The past year has seen a spike in the number of police shootings. According to Reuters, so far this year, 57 law enforcement officers have been fatally shot, a whopping 68 percent increase over the same period last year.
Five cops were murdered in Dallas this past July, three more were killed and four more wounded in Baton Rouge, and two were shot this month in Des Moines, the story said.
Some might blame the Black Lives Matter movement, but the suspect in Des Moines is a white guy who reportedly had been booted out of a high school football game last month for allegedly carrying a Confederate flag and being something of a nuisance.
This may boil down to the classic “good guys against bad guys” scenario and the bad guys come in all sizes, shapes, genders…and colors. And so do the good guys.
If someone cracks the code on these attacks against police, maybe the next chore will be to go after the violence against everybody in Chicago. According to the Chicago Sun Times, last Friday’s slaying of 15-year-old Javon Wilson, grandson of Congressman Danny Davis, the teen became the 701st person murdered in the Windy City this year.
The gun prohibition lobby would reflexively blame the nation’s gun laws, and demand more restrictions, but a story out of Seattle about the suspect in last week’s shooting in the downtown area points to something else. The suspect in that shooting has been identified as an 18-year-old who is also suspected of a shooting earlier on the same day on Seattle’s Capitol Hill.
Eighteen-year-olds cannot legally carry concealed handguns in Washington. The two suspects in the Chicago slaying are also teens, who allegedly argued with Wilson, the dead teen, over a pair of gym shoes. One of those suspects is 16 and the other is 17. Teens can’t legally carry in Illinois, either.
In the midst of all this violence, Washington state Sen. Sharon Nelson, a Maury Island Democrat, wrote an Op-Ed in the Seattle Times to raise concerns about a bill announce by Republican state Sen. Doug Erickson to criminalize some protest activity. Her concern is infringement of someone’s First Amendment rights.
Nelson notes, “He…describes criminalizing actions that already are crimes.”
That’s essentially the same tactic anti-gunners are accused of. Rather than enforcing existing laws against such things as homicide, assault, and carrying firearms illegally, the gun control crowd always wants another law; apparently because this creates the impression that “something” is being done.
Cracking down on law-abiding gun owners isn’t going to save police lives. Indeed, considering what happened last week on a Florida highway where a legally-armed motorist fatally shot a man who was violently beating a sheriff’s deputy, trying to disarm law-abiding citizens just might result in greater risk to police.
Over the weekend at the Washington Arms Collectors monthly gun show in Puyallup, several people seemed to agree that for far too long, those who support gun control, oppose police use of force and quietly cheer protesters need to figure out that there are good guys and bad guys. The good guys need to win, and the bad guys need to lose.
It’s just that some people apparently can’t bring themselves to tell the difference.
Related:
If It Saves Just One Life: Armed Citizen Kills Man Attacking Fla. Deputy
