Arm the Citizen; Disarm the Police?

This is some interesting information. By itself it doesn't prove anything but it is evidence that armed citizens are a better deterrent to crime than a police force.

Despite the decline [in number of police officers], you have never been safer in Michigan from serious crimes in a decade.

People don’t get robbed as much, or assaulted, or raped. Cars thefts are rarer by half. Your wallets and purses are less likely to be taken. At the same time, there are fewer police in your neighborhood.

It is an enigma for cops, who hope more officers mean less crime.

The MLive investigation analyzed a decade of police manpower and crime statistics in the state since 2003. The analysis covered more than 500 departments, and 2.3 million reported crimes.

The conclusion was surprising. Even as communities bemoan the loss of sworn officers, serious crimes continue to drop in most places across the state.

Fewer cops, less crime: MLive investigation finds Michigan safer even as police numbers decline

This might also explain some of the hostility that more than a few cops exhibit towards "civilians" carrying firearms outside the home. Perhaps they intuitively understand that more armed citizens means less crime and that threatens their jobs.

Police get SKS "cannon" off the street.

Believe it or not, that is how the police in San Francisco describe an SKS according to the The sfExaminer.

Cops uncovered a “cannon” of a rifle while making a pot bust in the Bayview district earlier this month, police said.

On Feb. 5 at 2:45 p.m., two officers patrolling the area of 20th and Illinois streets pulled over a car that had run a stop sign. When the driver rolled down his window, a “cloud of marijuana smoke escaped,” police said.

The driver was pulled out of the car. The driver handed the cops a small bag of weed, presumably hoping they wouldn’t search his car, police said.

The cops searched the car and found an SKS carbine rifle, “which is very illegal.” The suspect also had a warrant for his arrest out of Merced County, police said.

He was booked at Bayview Station.

“Gotta believe a life [lives] was saved getting this cannon off the streets,” police said.

Facepalm doesn't even begin to cover this. If I was a cop working for the City of San Francisco I'd be mortified with embarassment.

H/T to The Truth About Guns

No Duty to Protect

My comments follow this story from Fairfax County, Virginia..

Shooting Victim Sues Police, Claims Brush-Off

The Fairfax County Police Department is facing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit for an employee's alleged refusal to protect and serve.

"You can see how the bullet got stopped by the cross," said shooting victim Najib Gerdak.

It was a necklace that saved the life of the 28-year-old. While he's thankful to be alive, Gerdak said he still lives with the pain and visible wounds from being shot five times.

"As soon as I open my eyes I feel the pain," Gerdak said. "You know, you get ready to go to work, you look at your body in the mirror, sliced from here to here. I have holes everywhere."

The painful injuries could have been prevented if Fairfax County police responded to his cries for help, he says. On Feb. 2, 2008, Gerdak ran into the Franconia police sub-station at about 3 a.m. after witnessing a road rage incident.

But when he got inside, Gerdak says, he found an employee asleep behind the glass.

"I had to knock twice because I didn’t catch her attention because she was asleep," Gerdak said. "I said, 'There’s two crazy people outside. Some guy is chasing a taxi driver,' and she said the cab driver needs to call his own dispatch."

Gerdak says he was turned away, and when he went back outside into the parking lot, one of those drivers involved in that road rage incident opened fire.

"I just felt an impact in my shoulder and I heard a gun blast and I knew I’d been shot," Gerdak said. "I felt my hand turn to fire. One second it was hot and then everything just started spinning."

Now, more than two years later, Gerdak said he still has two bullets inside his body. One is lodged near his groin, and Gerdak has decided not to get the surgery to remove it because it’s so risky he could lose the ability to have children. He’s decided to file a $10 million lawsuit against the Fairfax County Police Department and that employee on duty that night.

"You’re supposed to run into a police station, and they’re supposed to help you," Gerdak said. "If they can’t help you, then what? Are we all supposed to carry around guns now? I feel like nobody’s protected."

To this day, Gerdak said he does not know why he was shot, but he’s hoping this lawsuit will prevent this terrible incident from happening to anyone ever again.

Fairfax County Police would not comment on the lawsuit because it's ongoing litigation.

The man who shot Gerdak was sentenced to 66 years in prison.

Those of us in the "gun culture" have known for along time that the police have no duty to protect any individual. In some states this exception is actually written into the law. For example, the California Covernmet Code declares in Section 821 that:

A public employee is not liable for an injury caused by his
adoption of or failure to adopt an enactment or by his failure to
enforce an enactment.

In section 845:

Neither a public entity nor a public employee is liable for
failure to establish a police department or otherwise to provide
police protection service or, if police protection service is
provided, for failure to provide sufficient police protection
service.

And in Section 846:

Neither a public entity nor a public employee is liable for
injury caused by the failure to make an arrest or by the failure to
retain an arrested person in custody.

There are dozens of State and Federal court case across space and time establishing the principle of "no duty to protect" in the law. Police protection, inasmuch as it exists at all, only extends to society as a collective and not to any individual member of that collective.

"To Protect and Serve," is a lie..

Shaming the Dog Killers

The video of the dog killing cops has sparked an outpouring of requests that names and addresses of the officers involved be posted so they cam be shamed for their behavior. I include myself in this here and here.

Now comes this thought provoking piece from Jennifer II who claim to be a former "peace officer":

Shaming these pathetic excuses for human beings, as despicable as they are for participating in this sort of behavior, will not change a thing. As the Cato Insititute points out quite visually, this happens every day (tip of the hat to Western Rifle Shooters for the link   ). The problem is much deeper than a few bad apples in one department, it’s a systemic problem created by the federal government.

Read the whole thing then ask yourself how this situation can be reversed.

H/T to WSRA.