And, e.g. with more cites and links (via Google): themarksman.com
Who is Responsible for YOUR Safety
Why do citizens need guns in the first place? If somebody tries to break into my home or rob me on the street, a squad car will roll up and cops will pile out to save me, right?
Nope. Not likely.
First of all, cops cannot be everywhere at once, and we don't hire enough cops to begin with. Bad guys know this, which is why only the really stupid ones decide to attack a victim when a cop car is parked in the driveway.
Secondly, cops are not all-knowing; they find out a crime is being committed when somebody calls them on the phone. Now unless you are fortunate enough to have a security service watching your every move, you will likely have to call the police for yourself. The problem is, most bad guys will not let you take a "time out" to call for help. So when a violent attack begins, you are on your own to find a way out or stop the attack from proceeding.
Thirdly, they have to get to you on the same streets you commute in. Through the same traffic. Dealing with the same morons who screw up traffic when you are in a hurry. Even with a heroic effort and blaring lights, an officer might be five, ten even thirty minutes away at the moment you call. Most violent attacks are over in three minutes. During that time, you are on your own!
But the cops SHOULD be everywhere stopping crime, right...? That IS their mission, isn't it?
Wrong again!
It is well-settled fact of American law that the police have no legal duty to protect any individual citizen from crime, even if the citizen has received death threats and the police have negligently failed to provide protection. [see footnote 1]
In New York, for example, the rule was set forth by the Court of Appeals in the case Riss v. New York: the government is not liable even for a grossly negligent failure to protect a crime victim.
In the Riss case, a young woman telephoned the police and begged for help because her ex-boyfriend had repeatedly threatened, "If I can't have you, no one else will have you, and when I get through with you, no-one else will want you." The day after she had pleaded for police protection, the ex-boyfriend threw lye in her face, blinding her in one eye, severely damaging the other, and permanently scarring her features. "What makes the City's position particularly difficult to understand," wrote a dissenting opinion, "is that, in conformity to the dictates of the law, Linda did not carry any weapon for self-defense. Thus, by a rather bitter irony she was required to rely for protection on the City of New York which now denies all responsibility to her." [see footnote 2]
In the case of Warren v. District of Columbia, two women were upstairs when they heard their roommate being attacked by men who had broken in downstairs. They immediately telephoned the police for assistance. Half an hour having passed and their roommate's screams having ceased, they assumed the police must have arrived and taken care of the situation. Actually, their call for help for a violent felony in progress had somehow been lost in the shuffle while the roommate was being beaten into silence. When the two roommates went downstairs, as the court's opinion graphically describes: "For the next fourteen hours the women were held captive, raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon each other, and made to submit to the sexual demands of their attackers."
The roommates later sued the District of Columbia for ignoring their phone call for help. Having set out the facts of the case facts, the District of Columbia's highest court exonerated the District and its police, because it is: a fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen. [see footnote 3]
Given the doctrine of police immunity, it is difficult to contend that trained citizens should not be allowed to carry firearms to protect themselves. At least in cases where the government affirmatively interferes with a person's ability to protect, government immunity from lawsuit should be waived. If a person who can pass a background check, and has passed a safety class, and has been denied a firearms carry permit because the police administration does not believe that citizens should carry guns, government legal immunity should not apply if the person is injured by a criminal. The government should not be able to strip a person of her right to defend herself, and then assert that it has no responsibility for the consequences. If the person is killed because the police failed to act, the survivors should have the right to sue. [see footnote 4]
It is hypocritical for police administrators (who carry guns and work in buildings protected by government-issue police bodyguards) and politicians (who likewise have ready access to government-paid protection, and who generally live in relatively safe areas) to use legal immunity to disclaim government responsibility to protect ordinary people, and then to use overly restrictive handgun carry laws to prevent those people from protecting themselves.
Judge David Shields, a judge on Chicago's special "gun court," explained to Congress the kinds of persons who came before his court for failing to possess a handgun carry permit (impossible to obtain in Chicago, except for the politically connected):
"For most, this is their first arrest of any kind. I don't mean now that this is their first conviction, but I mean this is their very first arrest of any kind, and many of them are old people. Many of them are shopkeepers, persons who have been previous victims of violent crimes.... I think most of the defendants who come to court believe that they need a gun to protect themselves in the community, and I have one statement that was made by an elderly defendant that I think summed up the attitude of such people. When he responded, he said, 'I would much rather be caught by the police with a gun than to be caught out on the street in my neighborhood without a gun.' And I don't think that when the remark was made he was in any way capricious or arbitrary with the court. I that that was his sincere belief. I think the courts and probably most members of the community aren't really exposed to the problems of the ghetto community and it is probably fair to say that most of us aren't likely to voluntarily go into those communities except under the most optimum circumstances; meaning broad daylight and certainly not alone at night or on foot." [see footnote 5]
If you are still holding on to the idea that help really is just a call away, that in the instant of need a uniformed and armed officer will appear to save you, perhaps you should consider the 911 call of Mrs. Ruth Price, a call that turned out to be the last one of her life.
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FOOTNOTES
1. See, for example, Bowers v. DeVito 686 F.2d 616 (7th Cir. 1982) (no federal Constitutional requirement that police provide protection); Calogrides v. Mobile, 475 So. 2d 560 (Ala. 1985); Cal. Govt. Code sec.sec. 845 (no liability for failure to provide police protection) and 846 (no liability for failure to arrest or to retain arrested person in custody); Davidson v. Westminster, 32 Cal.3d 197, 185 Cal. Rep. 252; 649 P.2d 894 (1982); Stone v. State 106 Cal.App.3d 924, 165 Cal. Rep. 339 (1980); Morgan v. District of Columbia, 468 A.2d 1306 (D.C.App. 1983); Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App 1981); Sapp v. Tallahassee, 348 So.2d 363 (Fla. App. 1st Dist.), cert. denied 354 So.2d 985 (Fla. 1977); Ill. Rev. Stat. 4-102; Keane v. Chicago, 98 Ill. App.2d 460, 240 N.E.2d 321 (1st Dist. 1968); Jamison v. Chicago, 48 Ill. App. 3d 567 (1st Dist. 1977); Simpson's Food Fair v. Evansville, 272 N.E.2d 871 (Ind. App.); Silver v. Minneapolis 170 N.W.2d 206 (Minn. 1969); Waterish v. Delia, 155 N.J. Super. 324, 326, 382 A.2d 929, 930, certif. denied 77 N.J. 486, 391 A.2d 500 (1978); Chapman v. Philadelphia, 290 Pa. Super. 281, 434 A.2d 753 (Penn. 1981); Morris v. Musser, 84 Pa. Cmwth. 170, 478 A.2d 937 (1984). Return to text above
Ruth Brunell called the police on 20 different occasions to beg for protection from her husband. He was arrested only one time. One evening Mr. Brunell telephoned his wife and told he was coming over to kill her. When she called the police, they refused her request that they come to protect her. They told her to call back when he got there. Mr. Brunell stabbed his wife to death before she could call the police to tell them that he was there. The court held that the San Jose police were not liable for ignoring Mrs. Brunell's pleas for help. Hartzler v. City of San Jose, 46 Cal. App. 3d 6 (1st Dist. 1975).
2. Riss v. New York, 22 N.Y.2d 579, 293 N.Y.S.2d 897, 240 N.E.2d 806 (1958). Return to text above
3. 444 A.2d at 6. Return to text above
4. Precedent for such a holding could be based on Chambers-Castanes v. Kings County, 669 P.2d 451 (Wash. 1983), which held that there was an exception to the non-liability principle when the plaintiffs were dissuaded from taking steps to protect themselves because when they called for police assistance they were specifically assured that help was on its way. Return to text above
5. Subcommittee on Crime, Committee on the Judiciary, United States House of Representatives, Firearms Legislation, 94th Cong., 1st Sess, Part 2, Chicago Hearings (1975), p. 587. Return to text above
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