Common Sense Gun Control
By: Roger Fulton, Ph.D., Criminal Justice Management, Captain, NY State Police,
(Ret.)
A Letter to Officer Joe
The following note was received via e-mail recently. It is from a police
officer we shall call simply Officer Joe, with questions about gun control
issues. We think that many police officers around the country probably have the
same or similar questions. That’s why we are reprinting our reply.
Thanks to Officer Joe for writing, and we hope this helps place these
issues in perspective for other officers around the country. May you all stay
safe.
Dear Roger,
I admit it, I'm a cop and on the fence regarding gun control. At times I
wish we lived in some utopia, without guns, but who am I fooling, they're all
over the place. But I just can't support the gun institution, who have allowed
any weak, sick, deranged person, to become an instant killer. This year,
California and Georgia are leading in the cops killed on duty statistic. And of
course leading the way, shot to death, and handguns preferred by the killers.
Joe
Dear Officer Joe,
Thanks for you comments and concerns on gun control.
As a career police officer, I too have wrestled with the gun control issue
for nearly 30 years. That's why I did my graduate work on it, so I could better
study it and get the facts instead of just the emotional rhetoric.
Some element of gun control is necessary to an orderly society, and we
pretty much have that. Juveniles, convicted felons and whackos are not supposed
to have guns. There are laws against that in virtually all states.
But, enforcement is weak, and the prosecution of criminals with guns is
even weaker. The courts are even worse on gun cases. When the convicted felon
does yet another armed robbery, he gets 8 years for the robbery and 2 years for
the gun, when he used to get the same 10 years just for the robbery. It's
watered down justice.
Regarding the number of police officers being killed, I understand your
personal concern. But I really have to look at the statistics on cops getting
killed and tell you that it is less than 1/2 the number killed each year when I
came on the job many, many years ago when there were fewer cops.
Still tragic, but as the gun supply has gone up from an estimated 200
million to 230 million, police deaths have gone down substantially. Yes, the
vests have helped, and we now have better trained police officers, but there
will always be a threat of bad guys with stolen guns. Being a police officer is
a dangerous job. To lose less than 75 officers per year, from the ranks of more
than 750,000 officers is still tragic, but a very, very small percentage. That's
one out of every 75,000 police officers. Brick masons fall off scaffolds, and
the percentage of convenience store clerks killed might well be higher than the
percentage of officers killed in the law enforcement profession. I know I
wouldn't take that job. Too much risk, and you don't get to fight back as
mandated by company policies..
Law-abiding citizens are not the ones killing cops, yet ATF keeps busting
gun collectors and dealers for technicalities instead of going after the real
gun criminals. I have a friend who has been forced out of his legitimate
firearms dealership by ATF harassment. That's one of their games. Harass the
dealers, put them out of business, and you have de facto gun control, controlled
at the source. My friend wasn't selling to criminals, he was selling to people
like you and me. And, in fact, he was a retired law enforcement officer himself.
Yet ATF forced him out of business.
Yes, Joe, I'd also like to live in a Utopian society, without the need for
a gun to protect yourself and your family. Canada claims to have such a society,
yet last year, a Toronto police officer was shot in the face with an illegally
possessed handgun. England thought they had the answer, but each year they arm
more and more of their Bobbies out of necessity in their "gun free"
society.
Joe, I wish I had an answer for this complex and complicated issue. All I
know is that to harass, annoy and alarm honest, law-abiding citizens is NOT the
answer. You have carried a
gun all your life and so have I, and we have never had to shoot anyone. We
used our weapons properly and we will continue to do so. So why would anyone
want to take our guns away? Yet, that is the agenda for some special interest
groups in Washington and some statehouses.
Thanks for your comments and concerns. I have done my best to respond to
them, but again, I don't have the total answer. And, after years of research on
the issue of gun control, I am convinced that nobody else has the answer either.
What I know for sure is that there is nothing wrong with honest,
law-abiding citizens owning guns in the United States. Criminal use of guns
should be the target of our local, state and federal law enforcement officials,
with adequate prosecution and sentencing of those criminals.
That's the kind of gun control that can work.
Regards,
Roger Fulton, Ph.D.
http://www.RogerFulton.com