OBAMA'S WAR ON THE POLICE
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boblonsberry.com ^ | 05/19/15 | Bob Lonsberry
Actually, I trust the cops more than I trust the president.
And I find it odd that at the same time the Islamic State is calling for Muslims in America to kill the police, the president is calling for the disarming of the police.
The Islamic State apparently launches its first assault on American soil and it’s an out-gunned and unarmored traffic cop who singlehandedly puts down two terrorists.
And the president’s reaction to this defense of America is to say that local police have become too militarized and aren’t to be trusted with equipment they’ve been using for decades?
Cops in Ferguson were facing rocks and bricks and Molotov cocktails, so they put on helmets and shields, and the president says that bothered America?
It didn’t bother me.
It made sense to me.
Just like it makes sense to me, in the era of international Islamic terrorism, with the occasional hands-up-don’t-shoot riot thrown in, to have police prepared and equipped to defend your town and your family.
So it was disappointing to see Barack Obama stand up yesterday and – after lecturing us again that America is afraid to have an “honest” discussion about race – say that people are bothered by the militarization of the police and that a decades-old federal government program to give surplus federal property to local police must end.
Disappointed, but not surprised.
Because Obama has been on this anti-police jag for a while. Specifically, local police. He is the prime preacher of a narrative that depicts local police across the country as working overtime to discriminate against blacks. His rationale yesterday, in fact, for stripping local police of surplus equipment was framed almost entirely on race.
He said that “the community” was upset.
Bull crap.
My community isn’t upset.
We don’t think the cops are perfect, but we sure as hell know they’re the good guys. And we want them to be properly equipped to keep us safe.
Which gets us to armored personnel carriers.
Track-propelled armored vehicles, the president called them.
He said they looked like tanks.
Which is disappoining, because you’d think a commander in chief would know what a tank looks like.
At any rate, he said that these armored vehicles were unnecessary and inappropriate for local law enforcement.
His federal agencies have them, but your local sheriffs’ and police departments aren’t to be trusted with them.
Which makes no sense.
Armored personnel carriers are about defense, not offense. They are about transporting officers and civilians in dangerous and deadly environments. In repeated incidents across this country, tracked armored personnel carriers have been sent in to retrieve officers pinned down by gunfire, and to pick up gunshot victims still within range of active gunfire.
When officers and others come under rock-throwing mob attack, an APC is sometimes the only way out. When Molotov cocktails come raining down on officers, that vehicle Obama no longer trusts the cops with can be the difference between life and death.
And when terrorists and drug gangs go on rampages with AK 47s, as they eventually will, an armored vehicle may be all that can stand between them and the slaughter of countless innocent civilians.
Obama has an armored vehicle for himself, but he is now denying an armored vehicle to the police. Must be it's more important for him to come home to his wife that it is for them to come home to theirs.
Banning APCs was stupid.
Making it increasingly difficult for police officers to get flash-bang grenades is just as stupid.
While they can be used against violent crowds, flash-bang grenades are potential lifesavers when officers must sweep into a dangerous situation. Freeing hostages, storming a gunman, taking down a drug operation. If a flash-bang goes through the door just before an officer does, that officer – and everyone else involved in the situation – is a lot more likely to go home safe and sound.
The same president who bought 450 million rounds of handgun ammunition for federal agents, and who has SWAT teams with fully automatic weapons and armored vehicles buried all through the bureaucracy, is trashing local law enforcement.
I wonder why.
Local law enforcement, is one of the protections of our freedom. Local law enforcement is controlled locally by people we elect. Our mayor and city council, or our town or village boards, or our county sheriff, all supervise local police agencies, and all face local voters.
If things get out of line, we take care of it on Election Day.
But as the president and others defame and attack local police, the notion that the federal government sits all wise and all powerful, ready to sweep in and fix things sinks its roots deeper into the American mind.
I reject that view.
I admire and respect federal agents and law-enforcement officers, but I’m nervous about their boss.
And I don’t trust his attack on police. |
