In light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, police in America should rise as one and say, “Enough is enough! You are making our jobs impossible and causing us to approach every citizen as potentially being armed and dangerous!”
In a free and democratic society, individual rights must be balanced with those of society. This is one of those instances. I cannot believe that the framers of our system of government visualized the Second Amendmentgiving every citizen, without regulation, the right to carry a firearm. I am not a constitutional lawyer but the amendment seems to clearly give the states the right to organize a militia rather than give an individual right to each citizen to carry a firearm – in their day, single shot muskets and pistols.
Nevertheless, the decision rests with a strong 6-3 conservative majority. While the Court recently overturned Roe v. Wade, will it ever do the same to Bruen? It is highly unlikely.
In the meantime, a police service greatly in need of building trust and support has been dealt a major blow in the effort to improve the nature and effectiveness of policing in America.
Here’s the question: how do leaders teach their officers the importance of community relations in many communities which appear to them as war zones consisting of one group of citizens arming themselves to do mayhem and the remainder arming themselves for self defense? It is a question that has no easy answer.
My heart goes out to my sisters and brothers in blue. Unfortunately, many police leaders chose to remain silent when the gun arguments begin as to whether or not to license, how best to control, types of armament permitted, magazine capacity, and other deadly variations like “bump stocks.”
Few fellow police chiefs supported me and others in the mid-1980s when we said the NRA had gone too far in failing to support our call to ban handguns along with Teflon-coated bullets which could pierce the body armor of our officers. The NRA continued to lobby for “no regulation” regarding guns and ammunition year after year. Now they’ve won — again.
A sad day for Community-Oriented Policing.
Improving Police: A Necessary Conversation 
I totally agree with you David.
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“armed society?”
what – is that a quote from Stalin?
so how would you identify which citizens should have a right to defend themselves from tyranny and which should not?
the founders were smart enough putting it in the charge of the govt will lead to disaster for the people.
this is so basic constitution 101, i’m surprised you wouldn’t even know this.
or maybe not too surprised.
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Seek first to understand, Bill, then to be understood. ..
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David you provide a good summary of the current situation while outlining the major operational challenges police face on a daily basis. Clearly our gun obsessed culture has gone unrestrained through an activist conservative Supreme Court, intensive lobbying efforts of the NRA, and finally poor policy decisions at the Congressional level. Enough is enough! A gun saturated culture will only continue to produce Highland Park, Uvalde, and Buffalo super market incidents.
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You got too many cops who are fans of the 2nd Amendment and probably are members of the NRA. I know some cops who have multiple guns in their homes.
Police Chiefs being silent? What about the police unions? Funny how many of them speak up against the political leaders and DAs who want to reform the political, social, economic, and justice system and yet, they don’t speak out against the NRA. These unions got their priorities all screwed up.
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