tsk-tsk’ing after discussing the news and said, “All those guns out there...”
As charitably as I could, I had to jump him about it. I accused him of being indoctrinated, apparently without even knowing it, by the gun-grabbing leftists who would have him believe American gun owners are, in a general sense, prone to violence.
I recounted the fact 77 kids were gunned down in Norway last year by the same shred of human debris who killed several people with a bomb planted in Oslo earlier in the day. I reminded him that in ‘09 a man shot dead a dozen people in Baku (it’s in Turkey or Georgia or one of those tiny “-istan” tribal countries between Russia and Iran). I broached the inconvenient truth of mass shootings with high death counts in Germany, in Finland (a couple times!), Scotland, Australia, Montreal, and England.
This is only what I can conjure from memory; don’t make me break out my Google-Fu.
We don’t need more gun laws in the States. The firearms industry is perhaps the most regulated one in America, and not without just cause — gun ownership is admittedly a serious responsibility, and no one would suggest they be made available on end caps adjacent to the cash register in the local CVS. Besides, once you start locking people up for violations of existing gun crimes, a considerable portion of your problem will be cured overnight, and that’s without enacting a single piece of new firearms-related legislation.
But alas, common sense isn’t common to all, so it’s a tense and uncertain time for those of us who hold our Constitutional rights near and dear.
All of them.
Yes, even the Second Amendment.
As is the case after any newsworthy event involving a horrific crime and the use of a gun to perpetrate it, the liberal propaganda machine is up and running on all eight cylinders and early signs suggest it will reach a fever pitch by the time November’s elections roll around. For example, much is being made about the availability of ammunition on the Internet and the godless dog of Aurora’s procurement of it in the months leading up to his act of cowardice and evil.
I mean, c’mon, no clear-thinking person would want or need six thousand rounds of ammunition! Just on its face, it shocks the conscience, right? California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said as much on Fox News Sunday (July 22nd) when she called for the ban of all military-style assault weapons since, “These are weapons that you’re only going to be using to kill people in close combat.”
An ignorant and highly offensive remark on so many levels.
As if every sportsman, hog hunter or competitive 3 Gun shooter who owns and enjoys, for example, an AR-15 is poised to kill. And speaking of killing, what the hell does Dianne Feinstein know about close quarters combat? Please, Senator, concern yourself with matters in which you have some basis of knowledge. This conversation is clearly outside your area of expertise.
On a related aside, I did a personal round count yesterday. I have 2,754 rounds of 5.56 ammunition on hand, more than 1,000 rounds of pistol ammo, and nearly 1,000 rounds of .22 rimfire.
I would say that’s about right for me. I have friends who can shoot a half brick of rimfire ammunition in a casual afternoon of plinking, and the advanced patrol rifle class I attended a few weeks ago was a 10-hour, 800 round day. It’s safe to say, then, the need for a relatively abundant ammo supply for the police officer, private military contractor, retired cop, hunter/outdoorsman, skeet shooter or recreational target shooter is anything but insidious or a precursor to violence.
This nation was born not of a bloodless coup, but a vigorous armed response to Britain’s rule.
Guns are as ingrained in Americana as a ‘57 Chevy or chili feeds on college football Saturdays. Arguments suggesting we curtail the right of our citizenry to keep and bear arms due to the perverted behavior of a few individuals is patently UN-American. For those of you who would whisk away our civil liberties shouting “Aurora, Colorado!” as your rally cry, how about a little perspective on the event: While some 2,000 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, more than 5,000 people have been killed by gunfire in Chicago during that time, based on Department of Defense and FBI data. This year alone, 228 people have been murdered in the President’s hometown. I guess all those years of community activism didn’t make the Windy City any safer.
Folks, guns are not the problem. The problem is rampant political correctness, the breakdown of the family, and a refusal to deal with the segment of our nation’s mentally ill who cannot be entrusted to treatment and medication outside the setting of a long-term inpatient facility. The problem is insufficient funding of police agencies (read: manpower, infrastructure, training) and a squeamish response to what assertive, proactive policing oftentimes entails. The problem is the Revolving Door of Justice.
The problem is NOT inanimate objects made of polymer, wood, and steel. Indeed, violence in America is too large an issue to distill down to the proliferation of firearms.
I’ve been stepping over dead bodies in my hometown for 23 years. Twenty-three years. At no time have I ever walked around a crime scene and said to myself, “Man, we really ought do something about firearms ownership.”
I have, on the contrary, looked around and thought to myself, “We need more cops on the street, and an administration that supports us. We have to get fathers back involved in their sons’ lives. We gotta pitch in and help rebuild some of these blighted communities. We’ve gotta do a better job in stopping bullying in high school. And it might be a good idea to reduce the amount of violent imagery our youth are exposed to by the entertainment industry and on TV.”
It’s not the gun, stupid.
Jeff Baker is a patrol sergeant in a large Midwestern city. He is a Medal of Valor recipient and was awarded his agency’s Distinguished Service Medal for his leadership as a first responder to the Von Maur department store massacre in December, 2007, where 12 people were shot and nine killed, including the gunman. Baker is a 23-year veteran. The views presented are his own and are not endorsed by his employer.
